Alana's Favorite Movies - YouTube Compilation Video

For this assignment, we were to choose our favorite movies, select clips from them, and generate a compilation video of them using Windows Movie Maker.   Finally, we had to upload our video to YouTube, so that the world can see.  If they are just that interested.  :-) 

I struggled with this assignment, since I didn't work on it in class with everyone else.  I first had issues trying to get the Windows Movie Maker program to my computer, and then had an even more difficult time trying to convert the files from one form to the next so that I could actually work with them in Windows Movie Maker.  After all was said and done, I was pretty proud of my video, until I watched it from start to finish.  I realized that through all of the converting processes, some of my sound bytes had become disjoined from their video components, and after numerous hours of working, I simply didn't have enough energy to try and redo the entire project.  I'm still proud of what I have accomplished, even though my type A personality wants me to go back and try to redo the entire thing. 

After seeing how long this assignment took for me to complete, I am not ruling it out as a future assignment for my own students, but I would definitely modify it so that they did not have to work with clips from the internet when putting together and editing their own videos.  Hopefully this would alleviate some of the difficulties with finding the proper converters, and simply allow the students to edit a video clip they themselves had produced, and then could upload it straight to the web.

Despite my frustrations, I hope you enjoy the clip!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyCJJUoQve4

4x2 - Frank McCourt, Author of 'Angela's Ashes'

For the longest time, my favorite book has been the hilariously tragic memoir, Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt.  The style in which McCourt writes draws the reader into his miserable childhood, allowing you to both laugh and cry at the experiences of his youth.  When given this assignment, it was a no brainer to choose him as the topic of my "4x2." 

I can see myself using an assignment like this in my science classroom as a means of presenting information.  Students could complete a 4x2 (or any size grid for that matter) as a way to explore facts on their chosen elements during our chemistry unit, or they could even use it to help them organize information for Newton's Laws of Motion, or properties of light waves.  The possibilities are endless!  To use it with my eighth grade students, however, I would need to provide more guidance or directions for the students so that they know what to put in each of the boxes.  Beyond that, I would potentially leave it up to the students for the type of program that they used to create the file.

Click on the link below to view my 4x2 on Frank McCourt:
https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1jSKFcXiPr3JGB6EBJaky627YK-sPG2fBQGkdgnE-2pE