Early Literacy in Action

Here is my final project for Digital Storytelling Class 2015. I had a lot of fun learning the ins and outs of videotaping! Early literacy skills are a large part of what I advocate and help parents with at work in a public library. What I hope my video portrays is that building these skills in young children can be incorporated into everyday life, and is attainable for families to work on. I thank my library customers for helping me on short notice to complete this project. I think they enjoyed it too! There are three siblings shown at the end. The older brother has a nice loud voice, but the girls spoke softly. I had not realized this until I played back the video at home. I turned the background music down during their comments. I think they had relevant points to make an were so cute, I had to leave them in. Hope you enjoy it.

How will emerging technologies impact storytelling?

I see the answer being two-fold. On a slightly negative side, there is the ongoing ethical issues that technology continues to bring up as new innovative tools are invented and put out for public use. Take this blog for instance. I created this blog (my first one!) to use to share with this class. If a member of the class chooses to forward the link to my blog to some one else, I would welcome it. However, what if I did not want any of my classmates to share the link to my blog - even if it is an innocent act of sharing some good idea I have included here? I control the majority of this blog content, but not all of it. I can not control others actions, and that is the negative side of emerging technology - trust in those who use it, not to abuse it.

On a positive side, I see excitement in new advances all the time! Users love to have the power to be their own master of a digital story. Much as we have experienced using the tools we learned to use in this class. It is fun, and fun to hear, read, or view what others have taken the time to create as master of their own story using the emerged technology. What was not even conceived as possible decades ago, is steam rolling full force into future innovations. I think technology is and will be used to become more efficient for users and more user-friendly for novices. For instance I used my smartphone to video tape an interview for my final project. Fifteen years ago, I did not have a smartphone, and the cell phone I had did not record video. I am now able to travel and record a story. I am now able to connect what is on my phone with a laptop and tablet to create a digital story. I am now able to sync sites to build upon my story making it richer and fuller. I can only imagine what new technologies will allow me to do in the future...I wonder where it will take us?

Seinfeld Writing

Most times when I am faced with putting together a paper, presentation, or project of some sort, this is often my dilemma. I either have no ideas or I have so many that they are swarming around in my head bursting to become a part of the final draft. More often than not I sit at my desk and look at all my notes and ask myself, "where do I begin". An outline sounds like an easy task to a put together, but where do I start? How do I want to start? What do I want in the middle? How will it end the best? Once I get my head wrapped around my answers, and organize all the details, it all starts to fall into place, and before I realize it an emerging story is the final result!

Clifford Goes to the Library

 Here is a link to a WeVideo I created for my digital storytelling class 2015. The requirement was to combine audio narration, sound effects, music, pictures and pre-recorded video into one project.

I chose to loosely base my story on the book Maisy Goes to the Library by Lucy Cousins. I read that book to students who come from the local elementary school to learn about the library and get their own library card, from our public library. I used Clifford and other stuffed animals to tell the story!

https://www.wevideo.com/hub#media/ci/417815400

The new and improved Legend of the Jersey Devil

This is a shortened version, taken from the children's book titled The Legend of the Jersey Devil, by Trinka Noble.

Once I figured out the steps to save, import and export each sound effect file, I had a lot of fun searching through Freeesound.org. This site had all the sounds and music I searched for. After getting the hang of adding in the sound effects in Audactiy, I just wanted to keep going! I debated as to whether to make the background music louder, but decided to keep it as background music and soft until the ending change in music selection. There is definitely an art to mixing sound & editing. Listening to this recording with the bells and whistles added, verses week one with just my voice, helped me understand the rationale in putting together the total package. This version, I think, is more entertaining to listen to.  I needed to edit two places in my audio track of telling the story. I have the highest appreciation of the time and work professional editors put into their work. There is one spot I redid a few times. It is not perfect, but the best I could get it as a novice!