EDLD+5363+Multimedia+Video+Technology

= Week 1 Work =

=**Personal Digital Story Telling Planning:**= Peggy and I had an amazing phone conversation last night to discuss our questions and topics. I know for me it brought all the feelings, emotions and memories from the past year as a first time mother to the surface. Peggy's story is amazing, and I can't wait to see her final project. I am hoping I can get through my recording without crying! -Deann

This page will be used to plan our Personal Digital Storytelling projects.

Questions for Peggy: 1. When were you first diagnosed with Cancer? 2. What were some of your first thoughts? 3. How long and/or vigorous was your treatments? 4. How long have you been in remission? 5. What has been the biggest change that you have seen in yourself as a result of your diagnosis?

Questions for Deann 1. Tell us about the day you discovered you were "with" child. 2. What about your pregnancy. . .was their any problems, worries, or special cravings along the way? 3. Were you able to use the 3D ultrasound to find out the sex of the baby? Tell us about that day. 4. Now, on to the special day/night? Share about his birth. 5. I know this weekend is a special occasion. . . tell us about your plans and how this event makes you feel. 6. Looking back over the first year, share some of the changes that (baby's name?) brought to your family. 7. If you had to give one piece of advice to a new expectant mother, what would it be?

=**Storyboard:**=



=**Storyboard Feedback:**= Emails- OH Deann! It’s turning out so wonderful! I think I’m putting too much into it. Are you going to narrate the exact words below each picture, or ad lib more? It’s great. I love it! G **From: ** Deann Thompson [mailto:deann-thompson@hotmail.com] I've attached my storyboard. Let me know what you think. I have no idea if it is long enough. I am going to start Photostory in a bit.
 * Sent:** Friday, August 27, 2010 10:28 AM
 * To:** Hale, Peggy
 * Subject:** Storyboard

 D

=Personal Digital Story Feedback:= Email from Peggy Hale... Deann, I watched your video, so you can post this on your wiki. The video is special and creates that wonderful feeling of what it is to be a mother. I think your pictures you’ve added show the enjoyment and how much a child can bring into the whole family. When I played it I really could not hear your music until the very end. Maybe that’s what you intended. I do have a few questions: How did you add those extra slides that you did in the end. I missed that! I like the way you posted your name, the class. Now I wish I had done that for mine. The other question I needed to ask is how did you change the storyboard in Inspiration into the pdf. file?

= Assignment: = media type="file" key="I'veSeen.wmv" width="300" height="300" == = Week 2 Work = =Video Editing Software Evaluation:=

=Analysis Reflection:= For this assignment, the easiest path to take was to stay with programs like MovieMaker and iMovie that I have a little bit of experience with. In the end, I wanted to challenge myself to reach out of my comfort zone and look into some other open source video editing programs. I began by search through Google and looking at the article //Top 5 free video editing software programs// from this week’s reading assignments. I chose to work with Wax and Zwei-Stein. I went into this assignment with hardly any true video editing experience. I have only imported video and left it as it was, so I knew this was going to be a challenge for me. Both products were over my head. In order for me to be successful with these types of programs, I really need to be in an instructor lead course face to face so I can follow along.

I really just had no clue where to begin so I went with just some basic steps. I was able to import video into both programs, make a change, and save. I struggled with Zweir-Stein and being able to follow instructions because I could not find an official user guide. There were some help options within the program, but I prefer a handout that goes through the entirety of a program and is searchable so I can move around as needed. I was able to get an edited video out of Zwei-Stein with audio, video, and a fading effect. I will admit that due to the lack of support, I did not spend any additional time trying to create additional effects.

Even though the user manual for Wax was so much easier to follow than Zweir-Stein, I ended up spending hours working with this program. In the end, I was never able to render a video that had sound and audio. I even went as far as taking my video into various other programs, stripping the audio, and then trying to reinsert. I was able to create a neat opening transition, but I was left with a silent motion picture! I guess the bonus in these troubles is that I was able to learn how to strip the audio and try different file formats.

One area where I feel teachers and students in my district are lacking is in video creation and editing. I would love to be able to expand my knowledge base with video editing so I can work with teachers and students on video projects. Video production is a great tool to cover in just about any and all curriculum areas as well as all grade levels. When I register for TCEA next week, I am going to try to find some sessions that I can attend to help me expand in this area. One of my goals for this year is to assist a teacher and class with a video production.

While revisiting these programs to edit my video again, I was having all sorts of trouble getting pictures and audio imported correctly. I finally broke down and opened up Windows Movie Maker. I had my video and image imported and a video effect added within about 10 minutes. Part of me wishes I had just gone with Movie Maker to begin with, but now I have at least tried something else even though I would not be recommended the first two programs to any of my teachers. I think Movie Maker is just what a beginner needs!

=Finished Video:= =﻿media type="file" key="Birthday.wmv" width="300" height="300"=

=Tutorial Podcast:= media type="file" key="Thompson Tutorial.mp3" width="240" height="20"

=Assignment:=

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= Week 3 Work﻿ =

Our group Wiki http://groupddlp-5363.wikispaces.com/

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= Week 4 Work﻿ = It’s hard to believe that another week is wrapping up in this course! After meeting with my group last week, we were left to the individual portions of the assignment. We had worked together as a group to get the general concept of our project, Save a Life: Adopt a Pet PSA, and put our production plan into motion. I think we have a great group, and we really work well together. Even with some minor technology bumps, no one has gotten agitated. We just pull together as a group and fix the problem or find another solution. As a group it was decided that we work on a lot of this project together so one person does not have to take on too much. We were to all record portions of the audio as well as gather video and still images that fit our project and shot list. Since our PSA focuses on pet adoption, I was trying to gather some video from an animal shelter in the area to contribute to the project. Unfortunately I was not allowed to video at the shelter and really worried that I would put my team in a bind. After meeting last night, we definitely have more video and audio than we need. Thankfully the group was willing to shift some of the assignments around. I have taken over all of the audio recording as well as continuing to update the group wiki and Google Docs used for collaboration.



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= Week 5 Work﻿ =

Course Reflections
** 1. What outcomes had you envisioned for this course? Did you achieve those outcomes? Did the actual course outcomes align with those that you envisioned? ** To be honest I was not really sure what the Multimedia Video Technology course would be composed of. Just by the course title I assumed that somewhere along the way video would be part of the assignments. I envisioned working on a video project by myself while suffering through it. I knew that my experience with video production was very limited so I hoped that somewhere through this course, I would at least become a bit more comfortable with this topic. To say that I feel so much more comfortable with video would be an understatement. The actual outcomes that I’ve learned through audio and video editing have definitely exceeded any expectations that I started with. This course has made me want to seek out a classroom to try some of these projects that I created for this course. I am excited for the opportunity to expose students to video production!

** 2. To the extent that you achieved the outcomes, are they still relevant to the work that you do in your school? Why or why not? ** As with all courses I hoped that I would come away with something that I could apply to my position as a district-level Instructional Technology Specialist. I feel like this class has given me “my money’s worth” and more! As I mentioned before my video experience has been very limited so me actually using this with teachers and students have been zero. Taking this course has made me excited about the possibilities in which I can use video production to create technology infused projects across all grade levels and subject areas. Video production provides an endless outlet for this to take place in classrooms. This is one area that I feel is not exposed to students at all grade levels across my district, but one where students would be engaged with the process. I am very fortunate in that my job allows a lot of flexibility and creativity with how I support my teachers.

** 3. What outcomes did you not achieve? What prevented you from achieving them? ** I would have to say that I achieved each outcome I envisioned as well as quite a bit more. I am very pleased what all I have gained from this course. I have really enjoyed this course much more than I thought I would given my experience, or lack thereof, with video production. Before this last week of class, I would have said that I was disappointed in not pushing myself with video editing. Something changed this past week where I felt the need to push myself and at least try to put together our PSA even it we didn't end up using what I created.

** 4. Were you successful in completing the course assignments? If not, what prevented or discouraged you? ** I would have to say that I successfully completed each of the course assignments. Week 1’s personal digital story was the easiest assignment for me by far. Thankfully I had used Photo Story quite a bit in my current job, so I was very familiar with the program. This assignment was much more meaningful because of choosing a personal topic to cover. Even though I think I was successful with the podcast and editing video, both of these assignments were a struggle for me. I went out on a limb to evaluate and work with two video editing programs that I had never used before. I wanted to challenge myself and spent so many hours trying to make everything work to my liking. In the end I went with Movie Maker to edit my video because I just couldn’t make the other programs work right when I needed to add something to my project. The group project is in the final editing stage, but I could not be happier with how our group has worked together on the pre-production, production, and editing stages.

** 5. What did you learn from this course: about yourself, your technology and leadership skills, and your attitudes? ** I knew coming in to this course that I had very little experience with true video editing and that a lot of learning was going to have to take place for me to be successful. What I didn’t know was just how much I would actually push myself to complete my assignments. I took on a lot of the backseat duties to get our group project started, but strayed away from the video editing portion. As this past week began, I felt the need to push myself out of my comfort zone and to try to throw together our PSA. As I began, I quickly began having to teach myself more audio editing with Audacity to get the recordings ready to go. Then the fun really began when I started pulling the project components into Movie Maker. I began to work with both the storyboard and timelines and move items around so the PSA would flow. I learned how to cut down audio and video clips, how to import audio, video, and pictures into Movie Maker, how to pull all of these into a video, and how to export into a format that would work on most computers. While working on this project, I found that I was not able to have two tracks of audio within Movie Maker, so thankfully a coworker came to my rescue! She told me to export the movie and then reimport into Movie Maker. This causes the original audio to be combined with the video and frees up the audio track. Then it was just a matter of adding in some background music and exporting again! I was very hesitant to work with a group long distance. I feared that through working online it would be hard to get catch on to the emotions behind what group members are typing. I have been so pleased with how this group has worked together. I had only been in touch with only one of my coworkers for the past couple of classes so I knew where she stood on a lot of things, but I had had no outside contact with the other two ladies. It was amazing that we were able to pull together, bounce ideas off of each other, come up with a plan for our PSA, and start to work on this project. I never once worried if one of them was going to do what they said they would! My group has been fantastic with my roles shifting over the past couple of weeks and letting me challenge myself with the editing of the PSA. I have come full circle with how I feel about video production from fear to actually enjoying the entire process!

media type="file" key="Save a Life Adopt a Pet_WMV V9.wmv" width="300" height="300" Due to file size limits on the Wiki, we had to save our PSA is a lower resolution file. Please see the higher resolution video on YouTube at [].

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