Regular Present Tense of -AR, ER, & -IR - made using PowToon
I have to credit the Flipped Certification Program on sophia.org for giving me the push to try to make my first video, and I have to give credit to Heather Witten for introducing me to PowToon. She made a great intro to parents on the flipped classroom model and her video really inspired me to try using PowToon.
Powtoon is in the beta stage right - they are still in the process of fine-tuning and adding new features, but I have to say I think it'll be a big hit! Lately, there have been a lot more animated presentations - the animated TED talk videos come to mind, so I think this type of programming that's easy enough to use and FREE is a smart move. I think once the beta phase finishes, there will be added costs for uploading, video size, etc.
It might be a bit of a learning curve to use if you're not technology-savvy. I didn't find it too bad at all though! The most annoying thing was that it kept freezing after one save, BUT I'm pretty sure that was my computer acting up and not the actual program. I tried to use it on our faster Mac, but since Apple products don't support Flash, it didn't work out. I think the best advice if anyone is going to create a PowToon is to have your script portion completed first! That is number one! Don't even worry about setting up features, or backgrounds, or anything until the script it complete. If you start to create your video before you have any voice in it, then you might have to re-adjust all the timing when you do put speech into it.
Things I learned from making this PowToon:
1) My computer mic is VERY old and the sound quality sucks!
I learned a few things from this first lesson. One, I was introduced to Audioboo. It's kind of like a social networking site, but for the audio world. You can record a "boo" (from your computer or using the iPhone or Android app) and post it to the Audioboo site, or even post to Twitter or Facebook. I think you can even use these boos to create podcasts. While very interesting, it wasn't exactly what I wanted. I was looking for a way to record audio using my phone and then be able to upload the file and use it as my voice track.This led me to my next lesson. You can record audio using the iPhone Voice Memo app and then upload it to your computer! I had plugged that app into the "don't think I'll ever use this but can't delete it folder" on my phone and low and behold, it is very handy and convenient! Then, I discovered the 'too good to be true' asterix. When you upload a Voice Memo to iTunes, it saves as this ridiculous file type that I'd never heard of...I don't remember it either. I thought, there MUST be a way to get an MP3 file out of this and....THERE IS! It's pretty simple too. You just have to right click on the track and select the "Convert to mp3" option. There is also an option for this in the advanced tab. So, lesson learned! I learned a way to record my audio without having to go out and buy a microphone just yet (yes my computer is so old that it does not have a built in mic...)
2) I think I can take over my husband's job as Audio Designer soon...or maybe not.
When I made my first recording, I recorded only one portion of the lesson. I thought it would be good to break it up, so that I could replay and re-do shorter sections if they sounded bad. I did the whole iTunes switch and then uploaded the sound. I created all the animations for that piece and then thought, YAY next chunk! I then found out that you can only use one audio file in a presentation. Crap.
My husband is an audio designer in the video game world, so it would have been super simple to wait until he got home from work and ask him to connect all my audio files together into one track. I think he could've done it in two seconds (also he could've explained the iTunes mp3 converter to me too), but since I am impatient and DIDN'T want to wait until he got home and since I wanted everything to be done NOW...I went on a little mission.
I discovered a program called Audacity which is a free audio editor, recorder, whatever. I downloaded that and by chance figured out how to use it. THEN I tried to save the track as an mp3, but when I went to save it said it could only create Audacity sessions. Great. At this point, I waited for my husband to get home. He later told me, I should EXPORT the file, not save. So then I exported it, but it told me that I needed some .dll.asjhdkasdk who knows what. Of course, I did THIS step when my husband was at work the next day...
Anyway, this time I was able to figure out that I needed to download some mp3 library something or other. I might have downloaded a virus that let me create this mp3 file this ONE time, but it worked that day, so I'm good. NOTE TO SELF: Next time, let husband do ALLLLLL of the audio prep for you.
3) Having to load images from a URL is time consuming when they are your own original images that aren't currently located on any URL.
Powtoon in beta mode does not currently support uploading images from your computer. The only option was to upload from a URL. Luckily, I have this blog up and running otherwise, I'm not sure how I would've been able to upload my own images (maybe there is a really easy solution to that, but I have no idea).
I wanted to be able to use charts from worksheets in my video and I found a solution to this by taking a Print Screen image (easily done by pressing your PrtSc button) and then pasting it into paint. I then saved it as a JPEG and did any necessary cropping using my photo editor. Then, I would upload the image to the blog and get the url for that image and FINALLY, put it into the video.....VERY TIME CONSUMING! But hey, it worked. And once again...I'm sure there is an easier way around this, but this is all I know how to do.
4) PowToon takes a lot longer to create a video than I first thought!
I'm a perfectionist...a lot of teachers are...so creating this video took quite a bit more time than I first thought. Here's me before: hmmmm...maybe two hours tops. Here's me after: Whoa. Shorter videos next time.
I do think it took me longer than anticipated because I was learning A LOT as I went along (like the whole image uploading stuff and the whole audio saga). I did enjoy the process a lot and I'm pretty sure I am going to make another video very soon. I don't think that I will use PowToon to make all of my flipped lesson videos because unless I make only 2-3 minute videos it would take up too much time. The first lesson I created was 9 minutes. Maybe that's too long for a video in the first place and I'll have to learn how to cut lessons down, but I really like to include more than one example just like I would do in class.
All in all, it was a great learning experience and a fun process for someone who is dying to teach Spanish again. Looking forward to creating more!
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