Victoria Watts
English 333
Professor Carter
29 Apr 2014
Reflective
Memo
Throughout this course I have found myself backtracking,
wondering what I was supposed to do after each class. I am not sure how I
managed to get this far, but I am certainly glad I stuck with this course and
learned so much. Not only did I learn some local history, but I also learned
how to use Windows Media Maker and how to upload videos to YouTube! I decided
to use my blog as my main page rather than creating a website. I included all
the work that I’ve done throughout this class and it has been a job to have to
backtrack and add the little details that keep my hard work legal (Creative
Commons licenses, etc). After all this I really can’t see how professional
bloggers and YouTubers can do it all. It was a lot of hard work and computers
take a lot of time to work with, but I believe it was well worth all the
trouble.
Over time I learned a little about this campus, and I also
learned about my family who lived during the time of World War II. I found out a
little about Commerce’s history and it was really fun listening to Ms. Foust
and Ms. Hulen tell their stories in the oral histories. I really regret not
having more time to make this project the shining gem it could be. This theme
has been really personal for me, and I found it easy to pour effort into the
creation of my final video project. I really wanted to share a piece of my
great-grandmother, Naomi Webb, with anyone who would listen, and I think this
is a good way to honor her memory. She provided me with countless stories that
would take a very long video to retell. One interesting bit I discovered just the
other day is the location of the photo of the Commerce Victory Parade. I was
linking words in my blog to locations with Google Maps, so that people who aren’t
from this area could look up the locations I kept mentioning. As I linked a
word to the map of downtown Commerce, I thought that the old buildings looked
familiar. I looked again at the old photo of the parade and then back at the
map. It was a match! It’s so wonderful to see the past and the present link together,
and I am glad that the faces of the buildings haven’t been altered too much. This
is the sort of stuff I am thankful I was able to discover because of this
class.
Making the video--my DMP2 and final project, was a real headache.
Part of this frustration might be because it was my third or fourth time using
Windows Movie Maker, and part of this could be because computers and I can only
get along for so long before one of us snaps. I made a copy of my DMP2 final
video, the first final that was posted to YouTube, and then I added a lot of
what my teachers had suggested. The final video is nearly six minutes long, but
I really think the story is smoother than it was before. I wish I had more time
to work on this project. So I decided to feature a video because I really liked
the ability it gave me to tell the story, rather than Prezi. I was able to add
video clips, voiceovers, and music where Prezi would have severely limited that
freedom of creativity.
Despite
all the many times I opened my video to discover that the fonts and music had
not been saved from last time, or the time I realized I forgot to update my
sources on the video and the blog and YouTube, everything came together
relatively well in the end. Don’t ask me to start all over, but I am glad we
made this journey in digital storytelling.
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