Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Personalizing Online Videos is Fun

Website Recommendation
Now that Christmas is approaching, e-cards are abundant. One of the best sites for video e-cards is JibJab. JibJab allows you to add your face to videos in order to personalize the experience. You simply upload a picture that includes a good head shot. JibJab provides tools to clip the face from the background. The tools are easy enough for a child to use. Once the faces are available you can use them in a number of cards. You will be required to signup to the site and not all cards are free, but the signup requires simply an email address and a password and there are enough free videos for the kids to enjoy the site. We started by Elfing Ourselves. The kids loved this. We did it last year as well, but the videos are getting better as the technology improves. After we elfed ourselves, Kyle explored the site and found a High School Musical video that he could add his face to. We all laughed out loud at the results. After the kids were done, I made the following image.

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Warnings
The videos are designed to be humorous, so not all are appropriate for children. Also, the videos might not be available forever. Last year, the Elf videos stopped being available after Christmas. We can no longer view the videos we made last year. If you really like your video, you can buy it for $4.95. I prefer to emphasize the process over the product and to save the money.

The Writing
I made Kyle write about his video. I decided to have him focus on the process of making the video. We talked about different ways to approach it, either a series of simple sentences or one complex sentence. It worked better for him to write it more concisely in a complex sentence.

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