iStitches: Crochet Basics with iMovie Tools

This week, we were asked to use a new app or website that we had little to no experience with for our learning project. So I decided to take a trip down memory lane and download iMovie to my iPad for the first time in probably a decade. Since it had been so long since my “music video” phase, I had to relearn how to navigate the app all over again. Using the app provided a bit of nostalgia as I remember using it for fun with my friends when I was younger. It was still fun this time, but sadly, I wasn’t filing a music video.

So what exactly did I do? I started by filming a video on my iPhone, which took a couple of takes, but after about three tries, I got the video I wanted. I then uploaded the one-take video, which was 3 minutes and 49 seconds long, and began editing. I started by practicing what I wanted to say in my voiceover and where I wanted to cut my video to split it into multiple sections. This process took me about 20 minutes as I kept redoing my voiceover until I was happy with it. After the voiceover and cuts were down, I used the speed option to adjust the speed on a couple of sections of the video I had cut. I then added an opening and closing to the video so I could properly introduce my video. I felt like I was one of those kid YouTubers I watched growing up. I then added text to those photos and did the voiceovers for them. Followed by reaching my whole video to add text and make changes where I found necessary. I then opened Canva and messed around with colours until I had a thumbnail I liked. Finally, I opened YouTube and started uploading my first-ever YouTube video. After some editing, I clicked upload and posted my video Crochet Basics on YouTube.

Now that I walked you through my iMovie-making process, here is my final review of iMovie. Overall, I found the app to be quite user-friendly on both my iPhone and iPad. The overall quality of the app and editing tools is more basic, but again, that makes it more user-friendly. The main tools I accessed were voiceover, cutting clips, text feature, and speed of video sections. I did not use the app on my MacBook, so I’m unsure of what features you can access there, but that is something I will look into next time I want to use the app.

Overall, I think iMovie would be a neat tool to incorporate in the classroom for students to film a video and edit it by themselves or in a group. However, you do need an Apple product to access the app. Regarding the SAMR Model, I think depending on how the students are using the app, it could be considered Augmentation, Modification, or Redefinition. 

I hope my review of the app was helpful in some way or gave more insight into the app iMovie. Although it took me a few minutes to navigate the app at first, I enjoyed making the video. This week was all about learning how to use a new app, and I think I did pretty well as I technically used two since I had never uploaded to YouTube before. If you watched my video, I hope it was helpful. I would have gone into more detail about how to start your first single crochet stitch, but as someone still mastering these skills and techniques myself, I didn’t feel entirely comfortable explaining the next steps. That being said, maybe I will challenge myself to do part two later this semester. As mentioned in my video here is the crochet hook I used in my video. Thanks for stitching with me, and I’ll catch you in the next row!