Tuesday

Well, it was the second day of Teaching with Technology. I have to say that if I had to sum this day up with one word, it would be frustration. I hate to say that, and it does not reflect on the instructors at all. Rob and Doug have been great. It was just that kinda day...

It really started last night when I was making a movie at home and trying to download a song for the movie. I just could not get it into a format that would be recognized in Windows Movie Maker. It reminded me of one of the reasons that the older generation does not like the technology age. There was a day when you could walk into a store, buy a tape and go home and play it. It did not matter what store you bought it from, if it was a tape and you had a tape player, you could boogie to your new music. Now, times are different. If I want some cool music, I can shop from home. This is cool! Here is the thing, if I go to shop for the new Coldplay CD, I have to be sure that I purchase it from Rhapsody or similar store that supports my Sandisk (aka non-iPod) mp3 player. If I buy this song through Rhapsody, I won't be able to download it to my iPod because it is an mp3 and not an mp4. Then, I download a song and want to add it to a movie, well it is in a format that will play on my mp3, but not in a movie on my computer because it does not support the format. All this time, it is the same song!!! Do I now have to buy this same song in three different formats in order to use it the way I need to? Ugh!!!

Sorry, I just had to vent about that since it was a frustrating day. I got here early this morning and scoured the lots for a parking space but to no avail. I finally found one next to the parking garage that I thought was legit. I checked the signs before I parked as well. Apparently, I don't understand the signs on the campus anymore because I got a ticket!

We learned how to start a blog today. Well, I have had a blog for over a year now, so this was not new learning for me. I knew that some of the things offered in the workshop would not be new anyway, so I just jumped in creating my blog and try to help those around me when I could.

We spent the rest of the day working on a video in which we were asked to interview new Tech students about why they have chosen to come to Texas Tech. Since new student orientation have been going on this week, there should be plenty of students to interview, right? My partner and I storyboarded our video, made all the plans and then set out to find our interview subjects. We only found 1 new student! Orientation had ended around noon and all of the new students and their parents were headed home to start packing for their big move in the fall. We even had a hard time finding current students available to talk with us! We decided to interview the statues on campus to see what their thoughts were...funny, they did not have much to say!

We managed to find a few people to interview and came back to edit our clips. Paul downloaded the videos and spent almost 45 minutes carefully editing our footage. I searched for audio clips and pictures to add to our movie. We thought we were ready to merge our work. Paul saved it onto his jump drive to bring to my computer. I opened the file...nothing but red x's where video should be. We opened it again on his computer and the same thing...nothing but x x x x x x x. Somehow, it was lost in the process of saving. We had to start all over again. Yes, frustrating. I am now like that one restless student. "Why do I need to do this...I already know how to do it!" I spent half the night last night working on a baseball movie for church on Sunday. Since the purpose of the exercise today was to give us the opportunity to record and create our own movie, I really had done it already. So...it was hard to have motivation to keep working on this project after we had so much trouble already.

We plugged on...I am completing the editing it tonight since we had to start over in class today. We did see some examples of storyboarding that will be useful in the classroom. We also got to try our the flip video camera. Nice to have a trial run on this little gadget. Not sure if it is what I want for my classroom, but I am thinking about it.

I am sure that tomorrow will be a new fresh day!