Reflections

I am amazed at how much I learned in this course. I have always considered myself tech savvy, but I recently realized I have so much more to learn. I have been working in cyber-charter schools for the past 10 years and thought I had seen it all. When in fact, that was the very tip of the iceberg, and the material covered here was just below that. There is a great deal more I have yet to learn about using technology. I had an exceptional time completing these assignments, often sharing them with my family and friends because I thought what I had done was so cool.

The course began with a review of different photo editing tools. Those projects are listed under Graphic Activities. I purchased Photoshop and was very overwhelmed with the sheer power of this tool. Going from programs like Picassa and Windows Photo Editor to a program like Photoshop was a rude awakening for me. I had no idea there were so many other ways to manipulate a photo. I was really overwhelmed when I went looking for help, I was very unsure of myself and many of the tutorials I viewed where not friendly for beginners. I ended up using a great deal of trial and error, and ended up learning a great deal.

Looking back on it now, the second section, audio activities was one of my favorite sections. When I work, I always need music on to keep me focused, so learning how to incorporate music and vocal tracks into my projects was enjoyable. I had once considered a career in radio and really enjoyed using audacity to manipulate the sound of my voice as well as recorded music.

With my experience in the virtual school, the video activities were mostly a refresher. I have been using Jing and Grab for years, so creating screen shots, and video tutorials was not a considerable challenge. As the unit went on, I decided to really push my self and began exploring the many features of Camtasia. I decided to play with the closed caption feature of camtasia for mac, which allowed me to listen in 4 second increments and enter the associated text. When I completed closed captioning that way, it was pretty easy, time consuming, but easy. The next part of the unit taught us how to use the closed caption feature of Youtube. Youtube is able to transcribe talk to text and create a transcript for captioning. When completing that portion of the lesson, I learned that working from a script makes for a more organized experience and when I talk, I need to enunciate if I expect the transcription to be accurate. The text that was generated with youtube was mostly garbage. I spent a great deal of time cleaning up the transcription. I had considered downloading the video and doing it via camtasia which felt much more user friendly, but realized that was not the purpose of the lesson. I learned how to use youtube and all its features, and can certainly instruct others in the future how to use this free program. After all, learning then teaching others is part of the reason I am in this program.

The next unit I would like to discuss is web design. In 2001 or so I created a webpage using Microsoft Front Page. It was so easy a cave man could do it. When I saw that we had to create a webpage for this course, I was fired up. I could knock this project out, then play with enhancements and learn a few cool new tricks. Once again, I was wrong. I had access to Dreamweaver which like Photoshop in the first few weeks of school, was so powerful, I was intimated. With Frontpage I essentially created a page in word, saved it as an html, opened it in front page, made a few tweaks then uploaded it. Dreamweaver was so much more powerful, and frankly confusing. I spent hours and hours and hours watching videos about HTML and CSS and only sunk deeper into despair. After what seemed to be an eternity, I found a website that allowed me to write HTML and see what it would look like on the screen. It provided prompts, tips and starter clues. This saved the day for me. Rather than watching video after video I decided to get in and do it! So I spent a few hours learning how to code on this wonderful website then, it all made sense. I copied some of the code I had experimented with on the tutorial website and pasted it into Dreamweaver. Then like so many other things I do, I began trial and error. That is the best way for me to learn as I can figure out and deduce what I did wrong, then I am more likely to remember the next time.

At the outset I mentioned how I thought I knew it all. Working thru the tool shed project was an eye opener for me. I use a great deal of Web 2.0 tools in my personal and professional life. Once I got started googling other Web 2.0 tools, I was amazed at how many more are out there. Thousands of resources at our finger tips. By completing the lesson I learned about a few valuable web 2.0 tools that I have begun to use in my personal life to get more organized and improve my employment portfolio. The tool I now use to get more organized is called Remember the Milk and that was the inspiration for the teach a lesson project. Creating the Teach A Lesson project was a great chance for me to start to apply some of the things I had learned earlier in the semester. I used Camtasia again to create a screen recording of using the software. I scripted what I was going to say so it sounded clearer. I used the closed caption feature with camtasia and essentially, just typed my notes into the caption track then tweaked them to match the sound track. I used the Teach A Lesson Project to really hone my skills.

The final project was an excellent learning experience for me. Taking a step back and going thru the process of actually creating the lesson from Outline, to Flowchart, to Storyboard, to Finished project, was really incredible. It gave me the opportunity to think many things thru so I was more prepared for the finished product. Going from Storyboard to Finish project was incredible. It was so easy! Having the hard part done, what to say and what to display on the screen, allowed me to just focus on the project at hand. Using my storyboard to make the final video recording a breeze. I was able to finish the video recording ahead of schedule which allowed me plenty of time to work on enhancements. Taking some time to learn even more features of Camtasia including, zoom, highlighter, arrows..etc I was able to really enhance the finish project. I had several friends and family members review it before I submitted it, I felt I had gone a little crazy with some of the zooming and arrows. I need to work on ensuring I do not distract my audience by having too many bells and whistles ensuring they focus on the subject matter.

As I worked thru the curriculum I encountered a few challenges. The biggest I think was deciding the direction I wanted to go with a specific project. I am not very creative so making a collage in Photoshop was really hard. Not necessarily because I struggled with the concepts, because like I said once I get in and start messing around I can figure most anything out. What really gave me pause was deciding what to do, what do I want to make a collage of, and why. What could I do with this collage once I was done with it? I spent more time than I probably should have on the creative commons website looking for the inspiration for a project. About halfway thru the semester I started thinking about applying everything to my job search or career portfolio. As I was able to narrow down my objectives, I was better able to focus on learning how to use the tools assigned.

The final prompt asks me to reflect on my strong emotions. I think one of the strongest emotions I encountered was despair. There were a few times when I thought the tutorials were over my head. I did not feel confident enough in my own abilities. I was uncertain if my finished product would meet expectations. This was especially true recently when I was completed the final project. The more time I spent on it, the more I felt that I was just creating a fancy teach a lesson project. I was afraid I was going to score poorly. That was part of the reason I spent so much time adding bells and whistles to the overview. I wanted to enhance and enhance in the hopes of improving my score. The other strong emotion I encountered was joy. I received enough joy to counteract the despair that I sometimes felt. When I conquered a lesson, or figured out a feature I felt very proud of my self. When I asked others to review my work and submit feedback, and the feedback was often filled with praise, the joy continued.