Sunday, June 24, 2007

Little bit of a setback - difficulty viewing video

I was really looking forward to moving onto the RSS lesson when it was brought to my attention that some are still having difficulty viewing the "movie" I made. If some of you cannot view it, that means that students, parents, and staff cannot as well. So...until I hear back from the developer of the EdWeb program regarding what I am have done incorrectly, I tried to think of another workaround. (Of course it works on my computers, so I won't know if it works on yours).If you choose to view the video you will need to go to the following link:

http://edweb.pylusd.org/lib0320

When the site loads, the video should appear at the bottom of the page. If not, it can be viewed by clicking on the "Summer Reading Video" link on the left-hand side of the page. It may also have something to do with filters. Some avatars do not display correctly on my comments and I found out that they were being filtered...not all just some.

I am very proud of my creation and think I did an okay job for only my second attempt. Looking forward to creating more "movies" for school and family. Let me know what you think and how it can be improved

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Ammendment to previous blog

I created the video and linked it to my website from home with no problems viewing the video. However, while attempting to access it from an on-site computer the video would not load completely. Photobucket is a filtered site so I am assuming the video link to Photobucket was being blocked. After reconstructing a large portion if the video using Movie Maker, I uploaded that to my webpage data files. From home it looks okay but I will have to try tomorrow at work. Unfortunately it starts automatically. Now I need to figure out to set the video to manual play. Oh well....

I am open for any suggestions or assistance.

Week #3 - Item 7 Having fun with technology

I went along one of those side trips that get me in trouble....but I sure had a good time. Here is my "work in progress". I thought it would be nice to utilize "mash-ups" on my library webpage. With the arrival of summer, what better than a video introducing great summer reading suggestions?!
Herein lies my journey....
I wanted to create a slideshow/video with suggested summer reading titles for Grades K - 6, but with something more than photos of book covers and book description captions. Flickr Toys has a slideshow option but it was more limited than what I was after.
Photobucket has a great remix program but also did not allow for me to personal the slides like I envisioned. FilmLoop Studio allowed me to do some really cool stuff with my photos, BUT...I don't like their limited slide transitions. That's where Movie Maker came into play. I loved what I could do with Movie Maker with a recent attempt to make a "Flat Stanley" video for a relative. Great transitions, bubbles, etc.
The process went something like this:
1. Obtain a photo of the book jacket from Amazon.com - save as .jpeg to my computer.
2. Decide and locate photos, bubbles, tattoes, etc. that would enhance the book cover. Sources included FilmLoop Studio graphics collection, PrintShop 21, PC Hugware graphics, and Movie Maker.
3. Create a final photo utilizing FilmStudio and saving them as .jpeg files.
4. Import the above saved .jpeg files into MovieMaker and create a slide/video utilizing their slide transitions (great selection).
5. Save the file as a video file.
6. Import the above video file into Photobucket remix.
7. Add music from the selected titles.
8. Create video and save as file to embed on my webpage.
Here is the final outcome. Hope you like it.
http://edweb.pylusd.org/lib0320
Things that did not work out as planned:
1. The photos distorted when uploaded into Photobucket remix. This makes some of the slides more difficult to read.
2. The video was timed to the music but did not transition as planned.
3. Since I saved the photos as .jpeg files in FilmLoop Studio, I was unable to go back to make changes. I should have saved everything as a draft movie in the event that it would not have uploaded as desired. Now I know.
As I update the slideshow, I will make the necessary changes to the existing selections. It is going to be very time consuming since I have to re-create each slide from scratch.

Saturday, June 2, 2007

My creation - Warholizer & original pix in a Mosiac

I was fooling around with the Warholizer and created two pieces of "art". After posting the Warhol-like photos to my blog, I decided that I thought it might be cool to see the original picture as well. Rather than posting the Warhols and the orginals as separate blogs, I tried the Mosiac generator. Viola...the results I wanted but without 4 separate postings. (Actually I did do 4 posts and deleted the extra posts after I discovered the Mosiac generator). I am finding that I do a lot of post editing...good thing I don't work a newspaper. It would take me forever to go back and pick up those I already delivered!

#6, Week 3 - Flickr fun, mashups, and 3rd party sites

OMG - I haven't even progressed past the first sentence in this task. I started playing around with Flickr Toys and came up for air 3 hours later. What a blast! I have two older children that would love some of these generators for their myspace pages...and just think Mom told them about it!

Our sixth grade students prepare a PowerPoint presentation in conjunction with their country reports. I can't wait to share these generators with the teachers and computer aide. What a great opportunity for technology and curriculum to merge.

Friday, June 1, 2007

Obligatory Teacup Shot 4

This picture opens the door to many sights, sounds and smells of my youth. Now it makes reminds me to have fun even when everything around me seems to be spinning out of control.

Week 3, #5 - Explore Flickr -- Create Your Account First!!!

Flickr was awesome...however...create your account first.

I was having a grand time browsing and looking for pictures, making sure to make notations regarding search keyword and page numbers for all the pictures I found intriguing. In order to place the photo into my blog I needed to sign in. Easy enough. However, when I went back to select my photos the search delivered different results....not really different results the photos were in a different order.

I couldn't wait to continue with this course so pictures of my library will have to wait. But I am not sure that I want to publish pictures of my library as it looks currently. There are books everywhere!

I have worked with Photobucket.com but this has many features that they don't...I think. I will have to go back to check. Now that I am learning there are numerous doors opening all around me. I am a kid in a candy store!

The Mad Hatter at Disneyland


The Mad Hatter at Disneyland
Originally uploaded by
shayalon
The Mad Hatter and I have a very long history. This was the first photo that appeared when I conducted my search.

Week 2, #3 & 4 - I want it all...NOW!

This has been a very difficult assignment for me. Posting the blog/creating an avatar were not the problem but rather because I want everything to be perfect and look a certain way. I have not yet learned how to make my blog have the spark I want...but it will come.

I have found that Lifelong Learning #1 is going to be an issue. Beginning with an end in mind is easy...not going on those lovely side trips might be. This is not new to me. I need to clean a room, I start out like everyone else, but then I see that SPOT! The one that requires that I clean, that then leads to washing the entire wall, which in turn requires cleaning of all the walls in the room, but now the drapes look dinging next to the lovely clean walls. And so on....