The above images come from the Book of Kells. There is contrast in the use of pictures and text. Each sentence starts with what appears to be a picture in place of a letter. These signify the start of a new line. There is repetition in the choice of font. The writing all looks pretty similar. The text is aligned to the left. The text from Plate XV has a different alignment for the genealogy portion of the document. Finally, proximity is used to separate different parts of the page. On Plate XV, there are gaps between some of the images and text.
It was an enjoyable experience working with my group on this project. I personally think the final product is good enough to be an actual public service announcement that may appear on TV. Perhaps we could send it to Oprah :).
All of our communication occurred through email. We began by tossing around ideas for our PSA. We settled on texting while driving as a topic due to it being a timely issue and because there are lots of recent studies about it. From there things just fell together. Each of us had some ideas about what the PSA should look like, but Adam came up with the final concept. He did a great job putting his vision together with the footage recorded by Jackie. I had the task of recording the narration for the final shots.
The pre-production and production processes were key in creating a quality final product. Aside from a few minor changes, our PSA stayed true to the script and shot list. Jackie did a fantastic job of updating the pre-production document.
We decided to publish our PSA on YouTube, and we added a Creative Commons license. Aside from information sources that were clearly cited, no copyrighted materials were used in the production of this PSA.
I am sure there are some things we could tweak on our PSA, but I am very pleased with it. I feel like the sound quality of my narration could have been better had I had access to better recording equipment.
I think my team worked really well together. We all have families and jobs, but we did our best to stay in contact with one another during this project. I think we are typically the kind of people who like to take charge, so it was kind of weird letting others take the lead on certain aspects of the assignment. I would be happy to work with this team again in the future.
Things have come together nicely this week. Adam did a great job directing and editing the video, Jackie put together our documents and shot some great footage, and I recorded the narration. I have enjoyed working with my team. Evidence of our collaboration can be found here.
I have attended a few web conferences for previous classes, but I yet to participate in one for EDLD 5363. I tried the first week, but I could not get in for whatever reason. I have found that they are usually not very helpful. The first 10 minutes or so people usually have to be told to turn off their mics to stop the echo, and then the audio goes out for minutes at a time. I have been frustrated by the lack of organization during the web conferences as well. I find that I am usually better off trying to figure out the week's assignment myself or with the help of my fellow students in the Cohort 9 Facebook group.
The two editing programs that I chose to compare for this week's assignment are Windows Movie Maker and Avidemux. Overall, I think both of them are useful programs that each have its own purpose.
I like Windows Movie Maker's ease of use. It has a lot of built in features that make video production seem really easy...especially for people like me who don't have a lot of experience with video editing. The look of the program should also be pretty familiar to anyone who uses Windows as his or her operating system. I became somewhat familiar with this program over the summer while creating a slideshow for my brother's funeral. I had never tried to create a video before, and I was surprised that I already had a program on my computer that would allow me to put photos, videos, and music together to create a fairly professional looking product. The "Movie Tasks" bar on the left hand side has virtually every option that one may need to create a video. There is even a feature called "Make an automovie" that takes all of your photos and videos and automatically turns them into a finished product.
Avidemux is a program that I had come across before when trying to change video formats. As it turns out, it is also a pretty useful video editing program. One thing that Avidemux makes really simple is the splicing or appending of videos. If you have two or more videos of the same format that you would like to put together to create one video, Avidemux is your program. This program is also useful for taking small clips out of a video. This could be useful when observing copyright laws. Finally, this program makes converting formats very simple.
In conclusion, I think Movie Maker is probably a more useful program, but Avidemux could come in handy at certain times.
This week we were given the task of creating a digital story using Microsoft's Photo Story 3. I had made a picture slideshow this summer for my brother's funeral, but I had never actually told a story in a digital format. I have to say that I really enjoyed completing this assignment. Actually, it did not even feel like I was doing work for school. It got me thinking that I could have my students make their own digital stories, and maybe they would feel the same way. Many of the kids that I teach are disillusioned with the education system. They are tired of doing things the old way, but they would probably enjoy doing assignments like this one. I can see how virtually any subject could use digital storytelling. It is definitely something I plan to share with the other teachers at my school.
