`Elan

Course Comments

2008-12-08T12:13:00.000-08:00

The linked courses have been very helpful in supplying additional content information. Some of the links provided procedural guidance.
The technology assignments were very helpful in providing the opportunity to work with the skills in graduated steps.
The tie-in with children's literature has been evident in the motivation the digital story supplied for researching potential topics. I learned a great deal of information that I would not have known otherwise.
I found the process of preparing a script for a digital story to be intriguing with regard to the challenge of being creative with a tightly edited script. It became important to utilize the capacity of the photos themselves to supply both descriptive and content elements.
I would be interested in taking another linked course, and I would definitely recommend this particular linked course to others.
I think that having examples from our class to show the future course participants will be helpful to them.
I believe that offering the technology component online could be successful, but I think periodic opportunities to meet on campus to share concerns and successes would be very helpful for those who are not as "computer savy."

Burning a cd

2008-12-08T12:06:00.000-08:00

I tried unsuccessfully to burn a data disc. I thought at first that it had something to do with my personal computer so I saved the story files to my flash drive and tried again in the cite lab. I continued to have problems so I switched to the other disc and experienced success. Evidently, I'm still a work in progress! I used Windows XP.

Software

2008-11-29T09:53:00.000-08:00

I've used the following software programs in the development of my digital story project:
Music downloads: Windows Media Player
Photo Editor: Picasa 3
Storyboard: CELTX
Video Story: Photo Story 3 for Windows
I'm considering using Audacity for mixing the music and voice recordings for the final soundtrack. I'm still in the experimental stages with this portion of the project.

Audio Project

2008-11-17T19:58:00.000-08:00

http://www.soundupload.com/audio/ape974w6be9vlzer

http://www.zshare.net/audio/514984758295c79a/

I like the sound better on zshare.

Storyboard

2008-11-03T08:04:00.000-08:00

http://pc.celtx.com/project/Ks25LvKJMM4v

Story Script

2008-10-24T13:34:00.000-07:00

Winnie-the-Pooh:
The Story Behind the Story

Slide #1
Because of my father’s career, my family moved frequently during my childhood. I came to rely upon the companionship of steadfast friends that I could easily pack into boxes and take with me.

Slide #3
I cannot imagine how terribly dull and lonely my childhood would have been without books. They were as important to me as the air I breathed.

Slide #4
Among my favorites were tales about the misadventures of a silly, lovable bear named Winnie-the-Pooh and his human friend, Christopher Robin.

Slide #5
Winnie-the-Pooh was the creation of British author and playwright, Alan Alexander Milne.

Slide #6
Milne began his writing career shortly after his graduation from Trinity College in Cambridge where he majored in mathematics. Following the publication of his first novel, Milne joined the staff of Punch magazine as assistant editor.

Slide #7
It was during this time that Milne became friends with artist Ernest H. Shepard who would later illustrate many of Milne’s children’s books.

Slide #8
Following World War I, Milne sought refuge from the horrors he witnessed as an officer in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment in the nostalgic memories of his childhood.

Slide #9
“A ‘children’s book’ must be written,” Milne explained, “not for children but for the author himself.”

Slide #10
Milne originally wrote Once Upon a Time, a fairy tale, for his wife Dorothy and himself, but the tale was eventually published for children.

Slide #11
In 1920, Milne’s only child was born. The couple named their son Christopher Robin in hopes that a unique name would distinguish him from other members of the Milne family.

Slide #12
Milne eventually purchased a country home, Crotchford Farm located in Sussex, where the family spent quiet weekends away from the busy streets of London.

Slide #13
Christopher Robin and his menagerie of toy animals spent many happy hours playing in the orchard next to the comfortable rambling farmhouse.

Slide #14
In his book, Winnie-the-Pooh, Milne transformed his son’s favorite play area into 100 Acre Woods, home to an assortment of whimsical animal characters.

Slide #15
Most of the characters in the book were inspired by Christopher’s toy collection. Only Owl and Rabbit were products of Milne’s imagination.

Slide #16
Edward the bear became Winnie-the-Pooh, renamed in honor of Winnipeg the real live bear who lived in the London Zoo and Pooh, the family’s pet swan.

Slide #17
Pooh bear, the central character, often got into trouble—quite unaware of where his actions and questionable decisions would eventually lead him. Still, he was loved and valued by Christopher Robin who more often than not came to his rescue.

Episode Selection

2008-10-14T06:53:00.000-07:00

I have chosen episode #366 Christopher Robin. The episode uses quotations from a couple of Milne's poems for children. I have chose A. A. Milne as the subject for my project, and this episode will allow me to do a little "double dipping" with regard to research.

Assignment 5-Photo Story with Sound

2008-10-12T15:20:00.000-07:00

I had never saved music from my cds to my computer before so that was a learning experience for me. I enjoyed the process, however, and it will be fun to use this feature in the future. I had to experiment with the transitions and movement and found that sometimes using both features can cause problems.

Assignment 4-My First Photo Story

2008-10-06T07:30:00.000-07:00

I have used Photo Story 3 before, so this assignment was not as daunting as my first experience with it. I used this opportunity to do some extensive research via the internet to locate images on my proposed subject. I am not completely happy with many of the thumbnails that I was forced to use because of time. I need to experiment with some of the editing programs to see if I can get some clearer images. Also, I like the intertwining of illustrations with the books. I'm going to try to locate more examples that I can use. I'm anxious to get started with the script. That will help me cull through the images. I'm also hoping that I can use some collages made with picasa as transition slides.

Charlotte Yonge

2008-10-06T06:32:00.000-07:00

Edited Images

2008-10-04T19:49:00.000-07:00

Both photo pairs were taken at Shy Pond, a city park near my home. I chose the downed tree to experiment with because of the light and shadows within the branches. For the edited version I used the normalize function which enhances the colors in order to define the light and dark areas. I then played around with the sepia feature and settled on a shade of blue that gave the photo a surreal quality. For the duck photo, I again used the normalize feature. I also flipped the photo and used one of the fun features, the lomo tool which gives a soft dark halo effect and further enhances the color of the photo.

Ducks in Pond

2008-09-29T09:24:00.000-07:00

Downed Tree

2008-09-29T08:47:00.000-07:00

My Garden

2008-09-29T06:41:00.000-07:00

Remembering when. . .

2008-09-12T09:44:00.000-07:00