My day would start out with sleeping in (until 8am) and rising to a perfect temperature and sunny skies. I would think about some exercise – but only if it would really feel energizing and to get me started for the day’s adventures. I would want to spend some time outside in the morning before temperatures got to be too high – but with a leisurely activity like taking my camera to Monches Farms for a garden walk or going to Pewaukee Lake.
My picture perfect day would include being with family. Laughing, storytelling and catching up. And with us all together at the same time – it would of course involve having a turtle sundae! Heading on out and finding some second hand stores or antique stores to stroll through would be an afternoon activity that would lead into coming home and seeing Jaxin and Sam – maybe Teddy too for some unconditional love.
By then I would be exhausted, but in a good way. Early evening would then be some adult beverages and some elegant finger foods sitting on the deck looking at the meadow and yard as we sit and remember the day and look forward to planning the next adventure.
Rise to a beautiful sunny day
Some exercise – or at least thinking I would do some!
Time outside and taking photos in a Zen space like Monches Farm
Or time on the lake!
Enjoying looking at the garden – not weeding it!
Family time – with of course Turtle Sundaes!
Some time shopping the antique and collectibles
Snuggle time with my boys.
An evening of beverages, a simple but elegant meal and conversation as we look out over the meadow.
So many happenings during this week and unit. As I am connecting with #noir106/#ds106 students I find that I am completely absorbed and consumed by this work and not have it feel like work or exhausting. But I do run out of time!
I am so glad I am now an independent learner who must plan and develop out a learning path and not be doing these tasks and challenges to “make the grade”. #ds106 through a university system has it still needing to keep one foot over the fence in the current education system. However, the format, delivery and process of #ds106 can transform a learner towards independence and personalized learning whether it be as a student or a professional.
The open course framework allows for flexibility, choice and voice, but still provides a well thought foundation for building skills and understanding over the span of the units. Since using social media as a professional (or personal) learning community is an integral part, that there are 3 sections of university students working as classes creates opportunities for learning from a wider group. In order to stay relevant and appreciate what I can gain from these students in my development I need to engage and to follow some of what they are attempting.
The #ds106 model has a general frame of how it approaches skill building. The instructor led sections follow a theme within that framework. Spring 2015 is NOIR. Looking at digital storytelling and building the personal infrastructure skill sets through study and use of NOIR films and stories. I am dabbling in NOIR to have some common experiences and opportunity to learn from others. I am also sticking to some of the headless course assignments and flow to use my theme or context. My reason for embarking on this journey was to build skills and experience to begin to use family content to build digital stories.
Unit 3 – Visual
Assignments
This unit begins to look at photography in storytelling. The open course assignments were to use flickr and do some 5 photo stories – no words. I used my own photos and not random ones from flickr to begin to see what I may have or not have in my content resource. Since I don’t have things scanned or organized yet – it was still limited choice. I used pics that we gathered when my dad passed away for his memorial. (July 2013).
INSERT STORY
From here I created my path by doing some of the assignments from #noir106.
Without my creating a character to build I had to use others for the reference starting point. What’s in My Bag?.
Your purse, bag, packpack, murse, whatever, is your constant companion throughout your adult life. What are the essentials in your bag that get you through the day? Take a picture of the items and detail each of them with a description.
Animated GIFs were two other assignments and one an improvement and greater learning on process from Unit 2.
There was also a Photo Safari of which I accomplished with some actively sought shots and some safari through my photo collections. This method worked as life and weather became constraints under the deadline of happening within the timeframe.
I used a Google slide presentation and not just putting the images in a post or linking to a photo album. I could not find a cat.
Daily Creates Unit3
I attempted to keep up with the students and do at least 3 daily creates this week. Creating a 2048 game board was a challenge as I couldn’t find details on what the purpose of the game was – only that it was addicting and based on math patterns. It was addicting to play the different boards – but I still don’t understand what you are supposed to try to do! I used my donkey planters as the subject.
Create a Paper Sculpture and video of the process. Which I did but forgot to blog and ended up behind!!! Need to do all the steps or you forget and lose or have to figure out what is missing and get it in!! Yikers!
As an open course participant – (I like to think of it more as my personalized learning path) – I am not following the Noir section assignments, but am taking advantage of being able to create my own learning path based on interests and choice. Here are some Noir inspired pictures of mine as my application of the safari assignment. Rather than embed large Flickr stored photos, I dropped them into a Google Slides format to share. Any feedback as a reader as to whether this is effective in how you view would be appreciated. Do you like to scroll or would you rather have it transition as a slide show and be able to click through as you would like?
The safari challenge was:
Complete a Photo Safari: In which you take a series of pictures this week to capture at least five of the following Noir elements (tag:noirsafari):
dramatic use of distinct shadows
lighting from one side
off-kilter or unusual camera angle/framing
the “Venetian blind” effect — using some repeating geometric shadow across a shot
sense of drama and/or moodiness
characters captured in a tableau suggesting an intense, fraught moment
urban nightscapes
the grittiness of built environment (building, streets, etc.)
a NoirCat
From the photos I have included some of the set ups are missing. The plus of the Google slide show is that I can add photos without having to republish or alter this blog post. As I get feedback from others – I can add or change the photo sequence and selection.
I am not creating a character as the Noir106 sections are – so to do this assignment it is my bag.
This first picture shows the contents that are standard in my bag no matter which season it might be.
My first attempt was to place each item as a photo on its own within the post, but when embedding from Flickr I have not determined how to size the image to present in a better format. So I took the items and created a collage with Picasa. Each item can be seen as a photo of its own in my Flickr album for ds106.
Contents of My Bag:
My loyalty cards from restaurants, food stores, and other retailers. keeping them all on one ring helps me keep them in order and available. They are also fun to play with this way. 🙂
My wallet – usually empty of cash, but holds drivers license, credit and debit cards, identification, insurance cards etc. I almost called it a pocketbook – that sounds like my grandma!
The top right picture is my purse hook. This attached to the edge of a table and allows me to hang my purse. This way it is not on a dirty floor or hanging off the back of a chair where it can get knocked off or I can’t see it. Love my purse hook!
Phone – how did we manage without these before? That is my grandpuppy, Teddy, as the screen picture.
Coin purse. An old-fashioned idea, but when dealing with parking meters, tolls or vending machines comes in handy. Saves wear and tear on my wallet too. Not to mention – if it is full it can act as extra weight and be bordering weapon status if needed.
I wear glasses for reading and computer work – so the hard case protects them when not wearing. This is an established habit. When I think of how much my glasses cost – there is not another option but to protect them.
Mini brush – fluff and puffs the hair as needed. I find a brush works better than a comb for my fine hair.
Your purse, bag, backpack, purse, whatever, is your constant companion throughout your adult life. What are the essentials in your bag that get you through the day?Take a picture of the items and detail each of them with a description.
The animated GIF process needed more practice for me to begin to get a better feel for how it can create message and meaning. The first one I did in Unit 2 was accidental in that I didn’t do much more than click, fumble and go “ahhh – okay!”. So with this next unit focusing on visual I am opting for a few of the assignments and paths from #noir106 and the Burtis prompt to create a Noir animated gif, along with my open course challenges. Finding some Noir films on YouTube, I settled on Nightmare Alley with Tyrone Powers. Mostly because I new his name and that he was considered a hunk of a man for the time.
I chose this section because I just liked the way his eyes bug out and he goes from talky to serious.
This time around the download software didn’t work – so I needed to find a new app that was free. It worked! From there I used the Jim Groom tutorial as a guide and used the Streamclip editor and Gimp. I LOVE GIMP! While I do have Photoshop, it keeps needing upgrades, has far too many features it will take me a life time to explore and I believe in open source and sharing as a business and cultural premise. So using GIMP and finding it as developed as it is was wonderful.
I feel more accomplished after these 4 animated GIFs and their outcomes and ready to move on to another visual assignment task. I am most excited about moving forward with my own content and applying the methods.
Trying to capture just the blinking – but with this one still couldn’t figure out how to retain the speed I set it to before exporting.This one I pulled what I had in the other tools and then went to the gifmaker app and was able to slow down the speed, but not crop the picture.
But do you want to know the real eye opener? This creates a really loaded up desktop!
I need to establish some habits for creating folders and spaces for saving, uploading, etc. instead of using my desktop as I usually do. This process creates tons of files! And for someone who tends to save rather than toss – I won’t be successful if I keep trashing my desktop and then lasso it all and put it in a folder called “To Be Filed”. Some of the learning in this #ds106 #4life experience is to learn strategies for efficiency and organization so that time is spent creating – not following the elephants in the parade. The tagging, the blog structures, categories – all help as habits so that focus is on creation. Thanks #ds106er’s for sharing.
