[Brenda Allen]

Many failed attempts later:

Untitled1

 

How comfortable were you doing this activity with less guidance than in previous units?

I was absolutely fine with going solo.  We were not totally without guidance, as we still had the videos to help us, and I was already reasonably familiar with the video editing part.

What aspect of creating the content was the most challenging?

I did hit endless ‘challenges’ along the way, however, though I am not sure that further guidance would have helped much as the obstacles were so disparate and random.  What I often need most is a 24 hour helpline!  As it was, despite eons of experiment, most of the obstacles were not surmounted and neither was the reason for them understood.   This just resulted in me producing material which I had huge misgivings about and were not at all in line with my original intention.  If you’ll bear with me, here is a sample of the kind of things I mean:

• I had intended to take a short introductory clip from a video I had downloaded from youTube.  However, for some reason, this particular section appeared on the Clipchamp editing timeline as pure black – with no frames available at all until AFTER the section I required.  (See yellow mark up.) I managed to guess at the editing, anyway, but the resultant clip is not exact and looks unacceptably amateurish.  It was also immensely time consuming.  Plus, although the explanation will no doubt be a simple one, I have not got to the bottom of what went wrong…

 

• My original intention was to display the video and the quiz on the same slide, probably in Storyline.  The quiz would have been a simple multiple tick chart to identify key facts mentioned in the video.  (This was only intended as a fleeting introductory engagement activity.)  I could not find a way to make this happen so instead ended up using a range of Storyline quiz questions.  At this point, these were chosen on the basis of expediency as they were the ones I could make work – not very pedagogically sound!  For example, I could not master the multiple tick sheet one so replaced it with the – very unwieldy – timeline format.  Neither was this solution satisfactory from a tech viewpoint as there were numerous glitches with, for example, the layouts on the final slides seeming to keep re-arranging themselves and the questions randomly re-ordering themselves of – apparently – their own free will .  The overall result is a horrifying lack of contiguity .  I also committed The Ultimate Sin – more horrors – as the final activity has ended up deteriorating into a memory test rather than an interactive comprehension activity

 

• I had attempted to resort to Articulate Rise but the Clipchamp clip did not appear to be supported:

 

• Likewise with Edupuzzle:

 

It’s possible that the 1GB limit may have been a factor here, which is often a barrier to using Edpuzzle.  In this case, I felt that it would probably have been the best tool to select as the comprehension checks can be interspersed interactively throughout the video clip.

• I now see that the Clipchamp video is still refusing to appear in the slides I have posted. Obviously, this invalidates the whole exercise, such as it is! In fact, I have yet to be able to display a video on Storyline – despite, I think, four attempts – and I still do not know why this would be.

 

I fear this experience does not bode well for when truly alone with the final assignment . I am wondering if others are experiencing similar hold ups or whether it has all been plain sailing. Please excuse the monster screenshots!