Project 7: Timetoast.com

This is my final posting for my digital storytelling class. I wanted to create a collage of the six projects I have worked on this semester but most of the collage sites were really slideshow style software and I’ve worked on enough of those this semester. Then I found the site timetoast.com. This site allowed me to create a timeline of my projects with pictures and direct links to my blog pages where the projects are shown. The site was very easy to use. You pick a date range and then choose specific dates and use URL’s and uploaded images to create a digital timeline. I love the way that with web 2.0 tools the user is allowed to share information in a linear way and then a viewer can click for more details. It takes the timelines from a two dimensional linear world to a multi-dimensional sharing experience. The timetoast.com site could be used very effectively for a business production schedule with the shared timeline feature that could have clickable projects and further agenda items. The view can also change from timeline to list which is very handy for quickly viewing agenda items.

I have loved using this blog as a notebook for telling digital versions of my original short essay/story “Bedtime at the Bears”. I specifically enjoyed the use of zooburst.com and toondoo.com. The site Bubblr.com was not my favorite because none of the photographs were mine. I don’t think that project really came to together as something cohesive.

The ability to use web 2.0 tools to create digital stories is amazing to me. I have always meshed text with graphics but only with offline software like Photoshop Elements. I never knew all these tools existed and I am grateful for a class schedule that forced me to take the time to explore them.

Click here to view the project:
www.timetoast.com/timelines/100711

Project 6: PicLits

PicLits.com is a great site for those who love playing around with words. You can chose a picture and then a group of nouns, adjectives, adverbs, verbs and universal words appear that you can add to your chosen picture. There are not a lot of words to choose from, but that is what makes the project fun. When you chose a word you can click and drag it anywhere on the picture. I chose all the words that felt important to the meaning I was trying to convey and just put them on the picture. I then played around with the word order til a little bit of prose appeared that said what I wished it to say.

The using of pic lit allowed me to tell my “Bedtime at the Bears” from a different perspective, with one slide and one sentence. I attempted to boil the meaning of the story to me down into one slide. I am an atheist and talking to my daughter about god was a difficult conversation. She is so young. I don’t wish to actually tell her there is no god; on her path she might find one or two! I hope that she explores faith and the purpose of religion on her path, but I don’t want my personal beliefs to influence her one way or the other. We each have a unique spiritual path, and hers is still out there to be discovered.


click here for a link to my project:
http://www.piclits.com/viewpoem.aspx?PoemId=77504