Students Create Family History DVDs

In Brother Doug Ladle's Family History class, the projects are far beyond ordinary. Every semester, 20-25 students from each section opt to create a Family History DVD. These DVDs contain everything from family home videos and pictures to entire family stories, complete with narration and music soundtracks. However, some students are so far away from home they can not get their hands on home videos or photos. These students actually create video autobiographies of their life here at BYU-Idaho. "The movies are usually from six to eight minutes long," Brother Ladle says, "But they take anywhere from six to eight hours to create."

One of Brother Ladle's students, Jenna Wilcock, stated, "...for mine I made a wedding video for my parents. Overall I loved it." There's something that brings family history to an entirely different level when you take the letters from the paper and into a visual world. Wilcock later said, "I will admit it was a little hard because of how fast we sometimes went, but it was always wonderful and worth it. Doing Family History always gave me this feeling of fulfillment that I haven't been able to get while doing anything else. There is something special about it."

To begin the project, Brother Ladle sends his students to Josh Holt of the Business Management Department for a one-hour lab. Here they learn how to use software such as Adobe Premier, which they use to create and edit video files and set them to music. After this lab, they go to work themselves, experimenting with the software to get just what they want. After many hours behind a computer, and a little reflection on the people that preceded them, the DVDs are complete. By using technology in his class, Brother Ladle has brought the past alive to his students, and in the process created DVDs that will last for years to come.