Weekly Reflection

So this week i worked on my digital story and pretty much finished it up, all i have left is to put it into iDVD and then burn it. I had some major problems because it didn't save when i went to save it and everything i was working on was put into the trash, but because i had just been working on it i was able to redo it a lot quicker than it took for me to originally create. Eventhough i had a few problems working with iMovie i really like the experience because it was my first time using my computer with the built in mic and it was so easy, that was at least one thing i didn't need to stress over. So now i have my movie done, almost, and looking back it was really fun to put together and i would definitely do it again to create digital stories when i have my own class.

This week we also started working on our google sites again. I didn't do as much as i should have, but what i did do was so easy. I wish that all programs were like these google apps. and saved automatically every 2 minutes or so, that would save me a lot of greif. I also got a little more into google calendars when we had to post all of those events for our site and i don't know why i haven't been using it more. We learned how to make multiple calendars, which i couldn't figure out earlier, so now i'm going to get on and create all of the calendars i need. I really like the idea of email and text remiders for things because i forget a lot of the things that i need to do. So all in all it was a good week and i was reminded of a good tool that i'm going to use more often.

More on the Digital Story

This week we just had time to work on our digital stories. In class i was working in iMovie and everything was going bad. I could get anything to go the way i wanted to. I usually love iMovie because it is so easy to edit the panning, music, titles, and transitions, but obviously i was doing something wrong. I just hate that when you really want to get something done everything seems to stop working or you forget how to do this really important thing. But i guess i won't get discouraged, since the digital story is due next tuesday i'll keep working on it and get it finished.

Storyboarding

In class this week we learned a lot about actually making the digital story and what the content should be. We also talked a lot about storyboarding. Storyboarding has always been really hard for me becuase it is difficult for me to align the words and the pictures so i really liked the idea of filling the front and the back of a 4x6 card and that would make just about enough content for a 3 minute story. Last week after class i was pretty stressed about making the story, but after actually sitting down and doing the storyboard/brainstorm, it wasn't as bad as i thought it would be and i think it is going to be really fun to make the story. I also got on some of the websites we looked at in class and did a lot of exploring and found some really great resources with a lot of digital stories that i might want to use in the classroom. It's great to make our own story because we need to learn how to use the software, but i really like the one's that are already made that i can incorporate into my lessons becuase as a teacher i know that i am going to have so much going on. As a student i have all of these things that i have to do and i can't even imagine all that a teacher would have on their plate. Another great adjustment was that we were able to work with partners. A project like this isn't always easy to do with a partner, but i enjoy working with a partner because there are twice as many ideas and there is always somebody to bounce your ideas off of. So all in all this was a pretty good week and i'm pretty excited to actually start putting the story together.