Last night I hit a problem. A colleague is in the last stages of cancer and the staff at her school have made her a tribute in the form of video clips of children and colleagues saying goodbye. I was given all the footage to build into a movie. I was honoured to be asked to help.
I sat down with these clips and started building the movie, however when I imported the MPG clips into iMovie there was no sound. I hadn't come across this problem before so I thought I would post the solution I found for anyone else who comes across the same problem.
Apparently MPG intertwines the audio and video tracks so iMovie can't separate them (there will be a technical way of explaining this I'm sure). I consulted trusty Google and one solution I came across was to use some software to split the MPG into an audio and video track then resync them in iMovie. Oh no! this was going to take forever.
Luckily I came across another solution. I downloaded Mpeg streamclip and the problem was solved. I converted each clip using this software into quicktime movies and had the movie built and burnt to disk in no time at all!
This got me thinking (as it always does) about the joys of problem solving. I was on a high because I had solved this problem, it was a similar feeling to finishing a half marathon! It was made even more special because it was such an important problem to solve for the people involved. Do we rob our students of experiencing the joys of problem solving when we solve their problems for them? Our role as teachers is to guide them in their journey to finding the answers and let them enjoy the feeling of success. It takes a skillful teacher to help someone find their own answers.
Friday, October 24, 2008
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3 comments:
What a lovely way for the children to contribute in a meaningful but unobtrusive way.
I know the feeling about beavering away to make things work. Tonight's learning was how to take a Blogger flv movie and mesh it into iMovie for our collaborative dance project.
First I had to isolate the Blogger movie as a Flash video and download it to my Apple desktop, find a Flash converter to download into Windows Parallels, teach myself how to work the freshly downloaded converter and convert the video to take back to the Apple side of things to mesh into the iMovie.
What a mission but a real sense of accomplishment when the job was done.
We were talking at school today about resilience and tenacity to keep on trying different ways to solve the problems. Needless to say I took a few dead ends in my quest to get the job done but the sweet smell of how cool the end product will be kept me going.
Before I started rying I didn't even know if the task could be done let alone actually do it.
Great post Jane! I've had the same issue with a new camera I bought a while back, and like you played around until I figured it out.
In early childhood, we have an unspoken rule to always allow children to work through their own problem solving i.e sit on your hands when children are cutting, doing puzzles and every other challenge they encounter in an every day context. Cheryl Doig put it nicely in her Ulearn08 spotlight too by posing the question "What learning did you steal from the children today?". I am confident that as a teacher I value the problem solving process for children and the pure delight they get from their achievements.
However, I have recently been thinking about this very same notion with adults. As a Regional ICY Facilitator I often get ALOT of random techie questions from adults...I personally enjoy the thrill of working it out myself, and wont ask unless I absolutely positively have to, Im finding more and more that adults tend not to have the same resilience of problem solving as children, and am finding the lack of hmmm "i wanna fix it myself attitude - I know I can" kind of disheartening, does anyone else experience this?
the problem is mpg4 video layer and mp2 audio. You van buy mp2 for QuickTime from apple. Streamclip is also needed for generation 1 and 2 hard drive camcorders especially jvc brands. Flips also suffer this in iMovie 08. If you use iMovie 06 with divx mp4 codec you get less hassle. The import will be soundless
In 08 yet will play in 06. 06 is free from
Apple as mac users bagged 08's interface and method at release. Good to see you've solved it, but trolling forums and trying ideas is a skill as you say in a plug and play expectant world that teens inhabit. Mum! Where's my socks
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