Video and audio editing is one of those things I have never gotten a change to play around with and get good at. Because of this, I often avoid choosing this kind of medium for my own assignments when given the option. For me, it has always seems like double the work because I don’t have the skills yet to produce a product that, for me, seems worth while. Not to mention, I have been working with a 10 year old laptop that is near the end of it’s life. I’ve struggled with using this device for simple things like internet browsing and word processing, so having to install and attempt to use some of these new programs was disastrously for me. DaVinci Resolve took an unreal amount of time to download, only to crash my computer twice and, in the end, not work. Screencastify installed quickly, but also never seemed to work, causing my browser to freeze up. TechSmith Screencast was the only application that I had any success with, but what I can do with it seems to be limited.

My main issues have been my lack of experience with video and editing, but mainly my access to a computer that won’t crash if I have more than 3 tabs open. Now these are both personal problems, one of which, the computer, has been fixed.

Goodbye, ten year old laptop! Hello, shiny new desktop!

Now this lead me into how I might want to use video and audio editing in my own classroom. With both Art and English, the options for these types of assignments are virtually endless. With the content creating culture that students today are engaged in today, I think it is irresponsible for use to ignore teaching/ learning possibilities of  these skills. But after my own experiences, struggling to get setup with these programs, I can see were some problems might appear. The digital divides can really affect a student’s ability to engage with these assignments at home. This relates to our current situation with Covid and many students being at home for some, or even half of their classes right now, as well as regular homework assignments, during a regular school year. Not all student’s and their families have the option to just replace their devices because they’re getting old. Many students have to work around shared family computers and devices. In my opinion, if there is not the option for the school to provide a student with the device they need to do the assignment to take home, then the teacher must provide enough class time to work in the lab, or with school provided Chrome Books.

“Team work, work colleagues, working together”, Annie Spratt, Unsplash, https://unsplash.com/photos/QckxruozjRg

Obviously. not all schools can provide personal laptops to students, and shared Chrome Books and computer lab can cause issues too. So how do we get around this? Depending on the school, sometimes you can’t. The mentor teachers at my seminar school have mentioned on several occasions that they fight each other and other teachers for the tech they are expected to use in their classrooms. The art teacher there had the problem of having a digital photography/photoshop class, but the school hadn’t kept up with their Adobe subscription, and it took 5 weeks to get the software going again. Tech is a fickle friend to education, especially when funding, access, and human error is brought into play.

NESA by Makers, Unsplash, https://unsplash.com/photos/IgUR1iX0mqM

For myself, and my own classroom someday, I’d like to be able to give the option to use these kids of skills and programs to present an assignment or project. The likelihood that one or more of your student’s already has an understanding of video and audio editing is pretty high these days, especially with YouTube, Twitch, TikTok, etc. being so popular. If the class isn’t a editing class, but the student’s have the knowledge, or want to play around and learn on their own, they should have the chance/option to inquire and produce the kind of content that they are actually interested in. This gives students power in own education. When student are often expected to follow along with their learning, this could given them the chance to lead it. And if I have to book a computer lab more often, or audio/video equipment, to ensure student’s have the option to use these tools then that’s what I will do.

Anyways, here’s a little “how to” video I threw together with Screencastify. This was done a while after the class because of all the issues I was having with my old computer. I can definetly see the benefits of using this kind of program, especially with asynchronous learning. Tutorials can be an excellent tool for teacher, but making your own insures that the students get the exact information the teacher is wanting to convey. I can see myself using screencastify in my future in a flipped classroom environment.