Week 4 of CEDo 530

I found this week to be a lot of work yet very, very interesting.  It think this will be one of the weeks that I look back on and say "wow, I use a lot of that stuff now."  First of all, I spent a ton of time on my Pecha Kucha, but I really enjoy it.  It think this is a really great way to use Voice thread and keep yourself disciplined enough to not spend too much time on each slide you present to a group.  I am very happy with my presentation.  I did mine on baseball stadiums I have visited, so if you are interested in that topic, please take a look at mine.

The other topic we investigated this week that I really think is practical is Prezi website.  I am really serious about going back to all of my power point presentations that I have for my students' notes and changing them to Prezis.  It's amazing what a different presentation product can do for a presentation.  It's great to be able to zoom in on really important aspects of your presentation as well as being able to move all around to keep the audience engaged.   I'm hoping we can use this tool more during this cohort. 

Week 3 posting for Digital Story Telling

First of all, I would like to apologize for getting this posting up so late.  I was gone this weekend and was only able to get to work on the time frame I had on the airplane coming back from Boston.  Before I knew it I had to stow my computer away and couldn't get to my blog.  Anyway, to this point, my favorite activities of this past week has been revamping my powerpoint presentation and watching the example Pecha Kucha and thinking of what I will be able to do for my own later in this class.  As for my presentation, I think I really did some great things.  I made sure that I opened up some free space in my slides.  I also added a lot of contrasting text, to make it more visually appealing and to help my audience understand the main point of my presentation with out having to read a whole lot of text.  I took away bullet points that were once very prominent in my original presentation.  I also made sure that the slide backgrounds were not all the same and there were some unique slides put into the show.  Overall, I am happy with my presentation, but am open to any constructive criticism.  I still have to add some voice work to it, which I will do tomorrow evening.   As for Pecha Kucha, I am really looking forward to putting one of those presentations together.  I think I will be able to produce an interesting show, though I think it will take a lot of time and I may get frustrated.  I'm not going to let that stop me, I will make something really great.  Anyway, this week has been fun and I still have to look at the Animoto.  It seems like there are a lot of people who have done it already and have enjoyed it, so I look forward to getting at that.  

Week 2 of Digital Story Telling

I have to say that I enjoyed making my Civil Rights voice thread a lot more than I anticipated.  Voice thread is really a great tool.  It allows you to find pictures on the Internet, or use pictures of your own, and set your voice over each slide to tell the story of the pictures you found.  Though I enjoyed doing this project, it was actually pretty hard.  I spent quite a bit of time finding pictures I wanted to use and I spent even more time recording my voice to each picture slide.  It took many takes on each picture to get the correct voice.  So often I would mess up a word, or I just felt it didn't sounds good.  After a while I got my perfect voice and it seemed to work for each slide.  I only made a Voicethread with seven pictures.  I can only imagine how long it would take me if I made a much bigger show. Though I enjoyed making my Voicethread about Emmett Till, I think I would have preferred to make a Voicethread based on something in my life.  Either way, it was a great way to learn this new tool.  I would like to try it sometime with my students.  I have had students make powerpoints on presidents.  I may use this instead as a way for students to present a president in a different manner. 

First Post for Digital Story Telling CEdo530

It's been a while since I last posted!  The past couple weeks have been a nice break, but I am really looking forward to this new class. Right away, I can tell that I will be enjoying this class.  One of the activities we have to do on a daily basis is take a picture a day for 28 days.  It's been fun to think of what pictures to share and it's a good feeling to show others some of the important people, places, and things in my life.  I'm very curious to see what we will be doing with the pictures at the end of the 28 days. 

During this week, we also have been investigating the proper way of making presentations.  I have to say, I've really enjoyed this aspect of class because it is something I preach to people quite often.  Whether it is my students or co-workers, I like to help people make presentations that are interesting and not overly heavy on text.  I've always said, cut to the point.  You do not need every little fact of information on your slides.  This bores people and ends up conveying none of the information you wanted to share in the first place.  I think everyone should study how to properly do presentations since so many people do this for work and school.

Finally, we have also been watching digital stories.  I have done this once in the past, but I am curious to learn new ways of making digital stories as well as ways to add different music.  If done right, these stories can tell so much, even if they are only a few minutes long.  I am looking forward to making these in an easy way, and possibly making one for each trip I take with my family.