Week 9: Share an image(s), music, and your tips

Your prompt this week is to pick an image(s) and music you are considering for your final "This I Believe" project. If you are pretty tech-savvy, this will not be a challenge, but if you're still a novice, showing us music you are interested in might be a little tricky...so read on.

We talked in class about using royalty-free music that you can access through the library link (bottom of your MyAiCampus portal) at Firstcom.com. The study group this week suggest starting at the "themed playlist" to search. You can also put in some keywords to see if a composer titled a song using them.

Since you are signing on with the library's username and password, we can all listen to each others' choices if you put your selection in the Project folder named GE490. Then just tell us in your blog which song is yours. For example, in that project folder is a song I found today by searching "life" and "balance." It is called "Your Very Life Hangs in the Balance" and you'll hear that it is very dramatic.

As you are searching through Firstcom.com, you can listen to snippets by clicking on the title. If you click on the download arrow, it will put the MP3 file on your computer. I suggest you also save it in the GE490 Project folder in case you'd like to access it from another computer.

If you have a YouTube account, an easy way to share your image and music is to upload it to YouTube and then link the URL to your blog. I have a PC and WindowsMovieMaker is very easy to use. Here are the steps:
1. Open WindowsMovieMaker. In the upper bar, click "Add video or photos" and upload an image or images from your computer.
2. Next to that button is one that says "Add Music" and when you click it you can pick a file from your computer.
3. Click on "Fit to Music" and the image(s) will repeat the length of the song.
4. Save it as a standard version to your computer. Some versions of MovieMaker offer you the option of uploading straight to YouTube, but how well it works depends on the speed of your Internet connection and your computer.
5. Upload to your YouTube site and imbed the URL in your blog. You can also upload the video you created on your computer directly to your blog, but this sometimes gets a little glitchy.

This long weekend might also be a good time to experiment with Audacity, the freeware we talked about in class that can be used to record your TIB in your own voice and then combined with the image and music. The Audacity Wiki is very useful.

Mac users have iMovie and other choices. There are even some apps available for iPhones and Droids.

If you have additional tips you'd like to share with us, please include those in your blog.