This was a digital storytelling project for a grad school course at Texas A&M University in Commerce, Texas. The class was Digital Storytelling taught by Dr. Shannon Carter. The project took many turns over the course of completion. The end product was pleasing, especially that the background music was incorporated from the actual piece that was performed that night at Carnegie Hall. The process was tedious and a educational adventure in itself. The following programs were used in the creation of this project: Windows Live Movie Maker for video creation and editing; YouTube for uploading video to internet; and weebly.com for creating portfolio. There were a few aspects discussed in the reflections that did not work out to be included in this project; however, the learning process has been started, and more videos will inevitably follow. Below are three reflection papers that were written throughout the process. They summarize my learning experience with creating this project from beginning, middle, and end. Enjoy!
Reflection One: Beginning of a Digital Story
After reading through the syllabus and making the hasty decision to sign up for the winter mini-mester offered, it became clear to me that this was going to be a challenge. This is fortunate for me because I like a good challenge. In addition, I have found within the past few months how to use video editing software. During my last semester, it became necessary for me to learn this program for the successful completion of several projects. It was not specified to do video, but the presentations were not being viewed as I had created them because of computer compatibility issues. Out of this problem rose my newest hobby, creating videos. While I am still very new to this concept, I feel that I have a pretty good foundation to be able to work well in this course.
The little bit of background gives me just enough confidence to compensate for my lack of certainty of what to write about. I have been through so much in my life, most of which I hold a very emotional bond. There are some things from my past that I am not ready to discuss; therefore, they were not options when considering my topic for a video. I thought about telling about what is most important to me based on the book’s prompt regarding what home really means to you. Then, I considered getting very personal and sharing my experience of being emotionally abused in my first marriage. I feel very passionate about this because I want other women to be able to see that it is not acceptable. These two topics are very emotionally involved for me and contain a vast amount of information. It is for these reasons that I chose not to cover them. I felt that I would not be able to do them justice in a video that is merely two or three minutes long. One other idea that I did not share with the class was the summers that I spent as a teenager volunteering at a local hospital. I had wanted to go into the medical field; however, it was this experience that deterred me from that career choice. There were so many political games, such sadness, frustration, and unnecessary coldness of which I wanted no part. I plan to explore these topics later in life when the time and medium is appropriate.
My original idea, which was also liked by fellow classmates, was the time that I sang at Carnegie Hall in New York City. This was during my high school years, which has been a while; however, I have never forgotten the many details of that trip. There were so many obstacles that had to be overcome. All of the practicing and working to make the group that went, fundraising to pay for such an expensive trip, and work learning to sing with hundreds of other people I had never met along with the accompaniment of an orchestra. It was an overwhelming feeling to even see the stage of Carnegie Hall. There have been so many great performers stand on that very stage. It was humbling to know that they had opened their stage for one night to allow high school students with great dreams and ambitions to walk on the same floor.
When I think about that experience, I can still hear the music playing and feel the heat of the stage lights on my face. My eyes tear up as the last note is sung, knowing that we must turn to our right and file off the risers, never to stand in that space again. I prayed time would stand still so that I could soak up every bar of music and breathe in the essence of that performance. It went by quickly, much faster than practices. While it was not flawless, the conductor smiled at each of us as we left the stage. He had stood there many times, telling the violins when to hum and the timpani when to drum. I wondered if he was reflecting upon his first time at Carnegie Hall, and if he noticed the same awestruck look in each of our eyes.
While working on this project, it is my ambition that the emotion I felt on that day is felt by the audience. I further anticipate that they will understand the pride that still remains with me regarding that accomplishment in my life. I still hold on to the memories that were made in New York City. When I think of Carnegie Hall, it is not of a television concert I watched or even a time when I purchased tickets to watch my favorite musician play. My first thought is of my few minutes on the stage. And although I was in the midst of a great choir of hundreds of voices, I felt that experience was something just for me.
To fully convey the experience to the audience, I am going to include an mp3 file of Durufle’s Requiem, which is the piece of music that we memorized and performed that night. I have struggled getting the music file to download to my laptop after I purchased it from Amazon.com. I was finally able to get it integrated and upload the new version to YouTube for review by my peers. In addition to this music, I am also considering how to include myself singing a portion of that piece. It is in Latin, and although I do not remember much of it, I think that would be a very personal touch to the story. I hope to include a personal photograph or two of the event, but mostly I will have to use stock photos that look like what I experienced. This will convey the atmosphere more accurately rather than my voice and words alone.
I feel adequately prepared to complete this project and excited at the opportunity to work through it as a process. It is my desire that the outcome is somewhat as described above. I have already begun with pictures, words, and sounds through our assignments this week; however, there is still much to be done to perfect this digital story.
Reflection Two: Work in Progress
The story is coming along nicely. I have created other videos, but most of them have been in relation to presenting material of an educational nature. This process is entirely new to me and has taken me on a journey I had not anticipated. Before, I was compiling information that was found within other sources. I simply had to place it in order that made sense to the viewer. This is different because I have to dig deep inside and get the information from within my memories and emotions. This is personal and therefore means much more to me. I hope that my story comes across in the manner in which I am attempting to present it. This is a concern of mine. I will say that it has grown to include music, video, and a script that will make it as I am anticipating.
I have received very good feedback from my peers as well as from the professor. Most of them were encouraging and in agreement with my line of thought. There were some that pointed out things I needed to consider. For these, I am especially grateful. Some of these remarks included how to combine and present the information with sound and such. Others talked about making sure the images and music were usable for legality reasons. I will continue to consider and make sure that these topics are addressed.
As for the seven elements of digital storytelling, I am mainly struggling with the question issue. I need there to be a point of question or hook that grabs the attention of the audience in a dramatic fashion and that is later answered. There are some interesting moments, but I am worried that they are not enough of a “cliff hanger” moment. I want to draw the audience in so that they can hardly wait to find out what will happen next. It is my hope that they will hang on to every word that is spoken and each image that is on the screen. Another concern I have is that the video images I have included distract from this goal. It seems to throw off the flow of the presentation just a little. I still need to work on smoothing that out.
Another thing that I need to work on is compiling a list of sources of where I have gathered images and music. This will be quite a challenge, and I may have to get new images if I cannot figure out which image needs which reference. I was not thorough and clear in my notes regarding all of this. It was one of my biggest downfalls while working on this project. This has been a learning experience from the beginning. I have learned what steps to take and will certainly know next time to include more in the preparation time. This would make the current work in progress a much easier and more organized project. I am a big fan of the story board. It has allowed me to place my thoughts and ideas in a frame that will shape the final product. It tells me what more I need to do as well as where I am in regards to getting this done.
I have made one other major blunder while working on the requirements of this project. This was regarding the conference scheduling. When I opened the schedule of meetings, I noticed I was not on there. I went back to doodle and saw that I wasn’t there either. I had checked some available times, but had not “saved” my choices apparently. This was complete operator error. I went back in on Saturday and fixed my problem. I just hope it is in time to get credit and have a scheduled meeting. As for timing, I am pretty flexible. Evenings work best for me. My two older kids can watch my toddler while I have a conference over the phone. The phone option is the only way that will work for me because not only do I not have anyone to watch my kids, but also I live an hour away from campus. On the dates in question, I will have my three kids home from school as well as my sister’s twin baby boys, so time will be crunched anyway. I will hopefully be able to get an evening spot so that I can focus more on meeting with professor regarding the status of my project.
There is still quite a bit of work that needs to be done to my project before it is completed and ready for finalized viewing. I feel as though I am making good progress, and I am seeing a faint light at the end of the tunnel. It has been fun gathering everything for this project and getting it in order that makes some sense. I am filled with excitement and anticipation that my final project will be as I had hoped. It may seem very anticlimactic working so hard for a three minute video. I smile to myself when I think about this aspect of it. This week’s work was the biggest work load in my opinion, but I am thinking it may be all downhill from here.
Reflection Three: Almost Done
I honestly was not sure how this whole project was going to come together. I have been through so many stages of preparation from writing, choosing media, narrating, and rethinking it all over again. I must say that I am pleased with where I am at this point. I have some work left to do finalizing my resources and adding more text to the pages of my portfolio. I did a few things that were not required that I thought added to the story. I added a page of “out takes” to share with the audience a few funny things that happened during our trip. I explained that we did other things while in New York City other than just the story that I presented about the performance. I focused on the preparation and performance for the story because it was the reason for the trip and the most impactful event of life during that time.
There have been many frustrations along the way. Many of them I have overcome and a few of them still linger. I am not happy with some of the design of my website portfolio. It is all done by template and none of them match exactly what I had in mind. However, I am working with it to see if I can customize it further. My other frustrations include that I did not receive any feedback on my credits forum or my video. It may not be as interesting of a topic as I originally thought it was, based on that alone. I am also disappointed that I will not be able to attend the viewing party at the conclusion of this course. It would have been fun to get together with other students to share in their creative experience as well as their final projects.
I am most pleased with being able to incorporate narration with music. I had never used simultaneous audio files before on a video and not given consideration to how this would be done in the program that I used. I learned, through helpful youtube videos from others that you have to create the first video with voice and save it as a complete file. You then have to create a whole new file and place that video, then add the background music. There are probably other programs that allow you to put multiple audio tracks in the same video file; however, Windows Live Movie Maker, with which I am most familiar, does not. Rather than learning an entire new program this late in the game, I opted for this new file way of getting it done.
The video itself was very fun to create, but I am enjoying working on the portfolio more. It is allowing me to incorporate some of the peripheral information that is close to my heart but did not fit within the parameters of my video story line. I am still working to make sure that it doesn’t get too long winded, but I want there to be enough interesting information that people will continue to read and be interested in my experience. It is something that when you start, you don’t want to stop. I went ahead a published the website and will post the link to the discussion board for review by my peers. But, I think that I will go back and work more on it later tonight.
Furthermore, I had a very difficult time staying within the time requirements of only three to five minutes in length. I was able to speak a little faster and get it down to five minutes and fifteen seconds. If I speed it up anymore, it will really be too fast. I am already worried that the pace of my voice does not match the background music very well as well as the mood that I was trying to set of elegance. I was not sure what else to cut out as far as wording. The narration also led me to completely redo the texts that I had on the pictures originally. They did not match up with what I was saying. But they were a good starting point to get me thinking about where I wanted the story to go. Likewise, each step has been revised over and over to work together with the next steps in order to have a piece that flows as desired. There is still a little work that has to be done to the video itself, and I am hoping that someone will choose my project for peer review before the night is over.
I am trying to figure out if including all three reflections is going to be the best way to highlight the process for that page of my site. I may go through them and edit them down, taking out paragraphs such this one. I like the idea of having a process page which shows what I learned on the journey and what I ended up doing, but I am not sure if these reflections contain too much information for the portfolio purpose.
It has been very interesting watching the other students’ video stories. I have enjoyed their work immensely. They have some wonderful stories to tell. They focus more on family, so that makes me wonder if I went in the right direction. But, it is too late to turn back now. And I am happy with what I have done. I should not even speak about such regrets. I know better than to second guess myself and my work.
Reflection One: Beginning of a Digital Story
After reading through the syllabus and making the hasty decision to sign up for the winter mini-mester offered, it became clear to me that this was going to be a challenge. This is fortunate for me because I like a good challenge. In addition, I have found within the past few months how to use video editing software. During my last semester, it became necessary for me to learn this program for the successful completion of several projects. It was not specified to do video, but the presentations were not being viewed as I had created them because of computer compatibility issues. Out of this problem rose my newest hobby, creating videos. While I am still very new to this concept, I feel that I have a pretty good foundation to be able to work well in this course.
The little bit of background gives me just enough confidence to compensate for my lack of certainty of what to write about. I have been through so much in my life, most of which I hold a very emotional bond. There are some things from my past that I am not ready to discuss; therefore, they were not options when considering my topic for a video. I thought about telling about what is most important to me based on the book’s prompt regarding what home really means to you. Then, I considered getting very personal and sharing my experience of being emotionally abused in my first marriage. I feel very passionate about this because I want other women to be able to see that it is not acceptable. These two topics are very emotionally involved for me and contain a vast amount of information. It is for these reasons that I chose not to cover them. I felt that I would not be able to do them justice in a video that is merely two or three minutes long. One other idea that I did not share with the class was the summers that I spent as a teenager volunteering at a local hospital. I had wanted to go into the medical field; however, it was this experience that deterred me from that career choice. There were so many political games, such sadness, frustration, and unnecessary coldness of which I wanted no part. I plan to explore these topics later in life when the time and medium is appropriate.
My original idea, which was also liked by fellow classmates, was the time that I sang at Carnegie Hall in New York City. This was during my high school years, which has been a while; however, I have never forgotten the many details of that trip. There were so many obstacles that had to be overcome. All of the practicing and working to make the group that went, fundraising to pay for such an expensive trip, and work learning to sing with hundreds of other people I had never met along with the accompaniment of an orchestra. It was an overwhelming feeling to even see the stage of Carnegie Hall. There have been so many great performers stand on that very stage. It was humbling to know that they had opened their stage for one night to allow high school students with great dreams and ambitions to walk on the same floor.
When I think about that experience, I can still hear the music playing and feel the heat of the stage lights on my face. My eyes tear up as the last note is sung, knowing that we must turn to our right and file off the risers, never to stand in that space again. I prayed time would stand still so that I could soak up every bar of music and breathe in the essence of that performance. It went by quickly, much faster than practices. While it was not flawless, the conductor smiled at each of us as we left the stage. He had stood there many times, telling the violins when to hum and the timpani when to drum. I wondered if he was reflecting upon his first time at Carnegie Hall, and if he noticed the same awestruck look in each of our eyes.
While working on this project, it is my ambition that the emotion I felt on that day is felt by the audience. I further anticipate that they will understand the pride that still remains with me regarding that accomplishment in my life. I still hold on to the memories that were made in New York City. When I think of Carnegie Hall, it is not of a television concert I watched or even a time when I purchased tickets to watch my favorite musician play. My first thought is of my few minutes on the stage. And although I was in the midst of a great choir of hundreds of voices, I felt that experience was something just for me.
To fully convey the experience to the audience, I am going to include an mp3 file of Durufle’s Requiem, which is the piece of music that we memorized and performed that night. I have struggled getting the music file to download to my laptop after I purchased it from Amazon.com. I was finally able to get it integrated and upload the new version to YouTube for review by my peers. In addition to this music, I am also considering how to include myself singing a portion of that piece. It is in Latin, and although I do not remember much of it, I think that would be a very personal touch to the story. I hope to include a personal photograph or two of the event, but mostly I will have to use stock photos that look like what I experienced. This will convey the atmosphere more accurately rather than my voice and words alone.
I feel adequately prepared to complete this project and excited at the opportunity to work through it as a process. It is my desire that the outcome is somewhat as described above. I have already begun with pictures, words, and sounds through our assignments this week; however, there is still much to be done to perfect this digital story.
Reflection Two: Work in Progress
The story is coming along nicely. I have created other videos, but most of them have been in relation to presenting material of an educational nature. This process is entirely new to me and has taken me on a journey I had not anticipated. Before, I was compiling information that was found within other sources. I simply had to place it in order that made sense to the viewer. This is different because I have to dig deep inside and get the information from within my memories and emotions. This is personal and therefore means much more to me. I hope that my story comes across in the manner in which I am attempting to present it. This is a concern of mine. I will say that it has grown to include music, video, and a script that will make it as I am anticipating.
I have received very good feedback from my peers as well as from the professor. Most of them were encouraging and in agreement with my line of thought. There were some that pointed out things I needed to consider. For these, I am especially grateful. Some of these remarks included how to combine and present the information with sound and such. Others talked about making sure the images and music were usable for legality reasons. I will continue to consider and make sure that these topics are addressed.
As for the seven elements of digital storytelling, I am mainly struggling with the question issue. I need there to be a point of question or hook that grabs the attention of the audience in a dramatic fashion and that is later answered. There are some interesting moments, but I am worried that they are not enough of a “cliff hanger” moment. I want to draw the audience in so that they can hardly wait to find out what will happen next. It is my hope that they will hang on to every word that is spoken and each image that is on the screen. Another concern I have is that the video images I have included distract from this goal. It seems to throw off the flow of the presentation just a little. I still need to work on smoothing that out.
Another thing that I need to work on is compiling a list of sources of where I have gathered images and music. This will be quite a challenge, and I may have to get new images if I cannot figure out which image needs which reference. I was not thorough and clear in my notes regarding all of this. It was one of my biggest downfalls while working on this project. This has been a learning experience from the beginning. I have learned what steps to take and will certainly know next time to include more in the preparation time. This would make the current work in progress a much easier and more organized project. I am a big fan of the story board. It has allowed me to place my thoughts and ideas in a frame that will shape the final product. It tells me what more I need to do as well as where I am in regards to getting this done.
I have made one other major blunder while working on the requirements of this project. This was regarding the conference scheduling. When I opened the schedule of meetings, I noticed I was not on there. I went back to doodle and saw that I wasn’t there either. I had checked some available times, but had not “saved” my choices apparently. This was complete operator error. I went back in on Saturday and fixed my problem. I just hope it is in time to get credit and have a scheduled meeting. As for timing, I am pretty flexible. Evenings work best for me. My two older kids can watch my toddler while I have a conference over the phone. The phone option is the only way that will work for me because not only do I not have anyone to watch my kids, but also I live an hour away from campus. On the dates in question, I will have my three kids home from school as well as my sister’s twin baby boys, so time will be crunched anyway. I will hopefully be able to get an evening spot so that I can focus more on meeting with professor regarding the status of my project.
There is still quite a bit of work that needs to be done to my project before it is completed and ready for finalized viewing. I feel as though I am making good progress, and I am seeing a faint light at the end of the tunnel. It has been fun gathering everything for this project and getting it in order that makes some sense. I am filled with excitement and anticipation that my final project will be as I had hoped. It may seem very anticlimactic working so hard for a three minute video. I smile to myself when I think about this aspect of it. This week’s work was the biggest work load in my opinion, but I am thinking it may be all downhill from here.
Reflection Three: Almost Done
I honestly was not sure how this whole project was going to come together. I have been through so many stages of preparation from writing, choosing media, narrating, and rethinking it all over again. I must say that I am pleased with where I am at this point. I have some work left to do finalizing my resources and adding more text to the pages of my portfolio. I did a few things that were not required that I thought added to the story. I added a page of “out takes” to share with the audience a few funny things that happened during our trip. I explained that we did other things while in New York City other than just the story that I presented about the performance. I focused on the preparation and performance for the story because it was the reason for the trip and the most impactful event of life during that time.
There have been many frustrations along the way. Many of them I have overcome and a few of them still linger. I am not happy with some of the design of my website portfolio. It is all done by template and none of them match exactly what I had in mind. However, I am working with it to see if I can customize it further. My other frustrations include that I did not receive any feedback on my credits forum or my video. It may not be as interesting of a topic as I originally thought it was, based on that alone. I am also disappointed that I will not be able to attend the viewing party at the conclusion of this course. It would have been fun to get together with other students to share in their creative experience as well as their final projects.
I am most pleased with being able to incorporate narration with music. I had never used simultaneous audio files before on a video and not given consideration to how this would be done in the program that I used. I learned, through helpful youtube videos from others that you have to create the first video with voice and save it as a complete file. You then have to create a whole new file and place that video, then add the background music. There are probably other programs that allow you to put multiple audio tracks in the same video file; however, Windows Live Movie Maker, with which I am most familiar, does not. Rather than learning an entire new program this late in the game, I opted for this new file way of getting it done.
The video itself was very fun to create, but I am enjoying working on the portfolio more. It is allowing me to incorporate some of the peripheral information that is close to my heart but did not fit within the parameters of my video story line. I am still working to make sure that it doesn’t get too long winded, but I want there to be enough interesting information that people will continue to read and be interested in my experience. It is something that when you start, you don’t want to stop. I went ahead a published the website and will post the link to the discussion board for review by my peers. But, I think that I will go back and work more on it later tonight.
Furthermore, I had a very difficult time staying within the time requirements of only three to five minutes in length. I was able to speak a little faster and get it down to five minutes and fifteen seconds. If I speed it up anymore, it will really be too fast. I am already worried that the pace of my voice does not match the background music very well as well as the mood that I was trying to set of elegance. I was not sure what else to cut out as far as wording. The narration also led me to completely redo the texts that I had on the pictures originally. They did not match up with what I was saying. But they were a good starting point to get me thinking about where I wanted the story to go. Likewise, each step has been revised over and over to work together with the next steps in order to have a piece that flows as desired. There is still a little work that has to be done to the video itself, and I am hoping that someone will choose my project for peer review before the night is over.
I am trying to figure out if including all three reflections is going to be the best way to highlight the process for that page of my site. I may go through them and edit them down, taking out paragraphs such this one. I like the idea of having a process page which shows what I learned on the journey and what I ended up doing, but I am not sure if these reflections contain too much information for the portfolio purpose.
It has been very interesting watching the other students’ video stories. I have enjoyed their work immensely. They have some wonderful stories to tell. They focus more on family, so that makes me wonder if I went in the right direction. But, it is too late to turn back now. And I am happy with what I have done. I should not even speak about such regrets. I know better than to second guess myself and my work.