Challenger Learning Center - Final Video

Here is my final video.  I had a lot of fun creating it, although in the process I wish I had better equipment. The camera work was done with a Flip video camera and the video was created using Windows Live Movie Maker. One thing I found very frustrating that I had not necessarily encountered when creating my smaller videos was as I added music/sound in the Windows Live Movie Maker, it would move all of the other sounds I had added.  Same thing happened when I changed or edited a video. The same thing happened with some of my text as well.  Other then that, I am amazed at what I was able to accomplish.

When I try to upload the video directly through Blogger, it crashes, so here is the YouTube video link:

http://youtu.be/Hq2_P_P5rQ0

Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Once again, it seems like this Chapter would have been more useful to read during the week where we had to create a Mash Up considering it is about Copyright.

I think copyright is an issue in many situations, not just digital storytelling.  Think about it, how many times have you used a picture or a song for a report that you found on the internet.  One thing stated in the book was to ask your students" If you were trying to make a living as a musician, how would you react if someone downloaded rather than bought your music?".  My question is, what if I did buy the song/picture/media that I am using in a project.  I'm still giving royalties to the creator and therefor am not stealing anything.  I guess this is where Fair Use would come into play especially for students and use in the classroom.

The TEACH Act caught my attention and I thought I would do a little more research on it after reading this chapter.  I found this: http://www.copyright.com/Services/copyrightoncampus/basics/teach.html when I did a quick google search which seems to layout the TEACH Act pretty nicely. I think this Act will greatly help in the use of copyrighted materials in education including what is shown in the classroom and students assignments.

One word of advice at the end of the chapter, I thought, was very sound advice, "be perpetually paranoid".  If you are constantly checking on copyright and Fair Use in regards to projects you are creating, or assignments for you students, there is a better chance of you not breaking any laws.  Better safe than sorry! In that case, you also need to make sure your students are aware of copyright and now to make sure they are following the laws.

I also would like to apologize for those that tried to view my storyboard Prezi.  I am still getting used to sharing Prezis and figured that anyone could view it if I made it public and then shared it.  I have now embedded the Prezi, so hopefully you can view it now :)

Final Video Draft

Here is my draft of my final video.  It is a compilation of the video I took during a Challenger Mission which will be the main part of my video.  I will also be adding an introduction to Challenger and interviews including how to register for a mission and the cost.  I would love any feedback; what you liked and what I could add/change. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlwGNWhzOu8

Chapter 14

Chapter 14

This chapter focused on Media Grammar.  Much like when you are speaking or writing, you need to use proper grammar when creating a digital story.  Some of the items are obvious such as using non-blurry pictures, correct lighting and focus on the subject of the story.  You also need to make sure that the images you are using are appropriate for your story.  All images also should be related some how.  

Your audio must also be used correctly whether it be music or voice overs.  Your narrations should be clear and your background music should not be overpowering. The music should be appropriate to the story, for example you wouldn't play death metal when telling a love story.  If you have text in your story, it should be clear and easy to read and the your story should have some sort of flow.

 

I feel like, once again, this chapter would have been more useful to me at the beginning of this class.  For purposes of teaching DST in the classroom, I completely understand why this chapter was place where it was. For our purpose in this class to create digital stories, I need to know what to avoid/how to fix problems in a video before I create it.  Maybe it is a good thing reading it now because as I look back as some of the previous videos I made, I can find mistakes in them that should be corrected.  I now feel a little embarrassed that the work I was really proud of was maybe not so good in the media grammar department.

Chapter 13 & Story Map

Chapter 13

Much of Chapter 13 concentrates on the equipment you can and should use when creating your Digital Stories. What you use doesn't have to be the latest and greatest, it just has to work for what you need. If fact sometimes getting the latest and greatest is not as good because not all of the bugs have been workd out. I found the comment that most people only use 10% of the capabilities their digital camera's have.  Thinking about it, I love to take pictures and I know a few things about my camera, but it can do so much and I should really look into learning more about it.

A few weeks ago, I had issues with the sound of my video.  I know this has to do with the video camera I was using.  I think I may end up having to get a wireless microphone.  If anyone has used a wireless microphone to record sound from a video camera, do you have one you like or could suggest (another point in this chapter, ask what others are using).

I feel like this chapter had a lot of great information in it.  I think it would have been helpful for the chapter would have been earlier in the book.  If feel like we are getting closer to the end of this class and NOW we are being told what to use.  I feel like I now have to rush to get some of these things to be prepared for my final video.

I created a Prezi presentation about my story map. You can view it here.

Chapters 11 & 12

Chapters 11 & 12

Chapter 11

The focus of this chapter is that anyone can create a Digital Story.  With the technology available today, free and for pay, there is so much you can do with Digital Story Telling.  When teaching DST there are things teachers need to consider such as their support, do they have the necessary tools, as well as getting parent permission.  They also need to look at how well a DST lesson fits into your curriculum.

The second part of this chapter takes about story planning and development, which I feel is exactly what we went through during our Face -to-Face session on Saturday.  We first created a map, they discussed it with each other getting feedback (peer pitch), create a storyboard (which we will be doing this week) and critique (which will be everyone's comments to our storyboard).  Then we will write and produce our story. These steps are very similar to writing a story or creating any sort of creative piece.

When creating a DST lesson, the teacher needs to take into consideration who their audience is.  Lessons can be adapted to fit your needs whether it be media literacy, telling personal stories or telling academic stories.

Chapter 12

Chapter 12 focuses on on the planning stages of creating a DST. The first step is to determine what media you need, get it and begin creating.  When creating your story, you need to learn how to use your video editing software and basically start creating whether that be adding narration or music to your video or compiling videos and pictures together. 

Once you have created your story, you need to make sure you have a title page and credits.  The credits are the most important part of a story because it is giving credit where credit is due to artists work you used. When creating videos, I have found that dding music and transitions have really made my video seem professional.  I don't think I could ever create a movie without them. When the story is finished, it is important to share you work whether it be with your peers, school community, community in general or posting it somewhere public.  I will say one of my favorite parts of creating a story is actually posting it and seeing all of your comments.

How to Create a Google Site

How to Create a Google Site

This video is a brief tutorial on how to create a Google Site.  I thought it would be helpful for those that still need to create your iMET 15 website. I used screenr and thought it was quite easy to use.  My only complaint is I could only record 5 minutes at a time (lucky for all of you, that means this video is less than 5 min).

Edit: I forgot that I had to create a title page and credits; I also decided to add a little bit of music.  I added them in Windows Live Movie Maker. Hope you enjoy!

Journey Through Music

Musical Journey Through Anika's Life

The video assignment this week was the make a mash up of videos/music/etc.  I decided to create a mash up of different music videos of musicians I have liked over the years.  This week was also a lesson in copyright and boy have a learned a little bit.  I even went through YouTube's Copyright school. Please enjoy!

Musical Journey Through Anika's Life

Chapters 9 & 10

Chapters 9 & 10

Chapter 9

This chapter was all about story mapping.  The biggest thing I took away from this chapter is that story mapping can take many different forms.  For me, I prefer a simple story map like the Aristotle Story Map, but I understand that may not work for everyone and therefor I should teach all. What's interesting about story mapping is that it bring back to mind an activity I did in my undergrad which was to create string art representing out life journey so far including highs and lows.  IT looked a lot like the Treasure Map Story Map with peaks and valley.  This and the Adapted Story Map are probably the most accurate representation of the way a story will travel when being told.  

Kieran Egan's points that compare traditional and story formed-based education felt like the complete opposite of what I have been taught to do.  Making lists is not the most engaging way to tell a story where as telling a story or creating a story map will help us remember.  When I set out to write something, I tend to create lists; I guess I need to change this habit and start creating story maps.  Maybe then I will be better at remember. Kenn Adams Story Spine I felt would work well with a younger group of students because you can give students beginning of sentences to prom the story.  It may help create that creative spark.

One final point brought up was that you will not know how your story will impact the audience until you create a story map and the best way to get better at creating your story map is to practices with stories that have already been created.

Chapter 10

There are more types of stories than the ones we have been primarily been exposed to, western stories with a protagonist facing a challenge and goes through a transformation or a quest story.  This can be limiting when students go about creating stories, so it is important for them to learn about others.

Indigenous Stories

It is hard to put native American stories in one category because there are so many different variations. They can last hours, days, weeks and the story teller can bring some of their own personality into the telling.  Since there is such a vast array of different types of indigenous stories, if you are interested in studying them more, you should go to a local group.

Story Edge of the Western Tradition

 These stories are created by story tellers breaking away from the traditional western story plot such as Joyce, Faulkner, Beckett, and Kafka.  These stories are held together by creating a texture of the lives of the character as opposed to a large conflict creating change.

Art Stories and Music Videos

Music videos are in and of themselves stories.  They take a very emotional piece of work such as a song and create more of an impact by adding meaningful pictures and/or videos. 

Week 3 Video

The Walk

I had a little bit of a difficult time coming up with this weeks video.  I figured since we needed to show different perspectives and points of view through camera angles I would create a video of a dog going for a walk.  All the video segments that are in his point of view I made in shades of gray, everything else is color.  There is no sound, so your speakers are not broken (there was too much of my voice, working with a dog is not easy).

One thing that I would like to change is I was having trouble with my camera focusing.  This was the first time I had shot video with my Nikon D3100.  Hopefully I will get better. Enjoy!

Chapters 7 & 8

Chapter 7

Chapter 7 is about different struggles you may have when teaching Digital Storytelling (DST) and how to overcome them.  The first thing to consider is the group you are teaching.  Every group is different and has different needs, it is important to take that into consideration when developing your lessons.  Sometimes students have a difficult time actually writing their story, if this happens you should ask leading questions to get the writing juices flowing.  Another problem that students face is containing their stories.  I thought the Research box, where students create a box and write what they want included in their story inside the box and points that are related to their story, but are not going to get addressed in the story.  When students create a research box, it allows the teachers to see what the students will be writing about and how to help guide them to creating a strong story core.

The quote at the end of this chapter, “Break the rules after you understand them and can use them effectively,” really struck a chord with me.  There are traditional ways to do something whether it is writing, painting, photography, music, etc… it is usually against the grain to break the rules but as the quote states, if you know what to do you can break through those barriers and possibly create a masterpiece.

Chapter 8

This chapter focuses on transformations/changes toe characters in a story.  The first section of the chapter states that transformations do not have to be big to have a huge impact.  It got me thinking of series of shows.  When you watch a series the characters are ever changing; when you finish a series and go back and watch the first episodes the characters seem completely different because of the changes they made throughout the series.  Many of these changes are so small that they seem insignificant at the time, but over time as the character develops those small changes drastically affect the series. 

There are 8 stages of transformation that characters will go through, Physical, inner strength, emotional, moral, psychological, social intellectual/creative and spiritual.  These levels can help students tell more effective stories, helps the students grow through their stories as well as help the teacher understand the students better.  Many students put more of themselves into a Digital Story than a normal assignment or even research project.  This allows the teachers to delve into the students personalities, what they've learned and how they view the world.  DST can open the creative world for a student which is why it is a great way to integrate technology into current curriculum.

Chapters 4, 5 & 6

Chapter 4

This Chapter was about how to assess a Digital Story.  One important factor when creating a Digital Storytelling assignment is fellow teachers, administrators, parents and students will ask you why? When developing a Digital Storytelling assignment you must have a clear goal in mind as to why you are assigning it.   One interesting point that was brought up in this chapter was that everyone things technology is making us smarter, which in fact it is not necessarily. What will make students smarter is learning how to use the technology to prepare them for using it effectively in the real world.  

When evaluating a Digital Story a teacher needs to have a clear goal in mind and relay that goal to the students so they understand it.  The story as well as the how the story was produced, the students understanding of the content, use of media teamwork and performance need to be assessed.  I found it interesting that Ohler suggested that you should always have a performance of the Digital Story and not only have the class look at it, but have your students show it to the community.  It got me thinking that that's exactly what we do; as soon as I create something, such as this weeks video, I showed it to multiple people to get their feedback. I'm sure students would enjoy this as well. The last thing that should be included in a rubric is a student self assessment. Many times in this self assessment you see the troubles, difficulties and success the students went through int he process that you would not get in the final performance.

Chapter 5

In order for a Digital Story to be compelling it needs to have a Story Core.  This is basically a beginning, middle and end that flow together.  Usually a story core will have a protagonist that is faced with some sort of challenge that leads to a transformation. a student can either begin with a story core or develop one as they are developing their story idea, but it is essential that they have one.

Once a student has a story core, they can move on to create a story board.  This is basically an outline of their story to keep them on track when actually creating it.  It can either be written as a narrative or outline or it can be drawn.  I story board serves as a more in depth version of a story core. Having students use a VPS or visual portrait of a story, they are more inclined to develop a full story including a beginning, conflict leading to a transformation and growth concluding in a solution leading to closure.  With these elements, students will have a successful Digital Story.

Chapter 6

One thing that stood out to me in the chapter was that even though a story may have a beginning, middle and end does not mean that it will be engaging.  As story needs to have some sort of tension to be powerful, memorable and/or useful.  The main character also needs to go through some sort of transformation. If a story, "sounds like something that could have happened to us on a normal day," it will not be interesting because, "stories aren't usually told about ordinary people on normal days."

Creating a visual portrait of a story will help students see not only the big picture of their story, but also the little details that make the story interesting.  IT will also give them a chance to see if their story is memorable, powerful and/or useful.  When creating a story always remember, "We forget lectures, but we remember stories."

Week 2 Video: What is a Challenger Learning Center

What is a Challenger Learning Center?

In the video, I discuss why the Challenger Learning Centers are in existence and what they are.  This is the beginning of what I would like my final video project to be about, a Challenger Learning Center simulate space mission.  In this video I worked with voice overs, adding music on top of the voice over and including videos.  The sound on the video segments is not great and I am unsure of how to fix it exactly.  The volume is turned all the way so I'm wondering if it has to do with my video camera, a Flip.

Adding music over my voice of was also quite tricky.  What I did was save my initial movie with the voice over as a video.  Then I created a new project and added the music. Enjoy!

Dissecting Digital Storytelling in the Classroom - Week 1

In this blog post, I will be discussing the key point in Chapters 2 and 3 of the book, Digital Storytelling in the Classroom: New Media Pathways to Literacy, Learning and Creativity by Jason Ohler.

Chapter 2

This chapter's focus was on how teachers can use digital storytelling in the classroom.  Many teachers find that the ever changing technology can be quite daunting at times, but would still like to integrate it into their classroom activities.  This is where Digital Storytelling comes into play.  When a teacher wants to incorporate Digital Storytelling in their classroom they must think about the type of story, the purpose and the impact it can have on students.  They also must look at the story elements just like when writing a story such as the point of view, tone, spoken narrative, role of video, creativity, story length  as well as the music soundtrack. These can all effect the quality of the overall video.  Once these have been chosen, you can move on to how you are going to create the production as well as the role of the teacher.  

Chapter 3

Digital storytelling an be used to address content standards, technology standards, and language arts standards as long at the teacher has the time, technology and support.  There also needs to be a lot of planning to make is successful. In order to use Digital Storytelling in the classroom, first a teacher must inform the parents about what they will be doing as well as get permission.  This could be in the form of a district wide media release.

Digital Storytelling in Language Arts is one of the most powerful ways to increase students literacy skills in the classroom.  In order for it to be beneficial, it must be used effectively, creatively, and wisely.  Digital Storytelling can be used as an art form for the art challenged and since art is a universal language it can be understood by all.  It is also a skill that can be used in the work force today.  Digital Storytelling can also be used in oral literacy through traditional storytelling and performance-based storytelling.  With all of these forms of Digital Storytelling, students will also use and develop writing skills.  Digital Storytelling is a great way to integrate technology and standards.

Week 1 Video - My Favorite Things

This video was created with Windows Live Movie Maker on an ASUS Zenbook Prime UX31A-AB71 Ultrabook running Windows 7.  It has an Intel Core i7 processor, 4 GB of ram and 128 GB SSD.

On a side note, this week was the culmination of many months of planning a huge, multi-day robotics event for 53 teams of high school students.  Fox 40 came out to the event Friday morning and being the media coordinator I was interviewed.  Here are the videos:

Robotics Competition at UC Davis

Robotics Has Fierce Competition Planned