Michelle's Blog

Final Project- EBOOK

dezanet4 — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 15:49:52 +0000

I have just finished my ebook but haven’t published it as of yet. I want to proof it first. Overall, I liked using the ebook application. There were a few minor things I didn’t like about it. I didn’t like how I had to make my font so small and I wasn’t crazy about the assets collection. It was a pretty basic application and I didn’t think it was very difficult to figure out. The podcasts helped to get my toes wet. I think this would be a good tool to use as a project assignment to middle school and high school students for the same reason as you did, to assess what you learned from the course.

I can’t believe this is the final week! I have learned sooo much valuable information from this class that I intend to use everyday.

Thank you Dr. M for a great semester! It’s been great working with you and learning from you!

Module #4

dezanet4 — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:44:47 +0000

I have to admit I was nervous when I opened the assignments and found a project worth 80 points! After watching the podcasts and intro I think this will also be a fun project to do. I’ve already created my ebook. I don’t have anything fancy in it yet though. I’m playing with the backgrounds and covers to see which I like best. I want to be sure to make it simple and appropriate yet eye catching. I can’t believe the semester is almost over!

Have a great week!

Movie Maker

dezanet4 — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:31:17 +0000

I created my group’s project in Windows Movie Maker. Overall, I think the program is pretty good. It was very easy adding pictures to the storyboard and creating transitions and effects for each slide. I thought narrating the story would prove to be the greatest challenge and that was relatively easy as well. At first I used the mic that was on my laptop, but ending up having to use an external mic. There was one snag I ran into. I couldn’t figure out how to have both the music and the narration play together seamlessly at the same time. I had the music set to fade in and out and didn’t have any setting on the narration. However, the narration would either fade in or out on its own. I tried downloading a fresh copy of the music and also tried several different fresh recordings of the narration. Nothing I did seemed to work. I know it’s possible to have it work that way but couldn’t figure it out.

I learned lots from this project! For the most part, it was good. I had fun learning Movie Maker in more detail. I think I will continue to use Movie Maker for personal projects.

Michelle

Digital Story News

dezanet4 — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 22:55:54 +0000

Can’t believe we are a week away from Thanksgiving!!! Where does the time go? Well, I’ve been very busy that last 2 weeks. 3 out of 4 of my family and a number of friends had been ill with pneumonia and I’ve been working hard on my classes. Everything always seems to be due at the same time. My group is working on a story about Thanksgiving and the history of this great holiday. I know I have TONS to be thankful for this year. Thankful all my family and friends are healthy again! I have volunteered to create the story in Windows Movie Maker. Like I have said before, I have a little experience with this software so I felt confident enough to take on the task. Besides, I’ll learn more. I have run into a few little snags but have worked through it with the help of my team members. I found out a way to insert a PowerPoint slide into movie maker. To do this, you save the pp slide as a jpeg file and then import that media image into movie maker. Thanks for the tip Dr. M!!

I’ve learned more than I have ever thought I would about copyright. I never gave copyright laws a second thought. Now I will think twice. Not that I use other peoples things for my own benefit or profit, but you never know. I will always put a disclaimer on my projects when using images or music from the internet. Well I must get going, I still have lots to do for Module 3.

Have a great week!

Michelle

Digital Storytelling

dezanet4 — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:32:32 +0000

This is going to be a fun project! There is SO much information to look over! I am so thankful & appreciative for all the podcasts explaining in more detail. Doing classes online does have its advantages but it’s missing that human element. Sometimes I learn better from hearing and seeing it from an instructor. So thank you for all the podcasts you post Dr. M!!

The only experience I have with movie making is with Windows Movie Maker. I attempted to create a movie but had too many pictures for it to convert into Windows Media Player. This was for a project at the school I work at. It was a great learning experience for me. I should have looked into the program more before working with it. Nothing is worse than spending hours and days on a project and not having it work out….lesson learned. With that project I learned how to put music with the pictures and learned about the different transitions that I could use with each picture. This project will be more of a challenge because there are 3 other people to work with, which I’m sure are on different time schedules as myself, and with totally different ideas.

Have a great week!
Michelle

Module #3

dezanet4 — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 03:54:52 +0000

I knew that one had to be very cautious when using copyrighted material. I read through the FAQ section on soundzabound’s website which gave me a lot more insight to this issue and more to think about. I know that the middle school I work at has started to crack down with the staff on using copyrighted material. This information is slowly trickling down to the students. There really should be more education available to the students when it comes to this subject. Maybe there is, I’m not in the classrooms during instruction time, but I don’t hear the students talking about it. I know the students don’t do a whole lot of presentations and such, so it could be that the students are getting a more though explanation at the high school level.?

I am a bit overwhelmed by the whole wiki thing! There are so many possibilities and uses for wikis. The school I work at has a PTO in which I voluntarily created a web page. I also maintain that web page for them. My intention was to save paper. Anyway, the PTO wiki was of personal interest to me. Unfortunately there isn’t any posted in the list under the wet paint site. I am going to introduce this to the PTO publicity team. I think if they learned how to use a wiki, it would benefit them greatly. They would be able to add/delete information in real time. By the time they get the hard copy in the mail and I get the hard copy of the newsletter and type the info in, they could have the info typed in much quicker. How efficient!

Working on Module #2

dezanet4 — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 23:44:04 +0000

Well I decided to go with PowerPoint for creating my tutorial. I was on the fence between PP and Webspiration. The deciding factor was familiarity. I didn’t want to start with Webspiration and get stuck. I guess I’m not feeling very adventurous this week. Too many other *big* assignments due this week. Still, I am learning quite a bit from PP even though I am a little familiar with it. I didn’t know how to do a nonlinear presentation. That could be fun using it in the classroom for instruction. Set it up like a game. What a great tool to use to interact with!!

Well I better get going so I can work on my module 2 tutorial.

Have a good weekend!

Shell

Webspiration

dezanet4 — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 01:58:44 +0000

Well there is no fluff with this application! I can see why this application could be very effective. All your ideas and concepts are right there in front of you. The ideas and concepts are easy to follow off from the main point and being able to format the colors and the directions of the arrow one can put emphasis on certain ideas. Also, being able to change the “bubble” shape can change the emphasis of a subject. Overall, I liked this application. It’s very simple to use and it’s free. With the collaborating feature of allowing others to change your map, I’m not sure if that would be a great tool. I guess that would depend on the project and how many people would have access to that. Maybe 2 or 3 people wouldn’t be too bad. ? Being able to hyperlink is a great tool to use when presenting. There are a lot of great features with this application! Now to make the decision of which to use for Module #2…..

Have a great week!

PowerPoint

dezanet4 — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 00:53:52 +0000

I have your basic skills with PowerPoint. I could create a slide show if asked to. However, I don’t know how to use the tricks to make it “pop.” I had fun going through the tutorial and learning how to animate objects, insert my own pics for bullets and how to transition the slides. I agree that too much animation and transition is annoying. I have seen presentations like that. The one thing that I find people use too much of is audio in their slides. In my opinion, for presentations to be effective, they need to be clutter-free and short and sweet (for lack of better words). Too much ‘cutesy’ stuff is just unnecessary and takes the focus away of what the presentation is really about. Maybe that would be OK if your audience is a very young crowd. I am curious to see the Webspiration tutorial. I have never heard of or used this application. I’ve looked at the sample and found it to be interesting. Can’t wait to see it! Have a great weekend!

Start of Module #2

dezanet4 — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:34:39 +0000

Wow! Just finished up with the Word tutorial from Module #2. Can’t believe how fast this semester is going!…where does the time go? I use Word 2007 at my place of employment from time-to-time. 2007 is a bit to get used to compared to the older versions. Just when you know where to find things they go and change everything. It ‘s not that bad once you experiment a little though.

There were a lot of new tricks I learned from module 2. I’ve kept a copy of the tutorial at work so I can make reference to it. Under “selecting text” the ones that I liked the most were select all keyboard shortcut and select all mouse (really liked this one). Under “select only some of the text” I liked the shift-click trick. The ones I’ve been using the most at work are the shortcuts for undo and double spacing. The keyboard moving shortcut was pretty neat too. I found the “hyperlink” section interesting. Adding document links was fun to do. What a great feature this is!

Looking forward to learning more of PowerPoint and learning what Webspiration is all about!

Have a great week!

Shell