Reflections on Movie Maker

Windows Movie Maker is a downloadable program that uses pictures, images, video, music, and recordings to create movies. Once all the images, video, and music are all in a folder together, it's just a matter of importing the information into Movie Maker.  After the information is imported, all you have to do to create a movie is drag the image into the storyboard or timeline. You can add narration and music to your movie then.

Creating the movie was the easy part. However, I had a difficult time saving and posting my movie to the required site, so I can't elaborate on how to successfully post your movie.

Here's a link to my video that my professor sent to me:
http://www.westga.edu/~dbaylen/7464_MMKatrina_gmb.wmv 

Movie Maker

Hurricane Katrina was a devastating natural disaster! My husband worked in Slidell, Louisiana, from October 2005 to February 2006 in the disaster relief group for BellSouth. The pictures and video were taken by my husband and a coworker. We have a connection with the people in Louisiana, so I created this as my project.

The link to the video posted on YouTube is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2n7VH9MNYk

Article Review - The World of Digital Storytelling

Ohler, J. (2005, December). The world of digital storytelling. Educational Leadership,  44-47. 


According to Jason Ohler, author of "The World of Digital Storytelling," students are gaining more confidence with using technology. Digital storytelling employs technology to tell the student's story; however, often the story weakens as the use of technology strengthens. Students are excited to experiment with and use technology. It is the teacher's job to make sure the story doesn't suffer at the expense of technology. One way to do that, according to Ohler, is to encourage the use of story mapping. Windows' Movie Maker builds the movie on a storyboard and timeline. Students can see the progression of the story and make sure the story flows in a logical manner. Digital storytelling offers students opportunities to experiment with their creativity and taps into the inner movie star in us all.

Synectics for Creative Thinking in Technology

 Hummell, L.  (2006). Synectics for creative thinking in technology education. The Technology Teacher, 66(3), 22-       27.  Retrieved October 4, 2009, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 1169096171).

Synectics is a creative problem solving process developed in 1961 by William J. J. Gordon and George Prince. This process helps students solve problems by following a set of prompts that relate familiar to unfamiliar or unfamiliar to familiar. Students use what they know about something familiar and apply to the unfamiliar to create something new following these steps:

1. Define or describe the current situation or problem.
2. Write down ideas about direct analogies.
3. Write down your reactions to personal analogies.
4. Explore compressed conflicts and form an oxymoron.
5. Write down new direct analogies.
6. Reexamine original situation or problem.

Students learn to follow these steps can apply them to problems in almost every aspect of life. Problem-solving is a life-long skill that benefits everyone.