I would preface this by admitting that I have taken digital storytelling before, but considering that when I took it the first time, we read out of a textbook and the only online component involved quizzes posted to blackboard, I … Continue reading →

My photo story is based off of two previous Daily Create photo assignments. {photo found here} Sparky was a yellow lab who was very friendly. Most dogs didn’t like cats, but Sparky loved cats! He was friends with just about everyone and every animal. Sparky also loved going “bye-bye”. It doesn’t matter where the final ...

Here is another story demo for ds106, using my Five Card Flickr Stories site to generate a story from 5 random photos drawn from the Daily Create pool. I still find these a lot of fun. Five Card Story: Oh Brother a The Daily Create story created by CogDog flickr photo by Michael Branson Smith flickr photo by JanusAjax flickr photo by Bookhenge flickr photo by b__parsons flickr photo by cogdogblog Mt brother, the big time write. He has one novel published, and his life now consists of running from podunk town book store to another to sign it for 12 frumpy housewives. He is always telling me that writing is the only form of art. He hates my drawings. He refused to even use my sketch for his book cover. Last night when he dropped in for dinner (after visiting OUR podunk town bookstore, hah hah) (and me the ...

This is a demo of a ds106 assignment for my students to get a taste of telling stories with pictures. The task is to use two different photos from recent Daily Create Photo assignments and tie them together with a story, a sandwich if you will. Where am I? Bad dream? Last thing I remember I was drinking my coffee and reading poetry at Hyperion. Someone had done that middle school shoulder tapping thing where you turn and no one is there. Why are my arms tied? And there’s something like an old sock in my mouth. Dingy room. I smell mothballs and some other smells — foul meat and rotting cabbage? And this guy wearing a Buffalo Bills ski cap, is stomping around the room saying again and again “Make The Call! Make The Call! January 31, Make the Call! For the love of Jake, Make the Call.” It’s ...

OH BOY. Let me just say, when I was asked to review the retired DS 106-ers’ in[SPIRE] work and their best work, I was soo happy. I LOVED looking at all of the work that they did and that I will get to do. I’m so excited, and I just can’t hide it! I’m about to lose…. ...

I went through a good number of past DS106 “Best Projects” and analyzed how they changed a simple story into a digital story using creative tools to aid them. I really enjoyed how the students used these tools to their … Continue reading →

At first I used to associate “storytelling” with just cracking open Little Red Riding Hood and reading it to a group of people. But now, after completing my Writing Through Media and Electronic Literature courses during my time at UMW, … Continue reading →

cc licensed ( BY SD ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog Computers have feelings usually not expressed. They have hurt, anger, depression, and in this case, inordinate feelings of inferiority. Today’s Daily Create was to make a blue screen of death message using type only. My screen just wants to die and not come back. tdc.ds106.us/tdc386/ I made this in GIMP. I downloaded the fixed system font to give it that true Windows appearance and modeled it after an example I found on the Google. Opening it in another GIMP window, I used the drop tool to grab the blue color, filled my background. I typed in the word “windows” and put a new layer behind it with the gray box, and then flipped the text color to that same blue background color. By clicking the link icons in the layer palette, I could move them around together. Sometimes when ...

Happy Monday fellow ds106ers! It’s the beginning of a new ds106 week which means that this princess is ready for some new adventures! After my computer got a virus last week, I still am having issues with Google Chrome and am working intently with my father (who is a computer scientist) to restore everything back (continue reading...)

When I hear the word “storytelling”, I immediately think back to elementary school. I think of a plot, characters, setting, theme, beginning, middle, and an end, because in order to tell a story you need all of those elements. For example: I don’t think a story would be classified as a “story” if it didn’t have an ...

What is storytelling? That is the million dollar question in this class. Like any normal princess would say, it’s the fairy tale. But how can fairy tales be portrayed to us? They are just the simple stories that we used to read at bedtime, but every bedtime story has to have pictures. Pictures are so (continue reading...)

When I was given the assignments for this week, I felt as if I was already ahead of the curve in a way. I had started customizing my blog last week and chose the Patchwork theme by Caroline Moore this week, I made a few fixes so that it would look even better, starting with ...

Here is another gif I made. Somethings you just never get right…    

Finally got around to my first blog. I guess I’ll start it off with this:    Thoughts about DS 106 Boot Camp Yeah! My first gif! A little more difficult to make those than I thought it would be. That pretty … Read More →

Alright, to start things off, welcome to my summary of my second week of DS106, and the final week of DS bootcamp. Can’t say I’m sorry to say goodbye, as we head off into the real deal I’ve made an email address for this blog, so if you have questions or comments or pictures of ...

Monday January 21: Take a photo of the ONE thing you MUST see, do, eat, hear, etc. everyday! Tuesday January 22: Submit a favorite monologue from a movie with every third word removed. Halloween from Rent How did we get here? How the hell, pan left, close on the steeple of the church How did ...

This week brought .GIF’s, tears, and laughs.  The tears and laughs were brought on by watching awful and some amazing movie scenes.  It is hilarious how BAD some movies actually are! Seriously, Gigli???  Max and Me???  Glitter???  Worst of the worst really.  That said I decided to NOT do a .GIF of any of those.  ...

FINALLY Boot Camp has come to an end.  Thank goodness because this week was even more difficult than the last.  I have been both successful on my own and in need of help.  I am slowly warming up to twitter and even made my first nonds106 related tweet: Finally Friday, …

And so ends the second week of DS106 and bootcamp!  I feel pretty accomplished right now. Onto this week’s tasks This week wasn’t as taxing as last week. My first task was to customize both this blog and the main welcome site. Luckily, I had already started on this blog! This theme that you see ...

I did a few Daily Creates this week. I didn’t get as many as I thought I would, but I’m not a creative writing person, so those are always hard for me. I’ve been trained to write like a history major, and it’s been hard to break that. For Monday’s Daily Create, the assignment was to take a ...

Each day I go onto the ds106 page itching to find out what a new day’s daily create brings.  This week I was intrigued by three. The first was Thursday: Got milk? Another favorite breakfast beverage? Make a picture. Make it art. When I first went to do this I was going …

So. It’s finally over! Bootcamp is finally finished and we’re all still standing (or sitting at our computers).  It took a couple weeks, but I’d say we’re all getting into the swing of things.  I noticed a huge increase in ...

As fate would have it, the Fandom Princess’ parents, the King and Queen, were so happy with how her studies were turning out in the first few weeks of her senior year that they sent her a surprise by troll mail. The Princess awoke one Sunday morning to loud thumping … Continue reading →

Okay, so basically I thought I would show you my awesome ATTEMPT at  making a .GIF with less movement.  The goal was to lower the shaking in the background so that the REAL main focus would be the actual action. Let’s just say, Fail. Not because of the tutorial I used from @cogdog.  It was ...

As many of her followers knew, The Fandom Princess was a very avid movie watcher. In fact, most of the people in her world did not indulge in the activity because they did not possess a magical device known as a “television” or a “DVD player.” The Princess had come … Continue reading →

I’m going to be honest from the start and say that I had no idea what a gif was. Well, after googling it, I realized what it was, but I didn’t realize that’s what those things were called. Am I … Continue reading →

So I’m going to admit that my week didn’t start until Wednesday this past week and so I got a little behind on the daily creates :/ No worries though, I don’t have anymore long weekends in sight and I … Continue reading →