Windows Movie Maker Evaluation

Although Windows Movie Maker has been installed on my PC since we purchased it, I had yet to use the program. I remember opening it a few times and then closing the program thinking I didn’t have enough time to figure out how to use the program. To my surprise, Windows Movie Maker was easy to use. The event I chose to edit was actually filmed from two different digital cameras. One camera produced a .MOV file and the other produced a .AVI file. I quickly learned that Windows Movie Maker does not accept .MOV files. From attending web conferences, I recalled that file formats would be important for this class; therefore I began to search the web to find a free file converter and came across Koyotesoft.com. Within minutes, I had the software downloaded and the .MOV files converted to .AVI files and was ready to edit the event.

I worked using the storyboard view and found it easy to navigate from task to task. I was able to split the video segments as needed and rename the segments appropriately so I could easily click and drag them to the storyboard in the correct order. It was easy to add effects and slide transitions by clicking and dragging as well. I would have liked to be able to change the time of the effects. Not being able to manipulate the time on effects prevented me from using certain effects, such as the ease in, since I couldn’t customize it to my liking with the video clip. I did like the variety of transitions between slides that was available along with the variety of animations, colors and fonts for creating titles and credits. I found Windows Movie Maker to be very user friendly.

Due to its user friendly features, I can see how Windows Movie Maker could be used by K-12 teachers. Andrew Garrison (1999) gave several examples of video exercises that ranged from beginning to advanced in his article Video Basics and Production Projects for the Classroom. Any educator can easily adapt his suggestions to activities in his/her classroom. Students will be engaged and motivated to use critical thinking skills and develop the ability to communicate ideas in a new way. As my children begin to reach school age, I wouldn’t be surprised to find them using Windows Movie Maker or a similar program to create projects and show mastery of the TEKS.

References

Garrison, A. (1999, Winter). Video basics and production projects for the classroom. Center for Media Literacy. Retrieved November 20, 2011, from http://www.medialit.org/reading-room/video-basics-and-production-projects-classroom