Following is a list of programs I've used this year:

• Picasa
• Audacity
• Photo Story

Not much, but more than I had ever used before...

The only programs I used for my final project was Photo Story. This was my first time, and add to that fact that I'm not technologically savvy, I kept it simple.

CD Process - Well, it was pretty easy. I put the CD in, clicked on "my computer" and went to the CD. Then I dragged the files I wanted to copy onto the box to prepare them to write. Then I hit "prepare the files for CD" and then waited for them to transer. Easy. I hope it worked.

The linked courses have been great. Because the technology class was linked to something I enjoyed, it made it much more understandable because I felt I had more invested in the topics. Also, the link cut back on additional research, allowing for more time to be placed into the project. We were creating digital stories on topics studied in class, so the projects reinforced the class, and the class reinforced the projects.

I think the digital stories are the best medium for learning technology because they are fun, easy, and the student can see uses for it other than just the digital story class. For example, I've had fun putting together personl photo stories with pictures of past vacations of my wife and me.

I learned so much more about pop-up books and series books through 2 digital story presentations than if I had just relied on the information in the class. Abrahamson knows more information on children's literature than is healthy for a person, but the digital stories on specific topics explain aspects that the class simply didn't have time to cover.

The linked course certainly taught me a way to connect technology to my content area. I'm using the digital story medium to teach kids how to analyze thematic issues within given texts.

This is my first semester as a doctoral student, and I have a ways to go. So I'm hoping to take the pop culture/technology linked courses that I've heard about. I really enjoyed this semester, and I would recommend this class to anyone majoring in education.

The idea of having the second part of the linked course on-line would worry me. Most of what I learned came from Dr. Robin's patience when helping me through hands-on assignments. But I'm slow, so I need the face-to-face help.

http://www.soundupload.com/audio/yct6q54iqbnifq8f

Here's a link to my "Edit Audio File." Enjoy.

Photo Story Script - Rough Draft

Following is more of an outline than it is anything. I'm still in search of pictures and different interpretations, so I might jump ship on this project next week and try my second choice.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow: Interpretative Differences of Icabod Crane through Illustrations

I want to start the photo story with images of Icobod Crane from the Walt Disney Movie The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and read from Irving's origninal descriptions:

"In this by-place of nature, there abode, in a remote period of American history, that is to say, some thirty years since, a worthy wight of the name of Ichabod Crane; who sojourned, or, as he expressed it, “tarried,” in Sleepy Hollow, for the purpose of instructing the children of the vicinity. He was a native of Connecticut; a State which supplies the Union with pioneers for the mind as well as for the forest, and sends forth yearly its legions of frontier woodsmen and country schoolmasters. The cognomen of Crane was not inapplicable to his person. He was tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely hung together. His head was small, and flat at top, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes, and a long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weather-cock, perched upon his spindle neck, to tell which way the wind blew. To see him striding along the profile of a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and fluttering about him one might have mistaken him for the genius of famine descending upon the earth, or some scarecrow eloped from a cornfield."

I'd like to continue with images of other character's from the movie, while continuing...

"Watching the Disney movie as a child, I never connected the cartoon to Washington Irving. After reading the original story by Irving, I realized just how incredibly accurate Disney was when they made the movie. But when we look at other illustrations of Icabod Crane, we see interpretations that push the envelope of Washington Irving's imagination."

Then I'd like to show an image of Rockwell's Icabod Crane, and make the connections to the orignial descriptions. However, after that is where it gets sketchy. I plan on showing images of Icabod through children's books and the translations of Irving's descriptions of Icabod and how they differ in various children's books. While I talk about the decriptive differences, I'll show the pictures in the children's books that correlate with the narration. I'll have various pictures of Icabod and talk about what exactly the illustrator took liberty with.

In the end, I plan on going back to the idea of my childhood, and how Disney's close interpretaion captured my own imagination by recreating Irving's imagination.

I plan on creating a Photo Story for The Engines of Our Ingenuity NO. 71, titled "Guillotine." This episode begins with the history of beheading, which goes as far back as 4,000 BC, and describes the development of the guillotine in France. I like the topic because it feels appropriate with Holloween fast approaching.

The only question I have is: How do I get the pictures to continually move as I am recording? I had to create individual voice overs for each image.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Dr. Robin, please take a look at some of the pictures and let me know how I can clean them up. The blurry pictures didn't look like that when I downloaded them onto my computer, only when I uploaded the pictures onto Photo Story.

The computer lab closed on Sunday before I could finish working on my Photo Story. So I decided to complete it at home, but I forgot that I don't have the program on my laptop. So I guess my question is: Can we upload Photo Story 3 onto our personal computers?

Also, I have some ideas for my Photo Story, but I'm not sure I want to commit. I'm thinking of showing the history of Sleepy Hollow, and it's many different interpretaions. But for now, I'm just going to post the Photo Story that I worked on in class. Is that okay?

Here is another pic I scanned. This one is of me in Spain sitting in front of the Heminway memorial in front of the bullfighting ring in Pamplona. Again, when I scanned the pic, it scanned as an 81/2x11, so I cropped it and added a cheesy poloroid border.

I knocked out two birds with one stone. I scanned this picture of me and young adult author Chris Crutcher. Then I uploaded it onto one of those picture-fixing sites, and here is the result. I had scanned the pic as an 81/2x11, so I had to crop it. I played with the color a bit, but the automatic "sharpen" or "enhance" tool made the pic look worse, so I didn't apply those features. Tell me what you think.

Rose Collage II

I revised my rose collage. I just took what I thought was the best picture and set it as a background. Then I took some other good ones and placed them around the central focus of the background pic. Let me know what you think.

Check out my collage of Jerry and the Dead.