Web Video Hackjam for Youth!
Want to hone your skills at making web videos? On Saturday July 6th, our good friends at Mozilla are hosting a free hackjam for youth aged 10 – 18 to learn how to use their Popcorn Maker tool. (It's pretty cool – check out this video about cooking chocolate bacon).
The hackjam is free, and at the Mozilla hq in downtown Toronto. They ask that you bring your own laptop if you have one; if you don't, get in touch ahead of time and they'll see about getting one to loan you for the day.
If you're interested, click on this link for more informmation and to register.
Youth Hackjam: Intro to video-editing with Popcorn
4 thoughts on “Web Video Hackjam for Youth!”
I had a LOT of fun at this event–I went with my friend, and we both felt really proud of ourselves at the end of the day. The Popcorn tool was really straightforward, and easy to use, yet the videos it produced seemed quite professional. The entire program was well planned out from the ‘speed-friending’ (which I thought was BRILLIANT, by the way), to the snacks, the tutorial, and the presentations (with ACTUAL popcorn eating somewhere in between). The things other people made were really impressive, and show that you don’t have to be a tech-genius to make great things with Popcorn.
Popcorn made it very easy to drag the tracks around, and make everything go together. I was really surprised that Popcorn uses YouTube clips (and other videos with a link) as the video/audio tracks, which adds even more to the simplicity! However, I didn’t manage to figure out how to add my own videos without posting them on YouTube first.
There were a few small bugs, but no big issues (I would’ve liked to see more options for transitions—slide, fade, in/out—and an easier way to add pictures, though).
Also, the place was very nice (a little cold, though) and easy to find. They were rather on time (even though I was not), and finished a little after the scheduled finish time.
The mentors were all very nice, and knew what they were doing. They were interesting to talk to, and I wasn’t afraid to ask anyone for help. Also, I was surprised with the turnout: they were all girls and young women (about 25 of us in total), which was odd, because generally only boys attend, I learned. There were girls my age, who I enjoyed speed-friending and talking to later. Also, people came from many places—some heard about this program from Word Out (like I did), and others from YMCA and similar programs, and others were dragged in by their friends 😉
I apologise for the very long comment, but I felt I had to congratulate the organisers for this event for a splendid job, and Mozilla for a great, easy-to-use program.
This is the video I created (if anyone is interested). I’m no editing Picasso, but I thought I did a pretty good job, all in all: http://dunja.makes.org/popcorn/181g
I’m glad to hear you had a good time! It sounds like it was a really great event.
Your video is a very powerful response to the recent tragedy in Quebec.
I suspect that you’ll be an editing Picasso before to long if you keep up the good work!
Great job, Dunja.
We were glad to see you and the other girls there. We did have a great fun and time learning new stuff then, right? 😀
I was thrilled to see you girls coming up with such an impressive remix video using popcorn within only 1 to 2 hours.
Dunja, keep up with your work. Take advantage of any opportunities to brush up your learned skills or even acquire any other new exciting skills to equip yourself so that you can use these skills to do something positive and encouraging to impact on your community.
Cheers, Margaret Chan
(Hackjam mentor)
Thanks for joining us, Dunja, and thanks for the comments! It was great to work with you. You got the hang of Popcorn SO quickly! Your “make” was focused on breaking news – have you ever considered going into journalism? 🙂
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