Fun with your Blog: Step Five

I am pretty sure I have a strong visual tendency and I feel that graphics enhance my blog posts by creating visual interest. I get excited by some of the silly visuals and some of the interesting graphic representations I have found online.

Robohash generates robots using your IP address:

or text:

Middle School Teacher Librarian and lifelong learner.

Voki.com creates avatars that say whatever you like. Students love to create these avatars to add to their wiki projects.

 

I wish I could embed another Clustrmap here. I was amazed and thrilled when my first red dots appeared. Check out the embedded clustrmap at the bottom of this page. Which dot are you?

Tagxedo produces joyful tag clouds using text, twitter, or blog account links. I keep finding cool

Masher vs. Movie Maker

Tool  Link	Masher.com	Movie Maker
	Online access with simple registration	Not online Available with Windows Suites or by downloading
Cost	Free	Free download
Maximum length	10 minutes	2 hours - depends on computer hard drive space
Audio\Music	Upload MP3, WMA, WMV Slide bar volume control	Import most files Mute/ fade in/ fade out/ volume
Video	Upload or masher files .ASF, .AVI, .DV, .MOV, .MPEG, .MPG, .MP4, .WMV, .QT, .3GP	Does not support flip camera -mp4 files -requires file conversion to .avi MSWMM
Video options	No ability to edit video	Split clips into two and delete Take picture from video
Image	Upload or extensive masher files JPG, PNG, JPEG	Upload from computer files
Storage	100 MB	Based on computer size 20 different settings for saving
Maximum file size	100 MB limited timeline space	2 hours or 100 photos
Effects	18 animated or colour choices	25
Transitions	Not available	60
Skins	24 animated (whole video)	0
Text	8 fonts/ 3 sizes /multiple colours On a clip Before or after on block colour screen	Before a clip After a clip On a clip Credits at the beginning Credits at the end
Narration	Not available	Audio recorded with microphone
Storyboard Timeline	no storyboard x timeline	x storyboard x timeline
Sharing	Email, social network, URL, embed code?, or add to Masher Gallery	Email, upload to social network, DVD, CD or add to YouTube channel

Although my experience with video editing is limited to Movie Maker and Masher.com I prefer using Movie Maker and will recommend Movie Maker to teachers wishing to create videos for and with their students at school. Although Movie Maker is not an online tool and must be downloaded, the above green shaded cells indicate many more positive aspects of this technology.

More preparation: Step Three

Using Movie Maker to edit and combine my video clips was a simple process. I was able to split the clips and remove excess footage with one button ease. The delete key removed the unwanted footage.

Unedited clip

I combined the video clips and added video effects including text screens, fadeout to white, cycling through the spectrum of colours, and film age to some of the clips. I included a variety of video transitions between each film clip. To create a more professional looking video I would make better use of transitions for effect and limit video effects.

• Registering for a Masher account required a username, password and email account.
   
• Photos, music and videos can be uploaded easily from your computer. Masher provides a good selection of videos, photos and music for use with Masher video creations if original content is not available.

• Video uploads to Masher are limited to 50 MB. My 21 MB 3:22 minute upload took longer than I expected.  I began to edit the video and photos uploaded by dragging and dropping them on a timeline. I added a block colour screen and special effects with text for a title screen. I added an old movie effect for six frames.

• As I previewed the video I saw that the audio picked up by the camera was distracting and in places too loud.  I cannot edit the video upload in Masher so I will have to repair this problem and upload a corrected file from Movie Maker.

• I used a YouTube video tutorial to help me locate the Movie Maker Clip tool where I was able to mute the sound clip by clip, save the new video and upload once again to Masher.