13b

Unfortunately, I cannot say much about Linked Courses since I did not take this course as that way. However the idea seems very good to me for the following reasons:
1) You come to campus 1 time instead of 2
2) You stay 4 hours instead of 6
3) You earn 6 credits
4) The courses are related. So, your brain focuses more or less on the same topics. It is not like taking Statistical Analysis and Web Development class at the same semester where the contents are totally different.
5) It encourages faculty collaboration. Most of the time faculty from different program areas don't interact with each other.
6) The same goes for the students as well. When students spend 4 hours together, a better collaboration will hopefully occur unless there is a problem within the small groups of the Pop Culture or the Literature class.

I'm from the second language program area and I really enjoyed creating a digital story based on a topic from my content area. I can't say the project improved my knowledge about the topic because I did a personal narrative. However, the project gave me lots of ideas and courage to use digital storytelling in my own teaching of foreign languages both to teach content and to assess students.

If other linked courses were offered, I'd be very interested in taking them but I am at the point where I should stop taking classes and focus on my candidacy paper and the rest!

I have taken a couple online content courses which I enjoyed and found the courses to be as good as face to face ones. However, I don't like the idea of having the digital storytelling portion of the course online because I know myself. When it comes to technology, I need to see the instructor showing and explaining the steps. If I can't understand something, it would be hard for me to form those questions because I'd fear I'd use wrong terminology or can't explain my question and make a ridicule of myself.

13a

I loved the article because it gave an overview of the courses, the reasons for the linked courses and some of the projects covered in the digital storytelling course.

I liked how the article progressed. However, an overall category title like "Technology Used in the Digital Storytelling Course" would be nice before explaining the software, hardware and web programs used in the class. May be it is just me but I could not grasp the transition from the Literature class to the technology part when I first read it.

Obviously,there is more information about the Pop Culture class than the Literature class because the second one is taught for the first time. I think you can add more information to it once the course is over.

I believe this article can gain more strength if you add anectodes from the students and the professors teaching the course about their ideas and experiences about linked courses.

One little misspelling: Under the section Evolution of Pop Culture and Digital Storytelling, 3rd paragraph, 3rd sentence, the word should be "theme" instead if "them".

12b / process of making a CD of final project

Creating the CD for my final project was not difficult. I asked for a blank CD from the CITE Lab and then created a folder on my desktop titled CUIN 7358. I moved my wp3, wmv and Word file of final project write-up into it. I inserted the CD into the driver and then right clicked on the mouse to sent the folder into the CD drive. I did not encounter any problems although I got mad at myself for not checking previously the size of the files. After a while I started getting anxious whether they would fit the CD or not. So, I was lucky, they all fit. But a lesson well learner. Better check the size before starting the copying process if you do not want to spend valuable time.

9a

Below is my edited sound file. I asked the people who speak a language other that English in my office to say their name in their native language.Then I linked them in one file and added background music.
Edited Sound File

7

Since I like writing personal narratives, this activity was easy for me but I found out that was not the same experience for my other group members. I started writing about how having a stroke last year changed my life. I liked the idea that Hal told me which a story like this can be used to teach about stroke awareness. If I were doing a digital story on that I would change the emphasis of my story to more medical than narrative

trial2

trial2

this is a trial

6a

For our mid term project I have chosen episode number 2387 "Recycling Plastics". The decision came so easily because I am a huge advocate of recycling and try my best to recycle in every situation. My close friends call me the "recycling police" because even I am at other's houses I tend to collect cans,plastics, glasses, etc before leaving a party if they are lazy to recycle themselves. Therefore, it will be very fun to work on this project.
Vacide

Questions and Comments on this weeks hw

I have enjoyed narrating my unfinished story. I have always hated hearing my voice in videos because it sounds childish however this time since I was more controlling my voice to sound professional, it didn't sound so childish to me. My biggest problem occured with the sound settings. Each time I recorded narration, I previewed it and the volume was fine. However when I finished the project and saved it as a wmp.file, the sound became almost inaudible. Why did this happen? Because of this problem, I did not want to spend too much time adding music since it would only hinder the already bad audibility. I just created music from Photostory selection and chose a classical Mozart piece. Also in some parts my narration between slides seems choppy, it does not flow naturally. I guess it has to do with the timing of each slide.

10-15-08 Storytelling with sound and music

Vacide's Digital Storytelling with Audio

Digital Storytelling with Audio

Vacide's Digital Photostory

Hands On Assignment 3

The image on the far left is the original one. I have recenty purchased a bike and have been too afraid it night. So, I went an bought some protection like a flashy vest, helmet, front and back lights and completely looked goofy. My friend took this picture after I rode so my face , especially my cheeks look so reddish. I used WebPicTool to edit this picture. The picture in the middle is the edited version.First of all, I used Sepia and and liked the look very much. Afterwards, I chose the tool called "smoothen skin" and it took away most of the reddness from my face. I also changed the light so that the background is more visible. The picture on the right is just for fun. I was looking at the features of WebPictool and found this one called "mirro".

The image on the left is the original. I took it at my friend's son's 3rd birthday last week. The clown barely seen on the left side of the camera painted his face as a tiger. As I was just taking the picture he leaned to his side and this weird photo appeared. In order to edit itI used Picassa and I cropped the picture so that only the boy is seen. Later I rotated the picture as if he is looking directly to the camera. Because he has blue eyes, they came out red and I corrected them. However, to me they look like more green than blue. I also added a little text and chose the color gren to match his shirt.Finally, I changed the contrast a bit so that he appears brighter than the dark background.

Hands-on Assignment 2

I took these and several other pictures on September 13th, 2008, the day after Hurricane Ike hit Houston to capture the damages in my apartment complex. It was around 2:00pm and the weather was very gloomy but the fact that there was almost no wind after such a hurricane was surprising to me. I did not use any special settings in my camera but just left the auto flash on.
I did not like how the first picture came out which show the blown shingles from the roofbecause it is not very clear. I'm not sure whether my hand shook or I should have chosen a different setting.


This picture shows how the fake grass carpet rolle like a ball into the corner and how the plants were damaged. What effected me was that the flower on the right corner had still its red petals on it. It totally surprised me that such a tiny flower survived the hurricane.
Anyone looking at this picture might think a strong wind is blowing at the time because of the leaves on the ground and the collepsed garage roof. However, the weather was so still. This made me realize that pictures can fool us and we need to look at photos free of preconcieved perceptions. Hope we will never have a hurricane like that again!

Hands-on Assignment 1

My roommate of 7 seven years is returning back
to Turkey in a month. I created a collage to give to
her with some of our memories.