Video Projects Stressing You Out? Check out WeVideo and "Easily Create Outstanding Videos".

@LisaBerghoff/@Joe_EdTech

I have met with so many teachers in the last few weeks who are excited about their students' final projects, except for one small detail. It seems that the students do a fantastic job of collaborating, problem solving, researching, and compiling information to share. The issue comes to surface when the students actually present to their classmates. They take weeks of excitement and hard work and put it all into a dry, boring slides presentation. Sure the students choose a catchy theme and add some images to their slides. But when they actually present they end up reading off of their presentation and all of that passion and excitement goes right out the window. I have experienced this in my own class this year. My students take an engaging, thrilling topic and somehow manage to deliver a rather dull presentation.

One solution to this problem is to have students create a video. They will have an opportunity to be creative and original. Also, you really can't  fake a video. Video creation and editing takes focus and careful attention. You have a much better chance of getting a higher quality final product if your students create a video. Especially for those students who really struggle with  speaking in front of the class.

There are several video creation and video editing tools out there but my current favorite is WeVideo. 

Here is an overview of WeVideo in less than one minute:

Here are the the top 10 reasons why I like WeVideo so much:

1. Sign up and sign on with your school Google account.

2. It is web-based so it works very well with Chromebooks.

3. You can upload your content from multiple locations, such as GoogleDrive, OneDrive,Facebook, Instagram, DropBox, and more. 

4. The drag and drop timeline is very straightforward and easy to use.

5. Even though it's easy, there are also some more advanced features so you can make a high quality video. Use the storyboard mode if you are new, try out the timeline mode to layer tracks, images, and text. 

6. You can add a voice over to your video. This is helpful when your students have a story to tell but probably won't get it right in one take.

7. Your students can use their ChromeBook's webcam to record their own content. 

8. There are free themes, graphics, music tracks and sound effects, most of which are way better than what we can create on our own.

9. When you publish your finished video, you have multiple options, send it to your GoogleDrive, Youtube, DropBox, etc.

10.  The WeVideo Academy has video tutorials that are less than 2 minutes long and so simple to follow your students will not rely on you to teach them how to use it!

Instead of sitting through 25 slides presentations, why not pop some popcorn and have a film festival for your final project sharing day? You can have your students upload their videos to their GoogleDrive and then put it in your shared folder for easy access. 

Have you assigned video projects?  Tell more in the comments section below.