Animation Continued and Audio Software

After working through Alice, the animations program I discussed in my previous post, I was feeling overly confident and decided to download a free trial of Adobe After Effects CS4. Let's just say I should have stopped with Alice while my confidence was still in tact. CS4 was incredibly difficult. I found a few online tutorials, but I still struggled to make much sense of the software program. Therefore, for now I have put this program to the side.

To compensate for my inability to navigate CS4, I downloaded and successfully used Audacity within minutes of it opening. I recorded my son's voice, and we had a great time speeding up his recording, slowing it down, creating an echo effect, changing the pitch, and changing the tempo. Additionally, I was able to record a few sentences for my PowerPoint animation and insert the WAV files successfully. I was very happy with the quality and editing my voice was easy to do. Audacity is a great free download.

Animation

I made a monkey screech, jump, and roll over today. That's right, I tackled a computer animation software. I'm really impressed with myself, if that isn't already apparent. Thanks to a fellow student, and her colleague at Hillcrest High School (cheers Kristen :)), I downloaded a free software called Alice. I was able to animate Elizabeth Sieta (my monkey was named by my daughter) within the half hour. I qualify this program as easy to use. The tutorials were very helpful, and definitely gave me the tools I needed. I would say the only advice I have for this organization is to create a text page with help tips. I had to go through pretty lengthy tutorials of things I had already figured out how to do on my own before I got to the part that I could not do. To be honest, this was a little frustrating. But, it's only frustrating because I'm looking for something to critique. Perhaps I'm being pretty hard on the software. Overall, it was a fun experience.

I am working on a web page for a research project that is really going to challenge me. I intend to incorporate quite a few multimedia components, and animation is one of these components. The animation idea has been developed, but now I am searching for the right program to use. Unfortunately, I don't think Alice is going to be useful for this particular assignment. Although Alice has cute graphics, and quite a few templates and items to animate, they aren't going to help me with the map/geometric style I need to create. However, for the classroom teacher looking for an attention grabber, or hoping to add a little spice to an assignment, this is your program. I'm off to search for another animation program. Feel free to leave suggestions if you have any.

MovieMaker

The prospect of learning a new program or software is NEVER appealing to me. In fact, I dread every minute of the day, that leads up to that final moment where I sit in front of my computer and click on the tutorial. I equate this feeling to a first time mom anticipating the day that she finally decides to potty train her 2 (or 3) year old. You think about the accidents, the mess, the rush to get it done, how you will handle public places, and most importantly, how long is the learning process. When I am learning new technology programs, I think about the same problems, the accidents or mistakes, the mess I might make of my computer, and most importantly, I wonder how long will take me to learn the program. But, once you start, you say to yourself, "this isn't so bad." I've coached quite a few friends through the potty training process, and now I am trying to give myself the same advice regarding new technology . Once you start, it isn't so bad.

As I sat to tackle Windows MovieMaker recently, I remember thinking how badly I did not want to learn the new program. Now that I know how to use it, I'm here to say "it isn't so bad"! Creating collections, importing pictures and videos, adding text, and manipulating audio files are very easy tasks. It is a simple drag and drop program that allows a user to put together a collection of pictures and videos for a visual presentation. The Task pane is incredibly user friendly and the menu includes the following wording:

• Import video
• Import pictures
• Make titles or credits
• Save to CD
• Send in e-mail

How can a user not know how to complete some of the basic functions of MovieMaker given the above links that walk you through the steps? Just like potty training, they do the same dance every time, the clues are so obvious.

I'm ready to tackle new technology, and I have a new outlook on my capabilities. This isn't so bad.