5363+Reflection


 * EDLD 5363**

The digital story assignment was an exciting experience. I learned digital storytelling from Joe Lambert, the founder of The Center for Digital Storytelling. He was very strict on keeping the script down to 150 words. That was the hardest part. The video creation process was pretty easy, much easier than I expected. Joe Lambert's audio recording equipment is very good, but I have used simple inexpensive recording equipment that works just as well. I have not created a lot of digital stories, by the strict definition of the style, but I have created several video projects. This is a very powerful medium for students. It takes a lot of thought to put together pictures, video clips, narration, and audio. The challenge is teaching respect for the intellectual property of others. Intellectual property rights are very important and we need to start teaching kids now to break the cycle of misunderstanding that is so prevalent in our world.

This next assignment was an exciting one because we used video rather than just pictures. I learned a lot about videography. Video editing, like everything else I had learned, was pretty much self taught. In this course, I learned about the types of shots and how they are used to make a video. Like the learning in the digital graphics course, I have used a great deal of the learning in my subsequent projects. There are certain design principles that work with the human mind to create maximum impact. One we learned in this course was to start with a wide angle shot and then move in to closer focus. Concepts of design like that are important for our students. Video is a powerful tool and our students will have to be able to use that tool effectively more in the future.

Our video project was a challenge because it was the first time that many of us had collaborated on a project with others over a distance. The group felt that our we collaborated very well in the first week during pre-production. Our schedule, shot sequence, and script development were truly collaborative activities. Actual production and post production were less collaborative with voice over and video shots done by the video editors and the group contribution was primarily approving what was done. Our project was good and we got along pretty well as a group. It was difficult to truly collaborate over a distance. We all settled into positions where we were comfortable. In our wrap up discussion, we felt that the process could have been improved through better sharing of assignments. The video was extremely good. Some audio could have been improved with better audio recording equipment.