Keynote Ignite

On Friday, we were challenged to create and present a Keynote Ignite on a topic which we found out about in the morning! My topic was on Prensky's Digital Natives/ Digital Immigrants. I was provided with the article, Digital Natives: Fact or Fiction (2011),  by the Oxford University Press,  to help me.

An Ignite is very specific, containing 20 slides and with each slide being 15 seconds long.

Here is my keynote:

Reflecting on my Inquiry: Week 9, Term 3

In term 3, I was able to observe students engaging with digital hooks for reading while exploring their effects on learning in more detail. Testing more students resulted in more questions than answers, as there was not a clear connection found between use of digital hooks and levels of inference and applied knowledge. I should have had students complete the same reading test before and after time spent interacting with the digital hooks, regardless of their reading level. Instead, I tested students at their current reading age, which in many cases had changed since we had regularly begun using digital hooks. 

I have been reflecting on the direction my inquiry should go next. This has involved a lot of questioning and being critical of my practice. It has been clear to see that implementation of digital hooks has helped in engaging students in the topic of their reading, however it has also made me question how, when, and how often I use them. 

Keynote 101

Today we explored a range of the opportunities that are possible for creating an engaging Keynote. I was amazed at the endless possibilities with Keynote, from creating presentations to creating movies and animations!

1.  We first explored the general preferences of Keynote and the range of effects that can be added to words and letters. To create the effect in the word 'mathematics', I layered two text boxes - the underlying text had a shadow effect applied to it in two shades of red. The top layer did not have any effects applied to it. Therefore, I managed to create a three-colour-toned text. This idea of creating layers ended up being a recurring strategy as I began to experiment with creating interesting effects with incorporating illustrations into photos - layering was used to create an effect of an object being behind only a small section of the photo. 

2. I then learned how to use the 'Magic move' tool. I followed this clear screencast explanation. This tool allows you to create your own transitions of only sections of the slide. Here is my product:

3. Finally, I attempted to create an animation. I exported three versions of my character from Procreate. I picked a photo I took at Pt England Beach. I then duplicated the slide to animate my character walking down to the beach. A really valuable tool I used was 'instant alpha.' This allowed me to remove background colours from various images. For example, with my animated character, I had to remove the background colour on the image I imported from Procreate.

Movie Editing

The movie is finished! I am going to step you through the stages I took to get from a day's worth of filming and over 30 minutes of raw footage, to a 2 minute movie. 

In iMovie, I created an extremely rough cut of the raw footage in an approximate sequential order of the storyline. We had collected footage from three different types of cameras and from a number of different angles so this cut included quite a bit of repetition of the storyline. This rough cut was about 25 minutes long.

Next, I cut this rough cut down to 3 minutes. This took a long time as I needed to ensure the storyline was making sense.

I then 'tightened' my movie by ensuring each clip was no longer than it needed to be to tell the story. This made a huge difference to the quality of the movie and interest for an audience as it made the movie faster moving. 

I received feedback from my peers at Digital Immersion. I then went away to make changes as suggested.

I planned the voice overs and then found a microphone which would effectively capture the speech. I first tried capturing these voice overs using quicktime, but decided on using garageband so I could then assess the quality of the voice overs by looking at the sound waves created (bigger waves are better as you can alter them more).

Once my movie was approximately finished, I imported it into garageband where I could adjust the soundtrack and voice overs against the video. I found the process of correctly balancing the sound extremely challenging.

I then moved my video and audio back and forth between iMovie and Garageband multiple times until I was happy with the completed product. This involved matching the clips to the rhythm of the music. 

I received more feedback while watching the 'completed' movie on a big screen and through good-quality speakers. This allowed me to adjust the sound balance some more before doing a final export of the movie.

Watch this space (sometime next term) to see the final product!

The curious case of the missing goal posts

On Thursday, we filmed for film festival. The day was challenging as we aimed to gather the majority of our footage using a number of different cameras.

The order of capturing the footage turned out to be an important aspect to consider. In an ideal situation, it would make sense to capture the footage in the order of appearance in the movie, so nothing is missed. However, this was not practical when we started with ~40 students outside and other activities were planned on the field later in the day. I quickly learned the importance of getting the shots done quickly and moving on so students did not lose focus. We also had to be flexible with the order of filming so that it suited the time we had. We were faced with the challenge of completing as much filming as possible before lunchtime, when there was a rugby game being played (all our filming was done on the field). This meant our background started to change as ropes were put up, and various equipment started to appear around us. We had to think about how we were going to capture the footage we wanted in a realistic way without a changing environment. 

Can you spot the difference in these two shots? This was a great lesson in how quickly the environment can change while filming, and the importance of being adaptable! Never would I have thought that the rugby posts on the reserve would completely disappear from my shots! 

I finished the day by sorting through the footage and looking at how it turned out. The following day, I then created a rough cut of my movie to piece the footage together into the order it needed to be in.