FINALS WEEK

Its finals week! Everything is complete and drop boxed. Now it is just time to wait for the grades. The semester has really flown and I have learned a lot. I used software on my computer that otherwise would never have been touched if it wasn't for this class. With the Demos done in class I know have a lot more knowledge of some pretty cool tricks, I made sure to save all of the Jings to my computer so that someday if I forget I can look back and find them. Its been a great learning experience. The class was hard and challenging, but this makes the end result that much more satisfying. :)

Week Fourteen

I just finished up my desktop publishing assignments! So excited, thrilled and relieved that I am finished ahead of the deadline. If I would not have had those planning documents, creating the documents themselves would have been a lot harder and taken up a lot of time. Glad that I did them! :) Now its time to finish my web publishing assignment, this one is coming along, but creating all of the pages and links is becoming very time consuming. I love being able to finally mark these things off of my check list for finals week!

Week Thirteen

It's the week before finals! The semester is closing and fast. Planning for the website design and desktop publishing were due. As much as those planning documents were a pain in the butt to do, I really do think my work will benefit from them. Now everything is laid out for me and I know exactly what I have to do in order to create my documents. I have started creating my desktop publishing documents and my work is really coming nicely because of the planning. It is nice to have everything laid out in front of me, telling me exactly what I need to put where. I am excited to put together my documents and new web pages. Hopefully these artifacts will be something I can use in the future, just might have to tweak them a little to fit the needs of the school.

Week Twelve

This week the video projects were due! I am so glad that the project is finally finalized. I could have done a better job with planning but I think my final outcome turned out really nice. I usually struggle with video projects so I am pretty proud of how it turned out. I didn't like using Microsoft Movie Maker because it lacks a lot of properties. I would have loved to have played background music all throughout my video even when there were speaking parts. But doing that on this software was almost impossible. This is a reason why it would be nice to have access to Mac software on our laptops. IMovie would have been amazing for this project. I wish out programs could have the option of using MACs.

Week Eleven

Even though I was not present in class, and my absence was excused, being absent at such a critical point in the semester is not something I would recommend. I am behind as it is in the class and now i find myself falling even shorter. Deadlines are coming quick and its going to take a lot of motivation and time to push through everything.

I learned we are getting a break from class in order to work on our projects. This is give me a lot more time to get things done and possibly a few extra hours of sleep at night. The extra time is just what I need in order to get these projects done!

Week Ten

Its week Ten in Media 366! The semester is almost over with Thanksgiving right around the corner. This week we only had Tuesday class. World Wide Web and search engines were the theme of the day. I am excited to get out there and create a custom search engine. I didn't even know that one could do such a thing! HOW COOOOOOL! I think it could be a really neat teaching tool when providing students resources and credible sights for their research projects.

Week Nine

Two more projects are introduced this week.... along with the trunk monkeys! I see these upcoming desktop publishing and web design products as being very good learning tools and maybe even something to use for in the future when I am actually out there and teaching. I think that in classes like this it is nice to have big projects that allow students to have a big opportunity to demonstrate all of the skills they have acquired. However I am nervous that I will get busy again in the next couple weeks and start to fall behind.... with good planning tools that have been provided I hope to over come procrastination.

Week Eight

Today was a big week for planning our story boards again. Now we are full fledged into the second demonstrations as well. I did mine this week and what a disaster! UGH! I was fully prepared the night before in what i was going to say and everything and when i got up to the front to present. Everything went out the brain. I missed the smallest steps, but those steps (like selecting the right tool) threw me off completely. I don't know what happened. Hopefully I can stay focused and get my story board completed by Sunday as well as well as look to the future and try to get a head on the Concept Demonstrations for Web and Desktop publishing that are due next week. For the first time, time management is becoming a bit of an issue.

Week Seven

This week we are introduced to storyboarding again. I have finally decided what my movie is going to be about and I am in the brainstorming process. I am not the most creative person, nor do I have a lot of extra time to create a movie in my free time, but if this movie turns out decent I hope that my major will be able to put it to use. It is a rough semester and I am starting to fall behind. If I want to remain successful it is critical that i stay on top of things from this point on.

Week Six

It was a short week this week with advisement day. I had my demonstration today for the class and it went well. I find it easier and easier to get up in front of a class and present material and do lessons. Pre-student teaching this semester is helping out a lot with that.

This will be a short post because of the short week.

I do have mixed feelings about the video project we will be starting. It looks like a lot of fun and also a lot of stress and time that I don't have to spare involved. I am concerned with the story boards as I am no artist at all, and last time I did a video project, I ended up failing the storyboard part because my artistry skills were not up to par. Luckily I will be aloud to use still images for this part. As of right now I will probably make a recruitment video for my sorority.

Week Five

Week five went by in a blur but many things in 366 did stick. There was an awesome demonstration with Adobe Flash. Honestly I had never even heard of Adobe Flash, so that made me think that I should probably poke around on my computer and figure out what other software is on my computer that I don't know about. I realize that it is so important to really get the most out of the software applications that I have access to now, because when placed in a school I could really do my students a disservice by not knowing a variety of applications.

Week Four

Week Four.

I really enjoyed the Visual Literacy lecture this week. I thought it gave a really great message that both teachers and students could benefit from. This was one of those lessons that I can see myself implementing into an advertising class room or even a global marketing classroom as well. As teachers it is important to bounce ideas off of each other. This is a prime example of borrowing curriculum.

Week Three

Already the end of week three. Things are starting to get more organized in my website and now that we have the feed back from the first two Units for the concept demos, I have a more clear understanding of what is exactly expected of me.

Also the first set of the concept demos took place this week. I think it is important for teachers to observe how others teach and engage with students. This is a great exercise for that. Not only do we get to observe but also we can enhance our software skills as well.

I think this would also be a great learning tool for students. Students teaching students concepts that they find relevent for them and the rest of the class.

Week Two

This week my learning style started to show. The course doesn't have a text book that teaches Desk Top Publishing or Adobe Dreamweaver. On top of that we are expected to explore and play around with the software we are using. Because I am a visual learner, these methods are not something i prefer, or learn well from. Thank goodness i was able to pick up an Adobe Dreamweaver book so i can read the text and teach myself the software that way. Now that i am able to see the book, read the book and look at diagrams of how things are done I will be able to learn all that Dreamweaver has to offer.

I have learned that as a teacher it is important to know the types of learners that you have in your classroom and offer methods to all learner styles. My professor has made that accommodation for this class my providing multiple methods for instructions. He allows the students to learn the material in a way that will work best for them. However providing a uniform textbook for the software could beneficial for this course in the future.

Week One

Well its the start of another semester of MEDIA. I wasn't really sure what would all be covered in this class this semester, but I was pretty excited that I would be all about Web Design, Desktop Publishing and Digital Imaging. The last time I was exposed to any of these kinds of software was Freshmen year in my TCS 103 class. Right now the basic creation of web pages and basic uses of Desk Top publishing are a good refresher, I can't wait to get deeper into the curriculum to start learning new things!

Not only is the content of this class going to make for great lessons for students but it is also really knowledge that I will need to apply as a teacher. For example maintaining a website for my program or making fliers or other desktop publishing for use of marketing my classes could be very beneficial.