Riding the Ski Lift...

Today was our first face-to-face meeting and it was a good one! I was amazed at how quickly the 4 hours flew by. After discussing the upcoming projects required in this course, I was struck by a metaphor that Dr. Smolka used. In the midst of her story she asked if we felt as though we were "...riding the ski lift up the mountain...". This struck me in two ways. First, I have been dying to go skiing and it has literally been constantly on my mind and second, I could literally feel myself in that situation with all the butterflies inside. 

On the way home I began thinking. You don't climb on a ski lift unprepared. You spend time purchasing the clothing and equipment to protect you for your decent down the mountain. The same should apply to the upcoming projects. So, with butterflies in my stomach and the motivation still surging I stopped and bought a microphone. I decided to purchase the headset so that I would be able to multi-task with headphones and a microphone. Knock out two birds with one stone :). 

Next, I began practicing on the 'bunny slopes' (i.e. playing around with some of the programs). I feel like I have a handle on Jing and have already begun thinking of ways to use it in the classroom as well as with this course. Since I am the least knowledgeable about Windows Movie Maker, I also decided to play with it and see if I could make a movie just for fun. I got pretty good and the dragging and dropping. I even figured out how to split a frame, cut a section smaller, and add extras like animations and titles. However, as luck would have it, right as I was pressing play to preview my masterpiece, it froze. After waiting patiently for a minute...it played!!! It was MUCH easier than I thought it would be!!!!! Now that I know how simple it can be I cannot wait to begin using this with my students. 

Put me on the ski lift, I am ready for some blues! (Notice how I didn't say and black diamonds...not that confident yet) I am looking forward to all of the new programs that I will learn this semester. As I was telling a classmate this morning, I am excited because this course will force me to learn many of the programs that I have wanted to try for a while, but have just been to scared or busy to try.