I reviewed two video editing softwares. One was Jaycut and the other Windows Live Movie Maker (WLMM). These were both fairly easy to use. Jaycut is very similiar to previous versions of Movie Maker that I have used in the past. Both programs have the option of publishing to AVI.

WLMM is very easy to use for Microsoft 07 users. The menus are setup like Powerpoint so it's very easy to find what you need. The best feature, in my opinion, is the AutoMovie. For those that are beginners or just occasional movie makers, this feature will walk you through how to add titles, credits, transistions, and music. For those more advanced users, you can use all the menus across the top to add transistions, make cuts, add music, or anything else you need.

Both programs could be very easily used with my students. I would be limited to using Jaycut on most computers in my building. I know my freshmen students would love to use this for class projects. They would also like the fact that the video can be published directly to mobile devices. This program will allow publishing to PCs and YouTube at the click of a button. The video can be Flash, MPEG-4 or AVI. This will allow video to played in almost any video player available. I plan to use this or PhotoStory3 with my students to create an English project. Students will begin reading the Odyssey in the next couple of weeks. I hope to have students and the co-teacher find free video or images of the story to use in this project. Students (and the co-teacher) will have to load the video/images and create a script of the story in their own words. Students will be able to publish the works on YouTube. I know my students are very technology oriented and would be interested in creating a video instead of writing another paper.

This idea of visual learning is best described by Martin Scorsese. He states that "the visual image has taken over...the reality is that if one wants to reach younger people at an earlier age to shape their minds in a critical way, you really need to know how ideas and emotions are expressed visually." I believe that by having students create video that is relevant to them, I will be able to reach out and touch their lives.

Cruickshank, D. (2008). Martin Scorsese: Teaching Visual Literacy. Edutopia. Retrieved August 30, 2010, from http://www.edutopia.org/martin-scorese-teaching-visual-literacy