ESD Reads and Southwood Literacy Videos

Southwood Elementary is in the process of making videos featuring teachers and students as a part of our literacy community education and ESD Reads contribution.  We are excited to share our videos! In an attempt to centralize our video library, I set up a Southwood YouTube channel, which can be found here. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrLTBmle22NNjqwhN-1Bfaw?view_as=subscriber

However, if you follow the link.....well, you won't find any videos! At least not yet anyway. It turns out that YouTube will not upload mp4 files. I didn't know this! After a little research, I have learned that I need to go back to Movie Maker and resave our videos as MPEG files. Sometimes we just jump in and learn as we go!

I've never actually set up a YouTube channel before. I'm excited to take on the new challenge. I had to ask my 12 year old son about a few specifics, but he was happy to help. So glad to have an expert in the house! I think we are now on the road to Southwood Elementary YouTube fame!

Please follow our journey and don't forget to subscribe!!  ;-)

My "Make it Work" Moment

This week I was assigned the task of preparing videos for our school's board presentation.  Staff members sent me their videos so that I could edit them and add them to the presentation. This is something I've done before and thought the work wouldn't be too difficult.  Boy, was I wrong!

My plan was to use YouTube to edit the videos.  I've used it before and found it pretty easy...especially since the editing I needed to do was simple (I only needed to trim some videos, merge others and add a title page to each).  YouTube is not something I use on a regular basis so each time I open it, I have to refamiliarize myself with the tool.

I successfully uploaded the videos, but when I went to find the Creator Studio, I realized things were different since my last visit to YouTube.  After several minutes of trying to navigate the changes, I decided to ease my frustration and elicit the help of an expert...I asked Google (a frequent line of defense I use when there are technology questions)! 

My Google search led to a short video instructing me on how to merge videos.  The instructor was an elementary aged kid!  He clearly walked me through the steps, but when I got to the step for merging I realized the button I needed was missing.  Upon further research, I learned that YouTube recently changed it's editing tools and are launching a new Creator Studio January 2019...great, but that won't help me with the presentation due Monday, December 3!!

So...I downloaded the videos to my laptop and launched Windows Movie Maker...a reliable tool I've used MANY times before.  After several hours of work the videos were successfully edited, re-uploaded to YouTube and linked to our Google Slides presentation!

The moral of the story...when things don't go as planned make it work and take the steps to figure it out.  Ask for help, search Google and if all else fails, go back to the basics.  Now, let's cross our fingers and hope for a successful board presentation!