Online collaboration. There’s a challenge. It’s hard for adults. It’s hard for kiddos. While people seem to embrace text collaboration fairly easily through tools like Google Docs, trying to share and edit video just gets tricky. There are the inevitable technology challenges of compatibility (news flash to the computer geniuses of the world: this educator would greatly appreciate if you all could just get along) from machine to machine, internet connections and speed for uploading or downloading video, firewalls for viewing video….and that is all before it even shows up on your screen!
So which tools have I found useful for collaborating via video? Here are two that seem to work well, despite the challenges above:
Why I like it: It allows for collaborative video sharing and editing which works great for group projects. It supports a large variety of file types and videos can be posted to many different sharing spaces. This allows for collaborative video making, regardless of location and technology type. No more uploading to somewhere, downloading files, maybe converting, editing, and re-uploading to share again.
Drawbacks: The free account is good for one, maybe two projects. Think about your frequency of use and if it might be worth it to you to get a paid account. It is supposed to integrate with Google Drive, which is great, but it seems buggy.
The learning curve on this one is a little higher than I would like.
Why I like it: The teacher can have 90 second videos in a flip book format where students can respond to a variety of prompts. The possibilities here are endless. It’s free and it allows each user to post their point of view. I love this for face to face, blended, and online courses. It just adds that personal touch to a response. I can see all my learners. And they can see each other. So awesome.
Drawbacks: You can create four grids with one login, so I think that is pretty great, but some might consider that a draw back.
What tools do you like for online video collaboration?
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