Digital Storytelling - Week Five

I have a new found appreciation for film makers and all the upfront work that goes into making a movie. The biggest takeaway for me is to storyboard everything in advance - reflect for a few days - and then modify the storyboard before going into production. Last week in DigiTales we read about creating a Digital Storytelling toolkit and this week we read reviews on what to look for when selecting the various hardware and software components. Understanding ones' level of technical proficiency and the tools available drive what one can actually produce. I had to go back to my Pecha Kucha storyboard and change the flow due to my personal technological constraints.

I was just thinking that I needed more experience putting together rubrics. Our class has us creating a Multimedia Rubric that could be used by students in a project. A rubric serves not only as a way to evaluate student performance but also helps the students organize what they should be doing. So often in the MEIT program I have referred back to the assignment rubric and this has helped me know what I need to do and where I should focus my effort.

At the UW-Hoofer's Sailing Club we are in the process of creating short videos that will be posted on YouTube for access by sailing students. I decided that my multimedia rubric would cover this latest club endeavor and include elements from the Digital Storytelling course: presentation design and delivery a la Presentation Zen, storyboarding and working within hardware/software constraints. In effect, it will serve as a project template providing direction to guide each group in their production and help them tell a great story in the process.

I am wrapping-up my Pecha Kucha which is about an introduction to sailing covering the basic points of sail, leaving the pier and landing. I've gone through this so many times in a face-to-face class that I found myself recreating that environment. At the eleventh hour I wanted to change it into something that would be more of a story about going sailing rather than a 'how-to sail' approach. I have kicked it into high gear taking more photographs and redesigning slides and voiceovers.

Our study group work met earlier this week and evaluated SlideSix and authorStream. I was a bit down on SlideSix but after our group meeting I wondered if I could use it for my finished Pecha Kucha. I tried using the audio for narration and it seemed klutzy - but I kept at it and I think it might work. My fallback is VoiceThread, but I think I will push SlideSix just to see if I can learn a new online tool for sharing presentations with recorded audio.

Here is my Intro to Sailing Pecha Kucha

Digital Storytelling - Week Four

Week four of Digital Storytelling has been an exciting one. I took my 6 best pictures from my Photo Blog site (Posterous) and used a new program called Prezi to create a very different kind of presentation. Prezi gives you an infinite workspace for brainstorming ideas and images that can be turned into a presentation. The presentation is not a linear Slideshow but lets you create paths between ideas and images. Add some zoom effects and one has a dynamic presentation that will run itself with the autoplay option. I think Prezi has great potential for team collaboration on just about anything. If you haven't seen Prezi then picture Inspiration only recorded with incredible transitions.

6 Great Pictures on Prezi

Click the Autoplay option in the lower right corner to let Prezi run with the transitions.


This week I concluded the final chapters of Garr Reynolds' Presentation Zen. I recommend this book for anyone that is about to create a presentation. The emphasis is not only on the design of effective slides but also on the delivery. Reynolds provides great insight and examples of powerful presentations and the book has transformed how I think and even feel about making a presentation. Read Presentation Zen and come-out from behind the lectern and connect with your audience!

Another class reading is from Bernajean Porter's DigiTales which provides a nuts and bolts approach to putting together a digital story. The latest chapter delves into creating a digital storytelling toolkit for either Mac or Windows users and the categories of hardware and software one will need. I have 'Mac Envy' after seeing all of the video and audio software that comes with the Apple computers. But, I do have Adobe Premiere Pro and hopefully one day I will become proficient enough with it to create professional AV presentations.

Finally, I am working on creating my first Pecha Kucha using presentation ideas from last week. I am working through the second draft of my storyboard and will soon commit to a presentation that delivers 20 slides with only 20 seconds per slide. Rather than planning on speed talking or jamming each slide with a jillion bits of information - I am going to simplify to amplify my main points and ideas. I will be applying what I learned from the Presentation Zen readings in terms of design and delivery.

Digital Story Telling: Week Three

Week Three of Digital Storytelling has been stretched-out over a 3 week break and provided a chance for me to reflect upon past presentations. Am I designing presentations with my audience in mind? How truly effective were they? I discovered that the technological features of my slideware need to be reigned-in so that my focus is on getting my message across to my audience as clearly as possible. It's OK, actually better, if slides are less busy and free of noise. By eliminating bullet points, background images and tiny product logos on every slide I amplify my message through simplification.

I must resist the urge to fill-in the empty spaces with 'stuff' and let a tract of empty background contrast a single image and/or text. Instead, I need to spend more time doing offline thinking about my main ideas and presentation design a particular audience. The goal is not to have slideware that I talk about, rather I am presenting ideas and the slideware provides a reinforcing backdrop which promote acquisition of ideas in the audience's mind.

I wrapped-up my 28 day Photo Blog on my Posterous site. I really enjoyed posting daily photos and looking at what my cohorts were doing as well. I linked my daily photos to my Facebook page and had wonderful feedback from my FB friends. I was amazed at the pictures my cohorts came-up with and in turn inspired me to see things differently. But Posterous was not the end of for pictures as I used them to create a 30 second Animoto video. I uploaded photos and a video clip which were combined with a lively jazz soundtrack to create this video about spring storms in Wisconsin. I revised it a few times until it felt just right. Take a look and leave a comment about it if you like!

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Digital Storytelling is really storytelling with audio and video support. To create a really good digital story or presentation one needs to plan first and then execute the plan. A common theme between DigiTales and Presentation Zen is thinking through what you want to tell or say and then designing the elements which support and further the message for an audience. Sounds simple? It isn't! We have so much technology at our fingertips in terms of video editing and slideware software that it can be too tempting to just jump right-in and start being creative. I do this all the time and, if I'm lucky, I pull myself back before I am bogged down in bullet points, font colors and jamming text into a slide.

On that last point, I am in the process of revamping an older presentation I made on ADDIE to my former coworkers at Pharmacy OneSource. My challenge is to embrace and apply the design principles found in chapter 6 of Presentation Zen and create a brand new presentation with a handout. Can I resist the urge to clutter my screen? This is a tough assignment for me as I am trying to un-do 20 years' worth of behavior. I have been thinking about this for 2.5 weeks now and it is hard - but worth doing if I am to create truly effective presentations in the future. One assignment will not fix me, it is going to take practice and reflection to become better.

Finally, I am looking forward to the challenge of using the Pecha Kucha approach to presentations. What is the challenge? Well you have to use no more than 20 slides and have only 20 seconds on each slide. I don't think I can get away with drinking 6 shots of espresso and talking like a sports broadcaster calling a Funny Car race. "Sunday! Sunday! Nitrous-powered Funny Cars at US 30 Drag strip. Be There! Be There!". Ahem, sorry about that. Couldn't resist. Well, Pecha Kucha will require me to distill and focus my presentation into key elements that can still interest my audience.

If you've read this far in the blog then you know I am wordy. I admire those that can express their ideas in short, tailored measures. Presentation Zen doesn't just apply to presentations - it should be considered when writing as well.

Digital Story Telling: Week Two

What a week it has been trying to learn how to become an effective story teller. In addition to readings from Presentation Zen and Digi Tales the course has us working with VoiceThread. Finally, an Internet site where I can begin to put together images, text and audio to tell a story! I experimented with VoiceThread and created a short story about a Wild Turkey I encountered during a morning walk. I uploaded 5 digital pictures that captured the event and added a voice commentary. If you want to hear my story just click here.

I have big ambitions and high hopes for digital story telling. In the software industry I could prepare and present a digital story about a customer request for new functionality. Instead of listing what we need to provide to customers, I could present it in the form of a customer story. At Pharmacy OneSource our customers are mainly pharmacists, so I might tell a digital story about a 'Day in the Life of a Pharmacist' which would add a personal, human element. At the Hoofer's Sailing Club I might create a digital story where I share what happened when I did not check my rigging on a windy day and what ensued.

In my readings from Presentation Zen and Digi Tales it was stressed over and over how important it is to storyboard and design a presentation before creating the final presentation product. Yes, this all made sense and who wouldn't do that? Well, I set about creating my class VoiceThread presentation on the Civil Rights Movement. I immediately parked myself in front of my computer, logged on to VoiceThread, started browsing and grabbing images for my presentation - then recorded the voice-overs for the slides. Mission Accomplished? Hardly!

Although I read the course materials, I had not devoted any time to going analog (offline with a pad of paper) to think through the core idea and supporting elements to craft a great presentation. I had gone computer geek first and focused on the presentation tools and then tried to kludge together a story after the fact. Ouch. I played the presentation back and I even I got a little lost trying to find the riveting moments or continuity that would have made it better. It didn't help that I could hear my own pauses as I tried to figure-out what would have made sense next. I deleted the whole thing and started over.

I have a ways to go to become a better story teller. It took the experience of playing back my own work and hearing how I told a story to realize that I need to plan-out, sketch-out and storyboard first. Story telling is such a powerful way to reach an audience and until I improve, all the free slideware presentations I create and even my Blogs will never convey meaning and respect to my audience.

Digital Story Telling - Week One

The latest MEIT course through Cardinal Stritch University is titled, 'Digital Story Telling'. I have to confess that I am full of stories that I want to share - and The Internet would seem to be a good place to share them. The week started with readings from Bernajean Porter's 'DigiTales: The Art of Telling Digital Stories'. Porter introduces to us the importance of storytelling and its significant role in learning. Porter gets into what makes a good story and a lot of it hinges on the story teller having content and making a connection with the audience.



Garr Reynolds' 'Presentation Zen' takes a minimalist approach to presentations. Less is indeed more. But what does this have to do with telling stories? Have you ever read a Tom Clancy novel where he devotes a paragraph to the politics of a person holding a door open - and then never brings-up that person again in the text? Not to pick-on Clancy, but didn't those details clutter-up the flow of the story? What purpose did they serve? As a reader I find that I start skimming Clancy's work looking for the real story.

Reynolds devotes time explaining how PowerPoint and other slideware shifted presentation emphasis from content to format. PowerPoint permits one to use a multitude of colors and create endless text and bullet slides to the detriment of the intended audience. There is a tendency to use way too many colors, graphics and text that wind-up detracting from the very content we want to present.

John Sweller came-up with the Cognitive Load Theory and this applies to current state of slideware presentations. Sweller maintains that humans have a limited amount of 'working memory' (think computer memory). When humans are subject to a presentation where the presenter reads from the text slides in front of the audience - this becomes an adverse learning event. The audience is simultaneously bombarded with verbal and visual forms of the same information causing the working storage space to rapidly deplete. Concurrent use of both forms wastes audience bandwidth and takes resources away from processing the content.

Well, back to storytelling. I am anxious if not champing at the bit to get going creating digital stories! Class assignments had us viewing different videos of presenters and people telling their own stories. Some of the videos were riveting to watch and others plodded along. So how do I become a good digital story teller? I have to start with finding my exemplars and then gaining insights as to how they were able to generate and hold the audience's interest to the very end. I have the technological tools but I want to make sure that I design my stories first so that the focus can be on the message - not the media.

Week 5: Similarities & Differences, Generating & Testing Hypotheses and Homework & Practice

I can think of a time when I asked intermediate-level sailing students to identify the similarities and differences between the single sail (cat-rigged) and boats with a main and a jib sail (sloop-rigged). The students had already achieved proficiency with boats but were now embarking into more advanced sailing theory where they would take turns acting as skipper and crew of a sloop. I asked the students to identify what was similar on the sloop or different from the smaller cat-rigged boats. The students compared and contrasted the boats, identified new components and hypothesized about their relationship to the boat. I followed-up with 5 minutes of sailing theory and then we set sail. Similarities and differences, in this case, was an effective strategy to help students restructure knowledge, make new connections and experience new insights for upcoming on-water instruction.

Out on Lake Mendota I decided to employ a different strategy: generating and testing hypotheses. I asked the students to think about how they might optimize the trim of both sails to maximize boat speed. The students were asked to speculate as a group, tell we what they were going to try and why, and then see what happened when they made adjustments to the rigging. Running the same course to eliminate as many variables as possible, I acted as the timekeeper and recorded how long it took to cover 200 yards. I presented the times for each run and the students discussed and thought of new things to try to increase the boat speed. By asking students to generate and test hypotheses I engaged students in complex mental processes where they applied and incorporated new facts and knowledge to further their understanding of the content (advanced sailing theory).

Stepping away from the fun of teaching sailing and back into the workplace, I can think of a time that I assigned homework and practice and not a single student did it! How I had failed so miserably to motivate my students? The whole point of assigning homework and practice was to give the students a chance to review and apply course material. Sure some of it was drill and practice, but I wanted employees to immerse themselves in the work and gain greater proficiency with the content. Well, the problem was two-fold: I had given 3 hours of homework with only one day in between for them to complete the assignments and their supervisors had 'other plans' for the employees' time.

I met with the team supervisors and we discussed what might be a good compromise that would work for everyone. I agreed to break the homework into two 90 minute chunks with 3 days between assignment due dates. The supervisors, in turn, vowed to block-out two 2 hour segments on the employees' calendars for work on assignments. In hindsight, this new approach was a major improvement as it made the homework more effective by being broken into halves and thereby giving employees a chance to reflect and deepen their understanding of the content. Also, collaborating with the team supervisors gave me the opportunity to express how homework and practice was a critical strategy to help their subordinates gain proficiency with company products.

CEDO 525 - Week 4: Clay Shirky & Be Kind Rewind

The blog post title may make you wonder, 'What does the movie Be Kind Rewind have to do with Clay Shirky?' I watched two Internet videos where Clay Shirky discussed collaboration and impact of social media. In the first video Shirky describes how institutions are created to achieve a purpose. Institutions incur costs for hiring, bringing together workers into a building, phone lines, and give rise to a professional class within their walls. The institutions create and provide content but they do so under their guidelines and with high costs which may or may not be passed along to the consumers.

As Shirky points-out, institutions tend to be exclusive and they control the content passed from their professionals out to the consumers (amateurs). In today's world where thousands of amateur videos, pictures and blogs are posted every hour to The Internet the institutions have now lost exclusive control of their domains. Newsprint journalists compete with and often read posts from well-known bloggers and professional photographers share their world with amateurs uploading pictures via FaceBook and Flickr. During last year's protests in Iran, CNN relied on FaceBook and other social media sites to get first-hand reporting from, you guessed it, amateurs.

Hollywood, home of the $100M cookie-cutter movies and control of movie distribution, is seeing amateur movie-makers post product to The Internet that customers want to watch. In the movie 'Be Kind Rewind', a video rental store accidentally has all of its video tapes erased. Characters played by Mos Def and Jack Black, using a VHS camera, re-create the movies and rent them out to the local neighborhood. The local patrons ask for a movie and our protagonists make it in a matter of a few hours. As they become more successful, the patrons are recruited and then volunteer to star or act as extras in each movie. Since the movies are made locally and have the neighborhood residents they take on even greater significance. The people and the places in the movie are authentic - and, yes, made by amateurs!

Spoiler Alert! Hollywood catches wind that their movies are being infringed upon and shut down the video rental store and destroy all of their amateur re-makes. Initially disheartened, the neighborhood and patrons pull together to make their own movie which will be by them and for them. Sounds democratic - by the people for the people. Ultimately, these amateurs created a low-cost product in a cooperative effort with the community that they all enjoyed and were proud of. End Spoiler Alert!

Getting back to Clay Shirky, he stresses that The Internet and its associated applications is another revolutionary wave much like the printing press or telephony. It is rocking the world of the institutions and their control over domains and we are entering a period of chaos. Shirky reassures his audience that although it will be chaotic and unpredictable, we can accept it and do the best we can today to understand where things might be tomorrow. I have focused on the media and motion picture industries but this has implications for other specialized groups. Just think about all of the online education offerings for college and advanced degrees - and there are more and more every day. How will learning institutions such as the University of Wisconsin adapt to meet competition from schools with lower barriers to entry?

In Shirky's last video he cites Internet censorship by China and the great lengths they go to filter and insulate outside news from their people. Moments after a recent earthquake in China, its citizens were posting images and firsthand accounts within the Chinese 'intranet' and later openly posted dissatisfaction with their government's handling of the crisis. China had locked-out news from the outside world but they had not figured on its own citizenry and the power of social networking within their 'intranet'. In keeping with their institutionalized tradition, China shutdown access to social networking sites that could not be readily filtered and censored.

How will education respond to the new wave? Many University of Wisconsin professors record classroom lectures - or fellow students record and pass along to their classmates. Will the Universities and colleges continue to demand that most learning needs to be done face-to-face or will they begin to offer a blended approach? In today's economy where many workers will hold 10-15 jobs in a lifetime, rapid re-tooling via online learning is a great way to meet the changing needs of the workplace. The demand is present and educational institutions need to embrace and help shape quality learning experiences to come in the 21st Century. Educational institutions can draw on strategies from the past and see how they might apply to the brave new world of online education.