Wow, what a week (or two) it has been. We've learned so much and the text, DigiTales, has demonstrated that the more we learn, the more we learn how much we don't really know. But it is nice to hear that we can only learn what is necessary. Beyond that, we will learn as we need to.
I've found that there are a lot of different elements to creating a digital story. The use of Animoto is awesome because of ease. I even had a class use it to show me some holiday photos this year and the posts are coming in like crazy. My students really like it and I've heard some of them say that they plan to use it outside of class. I think that is great, but once their membership runs out after 6 months, they'll have to get a free version. :)
Another aspect to telling stories in a digital world involve recording a voice over. This is where I am most afraid because my best stories involve feedback from my audience. In a digital story, the only feedback is that of your computer screen, which if you haven't noticed, isn't much at all.
Integrating pictures and images can be challenging as well, however the photo a day assignment was very useful in helping us take photos of things we wouldn't have seen before. It was sometimes difficult to post every day, but it was easy once I got onto the computer. I'm looking forward to finalizing our last project and finishing this course. It was fun and a lot of hard work went into creating these digital stories.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Monday, November 15, 2010
Week Three
I'm having a lot of fun with this class. There are so many different sites out there that I had no clue about, until this class. Thanks Louis! I love the VoiceThread site, and it looks like Animoto will be awesome too, but I'm currently waiting for the registration process to be accepted.
The readings this week were great, especially in Presentation Zen. I go a lot out of the different slide techniques and when I revised my original presentation, I tried to use as many of the Zen ideas as possible. I feel really good about it but I also feel as though I can do much more with it. I was a little overwhelmed with revising it though because I chose a presentation that had 29 slides in it to start. Revising that proved took a while longer than I expected, however I think the revision was well worth it...at least it's a step in the right direction.
The readings this week were great, especially in Presentation Zen. I go a lot out of the different slide techniques and when I revised my original presentation, I tried to use as many of the Zen ideas as possible. I feel really good about it but I also feel as though I can do much more with it. I was a little overwhelmed with revising it though because I chose a presentation that had 29 slides in it to start. Revising that proved took a while longer than I expected, however I think the revision was well worth it...at least it's a step in the right direction.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
I'm not sure if Overwhelmed is strong enough...
This week I found myself struggling to keep up. What a challenging week of assignments and not to use it as an excuse, but it's difficult not having the weekend to work on projects because of Military commitments. But, I'm still working and things are getting done, just not as quickly as I thought based on the time it should take to complete each project.
This week we learned a great deal about impacting your audience through a more simplistic format. Planning a presentation by going analog - getting away from the computer and back to using simpler forms of creating ideas that focus on what is most important for a presentation. I found this to be most informative as I typically would stare at the computer screen attempting to discover something that I am supposed to present about. Usually this does occur, but after how long of sitting there and re-writing countless times. Simple planning and getting away from technology would be better suited for presentations.
Presentations that lack stickiness are often not well remembered, in which case you have audience members leaving wondering if they will ever get those 20 minutes back. That is not a desired response from your audience. However, proper planning and focus can turn the most boring topic into a fun and exciting time.
I remember teaching a unit that discussed how to count rhythm. This was before we had an Interactive White Board in my classroom, but it used old images of rhythms and I would draw notes and ask students to count it, without really teaching them much of anything. Now, with the help of the Smart Board, the presentation and the lesson are more much enjoyable and educational as the students can write answers, discover what was wrong and what was write.
This week was very difficult and I hope that next week is slightly less intense. But I am really enjoying taking pictures everyday and posting them on Posterous.
This week we learned a great deal about impacting your audience through a more simplistic format. Planning a presentation by going analog - getting away from the computer and back to using simpler forms of creating ideas that focus on what is most important for a presentation. I found this to be most informative as I typically would stare at the computer screen attempting to discover something that I am supposed to present about. Usually this does occur, but after how long of sitting there and re-writing countless times. Simple planning and getting away from technology would be better suited for presentations.
Presentations that lack stickiness are often not well remembered, in which case you have audience members leaving wondering if they will ever get those 20 minutes back. That is not a desired response from your audience. However, proper planning and focus can turn the most boring topic into a fun and exciting time.
I remember teaching a unit that discussed how to count rhythm. This was before we had an Interactive White Board in my classroom, but it used old images of rhythms and I would draw notes and ask students to count it, without really teaching them much of anything. Now, with the help of the Smart Board, the presentation and the lesson are more much enjoyable and educational as the students can write answers, discover what was wrong and what was write.
This week was very difficult and I hope that next week is slightly less intense. But I am really enjoying taking pictures everyday and posting them on Posterous.
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