Empowering Creativity: Helping My Son Create Lyric Videos for His Class

Today was a day of creativity and technical discovery with my son, a bright and determined young mind. He's always been a bundle of creative energy, whether it was building a Lego Batcave for five hours straight at age four, working on Kirby fan fiction novels and Garfield presentations on weekends at eight, or his latest project—producing sing-along videos using PowerPoint for his class's last day of school before summer break.

The Challenge

My son's goal was ambitious: to create lyric videos for several songs so his class could sing along together. Inspired by a YouTube tutorial from Kinetic Slides , we quickly realized that the process would be quite labor-intensive. The video, while thorough, indicated it would take almost an entire day to create just four songs. Not ideal when you're a nine-year-old with limited time and boundless enthusiasm.

Exploring Alternatives

Determined to find a more efficient solution, we turned to other options like Canva and Adobe tools . However, these also proved to be complex and not quite user-friendly enough for a nine-year-old to manage independently. It seemed our creative project might be thwarted by technical challenges.

Discovering Veed

Just when we were about to hit a wall, we stumbled upon a video tutorial for Veed . The user interface was intuitive, easy to navigate, and the voice-to-text transcription feature was a game-changer. Thanks to the clear guidance from Veed Studio's YouTube video, we found a workflow that allowed us to produce four lyric videos in just a couple of hours.

Leveraging Azure for a Seamless Experience

Once the videos were ready, the next step was sharing them. I uploaded the videos to an Azure Storage Account and created a simple static website in the same storage account with an index.html file pointing to each video's link. This setup allowed my son’s teacher to easily access and play the videos for the class.

To make the URLs more manageable, I utilized my custom URL shortener, a domain hack of my last name, Sanusi, to create snu.si/sing . This made it easier for the teacher to load the videos without fumbling with long URLs. Initially, I had created my URL shortener using an Azure Function, but due to changes in Azure Function pricing, I switched to using TinyURL with a Slovenian top-level domain.

Reflecting on the Journey

This project was more than just a technical exercise. It was an opportunity to bond with my son, share in his creative process, and marvel at his determination and enthusiasm. Watching him navigate these tools, problem-solve, and ultimately succeed was a reminder of the incredible potential our children have when given the right support and resources.

Conclusion

Helping my son create lyric videos for his class was a rewarding experience. It underscored the importance of finding the right tools to empower young minds and the value of combining creativity with technology. As a father and a tech enthusiast, I'm proud to have been part of this journey, ensuring that my son could share his passion and creativity with his classmates in a fun and engaging way.

For anyone looking to undertake a similar project, I highly recommend exploring intuitive tools like Veed and leveraging cloud services like Azure to streamline the process. And, of course, never underestimate the power of a custom URL shortener to simplify sharing your creations!

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For more insights and tutorials, visit [Microsoft Learn](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/ ).