The Lewis and Clark Expedition movie

Lets see if this works. Cross your fingers, everyone!



This was a really frustrating project for me, for a few reasons. First, I don't own a computer with any sort of movie making capabilities, so I had to work in the lab in the MCKB, not at home. My schedule isn't really compatible with that of the Mac Lab, and that was frustrating. Second, once you save the movie on a computer you can't move it to another computer. So I had to always try to get the same computer, which was stress. It took a lot of time for me to assemble all of everything together, so I had to go to the lab three or four times. I also had some problems uploading to youtube, where the movie freezes at 1:03. It only does it some times though. . . .

Overall, I would use this in the classroom only if we had the technology and I felt that using it would enhance the overall learning.

Movie Project

I haven't really done anything with my project since last week, but I am excited about it. I've been looking at images and videos and getting ready to assemble all of it together on imovie. Pretty much this means that I'll be spending all week in the Mac Lab in the McKay Building to assemble it all and make it look cool. I guess the only thing that I am still nervous about is assembling all of the pieces together and posting it on Youtube - do you need an account to do that? I'm assuming so.

Basically things are going well, because I haven't done any of the difficult stuff yet :)

Video Storyboard Idea

For my video I will do an overview of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Here is my very broad storyline:

I'll start by showing a clip of a forest or a picture of a forest with a river going through it, with a voice over about the importance of finding the Northern Passage across the nation through rivers. Then I'll show a map of the purchase and where the expedition started, and do an animation of the way that they traveled till their first important stop. From there I'll show a picture of their first important stop, and insert a clip from a professor talking about why this place is important. Then I'll do another voice-over animation of the map till their second important stop. I'll show another picture, and discuss why its important, and then go back to the map to show the last important stop before reaching the coast and insert another professor clip or image of the place. I think that doing this through a video only makes sense because the trip becomes more alive and realistic as you see images and distances, and hear from an expert as to why it was so important. The visual nature of the journey and the importance of hearing about it at the same time (through someone different than your teacher) keeps the expedition interesting and exciting.

Video in the Classroom

I love video, and see myself as a teacher using it frequently. I think back to my American Heritage days when our teacher had at least one movie clip per class, and they were all really cool and did a great job of illustrating the point that she was discussing. This is how video can help students - by giving them a visual product to help them understand an abstract idea.

I see myself using small youtube clips, small clips from movies, and maybe even most of a movie if I felt that it was really good at helping illustrate a point. And of course TV episodes - The West Wing comes to mind.

I also can see myself assigning video projects to students. I remember doing this in junior high and high school - where our assignment was to work with a group to make a three to five minute video about a topic. So I would use the equipment available at my school to have the students create their own videos or podcasts.

Using video is a great benefit to students because they live in a world that is full of video. They can connect to it easily, and I know that when a movie clip is played in class I pay more attention to it because I am interested in how it relates - it keeps my attention fresh.

Personal Technology Project Completed

Holy wow; that's all I've got to say in response to this project.

No, I can say more, but that sums it up pretty well.

For my project I had dreams of learning how to use Adobe Illustrator or InDesign and combining that knowledge of what I had with Photoshop to create a really cool project. The project idea was to gather free images from the Creative Commons in Flickr and have a certain amount of images that were places, people, American symbols, and quotes and put them all together to create a cover for a U.S. History book.

The project idea was great, but it was the learning the programs that got a little dicey. A few months ago I wanted to learn Photoshop, so I took the basic class offered by the university. After the class I didn't touch Photoshop again until this project. I was thinking that some things had been retained but was totally shocked when the only thing I could remember doing was importing the picture by dragging it from Internet Explorer into Photoshop. So for this project I had to scale back my technology plans. Using the online tutorials I re-took the class and had to re-learn everything. You might think that I'm trying to fudge this, that I didn't really forget, but on my honor code, I knew nothing. I was shocked myself at my little retention rate. I knew what I had the potential to do, but not how to do it.

.

So I imported images, created layer masks, used brushes and the many kinds of selection tools (magic wand and quick selection are the best - the magnetic lasso is probably the most difficult tool to control in the world), added layers, added shadows and embossing, combined layers, added text, and learned the basics all over again. I found that when I didn't know how to do something or couldn't figure it out with the "Quick Reference Guide" they give you, watching the video of the class and going with the instructor is a really great way to do it. Very helpful.

I'm not sure how I should turn in my products, but I will insert them here so you can see (in case I don't have enough ink in my printer to print them out right).

I imagine the top picture to be the front cover of the book, and the bottom picture to be the back cover. The back is my favorite - I love the images and the overall visual effect.

For each of these pictures I need to have an attribution to the original artist so here is a link back to each photo's original page on Flickr.

American Flag

Frederick Douglass

Bald Eagle

Gettysburg

Abraham Lincoln