Easy week.  Made the new email domain of [email protected]… amusing address.  Haven’t received a single email from it.  I also installed the anti-spam program but hadn’t received any spam before that so I’m not sure how necessary it was. When looking playing around with the themes I first picked out one that did not really  [ Read More ]

The sky is sometimes seen as vast and empty, but all I see is a gigantic doorway to adventures and dreams.

Okay so here we go! I have officially made it through week two of ds106 bootcamp (get excited)!  Here is a quick recap of everything that I did this week…. Forwarding Address- I was able to set up an email forwarding address … Continue reading →

This week in ds106 I give my students the ultimate bootcamp creative challenge – to figure out how to make an animated GIF. The exact wording is “from a favorite movie” but that’s just to get them thinking about topics. Since I do the same work, I needed to step up too- I did two quick demos of GIFfing in GIMP in this week’s Open Lab, so for tonight’s masterpiece I wanted to show some techniques I have been using in doing GIFs in Photoshop. I chose a subject that could reflect what to do when you get into trouble in ds106 – activate the GIF Signal! This is one where I do some dancing around with Photoshop layers and masking out all but the essential bits. One benefit of doing this is your GIF files get dramatically smaller since they have to store less data. I hope I can ...

As predicted in my last post I ended up getting carried away making .gifs.  This was a much more pleasant experience now that all of my programs where installed on my computer and ready to go. Naturally I continued to go with the … Continue reading →

My goodness this was one heck of a process.  It seemed like my computer was quite against me making this .gif. I had all sorts of issues with quick time not working on my computer (apparently it was corrupted and refused to … Continue reading →

I did it, fellow recruits….I survived Bootcamp! Sure I felt like I was going to lose an eye after being attacked by a flock of wild WordPress crows, but they were no match for my semi-automatic CSS rifles! The intense … Continue reading →

Well if you couldn’t tell from my posts this week, I decided to make this a theme! Who doesn’t love a little bit of magic in their life?  This week we needed to do various different tasks including two daily creates and make our own GIF. In all honesty, I thought that the things I (continue reading...)

When reading about Thursday’s daily create about making art of the favorite breakfast beverage was a bit of a challenge at first. I wanted to be sure to incorporate a magical Disney feature then remembered that the three good fairies from Sleeping Beauty drink tea in the movie. I certainly wish that I could make (continue reading...)

Well the daily create for Tuesday was to get a monologue from a movie with every third word removed. Going into this second week of bootcamp I wanted to take the week by charge and what a better way to do this than with some magic? So on Tuesday when I saw the daily create (continue reading...)

When given the assignment to “Make an animated gif from your favorite/least favorite movie capturing the essence of a key scene. Make sure the movement is minimal but essential.” I immediately knew what I wanted to do. I fell in love with Enchanted the first time I saw it, in part because of the many ...

You should never toss a dwarf.

Who has two thumbs and made it through digital storytelling boot camp? THIS GIRL!!!! Oh yeah!!!.. Ok, that’s enough. This week, I learned a lot about Word Press and blogging. I would be lying if I said that it was all easy. I set up my very own email through word press – which is very ...

As I promised yesterday I’ve got “West Nile Virus Cartoons” for you.  (A.K.A. .GIF’s.) First things first, again, the assignment: Say It Like the Peanut Butter “Make an animated gif from your favorite/least favorite movie capturing the essence of a key scene. Make sure the movement is minimal but essential.” A couple of tools that ...

cc licensed ( BY SD ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog You may know Julia Child from her cooking, but few know that in 1960′s she was a secret agent for MI6. She was the only agent savvy enough to track down the culinary killer known as “Dough Finger” who would do his dirty deeds my covering his victims with a thin veneer pf pastry, effectively choking them in thin but tasty cookie shell. This was a more complex than usual daily create assignment- “Design a poster of an action movie starring Julia Child” tdc.ds106.us/tdc381/ The fun part was that this all came about because of a tweet by Joseph MacMahon @cogdog “Make a Poster of an Action Movie Starring Julia Child.” — Joseph McMahon (@pragmanic) January 17, 2013 and that is how Daily Creates happen. This one was of course a bit involved, this is more in line with ...

Phone conversation with my sister Monday night– ME:Okay, so I got my new DS assignment. LUCE:  What do you have to do? ME:  Make an animated .GIF from my favorite or least favorite movie.  It has to capture the emotion of a particular scene. LUCE:  Oh, I don’t even know what that means. ME:  Yes, ...

cc licensed ( BY NC ND ) flickr photo shared by postaletrice Greetings from ds106! We are in the second week here of the Spring 2013 (yes in Canada, this is a winter semester, sigh) University of Mary Washington course. Last year, the first time through teaching this class in person, I attempted to do audio reflections á la the great Scottlo (where is that dude?). That was interesting, but time consuming. So this semester I will start a series of reflections of teaching the class. I already gushed about the first impressions of my students. The first two weeks is something Martha and I coined last semester as “Bootcamp”, where in week 1 and week 2 we focus on all the logistics and setup they should do to be proficient in their blogging and media producing the rest of the semester. I tried a weak housebuilding analogy – week ...

  Well here it is in all of it’s glory! A GIF done by yours truly. This weeks assignment to create a GIF from your favorite movie proved to be more of a challenge than I thought. This week I was inspired by the magical aspects of Disney movies, because every princess needs their fairy godmother. There (continue reading...)

So I went a bit overboard on the gif ship. For Week #2′s assignment, I had to create a gif that captured the essence of a key scene from my favorite movie. AHH FAVORITE MOVIE?! That’s such a monumental decision I’d have to make. What if I pick the WRONG ONE?! After that moment of crisis, I ...

This clip is from the amazing movie, Inglourious Basterds. Although not at all historically correct , I still love it! I created this GIF from a video I downloaded from YouTube. I then used MPEG Streamclip to trim the scene ...

Howdy everyone! I hope everyone had a great long weekend and is ready for the last week of digital storytelling boot camp. I also hope everyone had just as much fun with this week’s Daily Creates as I did :) The first Daily Create (DC) that I chose to do was on Monday {take a photo ...

This was a clip from the trailer of the movie “Django Unchained.” (LOVED this movie!) I created this GIF by downloading the trailer from Youtube and singling out this section by trimming it in Quicktime. I then went to Photoshop, … Continue reading →

Look Ma, a Learning Experience! Seems I forgot a few elements the first time around, so consider this the Author’s way of apologizing and amending. Visit my (very brief) about me page to learn a little bit about, well, myself. Additionally, you can follow me on twitter, flicker, soundcloud, and youtube. You can also follow ...

It’s the first week of DS106! If you’re new here, check out this About Ms. Parker link to know more about what this blog is all about and who Ms. Parker is! So, for this week, we viewed three videos and read John Cage’s rules for Students and Teachers. Steven Johnson has a point that ...

If I had listened to my friends, I would not have survived week one of ds106 boot camp, in fact I would not be in the class at all. After all  who really wants to take 17 credits their final semester when they only need three classes to graduate? Apparently I do, and when it came ...

Tuesday, January 15: Find nearest over-looked everyday object. Fabricate a story about it being a key part of your childhood. Wednesday, January 16: Take a picture of your favorite thing in the world to do, no matter how simple or complex. Thursday, January 17: Draw a picture of one of the first memories you have ...

This was an interesting first week for DS106.  A lot of different things happened and there were many new experiences that I… haven’t experienced… When looking at the first few media videos on art, creativity, “disruptive wonder,” and the list of class rules, many things came to mind.  The video on art got me thinking  [ Read More ]

Week 1, aka “Boot Camp”, is finally coming to an end.  It has been confusing, but I think I am starting to figure all of this out.  Slowly, but surely.  Here is what I have done so far. First I watched a couple of videos and looked at an image. …

cc licensed ( BY NC ) flickr photo shared by Thomas Hawk Last week I wrote about the ideas and content changes I had in mind for the next semester ...