The Merriest Christmas Season!

This has to be the busiest, yet merriest, Christmas Season I can remember! Some people in the family have overcome serious diseases or at least are holding their own, and one nephew and his girlfriend have been talking about getting married, plus we've been invited to my cousin's huge wedding next April which I'm really looking forward to. Ahh, young love at Christmas! These pictures are of me at Starbucks and one I took of my husband, Tim, and the snowman at Wendy's.

Since completing the requirements of my two online SUNY-ESC courses this semester, I have returned to the Retirement Volunteers Senior Program Crocheting/Knitting Group that I usually get together with once each week. All the other members did a countdown while I finished doing the border on my lavender baby blanket that I'm donating to a local hospital new mom and her baby. Tim and I went to a monthly group Christmas party; I wore my Mrs. Santa hat too! Everyone greeted me warmly, and it was certainly a wonderful conversation piece!

Hubby and I did all the Christmas shopping this past week plus I also shopped for jewelry online for my granddaughter, niece, sister and girlfriend. It's amazing how many great bargains are out there. I really feel like Mrs. Santa Claus! One day I wore my Mrs. Santa hat in to Wendy's for lunch, and everyone seemed to really enjoy it; wearing the hat made me feel very jolly too.

I have really enjoyed all the holiday movies that hubby and I have borrowed from Redbox.com and from our local library, from Santa Baby 2 to A Christmas Carol, we've really enjoyed getting some time to kick our feet up and relax and enjoy them in the evening. We did go to see The Chronicles of Narnia Voyage of the Dawn Treader movie too. I wish you all a wonderful holiday season, whatever religious holiday you follow!




Reference:

Chronicles of Narnia movie (2010)http://www.narnia.com/
Santa Baby 2 YouTube Trailer Video (2009) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Siv2-NnJbAE
Jim Carrey's A Christmas Carol (2009 Disney) YouTube Video (above)

Creating My VoiceThread Project For SUNY Digital Storytelling

This week's assignment of creating a one-minute VoiceThread was not only interesting, but fun! My husband and I were at the local Starbuck's, and I pulled out a business card on which to quickly write down the idea I got to write about angels. I couldn't wait to get home to research some angel pictures after writing my script. Ever since I was a little girl, I have had a great love for Angels, especially Guardian Angels. One reason for this is because I grew up in the Catholic Faith, but since studying Mythology and Modern Life this semester at SUNY-ESC, I happily learned that there are angels in various myths and religions--many people believe in some angels!

At first I was very disappointed to find that I couldn't find many downloadable angel pictures on the internet, but after registering on VoiceThread, I found that there is an option to import pictures after searching right on VoiceThread. I was able to use several from the Library on that site plus I used a couple of personal pictures.

I really had fun commenting during the picture slideshow too. I did have some difficulty erasing some of the comments when the comments repeated on a picture. It's really pretty easy to create a slideshow, and afterwards, I added it to my online assignment reflection narrative about creating the VoiceThread. I also posted my VoiceThread Project on the right of this blog entry.

There are only twenty-two days left of the Fall Semester, and I have to say it's been a challenging and interesting, one. Anyone interested in studying digital storytelling, I highly recommend Dr. Nicola Martin's Digital Storytelling course at SUNY Empire State College Online!

Interactive Narratives Very Popular Now

Christmas is almost upon us, and our last Digital Storytelling course module has been my biggest challenge this Fall semester. I read about the Internet, mobile devices, kiosks, games, and interactive television too, but the one I am most familiar with is the Internet. I've been using the Internet for a few years, and I google every subject that I am interested in to research new information about it. I found that the NYC Museum of Art and the Interactive Narratives--an assigned field trip site were the most interesting to me. I thought I'd include a picture of the Nativity Scene by artist Geertgen tot Sint Jans in the upper-left corner.)

If you can't get out to New York City to get to the Museum of Natural History, you can surely spend a little time visiting the exhibits there! When I studied geology at CUNY--Brooklyn College a few years ago, I visited Central Park for a field trip plus I visited the Museum of Natural History with a friend to satisfy my gemology field trip there for the course. I was so enthralled with the gemology and weather exhibits that I spent hours there investigating the interactive kiosks there.

I didn't have a mobile phone then, but now I "phone home" just like ET whenever I'm out and about town. Although I don't have a cell phone camera yet, my brothers send me emails with up-to-the-minute pictures frequently of places they're visiting and people they meet.

Mobile Devices Have a Bright Future

Mobile devices in 2010 are, of course, even more advanced than the ones that Carolyn Handler Miller described in her Digital Storytelling A Creative Guide to Interactive Entertainment (2008). I owned a cell phone years ago that had a built-in camera, texting, phone, and games, but it proved to be more expensive and complex than I really needed at the time. I really enjoyed being able to take pictures during my travels, but according to more informed people than me, the United States may be the only country where mobile phone companies require mobile phone owners to pay for incoming call time. I now have a simpler mobile phone for emergency phone calls mainly as I still have my landline with answering machine.

In today's world, one can send moving pictures, videos and up-to-the-minute pictures to other people, making us a much more advanced and informed world than we were even in 2008. There have been riots and other important news reports sent to the news media by ordinary citizens who happened to be right on the scene--even ahead of news reporters/journalists.

There also are many more people travelling in mass transportation, waiting in waiting rooms, and using WiFi at cafes who are constantly texting, interacting on programs and phone calls, making this world very advanced in communications. Breakthroughs like a UCLA course with Director Kevin Smith are giving students hands-on experience filming mobisodes. (Miller 2008, p. 346) Mobile Devices, like mobile phones, are very important for teaching and promoting too, as well as enabling phone users to play interactive games and access anything on the internet with their mobile phones! One big drawback with using a mobile phone for personal business that involves your banking information or social security number is that certain devices can pick up your personal information and there is storage in the phone that could be accessed by the wrong people.

Hopefully, one day there will be protective devices that would block this personal information from getting into the wrong hands. Miller encourages storytellers and says that innovative storytellers will discover new breakthroughs in the use of mobile phones for storytelling. (Miller 2008, p. 347)

Reference:

Miller, C. H. (2008) Digital Storytelling A Creators Guide to Interactive Entertainment

Discovering Educational Blogs That Include Videos

This week I researched some blogs for my assignment about digital storytelling and technology and posted the link to Jenny Wakefield's blog on our college discussion board and to the right of this blog post. Wakefield's blog has a video about a dove with what I call "very busy music"--with bongos, xylophone, and tambourine included, befitting a dove's movements. Wakefield's blog is titled Technology and Instructional Design. She also added a video explaining Photo Story 3 and some of the capabilities of that program, like importing pictures and rotating them properly right on that site instead of prior to importing them as well as the capability of adding animation to your video. Wakefield's degree is in “Teaching and Learning with Technology, and her ambition is to become an Instructional Designer, so she is following along with technology."

I've learned a great deal about the video games available on the internet for people of all ages, including very young children, and that these videos for young children are geared not only to the young children, but also to their parents who will probably play the video along with them. I am particularly interested in writing for very young children--I've always loved children's books, particularly Charlotte's Web and Jonathan Livingston Seagull. I am happy to discover that there are many educational blogs available on the internet that can educate and even train students and other interested people in the audience, and I found so much more than the blogs too--fantastic children's videos--for the child in us all! Here is the beautiful YouTube Video with Neil Diamond singing Be from Jonathan Livingston Seagull--listen for the crescendo of the music while the waves are rising as Jonathan finds his way back to land at nightfall!


Here's the beautiful Charlotte's Web Video from YouTube with Bob Carlisle and Lucy Kane, singing Make A Wish:




I'm learning about how digital storytelling is useful for teaching and training in Miller's Digital Storytelling A Creator's Guide to Interactive Entertainment course textbook as well, and it all ties in nicely! I have had the experience of creating two videos for the Digital Storytelling course that I'm now taking, and, even though at first I felt a bit overwhelmed by the course requirements, I found that it goes very well with the Mythology and Modern Life course that I'm taking to fulfill my English BA degree as well since one seems to be able to find virtually any subject on video on the internet. I was thrilled to find that the YouTube Jonathan Livingston Seagull video here includes in Diamond's song the words "Sungod" and "Holy, Holy, Sanctus, Sanctus," which are from different religions or according to Campbell, myths. I am so happy every time I watch this video!

The first one-minute video using Animoto was much less challenging than the three-minute video that I created using Jing, Camtasia and finally, producing on Screencast.com, but I now find it an extremely creative activity and plan to do more videos and will share them on the Internet.

References:

Miller, C. H. (2008) Digital Storytelling A Creator's Guide to Interactive Entertainment Elsevier, Inc.

Wakefield, J. (2009) jennywakefield.wordpress.com/2009/09/20/digital-storytelling

Jonathan Livingston Seagull-Be YouTube. Neil Diamond, Singer. By jonathanseagull28

Charlotte's Web YouTube Video from Waldenfans. Bob Carlisle and Lucy Kane, Singers, Make a Wish

Learning About Digital Storytelling

We're approaching the halfway mark in my Digital Storytelling course, and I'm having a great deal of fun, but boy is it hard work! I try very hard to follow the story-planning and writing instructions of Maguire, Lambert and Miller in their textbooks. Keeping a blog is the most fun part to me, and there's so much to write about with all the extensive reading, planning and writing included in this course.

I recently purchased a new Sanyo VPC-S141414.0 megapixel, 4 zoom digital camera to help me capture good, up-to-date pictures and to load them on my computer to use in my blogs, videos, and social networking sites, like Gather.com and Facebook.com. It took me several hours to figure out how to use the camera adequately, but downloading the pictures and uploading them was really fun! The hardest part of the course for me is meeting the deadlines and ensuring that all the links to my assignments work. I posted my 2nd Assignment Video, "Anne and Tim's Love Story: How Two Writers Fell In Love With Each Other's Writing," just below this blog post, and my Narrative About Filming this video to the right of this blog.

I'll be posting a couple of pictures of my hubby, Tim, and I that we took at a local park and Starbucks with this post. We really enjoyed taking them, especially with the beautiful and colorful Fall foliage which I hurriedly captured since Fall is my favorite time of the year here in New York where we get the change of the Seasons! We've really been enjoying this Fall's harvest and have visited nearby Secor Farm as much as possible, and we're planning to get a picture of the farm the next time we visit, but that's another story!

My Childhood Place

Hiding in the igloo that my brothers made one Winter day, I didn't realize that my Dad had arrived home from work. Usually, on warmer days, I bathed my doll in her toy tub on our front porch and when Dad arrived home after a hard day's work, he picked me up and kissed me hello. I always loved when he did that! I thought about dinner as I was growing hungry, but I was secretly enjoying the solitude, away from my brothers, in that igloo!

I love my family very much, but in our household of eight, there wasn't much peace and quiet. It was growing cold even though Mom had bundled me in my warmest coat, and thankfully, I began to sing "Are you sleeping?" despite my teeth chattering, and Dad was able to hear me and find me. He admitted that he had only listened to my singing for a very short time, enjoying it, until he stuck his head into the igloo and called to me and chuckled, "There you are Little Anne!" When Dad brought me into the kitchen, Mom was busy preparing dinner, and my brothers and sister were all doing their chores or working on homework.

I've always wished that someone had taken a picture of one of the igloos that my brothers built each Winter, but if they did, I had not seen it. I know that we still have many records, including 45s, that were common in those days, and I plan to ask my siblings if they have "Are you sleeping?" that I used to love. Dad only lived until I, the youngest, was fifteen years old, and I would love to have that record as a momento!

Overcoming Cancer

Recently, after noticing a new sunspot on my face, I made an appointment with my dermatologist. Within a couple of days, my dermatologist called me and hurriedly told me that I had melanoma on my face and that it needed to be removed as quickly as possible. He referred me to a surgeon and gave me his office number.

After calling the surgeon's office and making an appointment and then trying to get it moved up to an earlier date, my life changed drastically. I had already been using 30 SPF sunscreen at least once early in the day, but I began using it more freqently plus I tried to avoid the sun and went to see my regular doctor for a blood test and exam and also underwent surgery.


Three weeks later, I received a clean pathology report, and I'm happy to be taking my Digital Storytelling and Mythology and Modern Life courses at SUNY Online. Every time I read my classmates and professors posts, I feel so happy that I am alive! When I wrote the Wordle assignment and reflective narrative last week, I was not sure that I had overcome the malignant melanoma cancer. I felt it was great to be able to express my feelings when I was first diagnosed with cancer, and it is also wonderful to be able to tell everyone, my classmates and my professors, that I am ecstatic about overcoming the cancer!

Here is the Wordle.com assignment that I created for my SUNY course on Digital Storytelling: