Cool Tools Review #3 - Splice is Nice!

This week I reviewed Splice, which is a video editing app for iPhone and iPad made by GoPro. Finally, I managed to choose a truly free app, and it's frankly pretty sweet. I used it on my phone and was able to add both music and voiceovers to a video of me braiding my daughter's hair. It was relatively easy to pick up and has some handy features, like a library of songs that are free to use or the ability to pull music from an iTunes library (assuming that one obeys the dictates of copyright and fair use). I found the Help section of the app particularly detailed and, well, helpful.

I could see this being a really useful tool in the classroom for assignments when I want my students to produce a video essay. Without any special equipment beyond an iPhone, students would be able to do some pretty sophisticated editing. I focused just on the audio tools this week because my video wasn't terribly long and I prefer to tackle just one flaming hoop (aka new skill) at a time, but the app also has tools for cutting, cropping, filtering, etc. that would allow for cooler, more streamlined videos as well.

The only downsides I can see are that there doesn't appear to be an Android or Windows version of the app (which means not all students can use the same tool) and that the app requires A LOT of storage space to function well. If students are working in groups, however, it probably wouldn't be too difficult to ensure that there is at least one iPhone user per group. The storage issue isn't a deal breaker either, if students are willing to use an app like Google Photos to store their pics and videos off of their devices.

Overall, I was very pleased with this app and plan on continuing to use it for my braiding tutorial project. I give it two very enthusiastic thumbs up!