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Thank You for 20 Years.

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After 20 years of teaching at Brookfield Central, I am saying goodbye. Although I spent the majority of that time in the physics classroom alongside my learners. That changed for my last 18 weeks. I ended up in a place similar to where I started, teaching chemistry and biology. So, rather than dealing with juniors and seniors at the end of their high school careers, I was in classrooms with freshmen and sophomores still trying to find their place. At the same time, I was learning and teaching a set curriculum I hadn't taught in over a decade. So, we were learning. But, of course, I already knew the content.  The point of this post is to take a step back, take in, and share the gratitude from the last students I had in my 20 years at Brookfield Central High School through the cards and notes they made for me on my last day with them.  I don't take many yay me moments. But after 20 years, I think I'll soak this one in.
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My First Dip into WeVideo

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I took my first dip into WeVideo today.  WeVideo is a video editing solution for those working with Chromebooks.  I have been using iMovie for video editing since I first started editing on a computer (before that it was to VCRs).  But iMovie on iOS devices is frustratingly limited and YouTube Video Editing is not quite user friendly yet.  WeVideo could be a great solution for those who have videoclips and photos in Google Drive and want to be able to create video using ChromeOS.

 Like I said, this is a first dip.  Down the road I hope to have a more in depth post about it.  but wanted to highlight a few basics with some GIFs.

 From the WeVideo top menu you can choose Media and upload files directly from Google Drive to your WeVideo Media Library.

When creating a new project, it is easy to simply drop in videos and photos from your media, rearrange and trim.


Once you've got a video or photo inserted, you can do a deep edit of the clip or image including adding titles, cropping, adding motion, among other tweeks.

You can adjust the appearance of specific images or add a theme to the entire video.

One can also add voice-over, free music, and sound effects.



There are two different editing views for those who want more control and those who are just getting started.



I still have lots to learn about WeVideo, but they have great library tutorials on their site.

Oh yeah, the reason it's called WeVideo is because multiple users can collaborate on editing in real time! Yes, not just one student in the group doing all the editing while others twiddle their thumbs.

 Below is my first video I've made using WeVideo.  It's pretty basic, but it highlights a great trip to Swanson today where the 5th graders took what they learned about Makey Makeys from my physics students last week and took it to another level!  It was another great collaboration with my dear friends Kate Sommerville and Angela Patterson and TEAM Togetherness.




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