This week I chose to focus on the topic of Ionic Compounds. Specifically, I addressed the following outcome from the Alberta Grade 9 Science Program of Studies:
“Distinguish between ionic and molecular compounds, and describe the properties of some common examples of each.”
I was inspired this week by one of my students who created a whiteboard video using an actual whiteboard and a marker – imagine that, no fancy website required.
So I got out my whiteboard and marker, set up my iPhone on a tripod, and got started. It wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. First off, trying to set up the area of the whiteboard that my phone was videoing provided a challenge. I kept writing past the frame being recorded. Once I sorted that out, I needed to actually practice writing neatly. In today’s computer age I find I write less and less by hand and my handwriting has definitely suffered. My last, and probably the most time-consuming challenge was dealing with hitting the storage limit on my iPhone. After each video, I had to upload it to the cloud and then delete it from my phone before starting the next one, 21st-century problems.
Once I had my 5 mini whiteboard videos made I opened iMovie on my computer. I haven’t used iMovie for over 5 years so the platform has changed a bit. It took some fiddling around but I created a title slide and added my 5 videos back to back. Once this was done I muted the volume and customized the video speed to 500% for each clip. Lastly, I created a voiceover of the information being shared in the whiteboard videos.
In the end, it took about an hour to create this 1 min whiteboard video. It’s pretty basic, so my plan is to edit and add specific content as well as some graphics to it for activity 3 this week.
Hi Abbi,
This is a great example from the genre. What you might notice many similar videos doing is combining a few written words with pre-created pictures cut-out on paper. These can be quickly slid in and out of place as needed.
You’ve mastered several of the key components of creating and editing a solid video in this example. You wouldn’t go through this much effort for every simple explanatory video, but sometimes you will encounter a topic that needs this sort of treatment.
I think my phone can hold a fair bit of video but your iPhone must be close to the limit. You’ll find that whatever gear you use most often will be simplest. Digital cameras with a decent sized SD card can record a fair bit of video as well. I use a gorilla pod tripod with a small digital SLR for some fancier work, though my phone still records some of my best audio.
Keith