EDLD+5363+Multimedia+and+Video+Technology+Reflective+Questions

__**EDLD 5363 Multimedia and Video Technology Reflection Questions - Week 5 Assignment**__

** 1. What outcomes had you envisioned for this course? Did you achieve those outcomes? Did the actual course outcomes align with those that you envisioned? **  When I found out that the next course that I would be taking was Multimedia, I really wasn’t sure what that would entail, but I knew that I didn’t have much of a background in that area. Most of the knowledge that I have in that particular area is the audio, rather than the visual aspect. I was hoping that I would be able to learn more about creating videos, but was not sure what the process would be and what kind of aspects I would be learning about the online video process. I learned a lot about creating and more so about editing multimedia projects. I had never tried to edit a moving video file before, so now that this course is ending, I am able to say that I can edit a video within a variety of free programs. I think that the course outcomes do align with what I had envisioned for this course and much more. The chance to “play” with various types of programs to create, edit, and finalize a multimedia file is something that I believe every educator should know when teach 21st century students.

** 2. To the extent that you achieved the outcomes, are they still relevant to the work that you do in your school? Why or why not? ** I absolutely believe that this is relevant to my current position in my school. In fact, during this course I assigned a project for some of my students to do and they in which they were to complete a Photo Story about a famous mathematician. Most of my students had never done a photo story before, so they were intrigued not only by learning about famous mathematician, but also about learning new technology. I also plan on having the students use Movie Maker (or another free software program) later on in the year to assess their knowledge of the Pythagorean Theorem. I think that the students will be intrigued, not only by the concept that is being assessed, but by the way in which it is being assessed. I try to integrate and pass along as much of the information that I have learned in this course as possible to my students, as they will be using these processes, programs, and applications for years to come.

**3. What outcomes did you not achieve? What prevented you from achieving them?** I found that I met most of the outcomes for this course fairly easy, however probably the most challenging part of this course was working with new programs that I had not ever worked with before and learning those programs while depending on other people to complete their parts of the project. With depending on other people, you have to work around their busy schedules and their commitments so that we can all discuss what was needed to complete the assignment. With any group project and especially with a group that can only meet via the internet rather than in person, this can be challenging to work with. Not having a background in creating or editing a multimedia project, I did feel a pressure to know what I was doing with a previously unknown software program. This uneasiness was not caused by anything that the course outlined, but rather my very limited experience level coming into taking this course. I do feel that by the end of the course, I could handle creating and editing a wide variety of multimedia productions.

** 4. Were you successful in completing the course assignments? If not, what prevented or discouraged you? ** I do feel that I was successful in completing the course assignments from week to week. I did find the first weeks’ assignment a little overwhelming, with as I said before my limited experience in this particular area. Specifically, learning about the file extension names to include for Photo Story files did get rather confusing to someone that is still learning various types of file names. In addition, I enjoyed reading about the “how-to’s” for various editing programs, I also felt that those particular items seemed to be out of place, with no real follow up to those items in assignments. One thing that did affect my learning for this class was the timing of the course, coinciding with the beginning of school made the transition and particularly completing the first couple of weeks’ assignments difficult. Those time constrictions pulled me away from my commitments to this course and made it difficult in the first two weeks of this course to balance the course work.

** 5. What did you learn from this course: about yourself, your technology and leadership skills, and your attitudes? **  I actually learned quite about my abilities during this course. Previously, I had viewed online videos and other multimedia productions and thought, “I wonder how these are made”, but never took the effort to learn how to put together videos that I might have seen on outlets such as [|YouTube]. I felt comfortable enough with the technology learned in this course to include the option for my students to create a Photo Story for a project that they were working on. I was able to share my photo story with various colleagues and also share with them my experience of learning how to create, edit, and add music, etc. within a short amount of time. I also learned that with an open mind, you can learn so much. I kept an open mind about the various items that we were to create and even though I limited experience with each program, I was able to create a great final product with each attempt I made.