Saturday, March 22, 2008

Jumpcut Jaunt

My first question is what the heck is a jumpcut?

According to Wikipedia:
the name is derived from the jumpcut, a video artifact that results from the splicing together of two separate parts of the same shot, or similar sections from two different shots".
I still do not feel very enlightened and this does not bode well for my adventures with video. Jumpcut.com boggles me from the beginning. I am not someone with a little stockpile of movies that I'm keen to edit and re-form. I made the attempt however, because I know this is something that students do love. As kids who've grown up watching music videos, they see movie making as an accessible artform. It is also a natural format for creative expression and demonstration of learning--very suitable to the world of education.

One of the things I liked about Jumpcut.com, (a common feature of the Web 2.0 world) is the emphasis on sharing--if you make your videos and photos public, others can use them to make movies of their own or to enhance their own creations. Joining jumpcut.com is easy, and they do their best to make the instructions clear.

Alas that wasn't quite enough for me.... At this point I just explored the site and found lots of images that were unappealing and inappropriate for students. It is my understanding that there is movie-making software aplenty that would be more useful in a school setting. When I recover from my technology trauma after this course is over I will learn how to work with video---probably engaging some experienced student as my guide. Giving a student an opportunity to teach me is pedagogically sound, right?

1 comment:

elizabeth said...

Stephanie,
I am glad I am not the only one who was "boggled" by how to make Jumpcut work. It is certainly not very user friendly. I too, found many of the images inappropriate for use in schools. What I found most frustrating was I couldn't delete my membership, even after several tries.
Elizabeth