W4_Reading

Policies & Procedures:
These journals cover some methods and procedures that usually go with online course development. Some things like support and rewards seem a little convoluted, other things like having benchmarks, or knowing who owns the intellectual properties of a course are fundamental. For a more complete list of journals please visit this link.

W3_Reading

Online Course Design:
These journals not only have ideas about the importance of visual elements in courses, but also of the importance of catering to visual learners also. in "Seeing is Believing: Video Mock-ups to Evaluate and Demonstrate Multimedia Designs" there is some good tips about the importance to not only talk about something but also demonstrate it. And using Learning Theory gives a spin for course specificity. For a more comprehensive list please follow this link.

W2_Reading

Subject Matter Experts:
I investigated more about subject matter experts and the people they affect the most in some of these journals. "Said Another Way, Subject Matter Experts: Facts or Fiction?" had some really interesting information about the most important thing about a subject matter expert: are they really experts? Using storyboards look like a great idea, but seems a little complicated to me. Only the titles are given, for the complete list please refer to this link.

W1_Reading

Online Course Development:
Journals I was reading about course development in an online setting. Some of these journals I visit again and again, like "Online Learning of Visual Design Course: Framework for the Interactive Learning" mainly because of my visual background. Project management of online courses seems to make perfect sense also. I'm only including the titles, if you want a more extensive list, please follow this link.

FV_AR Pitch

This is a simple pitch with attention grabbing music and a message that could be narrated for a more urgent punch (I'm horrible at narrating so I can't do it). Hopefully iMovie '11 will have more tools to work with. This video has some clips from Artbeats, and the music is arranged from SonicFire Pro. Credits would look bad in this type of video so I'm doing it here. Hope you like it.

PE6_After Effects in Depth

This is the last bit of work for this piece. It has new music from SonicFire Pro and a spooky title work which was inspired by watching this tutorial. By this time I had over 6 compositions running at the same time and multiple cameras running in 3D (inside AE), so the computer was really struggling (and crashed twice) even with 8 gigs of memory and a faster internal hard drive (and a Firewire 800 media drive). So I might suggest that to make some more complicated work, a 12 core Mac Pro is much better for these type of things. Here it is...

PE5_After Effects in Depth

Music is important in a video piece. It gives the clips purpose and ties them together. I chose a picadilly piece from SonicFire Pro (though expensive, this modular audio library is great, check them out here) and even though I could use a stronger piece, this one gives it a comic touch, and the sound effects go well with it.

PE4_After Effects in Depth

In this Episode I will finish that "into the mind" video and make it look better. In the next episodes I will put sound with some audio effects and then some titling. I also thank Artbeats for helping with clips and the tutorial. It is amazing what you can do with this program. I know many people have done incredible things with Flash also, but for some reason the visual effects from AE call to me more than Flash visuals.

PE3_After Effects in Depth

I wanted to make an "inside the mind" video to practice for another project I will start soon, but I couldn't find a way to do it well until I found this tutorial. I didn't have all the essentials but I think it works...

This is not the last of After Effects that I will do though, I will probably continue to practice well into old age :)

BP12_OMM_Animoto

Do you have some pictures that you want to show, but they're just a little boring? Give them some pizazz with Animoto.

BP11_Comment to Meghan

Please check my comment to Meghan about Carbonmade.com (a great way to publish your very own online visual portfolio) below

http://meghanbassett.blogspot.com/2010/10/bp9-carbonmadecom.html

PE2_After Effects in Depth

Because Everyone Loves Flaming Letters!
I was looking at some After Effects tutorials and I had a desire to make fire in the program. I have a particle making program (Particle Illusion) but I heard it was possible to do fire with just the effects that come with After Effects. There were some tutorials available but one that caught my eye was here.
I changed some of the parameters of the tutorial, and did a nice intro title for a local project I was doing. Here it is below...

I will try another tutorial and modify it for another project in the next post, see you then!

BP10_Comment to Ginny

Please check out my comment to Ginny here about Google SketchUp and how educators and instructors can get a free copy of the Pro version.

PE1_After Effects in Depth

I've been using After Effects sparingly for many years and I never get to train myself more in this awesome program. When I first got my Lynda.com account (at the end of July), one of the first things I checked was what After Effects tutorials they had. Here is some proof of this.

But the program is so powerful and resourceful, that I would really like to learn more about it, and implement it more in my educational media work. So I'm going to take some time to learn and practice some techniques and post them here in the next few days. See you then :)

TeamLab picked up my video

TeamLab.com posted in their blog and Facebook the video I did for the One Minute Video exercise. Please check it out at http://www.teamlab.com/blog/2010/10/has-this-ever-happened-to-you/

And I got almost a hundred hits already :) Thanks TeamLab!

BP9_Animoto

http://animoto.com/

I work in a media department that is not very interested in web 2.0 tools for the most part, mainly because in the video world (at least in the environment I'm in) it is always about the major brand name, whether it is Avid, Final Cut, Sorenson Squeeze or other video software. Even though I find good use for a lot of web 2.0 tools, they are rejected when there is no well known brand name attached to it. But one product that has shined through is Animoto.com. We use it mostly to process pictures and small clips for further editing, but the program is fun, and it has obvious uses for education. It can take pictures, small clips and music and put them in a way that is fun and wows the senses. I've been using it for years and always go back to it for quick fun video pieces. And it can be put in Facebook and there is an iPhone app also. Unfortunately the good options in this web 2.0 program are not free, the pro license is $250 per year, but there is an educational license that seems free, but I couldn't find any more information. Below I included a demo clip of what I mean. This video was used in a opening of the school year video.



I know that I might be in a disadvantage for being in an educational degree when I'm in education because I work in an educational institution, but I try my best to understand everyone's point of view in their respective situations. I hope you check Animoto out and see if it will help you in your class or corporation.

BP8_OMM_TeamLab

Do you need to get your projects organized? Have you missed a meeting recently, because of unclear goals and expectation? Check this video below to learn about TeamLab.com

BP5_Lulu.com

http://www.lulu.com/index.php
I've known about lulu.com for a while but they have grown and evolved a lot in the past two years it's amazing.

This service let's you publish a book, ebook, a video, or song for a nominal fee and is easy to do, and you only make the copies you need, no bulk orders or anything like that. If you make a video let's say with your students, you can make a few DVD's with cases and printed labels and ask for donations. Or if you want to see if there is an interest for a short story you are writing, you could just print a few copies and show them around to book reviewers or such.

They will even help get you an ISBN (International Standard Book Number) and a distribution package if you are thinking about retailing your book. I do have to say that if you are really serious about publishing in the retail market, and your material is good, you should let a publisher handle all these things, but if you want to self publish and pay up front to get all the profit later, then this is one of the easiest services (but not the cheapest) to do this. Another use I thought for lulu.com is to print your portfolio, and they have a whole section for this.

For educational use, it is always nice to present student with a printed book or DVD that is professionally made. And instead of selling chocolates every semester, maybe something different (and created by them) could help.

Just check their site (they have a forum and blog also) and see if it's right for you. Let me know what you think...

BP7_Comment to Kelly

Please check my comment to Kelly's WIZIQ Web 2.0 tool in my link below.
http://kellybakerect.blogspot.com/2010/10/bp5wiziq.html

BP6_Comment to Marty

Please follow the link below to my comment in Marty's blog about FunnelBrain.
http://martydenson.blogspot.com/2010/10/bp5funnelbrain.html

BP4_TeamLab

TeamLab.com

TeamLab is a web 2.0 tool to collaborate in many different ways for project management and teamwork purposes. It has a community section with news, forums, blogs, photos, bookmarks and wikis, and a projects section with milestones, discussions, tasks, reports and statistics.

This website is really a conjunction of many different tools together, probably to be able to work with many different types of people (which are called employees in the tool) and seems very easy to use. It doesn't really ask for a lot of information and it's easy to setup with a few questions. The only disadvantages I can see are that it's a little thin, in other words, it could be a little more robust, also it doesn't exports to Microsoft Project, and I don't see gantt charts either. Otherwise, it is a great tool to communicate in many different ways, and it also gives you a website address you can share with other to collaborate as a community or in projects. Like I said before, I wouldn't recommend it for complicated critical projects.

Check my page there and let me know what you think.

http://dcheng.teamlab.com