That's All, Folks

It seems only yesterday that I first walked into Production I class. When I first came in, I didn't expect to learn that many new things - I had already taken Production II and III. Fortunately, my assumption was wrong and I learned about completely new tools to integrate technology into the classroom.

The design theories we went over were all very interesting, and after learning them I feel that I can create appealing and practical tools. It was great to have this class in conjunction with my Webpage Technologies class, because I can use many of the things I learned in Production and apply them to my web sites. At the end of the semester, seeing our comprehensive combined information was extremely rewarding.

I had always been interested in video editing, but I never had a chance to fool around with Adobe Premiere. I had heard that it was a great program, but this class really allowed me to put it to good use. In Production III we did video editing, but we only used Jaycut and Windows Movie Maker. Now that I have been exposed to this tool, I will use it any time I wish to edit or compile a video. I never knew that such a powerful piece of software was already preloaded onto our computers!

Podcasts are a very interesting and creative way to spread information, and I'm very glad we learned about them. They seem extremely useful for the classroom, and it's great to see that some schools are already creating their own podcasts. Most important of all, it was fun making them!

Overall, I had a great time in Production class. It was interesting having undergraduate and graduate students in the class, because it bought varying opinions to each tool we used. Being able to talk to Will Richardson was also a very cool experience. Thanks for a fun semester!

Twitter in the Classroom

I decided to do my poster on Twitter. Although I personally have a love/hate relationship with it, I know that it has many benefits for the classroom. Here is how design theory played into the design of my poster:

Visual Literacy
I decided to have all of the images have some meaning tied to Twitter. The bird at the top is the logo, which is synonymous with the social networking site. The image in the center bottom is of people communicating which each other, which is the main goal of Twitter. Finally, on the right is a screen capture of an actual Twitter feed page, to see what the service looks like.

Technocentrism
I used many features of PowerPoint in my poster without it being overkill. The combination of images, boxes, and letters keeps it interesting without going overboard. I also used subtle effects such as shadows and transparency on the boxes that construct the layout.

Information Processing
My highlighting key words and phrases, I created chunks that are easy to store in memory, and also trigger similar experiences. I also tried to keep the information brief and manageable, and the colors uniform and simple to not distract from the purpose.

Cognitive Load
As stated in the previous section, I kept information brief to prevent overload of extraneous information.

Gestalt Principles
I used symmetry and similarity to make the poster easy to read and navigate.

Dual Coding and Mayer's Cognitive
By reiterating my points through both text and pictures, especially in the case of the illustration of people talking, it is easier for the reader to take in the information.

"Night comes; the black bats tumble and dart"

Episode 2 of Tim's Spooky Theatre. This time I added music to the beginning and end, tried some new methods for altering the voice, and added a closing at the end.

"Come! Let the burial right be read - the funeral song be sung!"

For my first Podcast assignment, I decided to do a reading of Edgar Allan Poe's poem "Lenore," since Halloween just passed by (better late than never, right?)

I hope to make my next Podcast more informative; this one is just more entertaining and got me used to some of the fun stuff to do in Audacity.

Digital Story 2: The Other Me

Inquiring about Technology: Questions for Will Richardson

1.) What was the process like for writing your book "Blogs, Wikis, and Podcasts"? Was it enjoyable, or more full of stress and deadlines?

2.) Do you feel that the image of the wiki has been tainted by Wikipedia's reputation for being unreliable?

3.) Are there any web tools not mentioned in the book that have recently been developed that you find useful for the classroom?

Grim Fairy Tales: My Digital Story

I went a little crazy with the effects. After messing around in Premiere Elements, I figured out how to export as 720p HD video, so I did that. It was too big to upload onto Blogger, so I used Vimeo instead.

Digital Story: Fairy Tale Forest

To Powerpoint, or Not To Powerpoint

Tim Belmont Visual Vocabulary

View more presentations from timbelmont.

Information Overload: Cognitive Load Theory

Cognitive Load Theory is an idea that I happen to vehemently agree with. In education, this theory basically states that the more students need to learn in a short amount of time, the more difficult it is for them to retain the information. Cognitive Load Theory takes into account the student's working memory and promotes building upon prior knowledge in manageable chunks. If a student is experiencing heavy cognitive load, they may fail to retain information or make an error.

This can be applied to many aspects of education, but it becomes extremely relevant when dealing with instructional resources. In a PowerPoint, for example, putting an extremely large amount of text on a single slide may be too much cognitive load for a student to handle. It is important to split up slides into manageable portions, and have the slides build upon each other, to promote retention of information. Cognitive Load Theory also promotes the teaching of relevant and essential information, and avoiding unnecessary material. In a PowerPoint, this may include irrelevant graphics to add 'pizazz' to a presentation, or distracting colors.

In the most basic sense, Cognitive Load Theory asks educators to keep it simple. There is a lot of knowledge for students to learn, but unless it is displayed in a practical and manageable fashion, it will not be retained.

My PicLit

See the full PicLit at PicLits.com

This Is The Title

Hey. This is my first blog post on this blog. Pretty awesome, right? Sounds great.