Week 3 Reflective Summary

This week there was an abrupt assignment switch from audio to video. Even though Lisa has "warned" us in her blog that making a video could be hair-pulling and stressful, I did not expect it would actually taken a good couple hours to complete the task. Before my video assignment's completion, I had several unexpected detours, for example, recording the video could be tricky when my only helper was my five years old daughter. Adding subtitle and background music on the video was also challenging before I figured out how iMovie works( spending 45 minutes watching an iMovie tutorial helped a lot).

I have to admit that I am not a tech-savvy and felt frustrated for spending much more time working on a task that I thought would be easy. But the result is rewarding. I REALLY see the connection between this week's reading and the video practice. Just like what Lankshear and Knobel has said in the book DIY Media: A Contextual Background and Some Contemporary Themes "some kind of embodied, hands-on engagement in the practice, in turn, extends well beyond simply coming to grips with the technical aspects of a given DIY media practice." It "also necessarily includes a commitment to obtaining a sense of “insider” perspectives". I have asked my students to do a voice over project on iMovie last semester and I was not able to answer some technical questions that some students had and had to direct them to their peers. Now I can claim that I have some basic experience using iMovie to edit videos and could use it to help my students in the future! Thanks for providing this opportunity to practice media DIY, I am looking forward to accepting more video challenges in the next following weeks and will continue to explore more functions of media DIYs.

For the rest part of the weekly assignments, I think I completed them smoothly and in a timely manner. Daily Creates are my favorite part and I felt like I am getting a hang of it now. Still getting used to being "liked" and clicking the "like" button for the people I have followed on Twitter. But really I am intrigued and expecting to see how my classmates designed their DCs. I also enjoyed reading the recommended resources. The debate on "openness" is inspiring and make me think what I have learned from E-Learning Trend class. I am giving myself "meet the expectation" for this week's work.