During the digital storytelling app rotations I was teaching about the Animator flipbook app and Toontastic. I created resources and information about these apps that can be found here. I was really excited about Animator because of how easy it is to save your final products to your camera roll. Then you can easily import them to iMovie on the iPad or send them to your computer. It is a fast and easy way to have a completed digital storytelling project. I didn't have much time to attend other session because following my teaching I assisted another student in the class in using some of the apps she had learned about from other instructors. However, I do feel comfortable using most of these digital storytelling apps.
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Photo editing apps are important for ease in creating digital stories. I think it important to understand how to organize photos using iPhoto. iPhoto is something I am very familiar with on the iPad and OSX. I also use a variety of photo editing apps. However, I do feel there are so many photo editing apps that I could always use practice and try new ones. Some of the photo editing apps I am most familiar with and frequently use are Instagram, Pic Stitch, Photo Collage, Frame Magic, Color Effects, etc. Garageband and Royalty Free music are great ways to add music, sound effects, and audio to digital stories. My personal favorite choices are to use the music available through iLife, Soundzabound, and to create personal tracks on Garageband. I really love the way the iPhoto, iTunes, and Garageband so easily work together. As I worked on my storyboard and script I appreciated the various forms of drafting to help help me think through all the parts of my story before I began recording. For the photo portion of my project I organized the photos into an event first in iPhoto. I used the Audio Voice HD to record my audio and then imported it into iTunes. Everything was compiled using iPhoto and it all came together smoothly without importing and exporting issues. I think my Personal Story project is coming together well am excited for my final project.
Notes via Evernote found here. Today in class we continued working on our Stop Motion Animation Films. This morning to help us prepare we got to attend a session for Stop Motion Apps and using iMovie. I went to iMovie Advance Tips with Dustin Worm. He taught us how to do side-by-side pictures, picture-in-picture, and Green Screen.
One thing I really appreciated about this portion of the day was that there were beginner, advanced, iPad, and apps options. The differentiation was nice and I learned new features and tools to use in iMovie. Following the breakouts we worked on our videos and you can find our exemplary stop motion film here. When we watched the other films I was fairly impressed with many of them. It would be really nice if we had access to a document where the other groups films are posted to YouTube. Discussion Questions: 1. What are the two specific elements essential for good storytelling that the author focused on in The Art of Digital Storytelling? What is good storytelling? The two elements are living in the story and unfolding lessons learned. Good storytelling is taking readers on a journey that describes or creates an event. 2. After reading Digital Storytelling Across the Curriculum, please list and explain three ideas of how you could use digital storytelling in your grade specific curriculum areas with your students. I could use digital storytelling in so many ways with my teachers. A few ideas I liked were - Describing a historic event and how it effects us today. - Creating Public Service Announcements - Creating Myths and Legends - Be a historical character and tell a story from their point of view - Advertise or sell a product Class Notes written with Evernote found here. 6 Elements of Digital Storytelling:
7 Steps of Digital Storytelling:
Start the Script. Plan Images. 3-5 seconds Add Voiceover. 6-10 seconds Add Video Clips 5-10 Seconds Add Titles. Add Transitions. Plan Music and Sound Effects. Add Notes ANYTIME. Comic Life: Comic Life is a great app to use for digital storytelling purposes. Many of the teachers I work with like to use it for a variety of reasons. Those reasons include: Timelines Historical Figures Graphical Instructions Storyboard/line Plot to Character Analysis Dialoge punctuation Pre or Post Writing Tool Class Notes written via Evernote found here. Today was a field trip, yippee! We did a water quality data collecting activity beginning a Alta Ski Resort. We traveled down the canyon taking samples of the water temperature, air temperature, turbidity, dissolved oxygen, nitrate, pH, and insect life. We stopped at Whitepine Trailhead, Willow Creek neighborhood, Murray Park, and the abandoned Fun Dome. Along the way we marked the waypoints and took photography in each location
I have a hard time seeing the classroom application of this activity because I honestly feel like it would be so difficult to do this with any elementary age students. Older students might be possible. I understand the concept and that this application was to help me feel comfortable with the GPS and community mapping data and information. Today we participated in an activity in which we went and collected data on trees at Alta High School. We recorded the trees location by marking the waypoint, heights, width of the trunk, description, type, etc. When we finished collected the data we exported it into the Basecamp App and then used the ArcGIS Community Mapping Workshop. We did this so that all of our waypoints, data, pictures, etc. are saved on one map and can be shared and analyzed by others as well. It was good practice putting all the data into the google doc and exporting the files into the ArcGIS map. I think it is an interesting process and something I will hopefully use in the future with the teachers and students I work with.
We also had a guest speaker, Tiffany Kinder come and help us learn about and prepare for our field activity tomorrow. We will be collecting data on the water in Little Cottonwood Canyon which is a part of the Great Salt Lake watershed. She helped us understand what different samples we would be taking and what we will be testing for. It was interesting she was talking about the watersheds and what isn't safe for the water and causes problems. For me it was review, but it would be a great lesson for students and could be reinforced by testing water samples. Tiffany let us know that we can check out the equipment to do these projects on our own. It could be an exciting activity for a class of learners. However, I think would be difficult to plan, implement, and organize with the students. I look forward to getting out and Class notes taken via Evernote can be found here. Class today was full of GIS, GPS and mapping fun! Shenanigans were had and learning was performed. We participated in the exciting world of Geocaching which got me excited about helping teachers use waypoints, tracking, and other aspects of the GPS See class notes for a summary of what took place and important resources!
Class notes taken via Evernote found here.
It's that burnt out time of year. I am, teachers are, and students are. So tonight in class I really focused on tools I'm familiar with but haven't played around with much in a while. Technology is constantly changing and it's always good to refresh your skills and see what is knew.
We learned a lot about Prezi and I decided to work with it. I have used Prezi in the past many times but I am currently working on a Pearson SuccessNet course and I wanted to use Prezi to deliver some of the content material. I have used the Prezi templates already available but no created my own. I decided this time that I wanted to create my own Prezi about Maria Jones. You can find the completed work of are on the projects page for this course. After playing around and practicing during class I decided I did want to use this for some delivery of my course content. Together with Katie Dewey we were able to embed some Prezi materials into our EdCanvas'! EdCanvas has become an extremely valuable tool for me. I am currently using it for all of my canvas courses and transferring all content into and EdCanvas template. I love it because it keeps content organized and if I don't use the quiz features I can embed them into Canvas our learning system without teachers needing a login! I'm very happy with the tool and plan to use it myself and with my students and teachers in the future! Class notes stolen from Maria Jones via Evernote can be found here. |