Thoughts on Link Courses

Here are my thoughts on the following questions:

1.
Have the linked courses been beneficial to you and if so how? If not, why not?
Attending the linked courses for Digital Storytelling and Popular Culture could not have been a better ending to my graduate studies. The ability to tackle a topic such as Popular Culture in Education, for which I had very little background, and construct products that were useful to facilitation in the classroom or online was amazing. The modeling that took place in class allowed me to construct a learning strategy that met my needs as instructor with a greater sense of ease. Furthermore, the synergy between the topic and developing the tool, a digital story, provided structure to both courses. My story was created through my engagement with new technology. The final draft of my narrative drove the types of technologies I selected. At the end of the linked courses, all objectives were met and I am able to walk away with a deeper understanding of both topics, much deeper than if I had taken them separately.

2.
Have the digital photo/storytelling assignments been worthwhile in helping you learn the technology skills presented?
The digital storytelling assignments have been very useful in helping me better use the technologies. Since create a movie or script was new to me, the out-of-class assignments were important to tackling the concepts, technologies and processes. At first the blogging was a little overwhelming. I had blogging for three classes and my internship. However, the blogging ended up being a great way to structure my thoughts on the experiences, tools and products.

3.
Have the digital photo/storytelling assignments been worthwhile in helping you learn the popular culture content?
My honest answer is that blogging for the popular culture assignments was my biggest challenge in the course. Coming from an adult learning, technologist, instructional designer, consulting background, my comfort level was again and again tested with placing myself in the shoes of a K-12 teacher. However, as the semester progressed so did my comfort level with the subject matter and how to extend learning for students.

4.
Do you think that the linked course pairing helped you connect technical skills to content area knowledge? If so, how and if not, what do you think did not work?
See Question #1. I think the pairing was wonderful. As IT professionals, it is important to develop new ways of using technology to creatively facilitate learning. The educational subject matter has an influence on what decisions we make in development. Having CUIN students work through this process is essential to gaining a better understanding and assimilation.

5.
Would you be interested in taking other linked courses if they were offered and would you recommend this pair of linked courses to other students?
Yes and yes. I am very interested in taking these types of courses as a doctoral student.

6.
Is there anything else you can suggest that you feel would improve the digital photography/storytelling half of the linked course pair?
My suggestions for the digital storytelling part of the course are;

1. I would have liked to have seen more practice around the storytelling part of the process. When I was developing my script I got hung up on developing a popular culture learning product. Therefore I went straight for facts and dates. However, upon working with the mid-term assignment, I realized that the script could contain those things, but needed to be framed. This could be due to the fact that my technology comfort level was much, much higher than my script writing. My thought would be to provide a script in the first class which would allow students more time to understand how the images fit into the story, i.e. Here is an article on the 80's. Collect images that help tell the story. Then work with Picasa3 to collage the images in class. Then having students construct smaller scripts while practicing collecting photos, add audio, etc. - Like we did for the first attempt of a digital story...but require a script. Followed by the mid-term, where you add audio and photos to practice those technical skills.

2. At first, I didn't agree with assigning popular culture topics to students and having them create a digital story about the topic. Dr. Robin had pointed out that the story should come from a point of passion. My topic, Journalism in Popular Culture, was sad to say very alien to me as subject matter for teaching much less for creating a knowledgeable story. In the end though, I think it was a great idea. It forced me to overcome my fear of constructing materials around an unknown topic. As educators that concept is very important.

7.
One option under consideration is to have a linked pair of courses where the content area course would be offered as a traditional 3 hour per week face-to-face course and the digital photo/storytelling course would be offered online, or mostly online. Please discuss your reaction to this idea and provide any questions or comments you have on this topic.
See my previous post on this topic. I think the hybrid option would be very appropriate. A complete online digital storytelling course doesn't seem as attractive to me. First, because I think the face-to-face interaction with Dr. Robin, Anne and Hal was so important. The ability to discuss problems and ideas in person was much needed. Second, the flow from popular culture into digital storytelling on some nights allowed me to take information from one directly into another for practice. Finally, I thought the interactions between students, Cam and Dr. Robin was something that all students should be able to experience...and no I'm not just sucking up. ;-)

8.
Do you have any other comments that you would like to add?
Just thank you to Dr. Robin and Cam for allowing me to be a part of such an amazing experience. I have learned so much this semester about my role as a technologist and an educator. And thank you to Anne and Hal for such great support. The Story Circle activity was so practical and useful. As well, the software suggestions were very cool indeed.

A Review of The Expansion of Digital Storytelling into Content Area Instruction

This morning I got up bright and early to review The Expansion of Digital Storytelling into Content Area Instruction. On a personal note it was interesting to review the methodology and strategy from which our own experience sprung. I was also sad to see that my smiley face family digital story didn't make the paper, but I have begun the healing process already. In any case, the proposal is very interesting and contains many great ideas.

As an instructional designer, educator, consultant - whatever it is this week - let me start with the technical review of the content:

1. In the section Evolution of Popular Culture & Digital Storytelling, last sentence - "Thus, his...” should be "Thus, this..."
2. In the section Using Picasa3 to Organize and Edit Digital Images, first sentence - "Since so many useful resources ARE EXIST..." I believe it is "useful resources exist..."
3. The link is broken for Children's Literature Student Collages
4. In the section Online Photo Editors, I don't know if it was done for effect or not but there are four uses of "many", three of which refer to "many students"
5. In the section Still Images to Full-Motion Video, fourth sentence - "Consequently, we now INCLUDES..." should be "Consequently, we now include..."

Turning to my thoughts on the content alone. My two suggestions would be:

1. I found the collaborative discussions throughout the semester of great importance as a technologist. Having used Mac to create my digital story, discoveries such as Celtx, as well as the shortcuts provided in class helped considerably in my development of not only the product but as a storyteller. Delving into questions that came up regarding alternative software, hardware or procedures provided additional insight into not only other options but also new technologies. Since the decline in students in the program might be attributed to accessibility to technology and the subsequent familiarity, this fact might be important to discuss.
2. Dr. Robin mentioned the possibility of making the linked courses a hybrid model. In my opinion, this is a wonderful idea. One of the key things I have experience from previous IT courses is that whether the content is presented in a hybrid approach or completely online, the online component models how the student's own products will be viewed from that perspective. With this approach the student can work at their own pace to understand the technology or concepts. This would alleviate the differences I saw this semester in skill level between students. I know for myself, my technology skills were there but my background in social studies education, storytelling, and script writing lagged. While other students excelled at my weaknesses, they found the technologies more difficult to navigate. Nonetheless, the face-to-face support in Dr. Robin's class ("And did I mention it is free.."), as well as the facilitation activity in Cam's class were critical components to my own synthesis of material within the linked courses model.

Hopefully these comments are useful.

Burning a DVD

I used iDVD on my Macbook Air with an attachable DVD burner (Mac) to complete this assignment. iDVD allows you to burn the movies to a dvd, create a menu using various themes and even add music to the Menu page. You can also add chapter pages as well.

The program is good but a little buggy. I tried to add a PowerPoint to the disk and it froze instead of telling me that I couldn't do it. Additionally, I had trouble understanding the button creation. I'm going to explore this further.

Steps I took:

1. Opened iDVD.
2. Saved project as Guthrie Digital Story - 2008
3. I chose a theme - Stretch Man.
4. I selected project tree.
5. I dragged each movie into the tree. (imports movies into project)
6. Select Return
7. I selected drop zones. (imports stills into interactive menu)
8. I selected buttons to show on the menu.
9. I selected Media.
10. I dragged music from iTunes into my menu.
11. I clicked on Burn to Dvd.

All-in-all it's a pretty easier software just a little buggy.

Software Used for My Digital Story

Creating my digital story on Bias or Propaganda in Journalism required several software/web programs:

1. iMovie - digital story creation
2. Audacity - audio editing/manipulation
3. GraphicConverter - converting .gif to .jpg
4. Preview - cropping photos
5. MediaConverter - YouTube to .mov file
6. iTunes - music screening
7. Celtx - storyboard
8. MSWord - script

My digital story can be seen at http://www.steveguthrie.net/6137/dg2.html

My Engines Of Our Ingenuity Episode - 1448 Guillotine

This is the final draft of my Engines of Our Ingenuity Episode 1448 - Guillotine.

It was fun to do, but a lot of work...and that was with the script already recorded.

Enjoy....

Using Audacity to create and edit audio files

This is an mp3 file that I created using Audacity (audio editor), Jamendo (royalty free music - Life's Path by Mindthings), and BooMP3 (free audio hosting). I'm "OK" with the final product. My frustration is mostly focused on the microphone at this point. I'm sure with more practice though that it will get better.

Couple of notes:

1. The beginning has a fade in, and the ending has a fade out.
2. Though it may sound like I've smoked a pack of cigarettes (I don't smoke), it's only the sound of me fighting allergies.

Here is the linked file on BooMP3 - Boomp3.com

Writing Circle Activity

Last Wednesday I and two other people from my group (Coretta and Hannah) participated in a writing circle activity as part of Dr. Robin's Digital Storytelling class. The exercise was insightful, fun and useful.

The group was given 15 minutes to write a story about a moment in time when they were forced (had) to make a decision that would change their life. I spoke of the time I chose to move to Austin for a job that would change the course of my career. Hannah chose to write about her decision to go to U of H and how it has changed her life and career. And Coretta wrote of her journey to self fulfillment and a career doing something she loves. By the end of the exercise, having discussed each participant's story with the assigned group, we had found common themes, discuss a little of how to make the story better (though probably not as much as we should have) and in my opinion gotten to know each other a little bit better and enjoyed ourselves in the process.

The exercise itself showed us how easy it was to pour out at least a rough draft of a story. We all agreed that it was easier to write about something we knew, as well as something near to our hearts and experience. Dr. Robin checked in on us and we discussed the difference between the exercise topic and working on our final project. I came away with a better understanding of what lies ahead in creating the text for my final project and hopefully understanding the creative process a little better.

Finally, the writing circle was without a doubt something that anyone working on a story could use. In practice, as an educator, I could see using this at the beginning of the digital storytelling course as an icebreaker amongst students. The student is not expected to spill their heart out about a sensitive topic, but to speak about something that brings pride to them. Another possibility would be to use the writing circle at the beginning of every class to - maybe a five minute exercise - to allow the students a creative moment to either build on lessons learned from the last class or areas of their final story where they would like feedback. Actually there are so many options for when and how to use this type of exercise.