Response+to+Final+Assessment

Adan Cortez ET8002 July 3, 2009

Final Assessment

At the beginning of this course I envisioned learning to create short photo and video movies on Photo Story and Movie Maker. I assumed we would use our own family pictures and videos to create these movies. I honestly thought it would not be that difficult because I had already used both of these movie editing products. What I learned from the course was what I envisioned plus much more. I did not take into consideration the importance of shooting video correctly, editing video and audio, narration, and the amount of team collaboration involved in creating a good quality movie such as Public Service Announcement. I did not realize there was so much I still had to learn in order to create a good quality movie. I had never actually narrated any of the movies that I had created for my family or teachers and students; I would normally edit the pictures and add music. So learning how to use Audacity was a great learning experience. I have learned much for my own benefit as well as showing teachers how they can incorporate multimedia in their classroom.

The outcomes that I learned from this class were excellent and provided much insight on how we can incorporate multimedia in the classroom. I can create several in-services for our teachers to teach them about Photo Story, Movie Maker, and Audacity and much more. Teachers will learn to teach students how to create their own personal story with their own pictures on Photo Story, or download clips of video from the internet then edit, combine and narrate to create their own video on Movie Maker. I will be able to introduce Audacity to teachers so that they may teach students how to create a pod cast, or add narration and music to their own video. The applications in the classroom are endless and can be incorporated into any subject. This class not only taught me the basics of these products but also provided great tips from well known directors and producers on how to create a great video or shot. This information can also be passed on to our teachers and students so that they may create quality videos.

The class truly surpassed my expectations and taught me much more than what I first expected as personal outcomes from this course. I did not realize how much knowledge I still had to acquire about multimedia, I have now become conscious of how much of a novice I was and how much I still had to learn to be able to create a movie that grasped the audience attention and kept them interested throughout the movie. I learned that planning or pre-production is essential to creating a first rate movie, from brainstorming, to creating storyboards, and writing the initial script, helps to produce a good quality movie. I also learned many of the advanced tasks on these products to help edit and create better quality transitions and narration for my movies. Yet another important lesson I learned was the amount of collaboration it takes in order to create a great movie. I never really thought about how many people may be involved in creating a motion picture. When we first started our PSA project I was worried about how working with others to create the project would affect our end results. I was pleasantly surprised as to how well we all worked together to create the project and understand how collaboration is important in the success of a PSA or video project.

Though I was successful in completing all of my projects and assignments, there were some problems that arose during the course. I had the hardest time trying to upload the second project into my wiki due to the size of the file. I eventually learned that I could choose the size of the file I was creating when I converted it into a final product in Movie Maker. Yet after I was able to upload it into my wiki the file did not load into the new page I created so this also cause some frustrations. I finally decided to browse the different features of my wiki to see if I could find a way to add the file into the proper page. After much searching I found the files located in the manage wiki tab and I was then able to figure out how to imbed the file or movie into my new wiki page. I also had trouble attaching the Creative Commons License to the PSA that we uploaded into YouTube, but I solved that problem by uploading the PSA into my Flicker account and attached the license to it there. Though I feel that our team worked very well together, we could have improved our teamwork if we would have been able to meet together at least once a week and truly discuss PSA project in a face to face collaboration. Another way we could have improved on our PSA is the actual footage could have video taped with the camera on a tri-pod so that the individual clips could have been steadier.

I learned many things throughout this course that will help me give teachers the tools they need to teach multimedia technology to their students. This class taught me that my strength in creating movies was mainly in the capturing of raw footage and editing of this footage to create a good quality movie. I learned that with practice I can improve on my narrating skills and my script writing skills. I learned that I enjoyed working with great products such as Movie Maker and Audacity and combining them together. I also learned that working in teams to create a project was enjoyable and though there was no actual leadership position in the team I felt we all did our share of leading the team in the right direction to create a great PSA and I was pleased with my leadership abilities throughout the project. I learned that with a positive attitude we can all work together to accomplish any task that is required of us and that a positive attitude goes a long way when working in collaboration with others.