Category: Exploration

Movies, DVD’s and the creative process

Post author By HJDeW
Post date June 5, 2011
No Comments on Movies, DVD’s and the creative process

Creating DVD’s 101

Movie making and creating dvd’s is not as easy as the guide books and help sheets make it sound. I realized through this process the importance of understanding the words. I found myself trying to decipher the meaning for some of the words and rereading several times as I puzzled through the process.

After many hours at this, I transferred photos from my cottage collection into iMovie, figured out how to add a background sound file (drag and drop!) and then exported the file into iDVD. There I was puzzled by the drop zone and adding menu text. Deciphering again, I finally created a three item dvd menu with selections to view. Exporting and burning to dvd was the easy but time consuming part. Process complete! Time to celebrate my accomplishment by sharing the finished results.

Maybe it’s time to take it to You Tube?!

As I was working through this process, I kept thinking about how movies and dvd’s can be integrated into digital learning and teaching. How can educators harness the power of this technology and create items that are interesting, informative and have educational value in a way that is efficient and not time consuming? I came across some interesting video clips about how to video yourself and make the product effective. These four videos, produced by Mark Joyella, present some valuable tips on how to make sure your clip of yourself is the best it can be. We talk in front of the class all the time. But talking in front of the camera is very different. These videos focus on those who may be coaching or mentoring others, but are certainly applicable to work as an educator creating online content. We need to become as comfortable in front of the camera as we are in front of our students.

Video One: http://coachingcommons.org/featured/for-coaches-online-video-coaching/

Video Two: http://coachingcommons.org/featured/online-video-series-part-2/

Video Three: http://coachingcommons.org/featured/for-coaches-create-your-online-video-part-3/

Video Four: http://coachingcommons.org/featured/for-coaches-create-your-online-video-part-4/

Tags educational video, iDVD, iMovie

e-toolkit learning Exploration Reflection

Moodling and Meandering

moodle image My course work has taken me deeper into Moodle and my understanding of this free, open source LMS. I love the word Moodle. There is fun and freedom implied in the word. Playing with the word leads anywhere. (moodles, moodler, moodling, can you moodle? I’m moodling, How’s moodles today?) Not to mention the spinoffs possible with rhyming and word families. The Moodle logo even hints at the fun, playful nature of learning, with the jaunty angle of the graduation cap.

So deeper into playing with Moodle, learning about Moodle and writing about Moodle I go. Like Alice down the rabbit hole…. and I ended up everywhere and nowhere I expected. Some interesting items discovered as I travelled the meandering, moodling path:

A case for using Moodle
Moodle philosophy and pedagogy
Top 10 lists – Myths; Questions to Ask
47 Interesting Ways to Use Moodle
2 Minute Moodle Tutorials
Good Moodle Course Design
Discussions on how to use Moodle with young children

But my Cheshire Cat along the path was this gem of a find on describing Moodle by using LEGO. The definition of the word ‘moodle’ as a noun and a verb caught my attention. Using LEGO to explain what Moodle is all about …. how much more fun and playful can it get?!

Tags exploration, Moodle, online instruction, resources

Exploration

Word Press wondering

A. B. C. D. E.

Setting up a Word Press blog as an e-portfolio for this course has been interesting , exciting, and frustrating. Simple solutions will suffice when all problem solving and understanding fails. My efforts to organize pages into a logical sequence based on course requirements succumbed to simple alphabetical order insertions in the page names to make them fit. Putting square pegs into round holes? It works for now.. perhaps at another point I will learn how to explore the wordpress codes to organize pages in an order other than alphabetically. I know it is possible. But it is beyond my time and understanding today.