EDTEC 561

The posting place for all things 561-related.

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One-sentence Goal and High Outline

The one-sentence goal statement: The Article Sequence Training Video will outline the proper procedure a staff writer follows, from story conference to final draft, to submit an article for publication in the school newspaper. List of points (high outline): • pre-story conference brainstorming • whole-group story conference • section group meeting & article •research, interviewing, writing •the editing process: section editor, senior editor, & advisor •electronic submission —————————————–

School Newspaper Article Submission Process

Content Outline A. pre-story conference brainstorming 1. Students receive brainstorm form. 2. Students solicit friends, school officials, Internet, etc. 3. Students fill out form in three categories: school, teen culture, and world affairs. B. whole-group story conference 1. Editor-in-chief and Assistant editor lead a whole group meeting, listing five sections of paper on the front white board. 2. Using their brainstorms, staff suggests article ideas for each section. 3. E-I-C writes down suggestions for each suggestion. C. section group meeting & article 1. Section editor sits down with his/her team. 2. Staff writers discuss which articles they would want to write based on story conference. 3. Section editor assigns each staff writer two stories. 4. Section team brainstorms ideas if anyone is lacking a story. D. research, interviewing, writing 1. Staff writers do background preparation for assigned articles based on need. a. internet/ library research b. interviews c. poll/survey d. event attendance 2. Staff writers write first draft of article, print it, and submit to section editor 3. Section editor edits paper then returns it to staff writer. 4. Staff writer rewrites article then submits a copy to senior editor. 5. Senior editor edit paper then returns it to staff writer. 6. Staff writer rewrites article then submits a copy to paper advisor. 7. Advisor edits article then returns it to staff writer. 8. Staff writer makes final edits on article and submits final draft to the section editor’s electronic folder. Treatment In a typical high school classroom, the editor-in-chief hands each member of a newspaper staff a brainstorm sheet for the following day’s story conference. Students disperse and are seen throughout the day checking leads on the internet, asking questions of school staff, and talking to friends while filling out the brainstorm sheet. The next “day” the staff assembles together in the classroom, facing the editor-in-chief and the assistant editor who are at the front of the room, dry-erase pens in hand. The board has five columns labeled “news,” “opinion,” “arts & entertainment,” “features,” and “sports.” Staff members share from their brainstorm sheets as the senior editors field their input, categorizing story ideas into the appropriate section, and writing them on the board. After students have filled the board with story ideas, the staff breaks into pre-assigned section groups with their individual section editors. These small groups are seen animatedly discussing the article ideas, and the section editor writes the names of individual staff writers next to the various story ideas. At the conclusion of the small group meeting, you see each staff writer doing various tasks to prepare for writing the article. One is reading on the Internet; one is interviewing an administrator, while another is talking with a student athlete. Finally, staff writers are seen at the computer with their notes, writing the first draft of an article. A staff writer is seen waiting for an article at a printer, taking it when finished, and placing it on a board with a magnet; the section editor is then seen taking the article down, reading it and writing notes, then returning the edited article to the staff writer’s mailbox. The staff writer pulls the article from his or her mailbox, sits down at the computer, and again ends up at the computer printer. Taking the printed paper, the staff writer places it on the senior editor’s board with a magnet; the senior editor is seen taking the article down, reading it and writing notes, then returning the edited article to the staff writer’s process. The staff writer repeats the process with the article ending up with the advisor who is seen editing the paper and returning it in the same manner. When the staff writer gets the article back this time, he or she is again at the computer editing it, but when finished is seen submitting the digital copy of the file into the section editor’s electronic folder. After the article is submitted into the electronic folder, the staff writer is seen patting him or herself on the back and relaxing. —————————————–

Multi-media Tool Review 1: Comic Life

Comic Life Deluxe is part comic strip creator, part photo-editor, part graphics program. The idea behind comic life is to give the user the ability to edit, organize, and add eye-catching text to images. The application gives you all of the features necessary to create an actual comic strip, but the tools can be freely used to enhance graphics for any purpose. The tutorials available list out the various features of Comic Life and how they are used, and several walked the user through a mini-project in order to apply the features to an actual product. The first stage would be to choose the organization—a user can start with a blank page, but there are dozens of templates available to organize your graphics, much like the pages of a comic book. With text, there are choices from bold, colorful title graphics, to text/thought bubbles, to simple text boxes. All text items can use all fonts available on the user’s computer and have re-sizing capabilities. The title text has the added feature of being stretchable as well. Photos/graphics can be taken from one’s iSight camera, iPhoto, or desktop, and once placed can be augmented with various changes such as “comicfy,” “drawing,” and “paint.” For my example, I captured a picture with my iSight camera and applied the “Digi-Vision” option to achieve a video monitor feeling to the image. The Deluxe Edition of Comic Life allows a ton of versatility that the original Comic Life lacks, including the ability to shadow text from any direction and to any degree of sharpness. The final product is a professiona-looking graphic that is distinctive and unique. Once I had gone through the tutorials, I experimented with the program to create the included graphic for the Comet program and applied what I learned to a website for my parents I had working on as well. —————————————–

Multi-media Tool Review 2: iMovie ‘08

I have been using Apple movie-editing software that pre-dates iMovie (although I can’t remember the name!) and have been using iMovie itself for quite a few years. I am quite comfortable with the older versions of iMovie, but when Apple completely changed the interface when it updated iMovie, the look and feel of it is so foreign to me that I have been putting off and avoiding making the transition, only editing movies on our home desktop rather than on my newer laptop that only has iMovie ’08. This class offered the perfect opportunity to become familiar with the application; even though iMovie wasn’t praised during our 561 class, I still wanted to learn how to use it. In order to fulfill this assignment, I watched many of the video tutorials put out by Apple, then I tackled making our youth group’s winter retreat video with iMovie ’08, which you will see included with this review. When I started watching the video tutorials, I didn’t realize that they were for iMovie ’09, while the iMovie that people were disappointed in AND that I had on my laptop was ’08. As I viewed the iMovie ’09 tutorials, I was blown away by some of the capabilities—the video stabilizing, the video effects, the titles—it was amazing what you could do. I had a hard time believing people didn’t think the application was incredible. It wasn’t until halfway into editing, when I tried to add video effects, that I realized I was working with iMovie ’08, and, sadly, there were no video effects to be found, which I even had on my previous version! You have to question why a newer version would drop unique features! Overall, though, it was a good first experience, and I was able to adjust to the newer version of iMovie. The one annoying aspect is how they designed the cursor to move the film whenever it passed over a clip—so just moving through the window in advertently jumps the finder through all parts of the video clips and film you are making. Adding music was also an issue—in the previous version of iMovie, if the audio clip extended beyond current amount of video, the entire song would be place in the timeline; however, in iMovie 08, it only lays the track down to where you placed video into the timeline. I was pleased with the finished product for our high school winter retreat and feel acclimated to the application.

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EV Script

brentt_script

Storyboard

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Research Assignment 1

Multi-Media Research Assignment One Section II: Hard Technologies “Virtual Realities” Virtual realities seem to have developed in multiple directions and require classification to describe the different forms they take. In the article, ten systems have thus far been described. “Immersive First-Person” involves the individual being suited up to enter the virtual reality, complete with helmet, gloves, and other accoutrements that heighten the virtual experience; this type of system is often depicted in movies and television shows. “Augmented Reality” is where pellucid layers of computer graphics are laid over real-life images or scenes. If a virtual reality is “Through the Window,” then it is accessed through a computer monitor screen and often manipulated or controlled with the keyboard and mouse. The term “Mirror World” is where a video camera merges a real world image with a computer generated environment—almost the opposite of augmented reality. “Waldo world”—also referred to as virtual characters—is where sensors on a person control a virtual character, almost like a puppet. Similar to each other is the virtual reality of “Chamber World” and a “Cab Simulator Environment.” The first is a projection theater that immerses someone in another involvement and has 3D capabilities; the latter is an expanded simulator, exemplified by entertainment rides such as Star Tours at Disneyland. Next is what is labeled “Cyberspace,” described as a “global artificial reality that can be visited simultaneously by many people via networked computers.” Based on the reading, it seems that much of the Internet qualifies under this definition, but online video games and environments are aspects of this area. “Telepresence and Teleoperation” are where one feels as though one is in another location and where one operates a device remotely respectively. The “Visiondome” is like entering into an immersive 3D video environment without helmets, goggles, or other attachments. It can also include multiple people. Lastly, the “Experience Learning System” involves cutting-edge training simulations, mostly for the military. What seemed to be a simple and inclusive term—“Virtual Reality”—quickly became multi-faceted and complex. Before having read the text, I would have simply defined virtual reality as any digital re-creation of an environment. Clearly, though, with the rapid development of technology, such a simple definition is not practical. Integrating individuals into digital environments has branched out due to different needs and potential uses for different users. It would be interesting to know and explore how one field branched off from another. Did “Visiondome” stem from the limitations of the “Immersive First-Person” experience? Obviously, some types of virtual reality have become popularized and reproduced for mass consumption, such as those like “Cab Simulator Environments” found in amusement parks. How are these forms progressing? Are they becoming more sophisticated due to their commercial appeal? It is also an interesting thought to consider the extent that military influence and need has pushed the field in its development. This is a fascinating field with so many applications that there is no doubt that virtual reality will continue to develop and morph as far as the imagination can reach. McLellan, H., & McLellan, W.D. (2004). Virtual realities. In D. Jonassen, (Ed.), Handbook of research on educational communications and technology (2nd ed., pp. 469-470). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers. —————————————–

Research Assignment 2

Section II: Hard Technologies “Distance Education I was naturally drawn to this article due to my involvement with the COMET program and interest in distance education. Particularly, my work last semester with Minjuan Wang dealt directly with cutting edge teaching methods in distance education, specifically cellular technology. Noble’s biting criticism as iterated at the beginning of the article was the first harsh criticism I had encountered of distance education that questioned the education validity of the model, although I can understand that the fact that research is following the practice and development of distance education may seem to “put the cart before the horse” in the eyes of researchers and scholars. However, distance education is a response to a need and the demands of a busy and technologically savvy world. While the historical review and discussion of means and methods of distance education was of interest, I specifically chose to focus on “14.8: Issues Related to Teaching,” not only because I am an educator in a program that functions primarily online, but I have already explored opportunities for online teaching at the high school level. One issue seems to be the altered role of the instructor. There is a tension between the traditional, interactive aspect of teaching and the tendency of some forms of distance education, especially “on-demand” learning, that packages the learning experience for mass consumptions and wrests the control from the instructor, demeaning the quality of the educational experience. In other approaches, the demands on the instructor goes beyond mastering the content to also being adept at the technology and to facilitate the learning of students in a less direct manner—the instructor must effectively bridge both distance and time. Above all there seems to be a call for more research in the area of teacher development in distance education. Much of the research has focused on the role of the learner and issues facing the student of distance education, yet for there to be students, an instructor is essential. Based on my experience with the COMET program, I have noticed that there seem to be a variety of instructor types. Some are educators that have adapted previously implemented instruction to the online environment, refining the material class by class as familiarity with the online technology increases. Others have been technologically-minded individuals who have had to adapt their knowledge of technology into formatted curriculum; both groups have learning curves and unique issues based on their background. As an instructor, I concur with the need for research to bolster and address the unique issues faculty faces when involved in distance eduation. Gunawardena, C., & McIsaac, M. (2004). Distance Education. In D. Jonassen, (Ed.), Handbook of research on educational communications and technology (2nd ed., pp. 355-395). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers. —————————————–

Research Assignment 3

Section VI: Instructional Message Design “Designing Instructional and Informational Text” The reason I chose this article was two-fold. One, as an educator, I consistently design and prepare materials for students. Having access to many different types and qualities of fonts, I wanted to read what insight this article could offer; also, as the journalism advisor at my school, the school newspaper must make decisions regularly about fonts and story placement on the printed page. We have also recently added ComicLife to our publishing programs, so producing headlines from this application could be influenced by the content of this article. The second reason for choosing this article, beyond the instructional, was that I fascinated that an entire article could be written on this subject. The first portion alone was amazing in that it delves into the history of page sizes, down to whether a page is portrait or landscape. I suppose the author sufficiently justified the reason for including this discussion as the first decision regarding text is the size of paper or screen it will appear on. The paper goes on to dissect various aspects of text—from font size to spacing to outlines to heading. Of particular interest was the section labeled “Clarifying Text,” which described approaches that could make text easier to understand—considering I help students write newspaper articles for the high school paper, I felt I could glean useful information from this section. The advice was as follows: •multiple subordinate clauses weakens understanding •active voice is preferable over passive •positive terms are more favorable than negative •negative qualifiers add confusion—being straightforward is key •concrete is preferable over abstract language •avoid “nominalization”—changes verbs into nouns… so don’t nominalize! •include specific examples—this makes ideas concrete •make text more interesting with vivid examples and illustrations •personalize where possible—I think this is a good idea While this list is fairly succinct, much of it is common sense to the seasoned writer. However, this information is crucial to the novice writer. I would be interested in research that examined younger students versus more experienced writers that revealed which aspects of writing from this list are most prevalent and which were most lacking—and tracked the development of their writing. Interestingly enough, the writing I have found in most scholarly writing runs counter to the advice prescribed in this section of the article—the readings I have encountered are rich in subordinate clauses, utilize passive voice, show no deference to positive terminology, nominalize regularly, and have banal examples communicated in a non-personal way. These are the texts, when I attempt to read them in bed, cause me to fall asleep! Hartley, J. (2004). Designing Instructional and Informational Text. In D. Jonassen, (Ed.), Handbook of research on educational communications and technology (2nd ed., pp. 917-948). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers. —————————————–

Research Assignment 4

Section VI: Instructional Message Design “Visual Representations and Learning: The Role of Static and Animated Graphics” Considering the final project for the course involved developing an animated page for the Encyclopedia of Educational Technology, the topic of this article seemed particular germane. The insipidness of the article notwithstanding, it did cover wide-ranging analysis of literature and studies within the field of illustrations and graphics; in particular, this review will highlight the theories of picture perception as overviewed in the article. Despite being an art minor in college, I had difficulty deciphering the explanations and definitions of these theories in the text—so these summaries are my best estimations of what the authors were trying to convey; my apologies if I do not accurately capture the true essence of these theories. Renaissance Perspective Theory: a technique to transfer three-dimensional scenes to a two-dimensional surface; artist interpretation relies on the light issuing from a natural scene. Resemblance Theory: picture recognition comes from the structures represented in the pictured scene that connect with know forms in the observer’s mind. These structures are the primary force in perception. Constructivism: personal outlook and sentiment “construct” the meaning of a picture; the picture itself cannot define its message. Therefore, at times we see the world defined in an image, but at times images influence the interpretation of the world. Generative Theory: proposes a melding of both resemblance and constructivist theories; it describes the differences in how individuals define perception in the real world and in artistic representations—that one does not necessarily define the other. Gestalt Approach: picture perception is integrating the lines and components into meaningful structures through intuitive laws of organization. Picture Perception as Purposive Behavior: perception is due to continued sweeps of an image that is then integrated into a whole picture by the brain; the focusing limits of the eye prohibit perception from a single glance. Mentalist Approach: because pictures are meant to communicate ideas—the creator is trying to make a statement to the perceiver—perception is more of a mental exercise to pick up on cues that communicate meaning. Semiotic Approach: this theory and the next emerge from the “science of signs”—“digital” signs are markings that communicate an idea without resembling said idea, such as a written language, while “iconic” signs are more visual and representative. Symbol Systems Theory: key to this idea is “notationality”—or the extent to which a representation is dictated by rules. So, an abstract picture is non-notational while a math equation would be highly notational. Cognitive Science: interestingly, this idea stems from efforts to make computers “see”—transforming to perceived world into a language the computer can interpret. The idea is that interpreting an image goes through a series of stages until what is being perceived is identified and integrated. Undoubtedly each of these theories are far more complex than my generalizations, but trying to deduce exactly what each of these are trying to explain has heightened my appreciation for the simple approach of seeing something and being able to determine whether I like it or not without having to delve into a theory of perception! Anglin, G., Cunningham, K., and Vaez, H. (2004). Designing Instructional and Informational Text. In D. Jonassen, (Ed.), Handbook of research on educational communications and technology (2nd ed., pp. 865-916). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
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Educational Video

Link to the educational video:
http://www.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=90345&title=article_editing_process

EMW high outline 1 & 2

#1: Name: Tedd Brent Working Title: Document Cameras in the high school classroom Abstract: As technology becomes more integrated in the classroom and LCD projectors are becoming more the norm, traditional overhead projectors are falling by the wayside to be replaced with document cameras. This article will explain the typical features of a document camera and highlight ways to utilize them in a high school classroom. Outline: Introductory paragraph: describes the advent of the document camera in the high school classroom and how teachers are integrating the technology into their lesson plans Description: overview of the features commonly found in document cameras; brief explanation of interface with computers and projectors Visual: diagram of the typical features and configuration of a document camera. Classroom integration strategies: briefly summarizes several methods to implement document cameras into the curriculum, ranging from straightforward replacement of overhead projectors to sharing and correcting of individual student work. Visual(s): teacher in front of a room using document camera; student sharing work utilizing a document camera Conclusion: Reviews potential of document cameras for classroom teaching and recommends use of document cameras for varied classroom needs. #2: Name: Tedd Brent Working Title: Blogging in the high school English classroom Abstract: Web 2.0 technology has opened up many possibilities for augmenting the curriculum in the English classroom; blogging in particular allows students to share and receive feedback on their work at levels that were once not possible. This article will discuss the use of blogging for high school English students. Outline: Introductory paragraph: Describes the popularity of blogging and integration of this particular Web 2.0 technology into the high school classroom; highlight the importance of feedback to student writing development and how blogging can uniquely provide this opportunity. Description: definition of blogging and overview of standard interface. Visual: screenshot of typical blog. Classroom integration: Exploration of integrating blogging into English curriculum, ranging from straightforward posting of assignments to peer responding of said assignments to creating portfolios of student work. Visual: student replying to a blog post Conclusion: Restates potential of blogging in development of student writing, recommends useful sites, and encourages further exploration of possibilities. —————————-

EMW storyboard

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EMW Prototype Evaluation

I solicited the input of three individuals to provide feedback for my EMW project: my wife who has a degree from SDSU in liberal studies, a friend who just graduated from SDSU with a BA in English, and my mother who has done initial editing for several published books. The following issues were noted and address:

•My initial headings did not have a natural flow—two seemed repetitive and the sequence was not as logical as it could be.

Solution: two headings were combined, and I rearranged the order

•There were several ideas referenced that could not be included in the EMW due to length but could be augmented with links.

Solution: I included several links to support the content of the text.

•In several areas my syntax was stilted and lofty.

Solution: I worked to make my tone more colloquial.

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