I have only done presentations for school or work either in person or in a live recording option, so my experience recording with video tools was completely non-existent before this program. I traditionally like to be taught or shown how things work, rather than play with them to figure them out. I tend to get frustrated when I’m ‘teaching’ myself but being aware of this made it easier for me because I simply prepared to be frustrated and gave myself permission to ‘walk away’ when I found myself getting to a point where this frustration was effecting my ability to learn the tool.
I found Loom after I saw another classmate submit a draft of a presentation with it and decided to check it out for my use. At this point I had no experience with making a video presentation and I was grateful that I was able to utilize this person’s draft to find a tool. As someone who gets easily frustrated with tools that I’m not familiar with I was grateful for how easy to use and intuitive Loom was. I was able to pretty much dive right in and start working on my presentation. I used Loom’s presentation templates and used the option to screen share with a video of me as a thumbnail. This allowed me to emphasize the slides and information but to still have my presence, making it more like an in person presentation. I really appreciated Loom’s ease of use, presentation options, and the fact that I was able to make several re-takes of my presentation on a free account.
Zoom is a great tool for group discussions and video calls. There is some limitations to a free account, including a 40 minute meeting limit and hosting up to 100 participants (Zoom Video Communications, 2020). These limitations are pretty reasonable, in my opinion, for a free account. You can use Zoom to host interactive discussions, book clubs, Q&As, etc. and can record the Zoom call for others to watch later. This makes Zoom a very versatile and helpful tool, with the time limit being the only area of major consideration for someone who wants to use the free account.
I wanted to use a program that I was completely new to for my video (posted in the discussion board for this week) and so I chose WeVideo. It was fairly easy to get started and recording a video was simple to do. I struggled in the beginning with cutting the video but eventually realized that it was simply my assuming that the cut option would cut out any portion I chose. I eventually noticed that once I chose a ‘cut portion’ there was an option to trash it, which made sense because that gave me the option to cut portions to keep or to discard, rather than automatically making me cut the parts I didn’t want. I also had the option to record short snips of video and then piece them together using transition effects that I could place in between each clip. This made it easy to make a crafting video that fit the 3 minute time line, even though the craft itself took more than 10 minutes to make. There was, however, very limited use for someone on a free account. My video had to be less than 7 minutes (easy with a 3 minute limit for the assignment) but also I could only save one video. I did not realize this until after I saved my first video. When I went to make a new video because I realized that my camera had turned to show a doorway that had some ‘traffic’ in it, it asked me to sign up for a paid subscription to do so. Rather than pay for the subscription, I simply kept the video as is. If I was planning a lot of video crafts, etc. as a librarian it would probably be worth paying for a subscription but honestly, with Loom as a free option, I am sure that I would just use that.
If I had the ability to re-do the video on WeVideo I would have moved the camera to get an angle that gave me a plainer, less distracting background, as advised by Karissa Fast (2020) in her article Virtual Storytime and Circle Time: 15 Tips to make a Dynamic Video. I was able to follow her guidance on placing myself with my window slightly in front of me, editing my video, and by making a short craft (Fast, K., 2020).
References
Fast, Karissa. (2020). Virtual storytime and circle time: 15 Tips to make a dynamic video. School Library Journal. https://www.slj.com/?detailStory=Virtual-Storytime-and-Circle-Time-15-Tips-For-Making-a-Dynamic-Video-coronavirus-COVID19-librarians-early-learning.
Zoom Video Communications. (2020). Zoom. https://zoom.us/pricing.
