Video in PowerPoint

I spent quite a session last weekend finding out how to download videos from you tube, editing them and then inserting small clips into a presentation. This all fits in with my aim of moving to a more graphic/visual presentation style in PowerPoint

The session involved putting firefox and a firefox add in on my Vista laptop (thanks for the information D) so that I could download useful videos from you tube to a downloads folder in mpeg. It took a couple of tries before I found a download that worked and in the end I put youTube catcher on. This let me convert the FLV files to another format -MOV which seems to be the standard quick time format. This involved a fair bit of trial and error. I really need a glossary of file types with what they are used for - it really is hard to work it all out. I just hope I have got the sequence right to do it again. I guess practice makes perfect.

Then I had to transfer the videos via a pen drive to a mac so that I could edit them easily. I tried the editing package on my laptop - windows movie maker - and found I had to split the movie into sections myself - which took too much time. With the apple package - imovie, this happened automatically and it was so much easier. I found I could insert a movie clip into powerpoint with a mac or my home windows computer. I had thought this was only possible on a mac at first.

I used a couple of TED talks on you tube (originally from http://www.ted.com/) to trial this out, plus a section from a pasifika TV show on making drums in Raratonga, the Cook Islands. It all worked well though the pasifika show was rather low quality, and I now have a useful and interesting powerpoint to use in my teaching. I'll be interested to see what the response is from my students.

I also tried to connect a movie camera to my laptop so I could make and edit my own movies. Unfortunately, even though the camera is only about 3 years old the software "Sony" did not work with vista. I tried to get a download from the Sony website - could find the camera model but not a down load. my next step is to get an ilink cable, which the instruction book tells me will connect the camera directly to a mac. - I'll keep looking for updated software for vista though.

Through all of this I have really begun to understand what being a "digital immigrant" means. The language is so foreign, the culture feels alien, I feel incompetent. I am out of my comfort zone. This is even though I have been using computers as a teaching/learning tool since 1979 when the English High School I was teaching in had a couple of Commodore 64s - I even went on a Basic programming course that year (I have never attempted to write a programme since).

My three children, all in their early twenties, are on the other hand digital natives. The youngest was playing solitaire on a PC at 3 - and that's one of the ways she learned to count. My 20 and 25 year old daughters communicate daily with friends all over the world through facebook and Bebo. These sites are even more important to them than their cell phones. The eldest, with a job in marketing, is involved in emarketing and develping web pages. My 23 year old son composes music on his PC as well as design - he is doing a masters degree in architecture . My husband's business is mechatronics. It is easy to ask any of them for help. However I guess the only way to build my own skills is by doing - trial and error, and putting some time aside to play.