Balancing Act....

So when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade right?  Or maybe lemonade with a twist in this case.  The last few weeks have been a challenge with me and moviemaker.  I see the potential however it has been a battle with me and converting files to wmv. and then being able to work in Moviemaker.  So that is still up in the air as far as my instructional video, which I completed with Jing but I am unable to work with it in MM. Moving onto the balancing act...

Monday morning started out just like every other day, except it was President's day and a day off so my family had traveled up to my in laws cottage, then at 9:28 am I received the call that would change all our lives.  My father had collapsed and was unresponsive, no pulse in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. No pulse. Unresponsive. 1.5 hrs away.   We made it to our local hospital just as they were taking him to Sparrow Hospital Cardiac Unit.  Turns out he had a massive heart attack, 3 blockages.  After the stints and balloons, the Doctors. seemed optimistic, with in hours that changed.  He had been "down" meaning with oxygen for 11 minutes before the ambulance/paramedics arrived.  My mom did CPR and did all she could, but most likely it was already too late.  So over the last 3 days, we waited, cried, prayed, prepared...Unable to tell them to stop the drips and machines, we wait. Sorry to say we did have to tell them to stop the drips turn off the respirator administer the morphine and hold his hand as he passed.  Then we no longer waited but was put into planning and class and work went to the back burner and was an afterthought.  As we mourned, smiled, cried, talked and buried my father on Saturday.  Now we must move on hold memories dear, learn to talk about him without crying, he would never want us to wallow in sadness and he would definitely be disappointed if I didn't finish this class or my degree, he was very proud of my education!

So hug your family, live to the fullest, be happy!  It really does change all in the blink of an eye!

Balancing Act...Unable to really do anything, can't read, Facebook can only hold one's attention for so long, there's only so much you can do. Why not homework. Good outlet and distraction.  Thank goodness this week was Glogster! Fairly easy to do while I whittle away the hours, can complete it from my iPad and I can actually see many of my staff using this in their classroom, too bad it's only a 7 day free trial.

Part II & III

I chose to use Jing for my instructional video presentation. Jing allowed me to video my staff training on how to update and add information in our Student software, RtI section. I chose to create 3 video parts Adding Referrals, Interventions and attachments. I was then going to uploaded it into Moviemaker to create 1 video with introductions and transitions. I enjoyed using Jing and found it easy to use, the difficult part was that it is saved as a swf and cannot be uploaded to moviemaker. After hours of watching tutorials downloading and uploading, nothing has worked. I'm thinking it should be easier than what it is. I believe that once it's done it will be a valuable resource for my staff to view and revisit when needing a refresher of the process. I originally had planned to have this done as all screen shots with the information on the slides. I believe that this is a better choice because it is actually done, they can watch and see where I am clicking and in real time what it would look like when they click on those segments. So for now I redid it as one screen cast and it was really difficult to fit it in under 5 minutes.

http://screencast.com/t/rfYhKh3siY
http://www.screencast.com/t/rfYhKh3siY

Taking into account Adult learning theory and Swisher's Multimedia principal of student's learn better from words and pictures, rather than words alone.  Also, taking into account the temporal contiguity principle is also the same, yet different within these instructional multimedia tools.  This principle states that when a learner receives information both visual and verbal close to the same time, the result is better learning.  When creating a a video, and instructor must keep in mind the pacing of the video and the rate at which new information is given. When redoing the video to include it all information at once the pacing is too fast for someone who hasn't add information before, yet the bonus is they can pause and rewind several times which they wouldn't be able to if I was talking live with them .

Part I

Many times when I lead a staff meeting or professional development I like to begin with a video, music anything that would be motivational.  So in preparation of an upcoming PD I searched for these exact videos.  Knowing where my staff is right now, being in the middle of the year, need a pick me up, a reminder of what the end of the year will bring and that they truly are making a difference! I liked these videos because they inspired me and reminded me why I am here. We often get bogged down with curriculum, drama, data, reports and paperwork. We need to remember the WHY before the HOW and the WHAT!