Digital+Story+NK

__**Digital Story: THE BIG MOVE**__

My story talks about my transferring to CMU from UWEC, in Eau Claire Wisconsin. I have a family, so it was a very difficult decision. I knew that it would change our lives forever. It was a very stressful time and I wanted to make sure it was the right choice we were making as a family. There were several things to consider and to make this choice, we made a list of pros and cons. It ended up being that the two towns nearly reflected each other. My husband is from Wiscosin and I am from Michigan. We are both extremely close to our families and that made it harder to choose. But we had to make the best choice for our familys' future. I knew that going back to college was the best thing for my childrens life, as well as my own. I always knew I would go back and finish, I just didn't know how or where I would go to complete my undergraduate degree. Going back to school was the best decision I made. media type="custom" key="5937547" The new skill that I learned to use was PhotoStory. I downloaded a free trial and nervously opened the program. See, I repel computers and we have a dark past together. I was very worried about this class because of my fear of technology. It's kind of like math, it looks confusing and intimidating. That's why I chose math as my group and possibly my minor, I need to conquer it and show math who's boss. I almost took that same attitude with this class. But what I learned about technology is that it's not that scary as it may seem. When I started working on PhotoStory, I couldn't believe how easy the steps were. It was like 1 2 3 and click, there is my photo! I wrote out my script and clicked around and found out how to use text. It was exciting to find the different fonts and colors. The more I explored, the more fun it was working with the program. I then discovered the arrow button that moved the photos. This button was so easy to use and just got it done! I was nervous about a lot of things, but messing up the order of the pictures was heavy on my mind. But that magic little arrow made it so stress free. My pictures were coming along fine and I just kept my fingers crossed. I then began recording the narration and this was also easy and painless. Every picture had it's own timing, so there was no matching up the voice with the picture. After the story was done, I played it and was satisfied. I saved the project and then decided to go back and do some editing to the pictures. I noticed that the file extension was not wmv. I tried to change it and save it differently, but it was not allowing the change. I slowly started to freak out, but my husband worked on converting the file and still couldn't figure it out. After a day and an email of desperation, the tutorial was a huge help. After I figured out the extra "click", which was my problem, then I was so happy to finally accomplish the project. Another new technology that I learned was uploading my photo story to youtube. I have never done that before and it was so easy. The wiki page told me exactly what to do and I knew where to get the embed code. This class has showed me a different perspective on what technology can really do for education. It taught me that you don't have to be a tech brain or wizard to create such great materials. I'm very excited to try out my new skills and develop a better relationship with technology.

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