For this week's Blog assignment, you have two choices. You may either post a comment related to the storyboard you are creating for next week, or you may post a comment about the Engines of Our Ingenuity episode you are creating.
In your posting, you may discuss any aspect of either topic, such as describing the progress of your work, discussing challenges you faced and/or ask questions that arose during your work on these assignments.
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Okay, so yesterday I spent literally 7 hours doing the "engines of our ingenuity" assigment...it was horrible...I was physically and mentally drained by the time I finished. I first struggled to find an audio file that I was interested in. That too about an hour. When I finaly found one, I then struggled to save the audio correctly. For some reason, I saves the audio file in a regular folder but when I went to download it to my photo story, it wasn't there. I saved it again into the "my music" file and I was able to download it from there. I then gathered the pictures that I wanted to "fit" the audio. That took some time because some pictures were just hard to find. Is it only me...or do the pictures have to be "screensaver" size so they won't be blurry on the photo story? It was hard to find good large pictures. I know that not all of my pictures are clear enough...but I just didn't have other choices. I also had to work with the timing of the transitions of pictures...I think this is where I spent most of my time. Okay, I must also admit that I'm kind of a perfectionist, so I was always finding something "wrong" that needed fixing. However, in the end, I still wasn't 100% satisfied because some of my pictures were blurry and I couldn't do anything about it.
The episode of Engines of Our Ingenuity I chose was The Medieval West, a brief comparison of the Medieval and the Old West. It is an interesting theme and I could find a lot pictures for it. However, my problem is that good pictures which illustrate well the content are not always of the right size and quality, so many of my pictures may not be very sharp. Moreover, because of the theme, many pictures are old and discolored. I tried to edit them, but some still look a bit blured. I hope this won't appear too bad on a larger screen.
I had the same experience Charon did in timing the transition of the pictures. Sometimes, the content of the script was too much in a short time, and sometimes, it happened the other way round. So I had to shorten or lengthen the duration of a picture to make it go with the script. This was where I spent time most. In sum, this assignment is not hard but quite time-consuming.
It took me about 30 minutes to do the "engines of our ingenuity" project. The difficult part was deciding which audio file to use. They sounded kind of boring but there we so many options to choose from. Once I decided on a topic the project flowed. I thought the timing would be difficult but it was pretty easy to do. I settled on a audio file about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I figured it would be interesting to look up photos of him. I searched for pictures of the author, UH logo, and photos of the engineering bldg to create a introduction and conclusion slide. I saved the slides as .jpegs and inserted them. I think this made it look more professional. At first I didn't think of Martin Luter King as an inventor, but I learned from the audio file that he sort of invented a new way of thinking during his time. He invented a machine of harmony, peace, and nonviolence.
I didn't realize how handy the storyboard could be... it has made it so much easier for me to figure out what I like, don't like, and what I still need to work on... it has also allowed me to figure out what pictures I need to take for the assignment.
As for the engines assignment, here it is. Enjoy!
"Frankenstein" Engines episode
Click here for my storyboard draft.
Here’s my draft version for my storyboard. I’m posting it in case people have constructive comments to give. I’ve scripted a story to help teach a concept to my 11th grade Algebra 2 students. I’ve pulled in some of the similes and metaphors that my students came up with on their own about the specific concept so that it is personal to them.
To coincide with my film/movie theme from Dr. White’s class, I’ve integrated Hollywood actors and actresses to be the main characters in my storyline.
To add my own digital photos, I will need to adjust some parts of the script so that I can include some of my own digital photos. For example, the random park scene that was originally part of the story line will include a backdrop of Herman Park. Also, the restaurant location has been switched to the Museum of Fine arts (with the red “toy story looking” dinosaur). Coincidentally, that coincides with Dr. White’s class again too (art as an alternative text). And I’ll probably photoshop myself in there since I have been to these places.
Again, all my pictures aren’t done yet. The script it pretty much done. Just needs to be tweaked. It’s been hard because most people I’ve had the opportunity to discuss it with don’t have a math background to review for content but I feel pretty good about it.
I enjoyed creating the photostory the "engines of our ingenuity" assignment. It was fun to try to match the pictures to the story. It did require some time to complete though but it was not a hard assignment. The hard part was pin pointing the time during the narration for each picture. It was a challenging experience in trying to find the most appropriate picture to use for the story. I also managed to use a quote slide in the story. Hope you all enjoy it.
The story board assignment was fine but it seemed like duplication of work that I had already done in my head and started for my major digital story. It was not hard and it did help keep me organized and I think I will do a much better job. Now I have the daunting task of citing my pictures and finding out who said the quotes I selected to use in my story. I think that selecting music will also be difficult as there is a lot of good music to choose from.
http://viking.coe.uh.edu/~rcavazos/CUIN7358/ingenuity%5b1%5d_1.wmv
Here is my Engines of Our Ingenuity digital story Eiffel's Towers. I chose this topic because I knew that I would find a vast array of images to use and I think his work is very interesting.
My storyboard was a bit troublesome. Dr. Robin suggested that I record my script to see how it flowed...it flowed for over 13 minutes...ah! With some help, I got it down to about 5 minutes and 35 seconds. It flows much better now but I am not sure what exact images to use for two different sections. Once I start editing all of the images for the other sections, I'm sure I'll be able to get a spark of creativity for the missing sections. Overall, I am happy with my script and I am looking forward to taking new photographs and editing them for my story.
Because my pop culture digital story is over cell phones, Dr. Robin suggested that I choose Engines of our Ingenuity: Episode 93: Telephone Use for this assignment.
I am very pleased with the story, though I need a couple of better pictures here and there. The problem with needing pictures from an earlier period is finding ones that are large enough so that they are not pixelated.
I will probably look for better pictures tomorrow. I also need to create my credits slide, but please view my digital story for Engines of our Ingenuity: Telephone Use. I look forward to feedback.
I picked an episode of the Engines of Our Ingenuity that covered the evolution of commercial cat litter. The hardest part was finding the right images that fit the narration. For example, there are plenty of images of bagged cat litter but very few images of boxed cat litter. The other problem was finding an appropriate ratio of images to narration. I decided to follow the narration as closely as possible and attempted to find an image for every sentence. In some instances I had to use a single image for 10 seconds of narration because of a lack of high resolution images. In some places I had to edit images, which I did in PowerPoint. The lack of a variety of images seems to be a problem with my storyboard as well. I have taken and have found numerous pictures of waste. The problem seems to be translating economic ideas, environmental solutions and human behaviors into compelling images.
No. 2103
KITTY LITTER
The storyboard template allowed me to better organize my ideas. This aided in a better visualization over picture that would be used and it what order. THus making it easier to select pictures and music. Yet I still made a bit broad to now limit me to specific photographs yet.
Engines of Our Ingenuity
Episode 1928
Malt Balls and M&M’s.
The most time consuming part of this photo story was finding the right pictures to go with the script. There are some slides where:
1. I “photoshoped” two or more images together to get the desired effect or
2. I pasted two or more images onto a PowerPoint slide.
I also used Goldwave to add a silent clip onto the end of the transcript to keep it from fading before it’s time.
I really liked this topic because it integrated math with candy, history, and business or commerce. It’s a real life issue that people have been dealing with for a long time. Adjusting the timing of the pictures wasn’t hard, just time consuming.
Charon – to deal with poor picture quality, you can limit your search results to “large” or “extra large” using Google image search. That gives you image results that will do well without pixilating in PhotoStory.
Since I re-wrote my story, I put everything together on the story board. My biggest concern is making sure I put all the required photos with the story because I used a majority of web images.
It is also difficult to determine music and the animation needed because I have not put it all together. I have ideas for both, but I don't know if I will like how everything will go together.
My main concerns are whether I have enough personal pictures to match my script and if my script flows will and coherently.
Something of a late entry :) I thought the Engines Assignment was reasonably straightforward and definitely good practice for the personal project we have to do.
My project was on Pompeii. The only issue I had was with the audio. There are a couple of points in the recording where the track seems to jump. I originally thought that this was due to an issue with my download but it appears that the original on the site was to blame. To be honest, if you are not paying too much attention you may not even notice them - I only noticed as I was reading through the script at the same time.
Most of the photos I used came from the net. And a good majority of those were found on Flickr using Creative Commons only searches so they should be good for copyright and stuff. A few of them were from Lindsay's (my wifes) pictures from when she did a dig there - which was nice :)
I have done a similar project in a previous semester with the Engines audios and I found this one much better. My last one was 6 minutes about perpetual motion machines and it almost drove me insane :) There are no pictures of pepetual motion machines anywhere (as they do not really exist) and the ones that we out there are just wheels with stuff hanging on them :)
Anyway, if you are interested:
Hal's Pompeii Digital Story - Engines Project
This is the link to my Engines of Our Ingenuity episode "The Medieval West"
This is a link to The Medieval West
The hardest part of my engines episode was the timing. I spent most of my time with making sure the pictures went with the narration and adding pictures to make it more believable. It was time consuming, but it has helped me to gain a vision on how I want my own digital story and narration to be. I chose the episode 182 (Black and White) because I thought I would be able to find some pictures on the topic and because it seemed interesting. See you guys lata.
Episode 182 Black and White
http://viking.coe.uh.edu/~kscott/cuin7358/engines_1.wmv
I did not have a specific idea for the final project. I just read some books related to mythology, which is the theme for our group project. I hope it will emerge while I read some articles or books.
I really enjoyed the Engines of our Ingenuity assignment and am happy with the way mine came out
Unfortunately, I am having trouble getting it to convert from a .wp3 to .wmv format. It always times out about half way through the video stage of the publishing step on PhotoStory and I'm not sure why.
Any suggestions?
I really enjoy the engines of our ingenuity segments on NPR - so I was really excited to hear that we were going to be working with them for one of our assignments.
I did not think it would be as time consuming as it was.
As for the storyboard, I am finding the concept helpful. I am not sold on any of the templates yet, but I like the concept. I am using the first template.
I am getting frustrated b/c I am hyperlinking my photostory via Microsoft word and it plays just fine on the template, but when I try to open it on the webpage, an error message appears on windows media player. Other than that, I did enjoy playing around with goldwave. I spent about an hour on the project and I know I could have made it much better if I spent more time on it. It took a bit of time matching certain pictures with the narration, but it was great practice for my final project. Here is the link for my photostory
\\viking\home\kso\homepage\engines.wmv
Okay, here is the link to my engines of our ingenuity assignment: http://mariner.coe.uh.edu/~cgrimaldo/cuin7358/cgrimaldo-enginesofouringenuity.wmv
I was late to find out about our Engines project because I was out the day we discussed the Engines of our Ingenuity project but was hopeful that I would be able to catch up. I have my images put together but have been struggling with the audio. Every time it saves, it is in a w3mu format I believe and it is not working for me. I have tried every which way to change the file format but it hasn't worked. Would anybody be able to help me out, otherwise I will give up the trying and just wait for class on Monday. Everyone's been doing really well and the projects look good. I will have mine up shortly. :o)
Working on the storyboard relly focused my project and made me refocus what I was doing. I started off with a project about consumers vs. producers and now it has turned into more of our need to have everything that is new, and how we could better use that money to help feed the children of the world.
I think that my project has more of a voice now and has a true social message about excessiveness.
http://viking.coe.uh.edu/~crepa/grad/traffic.wmv
This is my Engines project, I chose to do it on a topic we all know and hate, traffic!
http://viking.coe.uh.edu/~rrejona/engines/money.wmv
This is the Engines episode that I created. I chose to do it on Money because I wanted to try to choose a topic that I would be able to use with my 2nd graders. We study past and present and I thought that this would be interesting to show how money has changed over time. I also thought I could use this when we study culture because it explores the different kinds of money from different cultures.
I really enjoyed making the episode - I thought it was really fun to do - but I don't have time to sit around and do this kind of thing all the time - it is much more time conscious for me to use videos and other things that are already made that I find from different websites.
For the Engines of Our Ingenuity episode, I wanted to stick with the theme "fashion". I did a keyword search and found a few episodes that involve fashion. I decided to do one on "Streamlining and Fashion." One challenge I faced was finding the right pictures. When I limit my search to larger sized pictures, I could not find the pictures I want; however, the pictures I need are too small in size to have a clear image. Other than that, I just had to change the time on each image to correspond to the narration.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity was a very interesting project. After I received my input from Anne I made all the changes and I was determined to make it better. I found better pictures and I was satisfied with the final project.
I have been adding the photos to create my storyboard. This process is interesting because you can see your story being created before your eyes. It transforms from words to images.
My storyboard is around 11 pages long. I managed to find many wonderful images on my topic. The photos that I have included from the camera aren't as clear as those from the internet. But for the story to mean anything to me I wanted it to have actual images that I had captured after the Hurricane.
I chose to do my engines photo story on trench warfare. For some reason I did not think that this would be too difficult, but I was sorely mistaken. It took a long time to find appropriate photos for the narration. Once I found all the photos, I had to spend a lot of time getting the timing down.
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