Multimedia+Reflection

Before this module, I was very familiar with multimedia having created and taught many multimedia projects for both children and adults. Digital storytelling, podcasts, vodcasts, online presentations, ePortfolios and movies are all productions that I regularly use personally and professionally. There were only three tools mentioned in the module that was not entirely familiar with and these were Picnik, Glogster and VoiceThread. I had never heard of Picnik so I immediately went to that website to check it out, however I did not go any further than the front page of the site as it announced it was no longer going to be available after April 19 2012. I couldn’t see the point in exploring a new tool if it was about to move / no longer be available. I moved onto Glogster & VoiceThread for my next explorations. Now both of these I had not only heard of before, I had also dabbled in them once or twice, but I had never fully explored them to experience their potential so I figured this was my chance to do so. VoiceThread I found to be very straight forward and very user friendly, especially for a first time user. Of course, it took me a few attempts to realise there is no undo button - that was a little frustrating at times, but overall pretty funky tool to use and definitely one I will utilise more of in the future. Glogster was a lot of fun to explore and use. I loved the funky templates and how I could select one and then customise to my own needs. It was great that I could pull in several of my own photos and online resources to make the interactive poster. What I did find frustrating was that when I wanted to move items around it was hard to keep the items in place. This could have been my trackpad though rather than the site itself, I am still unsure of the culprit. Again I found it frustrating that there was no undo button as I really could have done with this a few times during the construction of my poster. After exploring both of these new tools, I have really thought about how I could incorporate these in my personal and professional works. I can definitely see myself using both of these professionally as part of my resource creation toolkit, in creating new works to share with other colleagues worldwide. As for personally, I’m thinking that voicethread in particular may be a great way to capture ideas and thoughts, especially for my random thoughts which often turn into blogs.
 * Awareness**
 * Exploration & Filtration**
 * Learning**
 * Personal & Professional Application**