CEdO530 - Week 5

Week five (really week six) is catch-up time. I've been out gallivanting down in Houston while I was supposed to be doing my homework so now it's actually after the last class and I'm finishing up all of the outstanding (meaning not done, not necessarily a reflection of the product!!!) assignments.

Finally got to work on the Pecha Kecha project in earnest. I chose to go with the idea of looking at several of the bassist who influence me as a beginning bassist. I storyboarded this and I had the thought that I could simply identify to pictured bassist and the band that they play in whilst a portion (20 seconds) of a bass-heavy song plays. So I went down this road. I gathered pictures from the internet - mainly Google Images - and uploaded them to Voicethread. I then searched through hours of youtube videos to find the samples that I was seeking. This search led me to drop a couple of my original ideas for bassist to feature as I couldn't find any good examples of their styles. I was mainly gathering good renditions of the bass lines done by bassists (not the original artists) that they uploaded to youtube. I figured that this version of the song would lack the original copyrightability as it is the new artist's interpretation. I found an online service that rips the audio from youtube to an MP3 that you can download free of charge (www.youtube-mp3.org). I then had to download a separate program, Audacity, that allowed me to edit the MP3s down to 20 seconds or less and add commentary. In the end, I think it worked out fairly well and I was able to learn about a couple new programs to assist in creating presentations. For its part, Voicethread turned out to be fairly easy to use. It took a little while to understand the functions for adding comments.

This was a pretty cool project but I'm glad that I don't have to present it. I'm fairly sure that, from an actual story telling standpoint, my presentation is not the best... but I am hoping that the background work that went into will make up for that fact.

Great course! 

Week 4 - Finding the Zen in Presenting

Week 4 (both of them) were pretty uneventful for this class - but hectic and personally challenging otherwise. Allergies led to Respiratory Infection, Boss took a week off from work (making me my own boss?!?!) thereby removing the buffer between my little world of work and the Command Staff, the Change of Command at my unit is rapidly approaching and everything is being dropped to ready for the event... but enough of that.

Finally got to jump in to Prezi... what a cool program. The very slidelessness of it all is amazing! I had fun attempting to learn how to use it (I still don't know how to get back to edit from the Show mode - I keep using the "back" button). I now that it has a ton more options and capabilities then I bothered it with for my first attempt... maybe I'll be able to do my next work presentation on it... I'm not going to hold my breath on that!

The slides in the Presentation Zen book (pages 165 on) are spectacular...

I remain slightly behind the eight ball on pictures, but I'm catching up.

CEdO530 Week 3

Week Three has been crazy and hectic. The homework was extensive and thought provoking. The reading assignments were enlightening (the before/after slides in Chapter Six of Presentation Zen were very interesting).

We watched videos on ANIMOTO and also delved into the various functions of this program. So far this seems to be a pretty straightforward and cool program that is rather easy to use and understand.

The reworking of a previously completed and conducted powerpoint presentation was quite a task. I was actually rather happy with my original (though I don't know whether or not my audience would share that sentiment or not!). I recalled the process of making it some year or so ago. I sort of storyboarded it in my mind at least. I knew of the broad subject upon which I wanted to touch. I went on a fairly detailed search for high-quality images that I could use to increase the effectiveness of the presentation. I formulated the slides to introduce the concepts that I would cover but not in an overly wordy manner, for the most part. I'm sure that there are slides that could have been better... and it is there that I am expending most of my efforts for this rewrite.

Thinking about the Pecha Kucha idea was different. I was able to come up with several ideas for me to attempt... I can't promise that any of them will be overly interesting though!

Still having problems with the photography segment of this class. I've taken numerous pictures but now they are all digitized under some unknown file extension that even the WWW is silent on (what the heck is a .GENC file?). I guess that I'll be playing catch-up on this assignment.

CEdO530 - Week Two

Week two of this course was more difficult than the previous week or the previous courses. This could be due, in large part, to the ultra-hectic week that I found myself in with a sick household and last minute preparations for the Armed Forces Week celebrations that I assist in coordinating.

I liked the Civil Rights assignment as it forced me to research, storyboard (not something that I am overly familiar with) and use the voicethread program. My topic interested me very much. I chose to go with the writing on each photo rather than adding my voice. Maybe I'll attempt that one next time!

As one of the few non-teachers, I found the Multi-media assignment to be more difficult than it probably should be for someone who has had a hand in creating or working with lesson plans before. I just did some googling to locate some decent examples of simple physics lessons (mainly in the mechanics arena).

I was able to find and upload a presentation that I gave to a local maritime historical society on the improvements in vessel safety systems since one of the more famous vessel sinking events in Lake Michigan.


Other than that I'm just trying to plug along with the photography portion of this class. I've had to throw away a couple days worth of photos due to the utter uselessness of my work-phone's camera. I've moved on to my personal cell or my wife's camera (when available!).

CEdO530 - Digital Storytelling, Week One

Through this week's first class, the reading assignment, the various example presentations (story tellings) that I reviewed and the group work, I have learned that my current way of conducting presentations is boring and laughably mundane in its use of available technology.You see, I have been brought up in the Military system where "death by powerpoint" is not so much an unfortunate every once in a while occurrence but is actually the standard method for building presentations.I blame this entire stigma on the fact that our presentations need to not only be presentable but, normally, able to stand on their own as Email attachments or as printed slides (with or without the accompanying notes that really just regurgitate what is already on each slide... verbatim!).

I watched some of the example presentations and marveled at the ability to present a topic without having every single last one of you words already written on the screen behind you for your audience to read along with you (until the coma sets in, of course!).

So, beyond learning that I have a long way to go before I am a good presenter of anything that resembles a well put together presentation, I also learned about the abundance of online multimedia that is available to help spruce up a presentation free of copyright issues. Creative Commons is quite amazing. I found myself browsing through several of the music sites for a couple of hours. It is great to see how much stuff is out there for use (for various costs - from nothing to CBS, NBC type figures!).

To sum up... I've learned that I've got quite a bit to learn about digital storytelling... which, until now, consisted of only powerpoint presentations.... soooo much to learn!!!