I feel that Rush might be the most important single application for education today, and I can't recommend it highly enough.  It's a game changer that enables powerful video editing for everyday creators and digital storytellers, especially students and teachers. Premiere Rush is the “just right” solution when Premiere Pro might be too much and Spark Video might be too little. Rush enables novice video creators to make all of the “essential moves” of professional film editing in an intuitive, easy-to-learn application, with an almost-flat learning curve. The amazing balance between power and simplicity is just half of the story. When used in combination with mobile devices, Premiere Rush is like a virtual studio that can travel with makers wherever their story is and wherever they might work, because it is essentially “device and platform agnostic,” which means that it works the same on iOS and Android phones and tablets as well Mac and Windows operating systems. This is a monumental breakthrough for classroom teachers like myself, because it means that we can teach one solution for video editing that works on the digital devices our students use every day, wherever they are getting their work done.

Premiere Pro CC is the professional-grade, full-scale video editor that can do anything you can think of and more. But don’t let the name “Pro” intimidate you, because many of my students who are complete novices have been able to quickly get up to speed in Premiere Pro using this tutorial in my classes. The advantage of learning Premiere Pro is that you will never get frustrated by its limitations and because it is an industry standard that everyone uses. Plus, once you learn it, the basic logic and operations of video editing will stick with you a long time. If you have a little time to learn and an open mind about new things, Premiere Pro is the place to start.

If, however, time is really short or your computer is sluggish, Premiere Pro might be too demanding, in which case you should try something lighter like Premiere Clip or Spark Video.

Spark Video is the easy-to-use video-editing solution for mobile or desktop editing. It provides the most basic functions of video editing and is easy to learn. However, if your video project becomes long, complex, or needs effects, you will want to edit on a full-size computer with Premiere Rush or Premiere Pro instead. Spark Video stores your projects on its own servers, in which case, your projects cannot be very long. Spark Video is good for short social media videos and for novices in particular.