PE9-Flash: The Success

Well it took about two hours but I did it I drew something in flash alllllllllllllll by myself here you go folks:

It may just be a slightly blurry avocado (which I apparently spelled wrong) but I am inordinately proud of it. Yeah Me!

PE8- Flash: The Frustration

courtesy of stock.xchng

The other night instead of working with the Lynda.com exercise files I decided to try and make an image in Flash all by my lonesome and it was gonna be awesome, possibly even epic. However, even though I have watched every video and done every exercise in the last four chapters of the Lynda.com tutorial, and I can tell you what every tool on the Flash interface is. I don't know how to use them very well.

My first bit of frustration was the fact that  I didn't even know how to create a new project. While, the image in this blog is not of me it is what I looked like at one point when trying to draw in Flash. I eventually decided to take a break and work on my Literature Review which is just as frustrating, but I at least know exactly what I am doing.

What I have learned during this part of the practical experience is that while the Lynda.com tutorials are very helpful in learning a complicated technology like Flash, it is also helpful to work with the software on your own. So, that when you start to work with the program outside of the Lynda.com exercise files, you really know what you are doing rather than just thinking that you do.

BP13 - Final Video

PE7- Flash: The Scary Bits

Courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Over the last three nights rather than spending time with my family I have been working with the Lynda.com Flash tutorial. I have definitely reached the scary bits, or at least the really involved bits that require a laser like focus.

Just getting through chapter three which is entitled, "Moving Beyond Basic Shapes" took me until last night, but now, not only do I know  how to use tools such as pen, and brush to draw shapes I also know how to manipulate them, at least a little.  In addition I learned  how to use the gradient tool and layering options. I am somewhat familiar with layering due to my use of Photoshop for work however, I can now use layers more efficiently to create photos of classrooms... so bonus!

PE6-Flash

Hey look everybody,

I made something in Flash and it only took me like ten tries. ;D

My First Flash cactus

PE5- Flash

I am currently on Chapter 3 of the Lynda.com Flash tutorial. I was hoping to get farther but things like my Literature Review kind of got in the way. I feel like I have a much better understanding of Flash now than five years ago when I took an electronic art class. This may be because the Lynda.com tutorial explains how to use Flash, whereas my instructor just wanted us to create. I would talk about the philosophical debate regarding art and knowing how to use your tools vs. doing what you feel. However that is a whole other blog.

So, the big question is what I have I learned so far?  I've learned a lot about the way the Flash interface is set up, and how to use some of the more basic tools such the deco tool, (who knew you could draw flames) and the shape tools. However the most important thing I have learned is that Flash....at least basic Flash is easier to learn than I thought.  However I am sure that the hard stuff is coming up soon.

BP12 - TeamBox One Minute Message

PE4- Flash

courtesy wikimedia.org

For my practical experience this week I have decided to use Lynda.com to learn more about Flash. When I was in college I took a digital art class, and  Flash was the program with which I had the most problems, and its not because I didn't try I worked my butt off to learn it but it was  So, not only will the tutorial  help me to get a jump on  Month 6, but it will also give me a chance to develop a skill that needs a little work. Two weeks from now I'll be a Flash Master.... hopefully :)

BP11- Bryan's One Minute Message Comment

Click on the link below to see my comment on Bryan's One Minute Message for Highlight Cam: Life at -40f "Uff Da": BP8_60 Commercial on HighlightCam:

BP10- Tria's One Minute Message

A ScreenShot of Tria's Blog

Click on the link below to see my comments on Tria's one minute message for Storify: Welcome to TJ's Bloggings: BP8-Storify

BP9 - Teambox

The Teambox site logo

For my third Web Discovery Assignment I have decided to focus on Teambox. Teambox is a collaborative software tool that turns your office communication into a social media website, but in a good way. You no longer have to have to keep track of a gazillion emails all you need is Teambox. The software is mainly meant for Project Managers, but I think it would be fantastically helpful for my work in Office of Classroom Management (OCM) at the University of Minnesota. 

OCM is made up of five different departments, which include Classroom Technical Services, Facilities, Scheduling, Support, as well as Projects & Planning. I work in the support department as a Hotline Operator. The Classroom Support Hotline is the one stop to report any classroom issue at the U, and while my colleagues and I are able to answer most questions callers have over the phone there are simply some questions and issues that need to be escalated to the responsible department for resolution.  The inherent problem with this is that for various reasons my department does not have access to the software programs that the other departments use to keep track of the tickets they have created to resolve the issues we escalated to them. This affects my ability to follow up with the callers and let them know that their issue has been resolved. 

An example from the Teambox.com website

 

Teambox would eradicate this problem because like Twitter it gives you real time updates of what is going on with specific tasks as well as see what tasks are assigned to you. It also would mean that people would only need to update one place to let everyone know where they are. In addition because it is a web based application we would not have to worry about interoperability.  Teambox really is an awesome product.

PE3-Imovie

Here is one of the exercise projects I completed with the help of Lynda.com:

PE2 - Imovie

Image courtesy of WikiMedia Commons

I am about 3/4th of my way through the Lynda.com Imovie  tutorial. My group member Nicole said in her blog that even though she felt that she had learned everything that she needed to know about Imovie in last month's Training and Motivational Development class the Lynda.com tutorial taught her some new things. I have to say that I agree with her. The Lynda.com tutorial's have taught me how to work more efficiently with Imovie. For example did you know that Imovie can automatically add transitions I didn't, and it is going to make my projects much easier to complete. Huzzah!

BP8-Diggo One Minute Message

BP7- Shana Sander's review of XtraNormal

A picture of Shana's Site

Click on the link below to read my comments of Shana's review of the super cool Web 2.0 application Xtranormal: Moving with Technology: BP5-Web 2.0 tool review:

BP6-Bryan Hammitt's Diigo Review

The Diigo Logo

Click the link below to read my comments about Bryan Hammitt's review of the Web 2.0 tool Diigo: Life at -40f "Uff Da": BP5_DiigoEducation

BP5-Antetype

For this week’s Web 2.0 discovery assignment I chose the Antetype application it is according to their website, “It is a brand new, ground-breaking design application that supports user interface designers at every step of their work.” (Ergosign, 2010). For those of you who don't know what user interface design is it is pretty simple. It is the design of the front end of technology i.e. the part of technology that "you" the user interact with.

While I have yet to create a product with Antetype I have played around with it some and watched all the tutorials. Antetype like Udutu (see my prior review here) is very simple to use however it seems to bridge the divide between WYSIWYG's and actual usable software.  AllAll you need to do is drag and drop your selected widget onto the workspace and edit it, which is as simple as using IWeb, with none of the frustration.

A Screen Shot of the Antetype workspace.

This application will be useful to me because while I am looking into a few different challenge plans the one that I am most likely to pursue is one where I build a classroom technology-training interface for instructors, and while I know some HTML coding I can only build very simple Web 1.0 pages. Antetype will help me to bring my web pages to the next level. The designers of Antetype created the software because while there are many good design programs for different aspects of the user interface design life cycle none of them can do every single step whereas Antetype can.

PE1 - Imovie

This week in class our practical experience is to use Lynda.com to learn more about IMovie. I have to admit that I have been looking forward to using Lynda to learn more about the programs we got as part of our Launch Box.  I do have a little bit of experience with editing, but it will be good to re-learn some things and learn the ins and outs of a whole new program.

BP2 - IGoogle Screenshots

IGoogle Homepage

FSO tab

CBR Tab

ETC tab

BP4- Udutu

Currently I work for the University of Minnesota in the Office of Classroom Management Support Department. My official title is Customer Service Specialist; I work in one of the smallest call centers probably ever since there are only two of us. We function as the one stop to report all General Purpose Classroom issues on campus, however our main focus is assisting instructors with technology and any issues they may experience with it in the classroom. One area we are always trying to improve upon in my department is the online resources we provide for our classroom users. With this in mind for this assignment I used Udutu (www.udutu.com), which is an online course authoring tool. 

Udutu is a pretty intuitive tool. While there are extensive tutorials available (not only on how to use the software, but also on good lesson design.) I was able to start building a knitting tutorial without consulting them too much. It is very similar to IWeb in the sense that you need to know nothing about coding to build your lesson. You simply need to know how to upload a file to the Internet. My sister the web designer would call it a WYSIWYG, which stands for what you see is what you get.

A screen shot of the Udutu dashboard

The main problem with WYSIWYG editing programs is that while they are easy to use, your choices are limited. For example in my lesson I wanted to include a link to the knitting pattern that I wrote a tutorial for however when I added the link it changed the size of the font so that it was much smaller than the rest of the lessons text and there was no way to fix it. Also there is no way to move your media around, which is a bit frustrating.

Once you finish building your lesson you have three choices for distribution you can publish your course and host it on the Udutu.com web server, this can cost anywhere from $19.95 a month to $199.95 a month depending on what your needs as a company are. You can extract the course from Udutu and download it to your computer, and distribute it yourself, this option is free, or you can publish your lesson on Facebook, which is also a free option. This is where I feel Udutu is lacking as a tool, because I was unable to find resources that explained how to distribute my lesson via the Internet once I had extracted it.  So, I ended up distributing my lesson via Facebook, the one problem I found with this distribution method is that I am unable to share the lesson with people outside of Facebook.  I think allowing course creators to distribute via Facebook is a step in the right direction, event though Facebook is not widely accepted as a teaching tool in the educational community. So while Udutu is not the perfect web-learning tool it is pretty robust and definitely headed in the right direction.

BP1-Benvenuto!

Hello Everyone, and welcome to my new blog for the Emergent Technologies class at Full Sail University. Here's to another fun, and educational month!



Image courtesy of stock.xchng