Assignment 11d: Reflections on Linked Courses

I think that the linked courses have been beneficial because the content portion (Historical Development of Children’s Literature) provides great material for the substance in the hands-on technology portion (Educational Uses of Digital Photography and Digital Storytelling). I feel that the digital photo/storytelling assignments have been worthwhile and have consistently reinforced and enhanced skills that were taught in class. I also feel that the assignments assisted me in gaining a better grasp on the children’s literature content by appealing to my visual learning style. The linked course pairing helped me connect technical skills to content area knowledge by allowing me to see firsthand how I could implement the use of technology to teach themes within children’s literature.

I would definitely be interested in taking other linked courses if they were offered and would recommend this pair of linked course to other students. Not only is it a time saver to have two linked courses on one evening, but the overlap increases understanding. I believe that the digital photo/storytelling course could be successful if it were offered online, or mostly online. However, I feel that due to the varying technical skill levels among the students, some of the more challenging assignments would require face-to-face time to minimize confusion and provide adequate help.

Additionally, I would like to add that I think the use of a course blog and a personal blog are very beneficial to this course. Not only do they provide a way to discuss assignments and problems, they allow for visual examples of work to be displayed and shared.

Assignment 11: Making CDs

Our assignment was to burn a CD that contained our final project and our final project report. In order to make my CD, I inserted a blank CD-R into my disk drive and then opened it through "My Computer". I then selected, copied, and pasted my files in the CD window. When I closed the window and pressed eject, the computer burned all of the files and ended my session. Now my CD files can be viewed on any computer.

Assignment 10: Software Used For This Course

In order to complete my assignments for this course, I have used the following software:

Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Photoshop
Camtasia Studio 4
Goldwave
Microsoft Office Word 2007
Paint
Photo Story 3 for Windows
Windows Movie Maker

Glogster

I'm not sure if you guys have heard of this, but http://www.glogster.com/ is an awesome free Web 2.0 tool that can be used for personal and preofessional use. Think of it as a visual alternative to blogs, where you can use images, video, audio and links to tell a story. I've seen examples for marketing products, alternative book reports, poetry display, and digital scrapbooking...to just name a few. I played around with it and made this one. If you get a chance, check it out, but beware....it is very addictive!!!!

Assignment 9

For this assignment, we were asked to mix audio and music on one track. I used Goldwave for the editing and uploaded it onto BooMP3 and embedded the player here.


sample_script_with_music

Engines of Our Ingenuity: #1197 King Arthur

This is a digital story I created for an episode from Engines of Our Ingenuity. The topic is over the legend of King Arthur and how the real person is not what we have come to know through medieval and modern interpretations. I found various images from literature, art, and film to illustrate the ideas and themes from the script.

Assignment 8

Here is my storyboard for my digitalstory. I'm still working on cutting out some of the dialogue, but this gives a basic overview of what I am planning visually.

Revised Script

Here is my latest version of my digitalstory script. Things placed in parentheses are going to be used as visuals and will not be spoken. I'm not sure what I can cut without leaving a hole in the evolution of the paper mechanisms, so please let me know what you think. I don't want to detract from my central idea: pop-ups are cool and have an interesting history that has evolved over time. HELP!

Assignment 7

Even though I have gone through several versions of my digitalstory script, I still think it is lacking. I'm not the best writer...I tend to dwell on ideas and dance around the focus. Therefore; I really need some feedback from my group on how I can improve my script and make it more streamlined to have a greater impact. Again, let me state that my script is VERY ROUGH and I have a long way to go. It is running about 6 minutes and 20 seconds right now so I know that I need to cut some and condense, but I'm just not sure where to begin. I feel like I've been working on it for so many weeks now that I'm going cross-eyed every time I look at it. HELP!!!!

Assignment 6a

I plan on choosing Episode 1197: King Arthur for my Engines of Our Ingenuity assignment. It is about the truths behind the legend of King Arthur.

Assignment 5

Assignment 5 was to add audio to the digital story from our previous assignment. I began recording my audio in PhotoStory 3 and found that I was not happy with the fragmented audio that started and stopped with each slide. I found that I wanted my audio to flow through the slides; therefore, I could not use the voice recording tool found in PhotoStory 3, I had to use something else.

I created a regular sound recording of my script using my ancient Labtec microphone and found that it was too grainy sounding and it emphasized my "p" and "d" sounds. So then I opted to record my script using Dr. Robin's pimped out Samson microphone. If you want to hear the difference, click here: cheapy version , pimped out version (note that the 2nd version has an intentional delay to accomodate for the first slide).

After I finished my recording I decided that I wanted to add background music ("Reach Out" by Breedlove). I quickly realized that I could not layer my audio tracks in PhotoStory 3. I then took both of my audio tracks and mixed them in Goldwave, where I also adjusted volume to create a fade that allowed my voice to be louder than the background music. Then, I brought my newly mixed file back into PhotoStory 3 and added it my digital story, saved it, and there you have it.

Assignment 4

For this assignment, I used PhotoStory 3 to piece together a collection of images that illustrate my world...my family, hobbies, and future plans. I did not have any problems using PhotoStory, as I have used it many times before; however, I have noticed that my timing and transitions are slightly altered during playback in Windows Media Player. I'm going to experiment with file saving options to see if I can identify the problem and fix it before I add audio.

Assignment 3

I've always had an interest in colorizing black and white photographs so I decided to explore that for this assignment. (I know Dr. Robin doesn't like us to turn this into our family scrapbook, but I couldn't help it on this one.)

For the first one, I took a picture of my daughter and decided that the yellow dress was too overpowering. I made a duplicate layer in Photoshop and created a black and white layer mask. By using various brushes and opacities, I erased sections of the layer mask to allow the color from the original layer to show through. I highlighted her skin, eyes, and the flower and petals. I then added a layer on top of all that that only had a transparent complementary violet layer to create a more interesting background.

For my second image, I chose a scanned photograph of my grandmother. I did the opposite effect here. On a new layer in Photoshop, I used various brushes and opacities to actually color or paint the image. I stayed true to her actual hair color and skin tone, but played around with green and purple to colorize the flower in her hair. I also added aqua to the blazer and used a couple tints and shades of pink for her blush and lipstick. I decided to tint the background with a pale blue to enhance and contrast to the warmness of her skin and to go with the other cool colors I had chosen to use. This was fun to work on and I can't wait to show my mom. Maybe I can print it and turn it into a Christmas present.

Assignment 2

For this assignment, I photographed several pop up books by Robert Sabuda. The dinosaurs really began to take on a life of their own, thus, they became the focus.

Assignment 2a

For assignment 2a, I gathered images that show the evolution of paper engineering, specifically movable books. I find it interesting how something that began as simple movable dials in educational books has morphed into captivating illustrations in children's literature, and ultimately, has become art in and of itself. With such broad uses: educational, entertainment, or pure aesthetics, who can resist?