Taken from a painting of Kapiti Island at Sunset.
by Sonia Savage.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Sabbatical Adventure Begins.

Well actually it began a little inauspiciously with a trip to the Doctor for antibiotics.  Can you believe it, first day in and I get sick!  Typical teacher story I guess!  So five weeks to explore and learn about what interests me.

However today I have started to feel the excitement of taking time to think about, learn about and increase my skills in the area of digital storytelling mainly.  I have just been searching on my computer for my application form for the sabbatical. Can't find it. Luckily I made a blog post about it here, so  I have my map!

As I read through it my first thoughts are - "Way too much!"  However one step leads to another and I think while I will keep the map and questions in mind, I will go where my interest at the time takes me. I sense I will focus on digital storytelling and only include the rest if I have time.  Over the last year  I have been saving web pages that I have come across into Diigo, so I have plenty to start with.  You know, all those interesting pieces of information you just don't have time to explore as you are caught up in the nitty gritty of everyday school life.

People have asked me are you going to travel, visit other schools?  Well I don't plan too, but who knows.  The beauty of the web is I can visit the USA, or Auckland or Christchurch or wherever, and never leave my study room. I can attend a online seminar or if I can't attend the seminar led by a teacher who's work I admire,  I can view his Prezi and interact with him on his blog.    So I have started exploring  Kevin's Meandering Mind blog, he is  an active teacher, learner and person who shares his learning story so that others may learn too.  I quickly peruse his post when he writes, but now I have the time to really dig deeper into it.

Today because of a screencast I watched on Kevin's prezi I have spent some time exploring software that would enable me to do that.  I have Jing downloaded but didn't go too much further into it because it does not have a file format suitable for uploading to say You Tube. I spent quite a bit of time looking at Screenr, Screencast etc.   What do I want - something that is:
                                                                     free
                                                                     has audio and video
                                                                     allows a little editing
                                                                     has a friendly file format and allows music to be placed.  (Couldn't find a free one - I guess you could have it playing on your computer as you screencast.  I trialled that, sounds a little tinny but would be an option.)

Finally I settled on Active Presenter and here is a little screencast I made exploring this software. I haven't got a full handle on it yet. I suggest you watch it in full screen as it is not clear when in the smaller size.

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