Thing six Reflective Practice
Thoughts so far..
contemplation by Rene van Haeften cc by-na-sa 2.0
We are now a quarter way through Rudai23 and its flown by so fast its hard to believe. I signed up to this years Rudai23 course to begin to learn new skills and tools as I have fallen behind in keeping up with new mobile technology developments.
I had engaged with the Gibbs cycle in college and always found it made writing a report easier as it gave a useful framework on which to build your ideas on a topic. I was however always thrown by the "Feelings" portion of the cycle. I have never really had any strong feelings about any task, either could I complete the job or I couldn't.
The first task we had to accomplish was to set up a blog. I had set one up before for the last time I did rudai23 but I didn't want to use the same one. I had hoped to keep writing at the time if only for a record of events I attended and courses I took part in. I tried wordpress this time but found it a tricky if you can get the hang of it blogs built here will look better but I came back to blogger for its simplicity.
I am not very active online I have a twitter account but that was originally set to join chats on library issue so a lot of online tools and apps leave me cold. I also don't like giving my details out over the net. Google are others are constantly asking for my phone number but with the hacking of customer details from Yahoo servers I don't trust them with my data.
I do not find the act of writing an enjoyable one, grammar and spelling are not my strong points so blogging did not hold much appeal to me. When I read any I saw them as more columns rather than articles giving opinions rather than facts and analysis. I sometimes find the style of writing jarring and the lack of an editorial process can be glaring obvious.
The second task was a very enjoyable one to find pictures and learn about copyright issues by attributing the one chosen correctly. I went on to two sites which were pixabay and Flikr. Flikr has an enormous amount of photographs with different restrictions and copyrights. It have lots of old photographs that can be used as a source for historical research which not what I think about when I think of flikr. Pixabay is great too and is the one I use most often it allows for adapting each photo for size and many come with no restrictions on use.
The next task, thing 4, was to download some mobile apps and try them out. I do not normally bother with mobile apps as they do not really interest me. I did however have great fun with Photofunia. I'm not sure if its useful inn a work situation but for social uses its very good. I created images of famous movie posters with friends and family faces in them. The one area I can see it being used is to generate eye catching very visual advertising for events or images for websites. If I was to return to the task or if I was doing it in a work environment I would probably have created a poster first and then installed that into one of the templates provided.
Also for this task I looked at Quik I had never heard of this before but it creates nice videos that can be posted on youtube. It links together your photographs on your phone before adding effects and layering music to create effective promotional videos. I looked up some examples that are online elsewhere and some are exceptional linking videos of holidays making a short film that was told a really good story. Quik is a very powerful tool. Both these tools made me re-evaluate my attitude to mobile apps. If I was to have a criticism it is that they are mobile apps and PC tools are easy to use for me. I also didn't like that I had to go to a hotel to get decent wifi to upload the video I made to the net. They are designed to be used on mobile phones but quite powerful and up-to-date technology so they are excluding a large body of people something that as a librarian goes against my instincts.
I thing 5 I chose to do a Powtoon as I had done a screencast before. As said earlier it reminded me of the flash movies I made in my undergrad many years ago. Rudai23 says its a video version of Powerpoint and are fans of it, I agree I think it is better than power point but I wouldn't describe myself as a fan. I found this quite difficult to get to grips with and is certainly not something to jump feet first into. This does require not just a modicum of forethought but perhaps to have a plan in place before starting the work. I found that it is easier to start from scratch with a blank as to use template can be limiting in later screen choices.
The slideshow I made for it was deliberately short and I chose a thought the amount of animations, fonts, imagery for a free version was not limited and should be good enough for all but the most demanding presentations.
I would however question its use as a presentation tool. I think the animations could be over done and get out hand quite quickly. If I was looking at a slides created by powtoon with a speaker I don't know would I find the animation distracting. As a video tool though it is a great way of imparting information in a engaging manner and the fact that it can be linked to a youtube channel helps in its appeal.
6 thing down I look forward to the next 17.
I do not find the act of writing an enjoyable one, grammar and spelling are not my strong points so blogging did not hold much appeal to me. When I read any I saw them as more columns rather than articles giving opinions rather than facts and analysis. I sometimes find the style of writing jarring and the lack of an editorial process can be glaring obvious.
The second task was a very enjoyable one to find pictures and learn about copyright issues by attributing the one chosen correctly. I went on to two sites which were pixabay and Flikr. Flikr has an enormous amount of photographs with different restrictions and copyrights. It have lots of old photographs that can be used as a source for historical research which not what I think about when I think of flikr. Pixabay is great too and is the one I use most often it allows for adapting each photo for size and many come with no restrictions on use.
The next task, thing 4, was to download some mobile apps and try them out. I do not normally bother with mobile apps as they do not really interest me. I did however have great fun with Photofunia. I'm not sure if its useful inn a work situation but for social uses its very good. I created images of famous movie posters with friends and family faces in them. The one area I can see it being used is to generate eye catching very visual advertising for events or images for websites. If I was to return to the task or if I was doing it in a work environment I would probably have created a poster first and then installed that into one of the templates provided.
Also for this task I looked at Quik I had never heard of this before but it creates nice videos that can be posted on youtube. It links together your photographs on your phone before adding effects and layering music to create effective promotional videos. I looked up some examples that are online elsewhere and some are exceptional linking videos of holidays making a short film that was told a really good story. Quik is a very powerful tool. Both these tools made me re-evaluate my attitude to mobile apps. If I was to have a criticism it is that they are mobile apps and PC tools are easy to use for me. I also didn't like that I had to go to a hotel to get decent wifi to upload the video I made to the net. They are designed to be used on mobile phones but quite powerful and up-to-date technology so they are excluding a large body of people something that as a librarian goes against my instincts.
I thing 5 I chose to do a Powtoon as I had done a screencast before. As said earlier it reminded me of the flash movies I made in my undergrad many years ago. Rudai23 says its a video version of Powerpoint and are fans of it, I agree I think it is better than power point but I wouldn't describe myself as a fan. I found this quite difficult to get to grips with and is certainly not something to jump feet first into. This does require not just a modicum of forethought but perhaps to have a plan in place before starting the work. I found that it is easier to start from scratch with a blank as to use template can be limiting in later screen choices.
The slideshow I made for it was deliberately short and I chose a thought the amount of animations, fonts, imagery for a free version was not limited and should be good enough for all but the most demanding presentations.
I would however question its use as a presentation tool. I think the animations could be over done and get out hand quite quickly. If I was looking at a slides created by powtoon with a speaker I don't know would I find the animation distracting. As a video tool though it is a great way of imparting information in a engaging manner and the fact that it can be linked to a youtube channel helps in its appeal.
6 thing down I look forward to the next 17.
Well done Emmet, you're well on the way now, and congrats on your first badge.
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