Friday, December 17, 2010

Reflective Blog Entry

Since I have entered the Digital Learning Center half a year ago, I have grown very much in some areas. My technology skills have rapidly increased. My first video I made for the DLC was very basic, with small phrases, narration, pictures transitioning in and out, and occasionally loud, abrupt music here and there. But since then, I have been able to effectively incorporate images taken from Google and shapes made directly from Keynote, incorporate appropriate music throughout, and make each slide come to life, and make it seem like a movie animation rather than a slideshow presentation. I have also changed my perspective of technology skills and content in pieces of work. Back when I started, I would have probably believed that most animations were impressive and show lots of skill. Now I have a more critical mind at technology and videos, especially ones created by me. I also learned to Google my questions, and that Miss Bailin doesn’t like to be asked too many questions.

I’m proud of nearly all of my projects. My welcome video was a great start and the older DLC students thought it was a very impressive start. I also liked my start of Keynote “animations” in the Lorax video. The refrain in my opinion is annoying and may haunt me forever, but at least now I’m stuck in their brains. My Glog was very cool, as my RBOC book cover and Gettysburg brochure. I also liked the professional look of my Stephen Douglas ad campaign, and the creativity of my original Stephen Crane video.

I think that my most challenging project was my group redo of the Stephen Crane video. At the time, the class was also working on our Lincoln-Douglas Debates, and I was mainly focused on the debate because my partners weren’t exactly as focused as the others. The group never really came together on that project, and it ended with a total disaster. I should have known it would be hard to do, because some of my peers even warned me that it‘s hard work making an impressive movie trailer. I guess that was good advice that I just didn’t take, and I ended up rushing to finish at the last minute.

My favorite projects were probably my most recently finished, The Red Badge of Courage scenes. The descriptive and metaphoric passages gave me more creativity than the other projects, and were not as structured as other projects. Also in my opinion, the RBOC scenes were my best work yet because of their epic nature. I think they were epic because I chose two of the most epic scenes in the book, the scene where the youth finds a dead man in the forest, and the final scene where the youth dies.

I hope in the second semester I will be able to master all the tools and effects on Keynote and iMovie. I expect that next semester there will be many challenges and hardships, but I will be ready.

I hope.

8 comments:

  1. I really thought you did a great job reflecting your true feelings. You went into great detail about what you have done, and how you need to improve. As always i think your animations are very cool and unique. I look forward to new challenges, too.

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  2. I also look at videos now, and realize how much quality they really have. I too learned that you can find out about almost anything with Google. I think that you will easily master Keynote and iMovie, and you are definitely ready for second semester.

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  3. Devon, that was a good post and you were very honest too. I do believe that all of your projects were solid and none of them were really bad. Just like you, I hope to master all of the tools and features in Keynote and IMovie next semester and make some good products in the future.

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  4. I think your blog entry was very honest, and I also entered the DLC not knowing much about technology either, but I learned along the way. I loved your RBOC scenes, especially the first one and I think it's great how you always visually recreate every project your doing and make it very interesting and funny. Even though it was a bit confusing, I still loved the way you tried to make the Stephen Crane project interesting. I think you are very good in keynote for technology, and I really like the way you use shapes for all of the people and backgrounds. What was like working in Stephen Crane project, because it seemed like you only had a couple people contributing to the group.

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  5. Well, responding to Shaun's comment, it was really fun with the first Stephen Crane project and our roles in the group were fairly well balanced. We all contributed in gathering information, Devyn, Ben, and Sam contributed to the script, and I did most of the animation. Choosing our roles was relatively easy, with Sam wanting to be the host, Devyn requesting to be the nerdy John, Ben wanting to be risky with Albert's German accent, and I of my strange weirdness casting myself in Sheila's role.

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  6. Responding to Alec's comment, I think if you keep up with your projects and explore everything, I think you probably will master the Keynote and iMovie features. All you have to do is believe in yourself, and you will form your goals to your advantage.

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  7. Responding to Diana's comment, it's true how when you present a video for the first time and criticize your own work on the spot, but I then you look back and see how great it really was. It's amazing how the DLC has shown us how to use a website like Google and bend it to our advantage, using all of it's applications such as Gmail, Google Docs, Google Images, and the plain old Google search engine. Miss Bailin has taught us well in teaching us to stretch any simple piece of technology to it's full potential.

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  8. Responding to Brady's comment, thanks to the DLC, we can all show how unique every one of us are through our projects, or debates, or public speaking, or anything else we might do. And with new challenges, we can express ourselves and show how unique we are even more.

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