Course+Reflections

** __Three Videos:__ **  You may find my digital photo story information on the following page link Digital Photo Story and the direct video link is []

You may find my Week 2 group news video discussion information at the following page link News Video Editing and Discussion, the video information on the News Video link, and the video at the direct link []

You may find our final group PSA information at the following link Group PSA Post Production and the video at the direct link []



__Week 5: Course Reflections__

**In this course I envisioned learning to make videos that I would be able to implement in the classroom. The course allowed me to learn much more. I learned to make digital photo stories using Photo Story 3 throug Microsoft. With this one can tell a story using text, music, and narration. Digital photo story telling is a great way to allow others to see something of importance to you using photos. I then learned how to make a video using Windows Movie Maker 2.6. This enabled me to learn how to create a video, post it to a free video sharing site such as teachertube which allows others such as my students to learn through visualization and audio by viewing the site's video. Given this, one could also create other videos such as a how to or an experience. This process allows one to use photos, video, music, and narration. The course also allowed me to collaborate with a group of students in making a PSA video. This was a great experience considering it was all through distance learning. My group was able to collaborate well through our Group Project Page. Overall, the course gave me more knowledge as to multimedia video creation for various sorts of use.**


 * Learning to use multimedia videoing resources will help me to reach my students and hopefully teachers in my school. I will be able communicate electronically through wikis, blogs and internet video posting sites such as youtube or teachertube. Almost all students have internet access at home allowing them to catch up on material missed. In my school I will be able to give students instruction, catch them up on missed material, or even offer extra tutorials through videos. I will also be able to show examples through my work of providing correct copyright. For example at the end of our group project we provided all copyright. We listed all people used in the videos and the following links for our storyboard:** **The image of "Peace" for the storyboard was taken from this website:** [] **The image of bullying for the storyboard was taken from this website:** []. **I can also give instructions to teachers through videos poseted to teachertube.com for reference. Teachertube.com is great because it is not a blocked site at my school. Teaching in a school and knowing how to implement technology is huge for today’s generation of students. Multimedia videoing is relevant in that teachers and students can know where we are, what we are doing, and provide extra information for reference.**


 * Although I have learned to make quick videos and photo stories, I find it difficult to add narration and music at the same time using Window Movie Maker 2.6. I asked the professor during a web conference for assistance but I was still unable to find a result to my problem. During my group project I also struggled with using Audacity. I had difficulty cutting the man's voice narration I created for the video. Another student helped me complete the narration. I still contine to struggle with it music and narration editing. My group worked well together through our page and Google chats. We probably could have had more Google chats and made each of them shorter. It seemed that sometimes we took to long to agree. When we voted on our wiki site it seemed to go much smoother than google chat. That way one is either for it or not. Considering we were pressed for time, I was teaching summer school, going in and out of town, and taking care of my family I was still able to learn more than I ever knew before. I would say that time crunch and summer vacation prevented me from completing the task of learning sound and narration override the most. Since I was out of town my resources were limited. Overall, I found that Photo Story 3 was much easier to work with than Windows Movie Maker 2.6 and Audacity. Other than that, I found no problems with editing videos and adding text.**


 * I was not successful in completing my week two assignment because as mentioned before I struggled with adding narration and music. I did complete the assignment but it was not to par. I did discuss my project with other distance education students Week 2 Group Discussion, but I found that my digital photo story was still much easier to complete than any other assignment. The Photo Story 3 software was easy to work with. Digital photo story telling is quick and easy if you have all of the photos that you want to upload. Window Movie Maker 2.6 was much more difficult for me to work with. I did feel discouraged when trying to implement music and narration at the same time. Since I struggled with the two I did feel a bit discouraged but not fully discouraged. The group work in week four and five was great. We each got to fulfill different areas of video editing as seen on our site Group Project Page allowing us to create a video through distance communication and participation during a holiday weekend. This was encouraging and quite a different experience. We allowed anyone to complete any part of the project that they desired as we all voted at the end for which we felt were best for the video. If we could do the project again, I think we should consider a different topic that has more outreach. The topic and video did not seem to be too relavent to what we are working with in today's society.**


 * In this course I was able to learn that I am not as tech savvy as I thought and I sometimes required my professor, academic coach, and husband’s help. I now know that I can upload mp4 to YouTube much quicker than wav. I struggled much with uploading videos because I felt it took too long and I did something wrong. With mp4 I was able to download quickly and it worked well. Google was a major part in my research. It often helped. Knowing this I can now upload videos quickly for other students and teachers in my school where I work. Overall, I have found that my attitude towards technology has grown much more since deciding to work on my masters. I felt that if the students do not want to learn with old methods then I have to learn the new ones so that they can be reached and learn. I enjoyed working with group memebers as I am in hope for finding a group of co-workers to collaborate with me in some type of multimedia outreach.**

