iMovie HD versus iMovie '08 versus iMovie '09

We've considered the differences between the oldie but goodie iMovie HD and the newer versions under the iLife suites.  Because Apple still has enough users hanging on to the older version, you can still download it for free and integrate it into the '08 version.  While we'll be looking primarily at the '08 version on Wednesday, there is an excellent resource for information on the original, thanks to the author of the main book we are using, The Macintosh iLife '08 in the Classroom by Jim Heid.   Here you can download free his original chapter on iMovie, and the site also includes some online tutorials. 

Scale

I ran into a parent I worked with when I was at Riverside School ... a Renaissance woman, who studied to be a veterinarian, is raising a family and immersed herself in jewelry design.  Marcella would have "trunk shows" for the staff at Riverside, with alluring gems and graceful lines ... this to fill in the time between chauffeuring children, volunteering at school, cooking dinner, ad infinitum.

We had talked in those days about creating a website for her talents.  In catching up today, I sensed that her idea of a website was the sort of online catalogue image most of us think of when we turn to the Internet.  But one of the key trends of 21st Century skills is that the Internet is about networking.  A presence on the World Wide Web is not just about marketing, or sales, or production, or results.  Marcella is not looking to mass-produce her pieces.  Each one is a personal statement.  And sharing that statement is as easy as sending an email to our personally selected list.

It made me think of our group, and about avoiding the "Speilburg Syndrome."  Let's not suppose that any entreé into cyberspace needs to be an Academy Award Winning production.  Let's think of our place in the Universe, and scale proportionately.  A small and graceful, clean and technologically accessible piece is more rewarding to us and our students and our community than anything we could spend weeks working on and have crash our servers!