I now know how to proficiently use flickr, twitter, wordpress, gimp, MPEG streamclip, audacity, soundcloud, videopad, pwnyoutube and youtube. Yet, I think ds106 has taught me more than just how to use new tools. Looking back to my first post about my own cyberinfrastructure, I questioned whether the informality of blogging could be useful in the world of education. I did not have an answer one way or another. Through this class I have decided that a focus on blogging and the internet is a necessary part of education.

Although blogging is informal, it is a platform for expressing true thoughts and emotions. It may not be the place for formal essays and papers, but as an outlet to share comments and address issues, it is the perfect place.

After this semester, digital storytelling means something entirely different to me. In the beginning of this class I was apprehensive about put myself on the internet. I did not want to be completely open or honest…I was embarrassed you could say. The thing is, this is my space (no pun intended). This is my personal place to share myself with whoever wants to listen. And the interesting thing is, I will never know who exactly is watching so why is there any reason to be embarrassed?

Moving on to the more physical aspects of the class – my best assignments! I had a lot of fun (and sometimes no fun) learning how to use all new programs. Some of my assignments could use more fine-tuning, but all-in-all I was happy with how many of them turned out. My favorite assignment of the year was The Flash comic book ani.GIF. I spent the most time in GIMP working on that project. I learned how to use the clone tool, the free select tool, and the importance of layers. It was a time consuming assignment but I think it paid off in the end. My most popular assignment of the year was probably the Making the Rosetta ani.GIF. Most people commented that it was mesmerizing to see the latte art.

If future students asked me about this class, I would tell them to be afraid, be very afraid! But really, I would advise students to have enough free time to treat this class as a 400 level class. The workload is intense and in order to enjoy accomplishing the work (because it is fun work to do) you must have enough time to give to it. So, be prepared. Second, don’t worry if you don’t have knowledge of anything computer or internet. It is all intuitive and it isn’t about what you create just that you keep creating.

Finally, if I was in charge of this class I would remember to not get too bogged down with the number of assignments, stars and daily creates. Instead, I would focus on digital storytelling. Many of the assignments are fun to do but hardly tell a story at all. If this is our cyberinfrastructure, shouldn’t we be doing more than simple video editing?

I will miss this class! But I’ve learned a lot. Last thing to figure out….how to archive and move all of this content! 

Photo editing, video editing, finishing stars, daily creates, assignment creating…..and the list goes on. For my final project, I wanted to get away from the weight of computing and instead get back to what ds106 is really about – creating my own cyberinfrastructure. So I decided to complete my final project in the simplest of ways – simple photography. Yet, it turned out to be not so simple at all.

I went into last week deciding that I would take one photograph for every hour that I was awake – we can call it “every waking hour” if you will. I thought, ‘oh this should be simple…just take one photo every hour on the hour and then see what kind of story I end up with.” Well, taking a picture every hour is not as easy as you may think. First, there were the hours that I was in class…challenging. Then there were the hours I was at work….with my boss….challenging. Then, inevitably, there were the several hours I completely blanked on taking a picture. Every hour is a lot more often than you’d think.

After the first several hours, I got bored with my pictures. I felt like my life wasn’t very interesting…I mean who really wants to see my computer screen as I write a paper, or my every meal? Why should I share the normal aspects of my life with the internet? But AHA! There was my story. My week was nothing spectacular. I had class, work and homework. I ate, slept, napped, played with my cat, had ice cream with friends…and so on. Yet, maybe the fact that my days were filled with normal could be relatable with other bloggers or readers out there? So okay, my life is normal and relatable, but the question still stood: how could I share my daily activities on the internet?

Thankfully, I used my handy dandy iPhone to take all of my pictures. That made it super easy because I usually have my phone on me at all times. No dying battery, no forgetting my camera, no awkward “why are you carrying a camera with you?” questions. The real trick was deciding how to present the photos. My first thought was to create five ani.GIFs, one for each day, showing the photos. But, since some photos were landscape and some were portrait it just didn’t work out how I wanted it to. So I uploaded everything into flickr (not a speedy process, let me tell you) and created five sets. Then for each set I created a slideshow. After I created all the slideshows, I then was faced with the trick of deciding how I wanted to present the material. I opted to create a blog on umwblogs and download a theme that works with photography. I chose the “minimatica” theme in wordpress.

I really like how the website turned out, I didn’t add any description for each day. I wanted the photographs to speak for themselves without me telling you what is happening each day. It’s a different kind of storytelling for sure.

I think the photo every hour really gives a personal glimpse into my life. Just like other bloggers, this is my space. And this is my story of a normal, boring week in April.

p.s. the tab "final project" at the top of the page will take you to the project, but here is another link just in case!