Assignment 13b

I have found the linked courses to extremely beneficial. I have learned a great deal this semester. This is my second linked course with Dr. White and I am a big fan. I think digital storytelling is an important skill that should be required of all teachers. I found the technology assignments were very beneficial to my learning the skills needed to produce a digital story. I also found the assignments very beneficial to my mastering concepts in the linked course. The research I conducted for my digital story coincided with my work on my presentation in the other course. I would definitely recommend linked courses and these in particular. I found this course to be exactly what I expected and needed. This course covered the appropriate material and help was available when needed. I think the idea of conducting the digital storytelling class online would definitely be doable. I can see the benefit of adding an extra hour to the linked course but I also found the time in class in the computer lab to be valuable. As long as in-person help was available upon request, I think the technology that we used in digital storytelling is easy enough to use that students could master it from an online course especially with Dr. Robin's fantastic step by step instructions on the course website. I think I would vote for that change.

Draft reaction

I found the article to be well thought out and contain some great ideas. As this is the second linked course I have taken, I am a huge fan of them. They are great and not just because you can get 6 hours in one night, but because the technological component has really stretched me and allowed me to explore options that I would never have come up with on my own. I believe digital storytelling should be a required element of teaching in today's schools. Every teacher education student should have to take this class. My wife has started using them after I shared Dr. Robin's fantastic instructional resources for creating digital stories. I believe that you could teach a linked course with any subject and digital storytelling so it is a great IT course that is easily integrated into every other program.

My first photostory with narration and music

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=PfabGFBIf8c

My Engines Project choice

I chose Engines Episode 2429 which is about the search for the real Betty Crocker. I found this very interesting because I used to be a baker and I am now a specialty grocery manager selling some of the projects listed.

image editing

I used Picasa for these photos. For the one on the left I used the one-touch contrast/lighting tool. For the one on the right I used the fill light tool.

online image editor

I checked out Webresizer at www.webresizer.com

The program is designed to aid in resizing images and manipulating the quality of the resized image. I found it be easy to use and will probably use it again in the future if I find the need to resize some images. I resized several photos of my brother and his wife at an Astros game and was able to change the picture quality, contrast, exposure, and color saturation. There is a neat quality comparison that allows you to really see the differences in picture quality. I thought this was easy and did exactly what I expected it to do with no trouble.