I get these ideas in my head and I dwell on them so much that I need to make these ideas happen. The problem is that I don't realize how much work it's going to be until I get started!
That's kind of been the case with creating this capstone video. All my life I've been a huge procrastinator. It followed me to college and it's followed me to adulthood. So still I procrastinate. To be honest I work best that way! What I didn't consider though is that there just isn't enough time in a couple days to execute my big ideas. Getting the videos of my students acting out was easy. I used my honors class and they all acted it out perfectly for me! Creating the animation is taking quite a bit more time because even though I'm a procrastinator, I'm also a perfectionist with some of my work. I have the animations planned out in my head, it's just taking some time to get them finished. I guess it's good this class sets us up step by step so I know what I'm getting myself into. My rough draft video is super rough. So rough the compilation of it all hasn't technically happened just yet as I've been spending time trying to get the right parts ready. But, never fear! This is how I work. Everything is planned out and I know exactly what I need to do to get done. Oh, I also scratched my whole Piktochart video because I needed more flexibility with my videos and so now I'm going to be using animoto. Animoto has a 14 day trial so I haven't activated it yet until all my animations are ready to go so that way I can add and edit all within those 14 days. I'm really excited about the end product!
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If I was asked to create a script and was not given any tools to help me create a script that was informative but also entertaining, then I would still be sitting here trying to figure out what to write. I always create scripts for the different videos I'm making so that I'm not just rambling on, but normally I'm creating videos based off of information already presented to me. In this case, I am creating the information and the presentation. We are asked to think about this as if we are telling a story. Well, being the English nerd that I am, putting it into that perspective helped me understand how to start this off. The guide to digital storytelling was incredibly useful because I jotted down the different things I should consider before writing a story and once I identified all those important parts like the audience, purpose, emotion, etc. then it was easy for me to piece them together; I just had to think about it first.
The storyboard was a lot easier to create once I had the script ready because then I could just pick the important parts of what is being said and think about how I can recreate that visually. I didn't draw out the scenes as others did, but I made sure that I could fully visualize the descriptions I was setting up. I know this is only a rough draft but I feel that it's given me a better understanding of how the final product will look. I decided to use Piktochart because it is a tool that I already use quite frequently and love using it to create different info graphics, presentations, posters, etc. Now I was able to use it create a logo! I do wish that once I established something that I liked that I could lock it into the another piece because if I decide I need to make something bigger or move it over a bit, then I have to move everything over. When designing my logo, I really wasn't sure how to start so I just decided to go through all the different graphics that were offered and kept adding them to the page until I had plenty to work with. I then decided that I needed a simple name that gave a clear picture of where my capstone project was heading, after that creating it was pretty simple. I love Piktochart because it's so user friendly and although I do have the pro version, the free version offers a lot of variety.
Growing up with technology and seeing firsthand how delivering and receiving information has evolved, I think has helped me understand the need to deliver content on all platforms to engage my students. Transliteracy is the "ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks." Being that these platforms have always interested me. I try to ensure that I try to use a little bit of every platform as all students have different interests.
In my own classroom, we jump from using songs to help us learn how to paraphrase to using social media to learn how to collaborate. The outcome of using these tools has allowed the students to stay engaged but still access the important content. I see students actually buying into education when we're not just using the boring textbooks. It's crazy to think about how so much has changed in the way we deliver content but Socrates said it best about written word, "an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality." Pluto, The Phaedrus |