During the last week and a half I have attended four web conferences. The learning experience for all participants was both exciting and productive. As a learning community, we muddled through the various challenges of determining who would speak when, how to make the webcams work, and how to stop the hum and feedback from our headphones and microphones.
I was amazed at the amount of information that was passed along during those conferences. We discussed "plurk", "skype", and "twitter" along with a myriad of webconferencing sites, wikis, blogs, and programs that we can use for our projects. Online learning is great, but it still doesn't take the place of "live" interaction. There are so many students with so much wonderful information to share! I really enjoyed the conferencing and hope that it will continue throughout our coursework.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Monday, June 15, 2009
Week 2-Multimedia
This week we were required to choose editing software for use in our video assignment. I chose to use Windows MovieMaker. It was already installed on my laptop so I didn't have to download it.
Using MovieMaker proved to be a challenge. I imported five video clips from United Streaming's Discovery Education site (http://www.discoveryeducation.com/ ) a free site for Houston Independent School District personnel.They have free downloadable video clips that are available to their members. I imported the clips into the program without saving after each import. Bad mistake! I lost four of the video clips when I tried to go to the next step. I found that I had to "save" the project after every change. I also could not remove the original audio from the clip. My final soulution was to "mute" the volume on the clip.
The number of editing tools was also limited. The program tends to "freeze" and cause what I call Blue Screen Mania! Once I started working with it a bit, things got easier to use. I found that by the time I completed my project, I had finally gotten the hang of it. The program will be fine for simple videos, but as I progress in my studies I will try other programs so that I can find one that will suit my needs. I will probably wind up purchasing one of the Adobe video editing programs.
Overall, as I stated before, with a bit of practice, Moviemaker is adequate for simple videos.
The final video project was uploaded to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfO7zOJOdpw
Using MovieMaker proved to be a challenge. I imported five video clips from United Streaming's Discovery Education site (http://www.discoveryeducation.com/ ) a free site for Houston Independent School District personnel.They have free downloadable video clips that are available to their members. I imported the clips into the program without saving after each import. Bad mistake! I lost four of the video clips when I tried to go to the next step. I found that I had to "save" the project after every change. I also could not remove the original audio from the clip. My final soulution was to "mute" the volume on the clip.
The number of editing tools was also limited. The program tends to "freeze" and cause what I call Blue Screen Mania! Once I started working with it a bit, things got easier to use. I found that by the time I completed my project, I had finally gotten the hang of it. The program will be fine for simple videos, but as I progress in my studies I will try other programs so that I can find one that will suit my needs. I will probably wind up purchasing one of the Adobe video editing programs.
Overall, as I stated before, with a bit of practice, Moviemaker is adequate for simple videos.
The final video project was uploaded to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfO7zOJOdpw
Monday, June 8, 2009
Week 1-Multimedia
This week's assignment required the class to create and post a digital story. As I began my undertaking, I thought of all the different life events that I might use to create my story.
I encountered a number of challenges. To begin with, I found it difficult to narrow the topic to just one event. I pondered as to what would be the most interesting, amusing, thought-provoking, or what would produce the greatest emotional response.
Another challenge was in choosing a topic that I had enough material (pictures) to use in completing the assignment. After digging through thousands of photograhs, I found ten that would work. I scanned the photos into the computer hard drive. I opened the storyboard section of Photo Story and began to lay out the pictures. Once I manipulated the photos into a logical story order, I began to write the text.
My final challenge was deciding whether or not to use music. I polled ten people who voted eight to two against using music. Since this was to be my first try at making a photo story, I opted to just use the voice over and leave out the music.
This assignment was quite enjoyable, although emotional, for me. I will use the Photo Story software with my summer school students this week. I think they will enjoy it!
I posted my digital story to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAqRnnNy1-s. You Tube is a free website for the general public to upload videos.
I encountered a number of challenges. To begin with, I found it difficult to narrow the topic to just one event. I pondered as to what would be the most interesting, amusing, thought-provoking, or what would produce the greatest emotional response.
Another challenge was in choosing a topic that I had enough material (pictures) to use in completing the assignment. After digging through thousands of photograhs, I found ten that would work. I scanned the photos into the computer hard drive. I opened the storyboard section of Photo Story and began to lay out the pictures. Once I manipulated the photos into a logical story order, I began to write the text.
My final challenge was deciding whether or not to use music. I polled ten people who voted eight to two against using music. Since this was to be my first try at making a photo story, I opted to just use the voice over and leave out the music.
This assignment was quite enjoyable, although emotional, for me. I will use the Photo Story software with my summer school students this week. I think they will enjoy it!
I posted my digital story to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAqRnnNy1-s. You Tube is a free website for the general public to upload videos.
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