Digital Stories and Constructivism assignment

OK, so these things don't have much in common. But I thought I'd jot down my random thoughts about both of them.

The digital stories were fascinating. I learned a lot not just through the content of the stories but also in the topics that people chose and the way that they showed them. A week later as I think back, the ones that I remember, like Natalia's one on telling who she is to her alzheimer's afflicted father, or Brian's great grandfather who was a white officer commanding colored troops in civil war. There was Jenny's piece about her dog who died on Valentine's day, Walter's piece on his own alcoholism and the generational alcoholism in his family. Ty's amazing story of his family's immigration and struggle with living in the U.S. and the toll it took on them all.

Some people chose to be personal, specific and others chose not to. Those who told personal stories showed them through personal images or metaphorical ones.

As we finished re-constructing our own understandings of our stories, we moved on to Constructivism. That's what we're doing this week. I found Piaget's theories interesting. I don't totally agree with them, but having a daughter, I do believe that one very significant contribution that Piaget made was not seeing children as just miniature adults--but understanding that their cognitive abilities grow and change as they do. I've seen that with Rory --how given the same topic in supsequent years, her processing of it, her thoughts about change significantly. I don't however think that kids develop cognitively in the consistent and straightforward way that Piaget theorized.

Also, I had problems creating my questions--probably because I created most of the questions before reading David Merrill's CDT article. I do however believe that I covered many of the areas in his matrix with my questions.

My Story

So, I finished my digital story today and uploaded it to the SFSU ftp site. I'm worried because it was made in MovieMaker on a PC, but I played it on a mac and it worked.

Making this story was hard, shuffling through pictures of lots of dead people--my mom, dad, grandparents; pictures of my life since my mom's death--so many years of life.
Then I tried to make the movie on my friends mac. After3.5 hrs of work, the program crashed and I lost everything I'd done. Last night I sat down at my own machine and worked into the night on MovieMaker--finally making it work. I found music that just seemed to melt right in, like it was made for the story. And although MovieMaker doesn't give you as much control or have 2 audio channels, it was much easier and more intuitive to use.
Seeing it done, I hear all the pops I should have re-recorded, where the transitions or effects are not quite right. But it also makes me cry, but not when my mom dies, but when I look at the life I have today and I feel really blessed and how happy I am. My partner watched it last night and said that it was a powerful piece. That means a lot to me.