Look At The Camera... Say Cheese!

This is is my first official blog post for the Center for Innovative Education and Communication Technologies Department (CIECT). I already own a personal blog of my own and I have never really taken any thought into blogging for the Digital Media Studios Unit as part of my weekly task. Well, as one would expect from the DMS, we play around with camera equipment (and I do not mean play around in the literal sense). Just in the past 2 weeks of being employed here I have learnt that being behind the camera is not always about saying: "Say Cheeese!!". It is more than that, it is the camera man trying to portray an event with utmost professionalism and courtesy.

You probably asking yourself, so what? They drilled that into you from day one, but what did you really learn while being there for 2 weeks? Well... The first task assigned to us was software download and experimenting and acquainting ourselves with all of this software. I played around with the numerous software assigned to us for exploration purposes, and I stumbled upon a screen capturing software named:"Cam Studio".

CamStudio - Free Streaming Video Software

Cam Studio basically records or captures what is being written or in essence being played on the screen. This would be a really good tool for most if not all recorded lectures the DMS actually records. Instead of just recording the words by the lecture, the presentation itself can be played in between cuts to show the viewer what the lecturer is speaking about and which slide he/she is referring to :). Click on here to check out my YouTube video to see CamStudio in action or watch below.

You might have realized the video has a lot typing errors, I could have just edited them out of the video but my experience and opinion with regard to video editing will be part of another post.

Digital Story (The Script and the CMap)

Recently, my coordinator assigned tasks to us on Asana (a platform that I plan to reveiw on some other day) to tell a digital story. Well, the brief being that we must tell a story that would leave a lesson to whom so ever comes across it (but the brief was not in those words). The task has different phases and parts to it, so that makes the task easier to deal with and handle. I started off with producing a script for the digital story. The script is just a wording of what the visual story and the narration of the story will be composed of. I loved writing the script, pouring the lessons I have learned thus far into such a script was a good experience. The CMap was kind of tricky hey, having to draw a concept map that captures the whole concept of the digital story was very tricky. It was my first time having to produce a copy of CMap document that would be used for such purposes. I did not struggle at all with the Concept Map as much as I expected to struggle. Currently I am co...

Concept Mapping

I recently underwent a crash course in Concept Mapping. I've always been accustomed to CMap anyway, I started using it in my first year of my undergraduate Accounting degree. We were tasked by our Information Systems lecturer (Mrs. Lydia Kimani) to explore CMap by developing a concept map for some topic (I can barely even remember). My supervisor (Mr. Daniels) went over CMap with us again, and I decided once more to actually use the tool. CMap Tools (Home Page CMAP) The fact that CMap was not created for the purposes of brainstorming and mind mapping but rather for an in depth explanatory session of certain concepts that only an expert or a knowledgeable person may be able to explain. Even though its main focus is to provide a platform for easy conceptualization of ideas or concepts, it has a vast range of tools within the the platform. One would expect the platform to only be useful when it comes to text, and not in essence take over the work of PowerPoint or Keyword-but...

Innovation in Motion

We were tasked with preparing a presentation that describes constraints that I am experiencing in my business. The presentation must also describe how the application of methods/tools/techniques learned during the course will enable me to better manage this situation. This final week was very nerve-wrecking and very interesting for me. It was nerve-wrecking because I have a severe speech impediment (a stutter) that may unnecessarily cause me to take longer than the other students. So, I decided to record my presentation to ease this process. It was also very interesting because I work in a very complex organization that is part of a very dynamic and international Science and Technology project that is experiencing but also addressing complex challenges. It was exciting for me to outline these issues and also providing my proposed solutions to these challenges. Background and Overview Inter-University Institute for Data Intensive Astronomy (IDIA) was born out of the partnership of ...

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