Creating a composition video is very rewarding for me and my family. While the photos are mine and represent the world as I saw it, it's a great way to see the past year and remember events and moments we shared and experienced together.  Many of the images have a specific story and memory. Others are representative of the beauty I see around me. Certainly the addition of HDR and other image enhancements add even more awe to the world around me.  A quick scan of the various subjects shows the following results:

• Family: 86 photos
• Videos: 44
• Friends: 40
• Dogs: 38 (of particular note, 14 of those featured Rue in some type of weird sleeping position)
• Sky: 32 (likely do do the HDR app but I seemed to be sky watching more than ever)
• Me: 30 (I need to work at getting that number down)
• Golf: 28 (I think that's down from last year. I need to play more courses)

Posting photos online continue to add so much to the experience. People have shared many of these moments with me both in person and virtually. We see the collection of these images to tell rich stories of one another and I'm happy to share some of my family and life with the world. 

Technically this video was pretty easy to create. I used iMovie instead of Final Cut Express. I simply brought in all photos I had tagged with 365/11. I cross referenced them with flickr and discovered a few errors. Unlike in past years, I didn't painstakingly go through each month to insure every day was represented. I'm sure there are a few days missing. Not because I didn't take a photo but because I didn't tag them properly. Big deal. Photos are set to 5 second and fit to frame by default. After adding music I tend to view and trim accordingly. Pictures of little meaning or content tend to get cut down to 3.5 or 4 seconds. Photos that have some story or object of significance seem better suited at times to using the Ken Burns effect. I'm not sure I always get it right but discreet pan and zoom can be effective. That's why I don't want to use it as the default. Choosing which photos need or benefit from that effect is intentional. I hope that comes through. I finish with a couple of songs from my daughter which I did in 2009 as well. I tried to make some smooth transitions between the end of songs and beginnings which required some additional adjustments.  

Anyway, it's meaningful to me. and easy enough to share with you. I'm Maybe you'll recall some of the photos, maybe not. Maybe you make an appearance in some, maybe you don't. Maybe you've got 30 minutes to watch it, maybe you don't.

This weekend I was on the lookout for moments of beauty inside our house. Having been taking a photo every single day for the past 4 years, I've developed a keener sense of beauty or mindfulness. Trying to capture moments, seeing something special in the way light hits an object or the way two people interact. It's a habit I'm glad I've been developing and will continue to pursue. 

This is what I came up with. 

It's not awesome but it's a story, our story. I can really see taking this format and tweaking it and making it one's own. Ben used his son as the theme of his video. That's a very compelling story and while it's obviously incredibly meaningful to him, he tells it in such a way that we are drawn in as well. As I watch my own, I'm not sure exactly where to critique it. Would a better camera made a difference? What shots would have been more compelling? Was there even an implied storyline? Was the music an appropriate choice? 

I think about my own assessment skills here. I've created enough of these stories to have some sense of what works and what doesn't, and yet I lack the vocabulary or expertise to truly dissect my work in this case. I'm not sure if it's because I'm using a new format or whether art itself is too challenging to always try and deconstruct. Certainly this is the dilemma of assessment in schools when it comes to creative work. As Royan Lee says, "why grade when you can reflect?"

Perhaps my greatest accomplishment this summer is that I did a lot of nothing. My July was unusually quiet, void of the summer gigs at conferences that have kept me in presenter and work mode. Outside of my PLP commitments, I played a lot of golf and took the odd nap, read a little, wrote very little and hung out with family and friends. I needed that. 

In the early part of the month I took part in an unique event called Unplugd. As part of the organizing committee, it was a year long process that finally came to fruition over the long weekend. For me it was a bit odd as I went from doing nothing to being placed with some pretty incredible and passionate folks ready to work, share, think and play. As soon as the event ended, I went right back into vacation mode and had little time to really reflect. I'm not even sure I'm ready yet. There was and is much to process. Many have already written some great personal reflections. 

As I prepare to begin a new year I'm also going to be presenting at the ABEL Summer Institute. I playing with some old ideas and exploring a few new ones too. That's pretty much the mindset I'll have entering the new year at both Prairie South, my day job and teaching pre-service teachers at the University of Regina, my night job. I'm slowly getting back into my RSS reader and really beginning to think deeply again. Tonight two posts have me thinking. Bud writes a wonderful little pep talk to teachers as they begin the new year. My favorite part:

Be an expert when you need to be. Be a learner always. You are probably the most experienced learner in your classroom. But don’t assume you’re the most knowledgeable person or object. If you’ve a computer handy, then you’re not. Embrace that. Relationships and mentoring cannot be outsourced or Googled. They take time and genuine concern.

That's gold. Read it again and tell me that's not gold. 

The second thing I read tonight was Hugh MacLeod's post about quitting Twitter and Facebook to focus on blogging. What I think is important for me is both the emphasis on doing something that's hard and owning it. You see, writing this post is much more difficult for me than cranking out 20 tweets. I'm not so quick to discount twitter as distracting and useless. I've advocated the opposite many times. But I do think the balance needs to be watch carefully and for me the balance needs to shift here. This is where I do my most meaningful work. The comments you leave me both agreeing and at times disagreeing are gold for me. This is my space to tell stories, and "stories is all we are" I think it's a much richer space to tell stories and besides I own these stories and this space. I pay for it and it's worth it. Bud's post that I shared with you is 3 years old. He owns it. He wrote and first posted it to his blog. Not twitter, not Facebook but HIS BLOG. That's kind of a big deal. You need a place for your stuff. Twitter is like a neighbourhood bar. You might want to visit but it's kind of an icky and awkward place to live.  I'd love to come hang out where you have stuff and tell stories. You'd be surprised how many others would too. 

​So my summer of nothing is winding down. It's been a great summer. I hope you take some time to read both the posts I mentioned. I also hope, if you haven't a place to tell your stories that you find one. And don't tell me you don't have any to tell because that's all we are….stories. 

​Photo by: charbeck 10 http://www.flickr.com/photos/23046603@N00/6023520691/

That become the intro to this video I put together along with the help of about 75 others.

The Big Picture Learning Stuff

While at first glance it may be seen as simply fun, silly and maybe a wee bit cool but I think there's something more here. Lots of lessons perhaps around being connected may be extracted but I'm thinking about Shirky's notion of Cognitive Surplus.

These 75 people contributed about 5-60 seconds of video. While I know that it may have been a little more time the idea that cumulative of all this content could be pieced together for something of value and meaning is non-trivial.

I wonder if the more difficult the question the greater the strength and/or structure of the organizing principle required to make the results intelligible/useful? Meredith Stewart

in this case, Alec is a compelling personality that has made huge contributions to many. I could have easily found another 75 people and likely could have made 10 videos given his network. But we can certainly come up with compelling ideas that would benefit greatly from the contributions of others. This is why having and building a network, while not easy and magic, offers new possibilities for learning and change.

The Little Picture Technical Stuff

A few people have asked about how I put this all together so here goes:

1. Jon Becker sends out a tweet suggesting I do something for Alec

2. I create this google form.

3. I waited until I had about 70 entries. I'm not sure why I choose that number because as it turned out I had to do some fancy stickhandling to make everyone;s part fit.

4. I send out this email:

5. I was careful not to ask people to submit in a specific format since it may be another barrier for some. As entries came in I used MPEG StreamClip to convert any weird files (Windows type files) I used dropittomedropittome.com for people to send their video clips. This is linked to my dropbox account and was a very efficient way to gather the clips. They ranged in size from 989k to 70MB. Dropittome has a limit of 75 MB which was sufficient even for HD submissions of only a few seconds.

6. I began inserting video as it came in except for the parts with multiple video.

7. By Saturday night I had most of the videos and went at creating the final product in Final Cut Express.

8. I again used MPEG Streamclip to take the full Quicktime video to a more youtube friendly mp4 format.

That's it. I'd really like some more thoughts on the big picture part but am happy to answer questions or discuss the little picture part too.

I remember back in the 1990's learning to create webpages using Dreamweaver, when we wanted to insure that a particular font was consistent across browsers and individual machines, we had to convert text to images. The first time I did this or was made aware of this it took a bit to wrap my head around the idea that the text was not really text but was actually a graphic.

In reality this isn't a totally new phenomenon. Poets have been using the shape of text as an integral part of their poems for centuries. E. E. Cummings for example used typography to "paint a picture" with many of his works. Today we view typography very differently thanks to our personal computers. The simple fact that we quickly recognize most fonts and have very strong feelings about some, suggest that text is no longer simply symbols that combine to form words but in a digital format can have added emotion and meaning.

My own work within my district often focuses on shifting notions of literacy that need to include a variety of media. Digital Storytelling becomes a major emphasis for helping teachers move beyond text and provide students with a balanced notion of what it means to be literate. 

This summer I was fortunate to share some of my beliefs, experiences and exploration into this at a number of conferences and shared a section I called "More than Words" where I demonstrate some examples of using typography as digital stories. Here are a couple of those examples:

Typography in Motion

I call this typography in motion but perhaps there's a more common/official term for this and feel free to clarify in the comments. The words definitely come to life and the art, design and placement of text in motion provide an entirely new layer of humor to this classic exchange. Searching youtube you'll find a plethora of these examples and generally they are created using software like Adobe After Effects which is not only expensive but pretty complicated. I was pretty pleased to see that the latest version of PowerPoint offers some features which may be able to allow you to create similar work but in a much more familiar, easy to use tool.

Search Stories

The 2010 SuperBowl featured this commercial for Google.

Youtube now allows anyone to create similar stories. It's not difficult to see the value in having students create these types of stories. The traditional instruction of sequencing takes on an entirely new twist as we use the common task of searching as a storytelling tool. 

In my presentation I go on to discuss wordle and things like text position in slides and graphics as other examples where text  can have a distinct visual characteristic. 

What I'm discovering is that understanding these new ways to use words and text can assist teachers that feel both resistant and fearful in shifting away from entirely text driven curriculum. It certainly doesn't mean that text is no longer valuable simply as written communication but it does help to open up the conversation around shifting notions of literacy. 

Photos

I use iphoto to organize and edit photos. For the photo a day project, I use the 365/10 tag and create a Smart Album to find them easier. I also upload to Flickr and the tags are retained. I don't worry too much about adding them to the set in flickr but I do that manually inside flickr. I wonder if I could eliminate a step there. Fortunately when I access the photos in iMovie, they are in chronological order so I can grab them all at once and drag them in. Currently I cross check the number of photos in my flickr set and inside iphoto to insure I haven't missed a day or forgot to tag them properly. Usually about once a month I do this and so far I'm bang on. As far as editing, I realize Aperture is much more powerful but I've been satisfied with basic touchups using iPhoto.

Audio

To find a song title for each photo is not really a big deal. I typically have one come to mind right away. Once in a while I leave it for a day until one comes to mind or I've farmed out the task to my twitter followers and they usually find something really good. Once I come up with the song I check youtube for it. Youtube is a great place to find music. I'll add the hyperlink to my flickr description. If I don't already have the song, I'll use this site to download the song. I don't keep the song but take it to Audacity and find 6-10 seconds of the song to use in my year end montage. I'm not sure of copyright infringement but I may well be violating it. Clipping the songs takes a fair bit of time since I don't do that everyday. Thus far I'll I've done it about 4-5 times where I'll clip a batch of songs in the evenings.

The real time consuming part comes from creating the soundtrack. At first I tried using iMovie to edit the audio song by song. This wasn't very good as I needed to crossfade the songs and iMovie isn't very good with multiple audio tracks. I switched to Final Cut but the challenge comes with the photos as it's more time consuming to add any type of pan and zoom to images. I decided to use Audacity to create a soundtrack. Bringing in each song clip and lining them up allowed me a high level of control. 

The soundtrack is indeed the most important element of this project and adjusting image duration would be much easier than trying to tweak the music. I exported it out as a mixed down mp3 file. I'm going to try and create 12 files, one for each month. Having 30 tracks in Audacity is a bit taxing on my computer so I think it's best to create a monthly video and bring them together.

Video

As I mentioned, I wavered back and both between imovie and Final Cut. While I'm getting more comfortable with FC, iMovie handles images really well. I first changed the project preferences to have each image 8 seconds in duration which is about the average length of each. The longest I have in my March video was 13 seconds and the shortest about 5. I also turned off the Ken Burns effect and simply used it for a few photos rather than every one. 

That's a quick overview of the workflow. It took a bit of trial and error to get it right. The audio was definitely the most time consuming. To create that March soundtrack took me 3-4 hours alone. I'm going to try and do a bit more before the end of the year to avoid an overwhelming amount of work. I'm pretty pleased with the results. Any tips you have to improve this are welcome.

Knowing that the end of the year I'll put together a montage, I started thinking about this immediately and testing out two possible methods. The first method didn't work at all for me. Thanks to some great feedback I think I found the best way to share the photos.

Either way, I didn't want to leave this to the end of the year as I've done in the past. So I figured I needed to establish a work flow that will take some of the sting and time out of production. Anyway, here's a continuation of where I left of in February and includes all of March's photos.

I'll write another post outlining my workflow.

I thought I'd try doing the month of January as a test. I'll be honest, I don't think it works. It seems sloppy, lacking any elegance.
Watch.

So while I plan to continue finding a song for each image I post, I'm not sure this will be the way to package it. I like the concept but not sure I can pull it off. I considered titling each image but thought that would simply add to the cognitive load. Maybe there is a way but I'm not seeing it. I could use your help. Can this be improved? Be honest. I can take it.

This video is of a local women who has terminal cancer. It’s challenging and a little nerve racking to be working with such a sensitive subject. The intent is obviously to tell her story in a clear and concise way and at the same time evoke the emotion that will get people to open up their wallets.

I Have Cancer from shareski on Vimeo.

I thought I’d take some time to reveal some of the reasoning and thought behind my production/design choices. I’ve always believed and have been taught that nothing should be random so hopefully I can address those choices.

Trimming

The raw interview was about 12 minutes. I had a goal of getting the interview under 5 minutes. Determing what to cut was difficult. This is where you need an unbias eye to see if you’ve captured a coherent story. I had my wife watch the first cut to see if the story was clear. This is crucial since it’s often hard to remove yourself from the knowledge you have of the entire footage.

Camera Positions

When doing interviews I prefer to have the camera slightly off centre. The interviewer in this case is sitting slightly to the left of the camera. It’s actually farther off centered that I prefer but without moving too much furniture around, it’s the best I could do. I shot the main footage with a Sony HD camera. The second camera is simply my Canon SD 780 still camera that shoots in HD. The use of a second camera is always a plus and in this case I think it helps the viewer see the setting of the interview and get a sense of being present. The split screen view makes that clear.

Transitions

The transitions between shots using the flowers and backyard footage has two purposes. First you see the subject and interviewer in a casual setting which provides context and background information to the interview. I rarely show the interviewer since they aren’t really part of the story. In this case I wanted to reveal a sense of friendship. Although you never see the interviewer ask a question, I’m hoping the transition video makes that clear. I switch to using the flowers in transitions to represent the beauty of life. The whole idea of a transition between scences is done to allow the viewer time to feel the impact and emotion of the story. It seems that for me the greater the emotion, the longer the transitions. In this case I would have lengthened the transitions even more in some cases but wanted the entire project to be under 5 minutes so I had to trim some of them.

Audio

I can’t stress enough the importance of a microphone for interviews. I have a bluetooth, wireless mic that works wonders in all sorts of environments. The air conditioner was humming in the background but the quality of this mic eliminated external sounds. This also allows me to easily add background audio withouth having to a lot of tweaking. The music, which I found on Jamendo (my new favourite Creative Commons source) is used to provide a delicate, soft backdrop to the story. I sampled dozens of instrumental music but was thinking piano as the core instrument. Music can certainly be overdone and I sampled until I found the one that best fit the piece.

Special Effects

5 minutes of "talking head’ can be a bit much. I’ve rarely seen it done effectively. If I’d had more time or had more ownership of the project, I would have liked more "b-roll" footage. In order to provide interest I used the dual camera and split screens. Again, these are done with purpose. The viewer gets a sense of place and hopefully adds to the intimacy. I used a bit of slow motion on the pan of the family photos. This was done as much to cover up the use of a handheld pan. There are a number of interesting filters in Final Cut Express which may have been interesting but time and the fact they have to be rendered each time to view them made that less desirable. I will need to explore them more to understand how they might enhance future projects.

The story is still the key. However these other elements represent the design and as I’ve mentioned many times, cannot be separated from the final product. I hope these insights are useful and certainly am open to critique of my choices. I just wanted to be transparent and explicit with how and why I did what I did.

Schools are text snobs. Most people reading this are text snobs. Our institutions are built around the written word. That in itself is not bad and we owe much of our culture, knowledge and understanding to the written word. It’s not our fault, we’ve been living in a world that up until a few years ago, only offered us to easily produce content via the written word. But like the revolution of the printing press, we are in the midst of a revolution of a digital nature that’s allowing us to easily create and consume context in many different forms, specifically audio, video and imagery.

So what are our schools doing to address this? I’d say for the most part very little. I must say I’m please to note that many curricula, are beginning to address this gap. In fact my own Saskatchewan Curriculum identifies these six strands as the cornerstone of the English Language Arts Curriculum: Reading, Writing, Speaking, Listening and Viewing and Representing. All are considered equal but take a wild guess as to which ones receive the bulk of the attention? No doubt that many standardized tests and assessments focus solely on reading and writing and thus perpetuate the lack of attention on the other four. But even those who are building vast digital footprints and experience the power of publishing and connecting are doing so mostly via text. Believe me, I don’t want to discount its importance and value. Writing and the written word will always hold a prominent place in our understanding and experience of life but I’m concerned over the limited use of video, audio and even imagery among teachers and leaders in our schools and in particular those who have created and are developing an online presence.

(This post continues with the following video)

(And now some audio)

In general, schools have placed writing ahead of other forms of expression. Writing is what is measured and what is valued. As we consider the changing of the guard of modern communication.  The recent marketing ploy by the Australian government to find someone to be the caretaker of an island illustrates the shifting of communication skills. Instead of simply asking applicants to write an essay, they were to submit a video to sell themselves. Consider this quote by Stephen Downes.

OK, these are videos for that contest to live on an Australian island (the contest was probably the public relations coup of the year). They are, of course, creative and imaginative and effective. Now for the kicker: ten years ago, not one student in a hundred, nay, one in a thousand, could have produced videos like this. It’s a whole new skill, a vital and important skill, and one utterly necessary not simply from the perspective of creating but also of comprehending video communication today. Some people out there

Marco Torres get a great deal of credit and is seen as an extraordinary educator. Not that he isn’t but part of the reason Torres gets the attention is the fact that very few teachers/schools allow students to create and express themselves with video. I’d love for this to change. We need more Marco Torres’. The challenge is that most teachers who have developed their online presence is largely because of their ability to write. This continues the bias towards text over other mediums. We need kids that can write, tell a story, engage in a coherent, interesting conversation and tell stories with still and moving images. Shouldn’t we be modeling this? Who’s going to teach them?

I sometimes post my slides here and even have gone to the trouble to add the audio, after the fact. I usually invite discussion but more so on the ideas rather than the packaging.

I’ll be the first to admit, the more I learn the more inadequate I feel to speak about visual literacy. I’m not trained in graphic design, but have read about it and practiced it to the point where I hope I have something to offer folks. I definitely push this the importance of visual literacy in our own school division.

Dan asked for people to explicitly solicit critique. I welcome it. When it comes to presentations, I subscribe to much of the ideas of Garr Reynolds, Cliff Atkinson and others. I spend hours and hours on each one. I recognize how it can engage audiences and provide some memorable images that can carry with participants beyond the presentation itself.  That said, I don’t think even the most compelling imagery can make up for incoherent ideas and poor delivery. I’m constantly working at all three.

So here’s a ten minute video where I describe why I make the choices I make. It was one take each so excuse the pauses and droning but maybe it will provide some insight. Leave any comments or suggestions. Don’t feel you have to be an expert to comment. Perhaps I haven’t explained something clearly or didn’t address something you felt was important. We can learn from and with each other.

But I’d never seen Alan present and give his perspectives and insights into this impressive piece of work. I invited him to speak to some of our teachers who I’ve been working with on digital storytelling. So from the comforts of his house sitting gig from Iceland, he came in and did his schtick. For 90 minutes, he kept us engaged and fascinated with the potential of web based storytelling tools. What a treat. Too good not to share.

“Teachers will not take up attractive-sounding ideas, albeit based on extensive research, if these are presented as general principles which leave entirely to them the task of translating them into everyday practice … what they need is a variety of living examples of implementation, by teachers with whom they can identify and from whom they can derive conviction and confidence that they can do better and see concrete examples of what doing better means in practice”
Black, P. and William,D. Inside the Black Box: Raising standards through classroom assessment, King’s College, London, England. 1998, 15-16

This quote reminds me to work harder at finding living examples of what best or better practice means. Last week I spent 2 days with teachers looking at Project Based Learning and how to embed it deeply into practice. Much of our discussion focused on a video used by our presenters showing a classroom and teacher in action. Discussions were rich and meaningful.  We’re working really hard to insure that professional development includes and is built around followup. In a month, we’ll be gathering virtually to share our progress and further our understandings. Sharing artifacts of learning is challenging at times. Finding time to write up something or even provide background to student work can be time consuming.

To help support this, I ran out at lunch and picked up Flip videos for all participant teams. The intent is that teachers will be easily be able to capture learning and share it with each other.  I’m hoping to piece together these clips eventually to create something that would clearly represent what Project Based Learning looks like in our district. 

I use this video a lot when I make the case for digital storytelling.

“…they need a variety of living examples of implementation, by teachers with whom they can identify and from whom they can derive conviction and confidence that they can do better and see concrete examples of what doing better means in practice.”

I’ll stop talking now.

projectbasedlearning, galileo, black&william, flipvideo

Then I grab this little gem from Garr Reynolds about Ken Burns:

When you think about it, often the photo really is more powerful than video at telling the story. The photo captures a moment in time allowing the viewer to slow down and think and wonder and reflect. Photos allow for greater emphasis and may have less distracting elements, giving the presenter or narrator/film maker more freedom to augment the photo (or the other way around). We can learn a lot from documentary film, especially the kind like those created by Burns which rely so heavily on still images. One tip is to avoid the usage of imagery as ornamentation. What you see in Burns’ films is a simple and powerful use of photos and other imagery that support the narrative and illuminate the story on a visceral level, thereby making the experience richer and stickier.

As someone who has been using video for a long time and is considers himself a better videographer than a photographer, I am becoming more appreciative of the still image. As Burns says in the video excerpt below, “video is simply a series of 24 still frames per second”.

You can think of stills as slow motion. As a sports enthusiast, the advent of slow motion has transformed the viewing of sports and allows us to gain an understanding of the intricacies of athletics in ways never before possible. We’ve had this for a long time with stills, it was simply hidden in plain sight at least for me.

As David and I held a little planning session tonight we talked about the power and importance of visual literacy. We also agreed that while PowerPoint may be the tool we focus on, it’s really not about PowerPoint but the ability to communicate a message effectively with the support of well designed visuals.

This video promoting a book called The Back of a Napkin, demonstrates how ideas can always be enhanced and developed using simple visuals.

Many of these principles are transferable whether you’re using a napkin or a slide deck. If you’re attending NECC, we’d love to have you pop by Monday, June 30th at 11:00. David plans to take everyone who attends out for supper that evening.

Thanks to D’arcy Norman’s inspiring work of 2007, a number of us decided to take on the challenge of shooting a photo a day. 48 days into it and I’ve certainly become more visually aware and I believe more literate.  Part of the power of joining a group in flickr is to be able to see how many are trying to achieve the same thing but in a myriad of ways. Amazing learning takes place.

Subscribing to the 366photo feed allows me to see everyone’s efforts. Today I was struck by a seemingly innocent photo of a child’s rocking chair taken by Alan Levine.

Flashback to the day before. Alan writes about his “pathetic” photo,

A photo of a corner of my roof makes my 366photos of the day? Could this be the most pathetic day of the year (that i always possible). No, this marks a spot where something was but is no more. Today, I sold the Hughes Satellite Internet Dish that sat here for 2 years. Since moving to Strawberry, I got more reliable (used loosely in a small town) cable internet service. I posted a few paper flowers down at the market and Post Office in Pine, but shazam, it was Craigslist that connected me with a family near Snowflake AZ (look it up actually named for town cofounders with last names of “Snow” and “Flake” and thus could have just as easily been called “Flakesnow”) that needed a dish to get to the net. So in a contemplative mood I am wondering- we typically focus on a photograph as a means to “grab” or portray something that is there– but is there room or a place to consider perhaps “negative space” photography, the portrayal of a place where something is not there? On a less philosophical note- proceeds of this sale have underwritten the costs of my new western footwear…

Every picture has a story. If you aren’t already aware, you need to understand that Alan is a master at this type of storytelling. Witness his efforts to tell the same story about his dog Dominoe using 49 different online storytelling tools. So now we move to today’s post of the chair. I won’t attempt to share the contents of the story, you need to read it for yourself,but I hope we begin to see how powerful and important it is to think about how we see the world. All of us have hundreds of these images stored in our memory filled with beautiful, sad, scary, disturbing, inspiring stories that are waiting to be shared. Yes shared.  Okay, keep some of them private but I as I commented to Alan:

What a privilege to be in a community where people feel vulnerable enough to share such depth. To think a seemingly innocent photo a a rocking chair could illicit such emotion and meaning….if your last photo was your most pathetic (I doubt if it is) this might be your most powerful.

Images: David’s Rocking Chair by Alan Levine
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cogdog/2274055016

Technorati Tags: darcynorman, alanlevine, flickr

Simplicity, planning, innovation, constraints and whitespace all are used. Yes, they use some green screen but really, it’s about storytelling. My son played director and  producer and his buddy did the editing. When asking about ideas, he said it came from watching movies, playing video games and tv.  This is why demanding students to talk about movies like we ask them to talk about books is critical. Students should be as fluent talking about video as they are about writing. We’re so text bias as schools, that it makes it difficult to even understand what is a well crafted, design piece of multimedia. And while I think we need more examples of student work, I think there are so many in the real world, but we don’t look deeply at what makes them work. That’s what these guys did.

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I checked my Canon SD750 and realized it had the feature. So let’s give it a try.

I set it up tonight while I prepared a meal for my family and our friends. The total time of preparation was about 50 minutes. I set the time lapse to shoot every 2 seconds. What you have is about 2 minutes which I cut down to about 80 seconds. If you look carefully you should see a spill, boy in underwear and puppies.

This will prove to be a valuable tool for me. Check your digital camera and see if you can do time lapse. I think it’s very cool.

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As I mention in my keynote and in this behind the scenes look, chroma keying has the WOW factor but with anything else it can be overused. I don’t claim to be an expert editor so for those with greater skill than I, excuse the rather crude editing and set up.

I think the potential for projects like Vicki’s and Julie’s would be to have students collaborate and create content that appears seamless;as if they were working in the same room.  I like the recent Gmail video as one example as well.

I used Viddler based on Chris Harbeck’s use and it serves as a nice interactive video tool. Go ahead and leave a comment on the video itself.

Technorati Tags: chromakey, greenscreen, flatclassroom, shareski, viddler

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Almost a new take on Did you Know but it’s actually another video from Michael Wesch of Kansas State who produced The Machine is Using Us.

Don’t dismiss this because it’s focused on higher ed. The message is pretty much the same. Powerful.

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While I love the idea, I didn’t enter the contest mostly because life here is a bit nuts and also because my creativity as small as it might be, needs some starting point and I didn’t quite get it until I saw the entries. All very good stuff.

I’m teaching a workshop on digital storytelling tomorrow and along with completely stealing Alan Levine’s great resources, I’m going to require my participants to give this concept a shot. I figured I needed to walk the talk so I created this. You’ll likely recognize elements in other entries but hopefully I’ve mixed some original design elements. I also used the tell a story in six words idea for each slide.  The idea of restraints and conciseness is continuing to mull around my brain as a key ingredient to effective communication.

Thanks to Dan and Christian and Scott for kickin’ it up a notch!

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Digital storytelling begins with the notion that in the not [too] distant future, sharing one’s story through the multiple mediums of digital imagery, text, voice, sound, music, video and animation will be THE PRINCIPAL HOBBY OF THE WORLD’S PEOPLE.

The fact that the iPhone has a YouTube button which permits people to directly watch YouTube videos directly on their phone is really amazing, IMHO, but I think it reflects the continuing manifestation of the above prediction by Joe Lambert.

Just listening to Dean and David share during our virtual class this evening, I learned about a BUNCH of great digital storytelling examples and tools I hadn’t seen or heard about before. I saved most of these to my social bookmarks and YouTube playlists, but briefly, some of the highlights were:

Digital storytelling examples:

• True America: A super-powerful movie by an 18 year old student in David’s district about the meaning of freedom and the United States, created in response to a request from Barack Obama on his MySpace page for student-created videos
• Fun and powerful Apple advertisement from the late 1990s about 21st century “show and tell” via digital storytelling
• Chasing Metaphors: Great example of a digital storytelling theme or assignment for students
• A fun video Dean made of his family at Lake Michigan set to part of the song “Jump” by Van Halen

TouFee, another web-based video editing environment similar to JumpCut, and EyeSpot were mentioneed by David. Vimeo was mentioned but I think it is mainly a video sharing and commenting/social networking site, rather than an editing tool.

I have used these previously, but I did specifically save and tag David’s excellent PhotoStory3 tutorials and screencasts as well.

Thanks to Dean for both the opportunity to guest blog here, and also join in the conversation tonight via Elluminate about digital storytelling. I learned a lot and had fun!

Technorati Tags: digitalstorytelling

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The Simple Truth of Service Movie

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This summer Fox has unveiled, On The Lot, a Mark Burnett production to give aspiring filmmakers a chance to strut their stuff and have a chance to earn a 1 million dollar development deal with Dreamworks.

There are great lessons to be learned for digital storytelling. In Monday’s episode, 18 contestants had to produce 1 minute comedies. Each was critiqued and contestants were provided feedback on their work. The show helps you see the challenge behind good storytelling. As an observer, you get insight into the qualities of good film making. Viewers can also submit videos for review.

Here’s one great example:

With summer coming and the television lineup dwindling, this might be something worth checking out.

I’ll likely use this in church on Sunday.

[tags]mothersday,mothers,video,shareski[/tags]

The List

Cleaning Gutters

Washing Windows

Help from Martha

Mowing the Lawn

Watching Golf

Board Game with Family

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