Assignment 11D

The linked courses have been very beneficial to me for several reasons. Most importantly, for me as a learner, having to look closely at one topic (in my case - series books) and pare it down to the bare essentials forced me to become very familiar with the topic and share what I felt what was most important for my audience, or potential audience, to know. There is a lot of information out there, but to create a digital story that is 25 or 30 minutes long would be just too much! The linked course allowed me the opportunity to play with a topic and learn some new technology tools at the same time that I can share with other teachers and with students with whom I work.

The assignments that we've completed every week have helped me manage the overwhelming amount of technology learning that has gone on. Some of the tools I was already familiar with, but some were new. Practicing the audio mixing on Goldwave was fun and new. I have created a photostory before, but I did not add narration before, so that was a good learning experience for me. I've also enjoyed the blogging opportunity, but I do wish that there had been some requirement or expectation built in for us to comment either on each other's course blog postings or on each other's personal blog postings. The blog assignments, because of the lack of interaction between all of us as students and from Dr. Robin seemed a little superficial at times.

The digital photostory assignments did not necessarily help me learn the children's literature content better, but it did give me a way to look at one specific children's literature topic more closely.

I would be interested in taking other linked courses pairing content with technology, but since I am nearing the end of my degree plan, I probably won't be taking them. Maybe as post-graduate work, but I would and will definitely recommend them to others!

I do think that offering the content component as a 3-hour class and then doing the technology component as an online offering would be a great idea. That way more time can be devoted to content. Plus, having the technology component online would almost force the use of more online communication which is how our students communicate all the time. It would push us as educators to use the online tools for communication that we tend to shy away from.

Assignment 11C

Last week our hands-on assignment was to create a CD or DVD of our final semester project. This process was not difficult for me as I have created both music CDs and data CDs in the past. I used the option on Windows to burn files to the CD (I think it is called the CD burning wizard). I did not use one of the optional softwares that we discussed. I did like the option of burning a DVD and want to try that in the future. I think it would be neat to do like Tricia is planning to do and create a DVD with different options just like a regular DVD. My digital story, however, was not really conducive to that kind of set up.

The information we reviewed in class about CDs and the different files you can burn on them, and more importantly, how much they hold if the files are in the optimum format, was very interesting!

Margaret

Reaction to Copyright Readings

Reading through this week's material, I learned that the whole idea of it's okay to use copyrighted material as long as it is no longer than 10% is a myth. That was always something I had heard, but reading further, it sounds like there is a lot more to it than that. It also sounds like if you are truly using the copyrighted material for educational uses, it is not likely that you will be sued.Something else I thought was very interesting was the idea of using copyrighted material to create collages or mix-ups. The writer of one document used the word "transformative" to explain what was considered fair use with these kinds of creations. That makes sense to me, and it seems to fit with many of the things we want our students to do in terms of higher thinking skills. We want them to synthesize, so in this kind of instance it is a good fit.

Margaret

Software Used in Final Project - Assignment 10B

For my final project, I have used the following: Microsoft Word for writing my script and for creating a storyboard (using a table), Goldwave for editing some audioclips and for recording narration, PhotoStory for the digital story, Photoshop Elements for editing some of the images, Picasa for editing some images and for creating some collages. I think that is everything I've used thus far. Word and PhotoStory were not new to me, nor was Photoshop Elements. However, I have never used Picasa or Goldwave. I like the ability to create collages on Picasa. It has helped me both with my final project and with my Engines of Our Ingenuity project. In some cases with both of these, I had several images to share, but I needed to shorten the time length on the digital story, so by collaging several images togther, I was able to share all of them in a shorter amount of time. This is a tool I plan to use quite a bit, even after this class! I've also enjoyed using Goldwave. I'm not sure yet how I can use this software after this class, but I'm working on finding some uses for it!

Margaret

Margaret's Blog Assignment 9A

Margaret-narration-test

Script Draft One

Here is my initial script for my semester project. This is really only the introductory piece. My plan is to go into the history of series books starting with the Rollo books probably and working my way up, touching on each series briefly. I would like to spend a little bit of time discussing the Stratemeyer Syndicate and how Stratemeyer used the formula outline with ghost writers. I look forward to receiving your feedback!

Margaret

A Look at Series Books

Donna Parker was my childhood hero. Other kids my age had different heroes, heroes like the Hardy Boys. Girls were hooked on Nancy Drew. But I was never really the Nancy Drew type. Donna Parker was my favorite. There were fewer Donna Parker books than Nancy Drews, but that was okay with me. I stuck with her anyway – and read every last one of them. When I finished reading the Donna Parker books, I moved on to the Cherry Ames series, starting with Cherry Ames, Student Nurse. Those didn’t quench my thirst for series books, so I chose another series with the help of my grandmother. Mommy Kate led me to a series written much earlier by a woman named Mazo de la Roche. The series was known as the Jalna series and contained 16 books starting with Building of Jalna. I had easy access to these books each summer when I got to spend a week with Mommy Kate at her home in Clarksville. Since she worked at the Red River County Library there in Clarksville, I spent much time among the books there working my way through de la Roche’s series.

As an adult, I re-lived my love of series books, moving again through the stage of unconscious delight, first with Sue Grafton’s alphabet mysteries and then with Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta series. The Kathy Reichs series drew me in next. Once I finish this degree, I can get back to reading those series books!

I see my students reading series books, too. Some of them like the Bluford High books while others prefer to read Lemony Snickets A Series of Unfortunate Events. Sometimes I have to fight the urge to push them to read something else. But then I stop and think again about the stage of unconscious delight. It’s not so much what they are reading sometimes as it is THAT they are reading. Then I decide that it’s fine with me as long as they’re reading.

Engines of Our Ingenuity Episode

I searched through the archives on the Engines website, and I actually found one that is related to series books. Since series books is the topic I am exploring for my culminating project, I would like to use this episode (episode number 491) for my midterm project. It is based on the Tom Swift stories that were published by the Stratemeyer syndicate, the syndicate that is also responsible for the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, the Rover Boys, and many others. :) I was pleased to find this episode that is related to my topic.

Margaret

Series Books with Music and Narration

This is my video with a little bit of music and narration. I want to learn how to choose the place in the music where I want it to start so that it doesn't always have to start at the beginning of the song. Other than that, it was not too difficult to use.

Margaret

Assignment 4 - Series Books

Here is the video I created this week using PhotoStory. It is about series books and starts with my favorites from my teenage years.

Assignment 3 - Editing Images

This is a picture I took a few days after Hurricane Ike. The picture was taken in a strip-center parking lot where people had lined up at an ice-vending machine.
I then edited the photo by cropping it and adjusting the brightness and contrast in Photoshop Elements. When I cropped it, I tried to make the focus (the ice machine) be in the left third of the image, then the second focus, (the line of people) begins in the center third and stretches through the final third of the image. I actually think I prefer the brightness and contrast better in the original image. It seems sharper.
This photo was taken before the hurricane as I drove around my neighborhood. It was late afternoon when I took the picture.
For this edited version, I used the crop tool in Photoshop Elements to remove portions of the image that I didn't want in the image, mainly the truck and the carport.

Margaret

Updated Cinderella Collage

Here is my second version of the Cinderella collage. I've added text to this one so that the pictures are more easily identifiable.

Margaret

A few nights after Hurricane Ike, we noticed that the kids in our neighborhood were getting pretty bored. We partnered with our next-door neighbor to use her generator to show a movie after dark outside in the driveway for everyone. We popped popcorn, the neighbor made hot dogs, and the kids got to watch Toy Story and Ratatouille outside - just like an old-fashioned drive-inn movie!

The picture on the top left is of the CVS Pharmacy near my home. This was taken Thursday, September 11, 2008. The CVS was already closed in preparation for the storm, even though, ironically, their sign says open 24 hours. I tried to use the rule of thirds for this picture. For my purposes, the CVS sign saying open 24 hours and the plywood were the focus, so I tried to put them on the right hand side. The picture on the top right is the cedar tree in my front yard that split during the storm. For this picture, I tried to get up close to where the damage happened and fill the frame. It was taken in the late evening. Bottom left is the portion of the cedar tree that split and, conveniently, landed right on the curb in the perfect spot for the debris clean-up. For this picture, I tried to fill the frame, and I also tried to remember the rule of thirds. :)

Photo Blog

The photo below is my collage of Cinderella images I collected. Several of them are actual Cinderella tales, and two of them are maps. The black and white map is a map of the location of the North American Micmac tribe which has their own version of a Cinderella talke that is called "Little Burnt Face." The blue and yellow map at the bottom right is a map of Norway. Norway has a Cinderella tale entitled "Katie Woodencloak." The map at the top center is a map of Scotland whose Cinderella tale is entitled "Rashen Coatie."

Margaret