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I am a paralegal practicing in insurance defense, and I am also a graduate student at the University of Southern Mississippi.

Monday, November 22, 2010

Mirror Mirror on the Wall: Reflection Post!

Expectations for the first semester of graduate school ran from the sublime to the ridiculous. Overall, though, IT 644 Advanced Hypermedia Development has been a wonderful start. In fact, it stands out in my mind of one of the most enjoyable classes I have ever taken (including my undergrad degree and professional certification).

At first look, the text book was dauntingly dense and overly technical. I tried to keep up with the weekly reading like a Serious Graduate Student, but found myself overwhelmed by mid-chapter. For the remainder of the semester, I turned my attention to the weekly assignments and studied the online tutorials for each assignment. However, the text re-entered the spot light for the final exam and after working with media through the semester, the second try at the textbook was completely different from the first. I found the text book to be well organized and in some points, down right fascinating. It still is a pretty dense read, but I will absolutely NOT be selling it back to the bookstore. In its denseness, the book’s information per page ratio makes its value phenomenal. This is a textbook that you can go back to for quick reference again and again.

The assignments of this class were consistently useful and accessible. Coming into the class, I had a computer proficiency that could be considered average. I work on computers professionally and use them personally for more hours per day than I am willing to calculate. However, I have been keenly aware that there are elementary school students whose technological savvy far, far, far outstrips my own. Therefore, I found that the versatility of each assignment in this class, in terms of its use in professional, as well as personal application gave me the most education bang for my buck. In other words, there was no time wasted in this curriculum, and that is a trait that I greatly appreciated. Each assignment was also accompanied by loads of online tutorials and “how to’s”. While all first attempts at software require some degree of practice and trial and error, this class has resources galore for support and questions provided in its Lecture Notes.

In addition to the support provided in the Lecture Notes, this class also ran through a social networking site. My classmates and I were able to troubleshoot minor difficulties in the assignments practically in real time. The network was also wonderful in terms of keeping updated with the class. I often logged into the network before getting up in the morning and several times a day during the work day so that my evenings could be devoted to working through the assignments.

The class itself was presented in hybrid format; some meetings took place on campus, while some were online. This was a perfect balance for me. I did not get burnt out going to class week after week (I often work late during the day job and get worn out staring at a computer into the evening hours night after night). On the other hand, there was plenty of face-to-face engagement that I stayed encouraged and engaged and did not feel as though I had been cast off to struggle through the assignments on my own.

In all aspects, this has been a wonderful class. The content is universally useful and the manner in which it was delivered was both accessible and flexible. I’m almost sad I can’t take it again!

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a Bear; Fuzzwich is Animation Software!

Awkward title rhyming aside, this post brings us to the eighth and final assignment for IT 644. However, invert those oral gestures of negative value (turn those frowns upside down!), because blogs are forever. You thought it was diamonds? Nay. Blogs.

So, who’s got two thumbs and loves animation? This gal. From Bugs Bunny cartoons of the 40’s to a healthy collection of anime titles including new and shiny Appleseed and Ergo Proxy incarnations to old school Transformers and Macross, animated entertainment has been a large part of my free time since childhood.

When we were given the assignment of creating an animation for this class, I was not without great concern. Animation takes talent, creativity, and lots and lots of hard work. Right? Well, yes. But I managed to create one without all those virtues through the Fuzzwich software. Which is free, as you might have guessed. And online. And easy to use.

Fuzzwich allows you to choose a background, or you can upload a background via the simple “point/click” interface this blog is riddled with. It also provides a fairly large template of varying characters from current political figures to regular people to mustached monsters. To create the animation, once you have selected your background and characters, you create the path on which the characters will move. The path version of animation is very similar to what you would see in Monty Python skits. This sounds simple, but it can be rather tricky. This is where the creativity and hard work come into the animation scene. But really, as with all software, it merely takes some planning and practice. I had to restage mine many many times, and ended up changing characters and backgrounds more than once. Once you get the hang of the manipulation, however, it is easy to see how playing around with different animations can be very addicting. Fuzzwich also has a lot of brilliant examples to watch.

The practical applications of this software are not as wide ranging as some of the others covered in this class. Fuzzwich is however, great fun and provides a good foundation to animation principles. It could also be used to create cards or invitations, as well as promotional material for businesses.

Fuzzwich will be added to Clickety Von Linkety and my example will be posted below. In my animation, I poke fun at Sarah Palin, which really, is just too easy to do.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

To Infinity and Showbeyond!

After coming off the high of raving about Prezi, I admit that this next software application is a little…lackluster. Well, that’s not entirely fair. Showbeyond, slidecast software is free (of course), easy to use (of course), useful (naturally), and a bit more engaging than Photostory.

Photostory allowed a sequence of images to be displayed with some snappy transition affects, some photo-alteration affects, and narration and/or music. Showbeyond sets up more of a traditional slide show that fosters a more cohesive story. It includes backgrounds to set images to, title and text editing for image captions, and the ability to import a soundtrack. I think it looks more professional in the finished product than Photostory, but that is not to imply that one program is better than the other, simply that they may be better suited to different applications.

Continuing to flaunt my love for Chinese cinema, as I had in my Prezi, I created a Showbeyond slidecast dedicated to Wong Kar Wai’s 1960’s trilogy of films. Upon reflection, I should have done all of my assignments in this class on this subject, because a large chuck of Hollywood blockbusters were made originally in Hong Kong, and the Chinese versions are superior. How so you ask? Watch Infernal Affairs with Andy Lau and Tony Leung (Chiu-Wai) and then watch Departed With DiCaprio. I rest my case. I also digress because this is a blog about technology.

So, Showbeyond! As I indicated, this software lends itself to cohesive storytelling organization. You can manipulate slide order and edit text in a format that just *is* linear storytelling. This consistency of theme makes the finished product tighter than a meandering Photostory or globe-trotting Prezi. Uploading images to Showbeyond is delightfully simple in that it is no more complicated that adding an attachment to an email. The only difficulty I ran into was uploading the audio. First, it is important to note that the audio file must not exceed 8 MB. Second, it is important to preview your Showbeyond slidecast to determine where your images and corresponding audio track end. On my first draft, my music jarringly cut off mid high note. I went back into the slidecase and manually adjusted the display time of each slide to add a couple of seconds to the overall show so that the music would end on a more natural down note. You can critique my success in the example I have posted below.

Showbeyond will be added to Clickety Von Linkety. This particular software, to me, trends more towards formal presentation personally, such as a graduation, marriage or funeral, or otherwise for professional application.


Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Watch Out Powerpoint, There's a New Sheriff in Town

I may have said that Jing was the most useful software we have covered in class. I should have said it was the most useful software we have covered in class that week, because clearly, Prezi is the most useful software covered in class (for the week that it was covered.)

If you have followed this blog over the course of the previous posts, then you know what I am about to say regarding the software used in IT 644. Everyone say it with me now: it’s FREE and it’s SO EASY TO USE. And srsly, it pwns .ppt liek whoa. I know. I just broke every grammar rule known to man, but geek-speak is appropriate when getting excited about free and easy software.

Prezi is presentation software that simulates a blank slate or drawing board, as it were. It gives you the ability to plop words, themes, content, and media onto the “board” in non-linear “brain-storm” format. Each piece of information is counted as a “slide”, even if it placed halfway across the board and upside down from the previous piece of information. I found this anti-structure to be so much more conducive to creating a presentation that the slot-by-slot, paint by numbers rigidity of Powerpoint. Once all of your data is placed on the board, you point and click the path that determines the sequence the slides will be presented in. Setting the order of the presentation is literally no more complicated than moving your mouse to each piece of information. If you want to re-order the slides you can easily back track and renumber or you can manipulate the paths to expand and include pieces of information left out.

Prezi has built in animation, so no matter what position your information is in on your board (facing in direction in 360 degrees) it will rotate to right side up when it is presented. This animation makes for good visual interest in the overall flow of the presentation.

Media entry is also ridiculously easy. Uploading images is simply a matter of browsing the image and clicking “open” (as you would in any email attachment). Surprisingly, video is even easier. Locate a clip on YouTube and cut and paste the URL into the Prezi text box. No html codes, no embedding hassle. Cut. Paste. Done. It is important to note that if you download your Prezi for offline work or presentation, you will need internet access at the time of the presentation for the YouTube videos to appear.

Prezi is not without its nuances. For example, if you pause your Prezi while presenting and the computer goes to screensaver, when you commence with your Prezi, it may reset to the beginning. Also, in editing the Prezi, if you are coming and going in and out of the Prezi screen, the zoom may change with each visit to the page, resulting in your first slide appearing microscopic and your last slide appearing gigantic. These are quirks that most likely can be avoided with a little practice.

I would much rather create and/or watch a Prezi than a Powerpoint, and I look forward to using it professionally. Powerpoints are widely used in litigation and I look forward to getting a Prezi in front of a jury. I think it will be an effective and attention-holding tool.

For this project, I made a Prezi of one of my passions, Chinese cinema, and in particular, one of my favorite directors, Zhang Yimou. It was a lot of fun to put together.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Who Tube? You Tube. Tube What? Video Toolbox!

We’ve covered digital images.  We’ve covered digital audio.  The next logical step must be digital video!

For the fifth assignment in IT 644, we were tasked with making an instructional or promotional video using Video Toolbox, and once the video was made, we had to upload it to YouTube.   Even though I am still young enough to get carded…occasionally…in very dim lighting…*ahem* I can still remember a world before YouTube and it seems like it was just yesterday.

Certainly, I visited YouTube, watched my share of videos of cats falling off things and people falling off of things, but my experience with YouTube was analogous to window shopping.  I’d seen it.  I was aware of it, but not active or invested.  Once a clip was over, I was content to go about my merry way.  So it was not without a slight amount of trepidation that I tackled this assignment of actually making a video and posting it. 

The first portion of the assignment was carried out through Video Toolbox (VT).  Although it is free software, I wouldn’t call it bargain basement.  As with the other software encountered in this class and reflected upon in this blog, VT is delightfully easy to use.  No one will be mistaking my video for an early James Cameron clip, but, as always in the world of software, with practice, a lot can be achieved for zero dollars spent.

VT has plenty of features to play with, including cropping, cutting, adding audio, ripping audio, adding subtitles, and adding watermarks.  For my less than Oscar-worthy submission, I created a short film not unlike stop animation, where I incrementally (and instructionally) built a Halloween table center piece.  Admittedly, the stop/start format of the video is pretty elementary, but there was method to my madness.  VT seemed to have some difficulty with uploading certain size video clips.  Its size limits are posted clearly, but even when operating well below its recommended MB, it still took longer than expected to upload certain clips (anything over 1 minute).  Some other students in the class reported the same problem; others did not have any problem.  Still, I chose the path of least resistance by uploading and manipulating several very short video clips (about 15 seconds each).  This worked well for me and I had no trouble uploading the clips, arranging the sequence and merging them together. 

Because of the ease and straightforward interface of this software, I have no doubt that I will use it in the future. 

As I am probably one of the last people in America to upload a video to YouTube, I don’t need to go into great detail about how easy and user friendly and free it is.  Create an account.  Select your video.  Hit upload, and be sure to select your privacy settings.  And voila!  Now Spielberg doesn’t seem like such a miracle worker after all.

Below is my first effort with Video Toolbox and YouTube:

Monday, November 15, 2010

Well, Did You Read the Instructions?

In the wonderful age of Google, blogs, and YouTube, gone are the days of laboring through a do-it-yourself project with incomplete or completely absent instructions. At the time of this writing, the holidays are approaching and tis the season of internet searches for turkey recipes and blu-ray player trouble shooting. In this context, I found the fourth assignment of this class to be universally useful.

We created a series of instructional screen capture images using of a computing tool with Screencast and a corresponding instructional video using Jing. Links to both Screencast and Jing will be added to Clickety Von Linkety.

Both Screencast and Jing are (you guessed it) free and oh-so-easy to use. Jing allows you to add arrows, highlights and other comment mark-ups to your screen-captured image. With these features, you can capture images and create play-by-play instructional content of anything you can view on your computer. Jing also allows you to create videos by recording your actions as you maneuver through a process on your monitor. In my example linked below, I created screen captures of a federal subpoena.

The federal court system uses an electronic filing system called ECF. All documents filed with federal courts and uploaded to their server. The federal court system also provides links to online-fillable-forms such as the subpoena I used in my example. As the example shows, I used Jing to take screen captures of the subpoena and add text and arrows to provide instruction on filling out the form. Next, I used Jing to create a video demonstrating how to fill out the subpoena using the form’s interactive fields.

I uploaded the subpoena tutorial screen captures and video to Screencast.com. This website allows you to upload content (images and video from Jing for example). You can manage your Screencast library by creating folders and playlists of your material.

For casual users, the free versions of Jing and Screencast offer sufficient features. However, there are upgrades available for purchase.

Instruction is a necessary component of virtually all aspects of life. Jing and Screencast allow you to instruct by demonstration rather than explanation in an easily accessible and efficient method. I will most likely continue to use this as I progress through my Master’s degree, not only to offer instruction to others, but to create refresher instructions for myself as I encounter new software applications that may take time and revisiting to master.

Professionally, it’s difficult to think of an instance where I would not be able to use Jing and Screencast. As my example demonstrates, litigation is moving steadily toward becoming a paperless industry. Jing and Screencast can be used in any number of scenarios to give instruction on updated or complex legal forms.

Below is the link to my Jing/Screencast project:

http://www.screencast.com/t/g8l9lQKFOV

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Can You Hear Me Now?

Moving away from digital images, the third assignment in this class was to work with digital audio. We were tasked with creating a promotional audio track of at least two tracks joined together with some music.

For this project, we used Audacity, gloriously free and easy to use software. The link has been added to Clickety Von Linkety. Upon opening Audacity, it would not be uncommon to feel somewhat intimidated when faced with technical aspects of audio manipulation that Audacity offers. As said before in this blog however, the best way to learn new software applications is to explore the application and play with all the features it offers.

I found Audacity to be pretty straightforward for my intents and purposes (which was to create an advertisement for a scholarship program at the University of Southern Mississippi). Much of the audio editing was very similar to word processing editing in that the software allows you to highlight and copy or delete or move, just as you can with words in a document. There was also a nice selection of sound effects available. I used “fading in” and “fading out” to smooth out the rough edges of my clip. In the track, I had my husband read a quote originally given by Dr. Ronald E. McNair. I was able to change the speed and pitch of my husband’s voice so that it did not sound like him speaking at all.

This has obvious benefits for business application, as I was able to create an advertisement with it. With some practice and polish, advertisements for radio could easily be made. As I have indicated previously in this blog, I work in the legal industry and often handle evidence. Just as I was able to improve the quality of photographic evidence using Picnik, I could use Audacity to prepare audio evidence for a jury. The editing features in Audacity would allow me to loop a specific track of audio so that it could be played over and over or join audio tracks together so that they could be listened to without the distraction of switching from track to track. These minute details can be crucial in presenting evidence to a jury.

Personally, this software could easily be used to send personal greetings, dedications, or instructions. It could also be a fun (FREE) way to create personalized ring tones.

Below is the link to my Audacity audio project:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/11473989/LindaWynn-assign3%2822050%29.mp3