STORY BOARD.

VIDEO WILL BE HERE SOON SOON SOON.


In the meantime, here is my story board. 

Documentary Continued

Today, I got in contact with my friend Kyra who goes to the Stockton College of NJ and she courteously gave me her ID card so I can access the computer lab at her school. Unfortunately, it isn't open until January 3rd! :( This being said, I am completing my story board tonight and outlining everything I want to say so that I can go there on the 3rd with all my information ready and able to be plugged into a version of iMovie that actually WORKS.  Ugh.  I didn't think this late assignment would end up being SO late, but I'm really excited to for the final product!

One aisle of Best Buy, where I tried to spend my Christmas gift certificate.

Documentary Update

Sadly, I was unable to schedule an interiview with PJ before he left town for Christmas break (I only had Tuesday, and after my class he T.A's, he teaches a basic class and I had a final... simply incompatible  scheduling). I did however, get to tape my roommate Sarah answering a couple of my questions.

Once I got home, I went to Best Buy and took a few still images on my cell phone of empty isles and products they had on display. In addition, I interviewed my mother and father who talk about their relationship with technology and how they use it in their jobs and how it has changed over time.

As I try and compose my documentary in iMovie, I'm running into a few issues. First, I wanted to start my video with a scene from Portlandia but for some reason, it REFUSES to import into my project library which is really frustrating and highly disappointing. Another thing I'm having a lot of trouble with is the sound. I want to add some music into parts of the movie, and change the audio from once video to sync it with images I add and/or another video, but there is no visible audio "line" like there is on the version of iMovie I used at school. I'm really nervous that I won't be able to figure this out before New Years, and I'm asking friends and relative t see if they have a newer version of iLife. I also asked a couple friends about the college campuses in my area to see if they have open Mac labs that I might sneak into. I'm on the verge of getting a copy of Final Cut Pro to use instead...

Documentary step-by-step propsoal.

Before Thanksgiving, I had started working on my second idea, which concerns people and the relationships they have with the many faces of technology. Whether this may be their phones, computers, instruments, or resources, this day and age calls for a copious amount of time spent with technological belongings.

I will first conduct 2 or 3 more interviews: one with Paul John, a printmaking MFA whose work is highly influenced by the technological era we face. Revolving mostly around the iPhone, P.J. has created a plethora of multi-media works. The addition of an explanation of his concept will heighten the strength of my documentary.

I will also conduct a 4^th interview with my roommate, Sarah who uses technology as a means of receiving information. As journalism major, she reads the news and writes articles based on current events. It will be interesting to see how her interest in journalism expands with the help of technology and how she tends to use it in the future.

Next, I plan on re-watching all my interviews and picking out the strongest phrases and answers that I receive. I will split them into categories and outline my documentary by theme.

I will then probably visit an electronics store, perhaps to receive some stranger responses to their purchases for Christmas. If this is not allowed (I plan to ask in advanced) I will simply record some of the objects/observe what I see and create my own responses to them.

Lastly, I will compose my video in iMovie, using the skills I learned in class to promote my message. Technological relationships are prominent in society. It has become hard to live without cell phones, even if only for a day. With each advance, cell phones are becoming more like computers and our resources are expanding by the minute. What is to come of the future? Will technology ever exceed human potential? (And what about conspiracy theories?)

I will explore these and other questions to compose a complete video by the end of the year.

On Gill's study of the usefullness of video games

This reading proved to be quite interesting especially considering my recent dabbling in the programming software, Scratch. The study talks about how visual culture of video games influences the digital media work in a graphic design art classroom in the mid-west. The study took place in a high school classroom with mostly male students who admitted to taking the class because of their interest in video games and 3-d animation. I like the setting of the classroom. The study says the the teacher only acts as a guide or coach, rather than a Maya (the program they use for digital 3-D CG creating) expert. He allows the students to work around their own problems and learn the resource first hand. He would only give lectures/demonstrations when there was a common problem, and the solution would be beneficial to the entire group. This allows for the learning to be brought upon by the students themselves and also leaves room for peer mediation.

Some students (78%) also expressed interest in going into the field of video-game design itself which is something I found to be fascination. The connection between playing video games and learning how they are created was a prime motivation for these students to take this class. The students used the information they learn outside of the classroom to help them plan their animations, which they worked on in cooperative groups. I think facilitating groups to explore a new software is good idea because this way they can learn from one another and be assigned to different aspects of the animation.

I think this is relevant to our class for many reasons. One of these being the current project we are working on has not only to do with animation, but with an entirely new program that all of us know absolutely nothing about. I'm excited to explore Scratch in it's entirety. Hopefully I'll be able to make something really really cool. :D

My Video Remix

In this video, I had hoped to sync some comic relief with a huge issue facing this country today: Hydrofracking. Natural gas, after extracting it and separating the usable gasses from the Marcellus Shale will eventually lead to the creation of radioactive waste that is then plotted in dumps across the state. No matter how much we may rely on gas for transportation and power, I don't feel that the Earth should have to pay the price. The Marcellus is a prehistoric rock that took Mother Nature billions of years to produce. By drilling into the shale, we are interrupting it's leisure and taking it for... well, money. Not only that, but the chemicals leak into our wells and poison many farms and small town homes that are anywhere close by. Yes, this will create jobs, and yes, it will boost the economy, but the price, in my opinion is just not worth it.

Lesson Plan Response #2

                 It took my partner and I a while to think of a great idea for a lesson that only lasted 45 minutes. Nick and I knew that we wanted to base it off our "Representations of Home" presentation that we gave to the class a few weeks prior. After a meeting with our professor, he challenged us to make something 3-dimentional. We focused on the amazing art of Pepon Osorio and Gregory Crewdson and talked about how they represent a feeling of home in their works. After briefly discussing what the feeling of "home" could mean without being in a space of continuous living, we got the feeling that this would be a great idea for a lesson. By talking about what the "home" feeling is to some students, we could translate that same feeling into a different space.

My very first example, we were still working out the kinks with the sizes.

                 What we ended up making was a small 3-d box with a writing exercise that got the students' juices flowing. After briefly recapping the ideas we saw in the powerpoint presentation, I brought up the idea we wanted to use for our boxes. I was hoping for a bit more of a pre-creation discussion about the ideas and objects the students were going to use, but the class seemed pretty quiet and tired during our lesson. After realizing the questions I was asking was not sparking any interest, I looked at Nick and he immediately jumped into the lesson itself. I thought perhaps he could have rephrased the questions or gone about it differently, but what he did allotted the most time for the actual creating of the box. We then asked the students to write down some words, phrases or sentences that reminded them of their certain place. By having them write about the feeling and memories they have of this place, students easily reference their writing to make their 3-d box a bit more meaningful. While doing the lesson, we realized that we had completely forgotten to grab scrap paper for the writing prompt.. and quickly improvised by having the students use the back. It's interesting to note that Meghan pointed out how we should have had scrap paper instead because it was too distracting to have it all written on one piece of paper. As soon as Nick called the students to watch the folding demo, I immediately thought that they could have watched a demo from their desks, but he continued to give the step by step. I also noticed his assumption that everyone in the room knew how to make a “pop-up” but this was a part of my demo time and it made me a bit upset that he tried to completely skip it. When we sent students back to their desks to continue working, I walked around and made sure they were on the right track. For those who looked confused by the assignment, I tried asking questions like... “where do you feel most comfortable, if not at your house?” and “What is your favorite place to go with friends?” Mary told me that she messed up her paper, but she really just wanted to see if we had extras drawn out (which we did!) Marissa acted like a distraught student who did not like being at her house. I used some of the previously stated questions with her to which she answered each one with a shrug. After a while she wasn't giving me anything to work with so I told her, “if it's that hard, take some extra time to think about it, maybe next time you see your friends you will know.”

Rachel D's example! Great job, Rach!

I think the lesson itself went pretty well. We carefully decided who was going to say what, and although the roles were not as clean cut as the lesson we did at our fieldwork, I still think it was equal on paper. With that being said, it was still difficult for me to get a word in. What I wanted or planned to say was often already being explained by my partner which made my role during the lesson a bit uncertain. He sometimes interrupted my thoughts and kept going off in another direction than I had already planed. I know this is not really his fault, but our teaching styles are too different which makes it hard to teach in pairs. I figure when it comes time to student teach, I should be able to really take control of my classroom (or let's hope).