Farewell IT 644

After many months, my journey in IT 644 has come to an end. However, my journey will continue in my blogfolio. I would like to thank you, Dr. Yuen, not only for inspiring me to pick up the habit of writing a blog, but also for committing myself to go above and beyond for my students. I have learned so much from this class, especially from the online instructional materials. I am a visual learner, so the video tutorials sometimes help me more than my own notes. Watching the teacher demonstrate how to use each technology also makes it easier for me to remember. Since I am new in the instructional technology field, and new to advanced hypermedia information, the textbook was somewhat helpful. However, I felt that I still couldn’t fully comprehend and understand many concepts. Nevertheless, I believe my “aha” moment may still come later, sometime in the future… I’m not sure when (it might not come). With that in mind, I found our class social networking site to be useful, especially since it allowed me to post questions and see other people’s work.

Class assignments have been fun. For me, these assignments have been more than just class requirements. They encourage me to be more creative and innovative when I plan the outcome of my work. After of the first two assignments, my mission became to design each assignment to be useful either for my class or for the fashion merchandising program, or to anyone interested in learning these technologies. I spent a great deal of time reflecting about: (a) what I wanted to do for each of the assignments, (b) my reasons for the way I designed each item, (c) the possible benefits of each item I created for my students, my program, and my classes, (d) the most efficient way to complete each assignment, and (d) how to use what I learned in developing my own class assignments. Truly, each of this class’s assignments has provided me a great learning experience. Additionally, working on these assignments has helped me to anticipate possible problems students might encounter with when they try to complete my own class assignments. I believe it is necessary for teachers to deeply know what they are teaching and to fully experience and understand any technologies they expect their students to use. Although teachers may not be experts in a given technology, they should make an effort to explore and experiment with the technologies they utilize in their assignments. In this way, they can encounter the problems their students will encounter, so that they can then understand their students’ questions and hopefully, use their greater experience to find solutions. 

If I had to pick my favorite assignment, it would be the animation assignment, since I have wanted to be able to make animations for a long time. The most challenging assignment, on the other hand, was to use CleVR to create panoramic 360° images. I found it to be very difficult (impossible) to take 6-8 pictures that the program would perfectly stitch together. The two projects I spent the most time struggling with were the Video ToolBox and the ShowBeyond projects. Lastly, in my opinion, the most beneficial knowledge I gained was awareness and familiarity with online file converting tools.

In conclusion, while the IT 644 assignments could be time consuming, they were usually not extremely difficult. However, IT 644 is one of the most useful classes I have ever taken at the graduate level. I give the class an “A” since it is fun, full of useful information, and will help me expand my students’ capabilities and career options.

           

Creating Animation with Fuzzwich

I had an impression that making animation would be difficult and time consuming. Therefore, I was very excited and eager to learn about Fuzzwich. During class, Dr. Yuen discussed about types of animation and how they are produced. He further explained about Fuzzwich and emphasized how easy the program is. However, he mentioned that carefully plan the storyline would help producing better animation. 

Fuzzwich is very easy to use since the program provides users all animated characters, scenery, their face expressions (e.g. happy, bored, angry, and sad), and their actions (e.g. attack, rejoice, and swoon). After selecting the characters and scenery, users have to create a path for each character according to the story. Then, users can add speech bubbles for each character. Since picture worth more than thousand words, here under are step by step on how to use Fuzzwich.

1. Click "Make one now" button located at the upper right corner of Fuzzwich website.

2. Select the setting for your animation.

 

          3. Choose characters for your animation.

4. Watch 10 seconds Fuzzwich video tutorial on how it work.

5. Start your animation.

For our class assignment, we were required to create an animation using the Fuzzwich.  We had to have at least 2 characters with appropriate actions, faces, and speech bubbles. After finishing our animation, we had to embed our Fuzzwich animaton in our class social network. It did not take me long to decide what I would do for this project. My animation title is “Meet USM Fashion Merchandising Faculty.” I have planed for the FM program to use this animation when we visit high schools for recruitment and for my colleague, Brigitte Burgess, to use for her Intro to Merchandising class. I had fun making this animation. I agree with Dr. Yuen that planning the storyline ahead is very helpful. So far, I have a positive experience with the program. Like coin, Fuzzwich has both sides: pros and cons. I like Fuzzwich for their user friendly, and useful features, and ability to share with others. More importantly, Fuzzwich is free. Additionally, there are couple drawbacks about Fuzzwich. First, approximately 20 seconds of animation is very short. Restricted time will limit what users can use Fuzzwich for. Second, users can’t upload audio file or add their voice to the animation. Third, there is no search function on Fuzzwich website. It is harder for others to search similar animation or find what they are looking for.

In my opinion, Fuzzwish has potential not only for education purpose but also for business perspective. Therefore, in my future classes, I plan to assign my students to create animation for promoting products or introducing projects.  I also plan to explore other animated programs that Dr. Yuen kindly sent me the link.

Online Sildecasting with Showbeyond

Showbeyond is a multimedia online sildecast that allows users to create presentation though images and audio.  Showbeyond is also an online publishing platform and allows users to share their stories. Audio files can be downloaded/recorded or voice narrative can be recorded. The platform of showbeyond is similar to slide of PowerPoint presentation. Showbeyond offers several background and fonts. The program will auto save the ongoing project. 

In addition to the demonstration of how to use Showbeyond, Dr. Yuen still offers many useful class-reading materials as follows:

·         Dr. Yuen’s blog about Showbeyond at http://scyuen.wordpress.com/2008/01/31/showbeyond/
·         Showbeyond Quick Tour at http://www.showbeyond.com/docs/tour
·         Showbeyond FAQ at http://www.showbeyond.com/docs/faq
·         Showbeyong Review by Teach Web 2.0 at http://teachweb2.wikispaces.com/Showbeyond

We were required to use Showbeyond to create a slidecast. Dr. Yuen identified the following requirements for our slidecast:

·         A title slide,

·         A minimum of 12 images,

·         Audio or music

·         A short statement (text) to tell story on each slide.

Furthermore, we had to embed our Showbeyong file on our class social network with the preferred embed width in 480 pixels or less. The following are steps by step of how I create my showbeyond. 

I. Sign up for a free account at www.showbeyond.com 

II. Start a project by clicking “Create”.

3.     

            III. Upload images to Showbeyond.

a.       Through computer

b.      Through URL

c.       Through Flickr

d.      Through Picasa

4.      IV. Editing your slidecast story.

a.       Each slide

                                                               i.      Add title slide

                                                             ii.      Add text slide

                                                           iii.      Duplicating current slide

                                                           iv.      Delete the current slide

b.      Podcast

                                                              i.      Insert Audio Narration

                                                            ii.      Delete Audio Narration

                                                          iii.      Record Background Music

                                                          iv.      Upload Background Music

                                                            v.      Get Background Music from URL

                                                           vi.      Delete Background Music

c.       Images

                                                              i.      Fit as

                                                            ii.      Fit as

                                                          iii.      Fit as

                                                          iv.      Fit as

d.      Style

                                                               i.      Changing background style

e.       Duration

                                                              i.      0.5 seconds

                                                            ii.      1 second

                                                          iii.      2 seconds

                                                          iv.      4 seconds

                                                            v.      8 seconds

                                                          vi.      16 seconds

                                                        vii.      32 seconds

                                                       viii.      Manual Input 

To add text

To Update Sequence

5.    V. Click “Share Story” to begin sharing your story.

I decided to create a slidecast presentation on useful Web 2.0 applications for Fashion Merchandising students. I grouped Web 2.0 applications that I have learned from IT 644 or have utilized before into three categories that I believe they are useful for my students. I started my project with using Jing to screen capture each Web 2.0 application. Then, I utilized the online converting programs to change the image file formats.  I rearranged images to the correct order.  Next, I added the text describing each image. Unfortunately, while I uploading an audio file to Showbeyond, my project was collapsed. I posted my question in the blog. Within 12 hours, the showbeyond’s team answered my post. It was very quick response considering Showbeyond is a free web application.

            Since Showbeyond staff informed me that they could not retrieve my project, I had to redo my project. I decided to create my project through PowerPoint first. I found that I had more control for the adjustment of images and length as well as place of text for each image. I then converted the PowerPoint file to JPEG. Next, I uploaded my JPEG images to Showbeyond. I found an appropriate music for my slidecasting project. Next, I changed the duration of each slide to match the length of text.  Then, I uploaded my audio music to Showbeyond. Finally, I shared my story with private restriction.

I believe Showbeyond is a powerful tool for both education and business purposes.  However, I have not had time to ponder the proper assignment using Showbeyond for my future classes.