Helping Students Get The Most Out of Learning Through Video

Lets face it, school could get pretty boring. Sitting daydreaming, doodling and distracted, it wasn't always easy to stay focused and interested! One of my favorite memories of school was when the door would swing wide open, and what was rolled in? You guessed it; the TV and VCR. The DVD may not have been anything as exciting as I hoped, but it was something that grabbed my attention back and got me engaged.

As we enter the digital age, it's even harder for students to stay focused, with the prevalence of smartphones, social media and YouTube, kids these days have their minds on the digital world. This isn't always a bad thing! It's the present and the future. So how about we incorporate this into their learning! Sounds too difficult? It's not.

At Shotclip we believe that educational learning videos are a great resource for students and teachers. For students it is visually stimulating and encourages them to explore learning and topics in class, and engages them in a more visual world.

Teachers are the perfect catalyst for this, as trusted education providers you have the chance to show students how to responsibly look up resources for learning and also create online tutorials to classes, so they can be referenced when doing homework, study or project work.

Simply set up your video camera or smartphone and record the most important aspects of your lesson.
Remember if you break the lessons into shorter 5 minute sessions you will hold the students attention a lot more. Try and add some props or screen grabs to make it visually interesting.

You can even make the class time activities more fun by posting up discussion prompts or clues to future classes on youtube and asking students to find videos on the subject. And by encouraging the to create video replies this further prompts interactivity.

You can easily edit your video and add cool transitions or effects, pictures and text on www.shotclip.com

A great video resource I found was http://www.watchknowlearn.org/ but we always recommend creating your own and tailoring your class!

Happy video making! :)

Siobhán 

Tips for a creative wedding video

As wedding season approaches we here at ShotClip realize what an important keepsake your wedding video is. It will be cherished by you for years to come which is why we think it should be as unique as you are!

Add some personality to your wedding video and get creative! Here are a few of our tips on how to make your wedding video special.

Record the preparation! 

The wedding day starts from the moment you get up and the excitement starts. Why not get one of the entourage to record some footage of the hustle and bustle of the morning of the wedding. Getting ready, flowers arriving, and leaving for the church. If you have a special message to your partner before the big moment this is the time to record it! With Shotclip it's easy to quickly edit your clips and have it ready for the reception where it can be shown as a trailer during cocktail hour to entertain guests.

A wedding music video.

This is becoming more and more popular, all you have to do is get a few of your guests to sing along to a few lines of a special song, (Examples!) and then with Shotclip you can easily later edit the music video! It's a great keepsake to later share with your guests! 

A Love Story Slideshow. 

Do you have a proposal video, or special moments you have shared together. Put together a slideshow of special moments, like holidays and events you were at together,  add a romantic song and you can play it at the reception for your guests!

Its easy to edit all these, you don't have to be a professional just follow our Guides on the website and make a great video for your special day! 

We also have a Pinterest board where we pin all our favorite wedding ideas!!  Check it out here! 

Enhance your Videos with a Soundtrack

The soundtrack to your video is often vitally important. It can really set the tone for your movie. It conveys happiness, inspiration, emotions in your viewer! It can make your video even more exciting and get more viewers. However when your are editing your video you can't upload any track you like for fear it may be subject to copyright and if you re uploading it on you-tube it's in danger of being disabled. So how do we solve this problem? Well we wanted to give you a few tips and links that may help all you Shotclippers editing your video online with us!

Incompetech  Is a royalty free music website where you can download original music with a by creative commons licence  but don't forget to credit where you got it from! 

Jamedo  is another awesome free music website that has thousands of tracks and tells your clearly the kind of licence the track has! 

If you don't mind spending a little bit to get exactly what you need FriendlyMusic lists tracks by mood and 

Rumblefish have plenty of tracks and they won't break the bank either!  

You can also try YouTube's feature AudioSwap will let you add the music they have listed as licensed songs.

If you are in anyway musical of course the best way is to get totally creative and make your own soundtrack!  If you play an instrument but no audio recording software there are options available. Audacity is a free music recording software. For amateur Video makers who want to use their own soundtrack this could be a great way to get started recording your own.  

We love creativity and collaboration at ShotClip!We hope you get some ideas from this on how to use great audio that is affordable or even better FREE to make even better ShotClip videos! 

Happy Editing! 

#BuildYourStory

Use those video clips!

Nowadays nearly everyone has some sort of gadget that can record video, whether it’s a smart phone, digital camera or video recorder. But do we make the most out of this function? We love to catch the funny moments, family occasions, gigs and holidays but how often do we look back at our short clips?  

If you’re like me - not that often. It’s a clip here and a clip there, there’s no story, there’s no smooth run into the next clip and most importantly it’s usually not long enough to bother going back to it again.

If this sounds familiar Shotclip is probably for you. Shotclip is a video application that enables amateurs to create video like a professional. Sound easy? Well it is! There’s a simple four step process – learn, point, upload and share.

Shotclip shows you how to build a story with your video by giving you expert advice, so that when you put your video clips together they tell a story that are fun to watch. 

You upload your video’s to the Shotclip website easily trim and edit them and you’re left with a short movie of an event, concert, party, holiday or of your kids. The best part is you can then easily share it among family and friends.

With all the new technology out there it’s about time we got an application to help us make the most of it.

Do you video your family events?   And if so how often would you look back at your videos?