Nora L Cloonan
Hovenweep National Monument, Utah/Colorado
Implementation
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Gift Wrapping video
Gift Wrapping Instructional Video
In the Maymester class on Educational video production, our final project was to produce an instructional video. I performed every function in this project myself. The idea that I could learn to do something like this in three weeks pretty much stuns me. I used two cameras to avoid having to reshoot takes at different angles. I thought it would be difficult to match shots if I wasn’t very precise in the action. Consequently, you can see where the camera angle is a little off in the bow making sequences. I should have shot these over to improve what the viewer could see “over my shoulder”. I’m still very happy with how this turned out. I think the fast-forward action is cute because watching someone wrap a gift is akin to watching paint dry. The music fits it perfectly as it builds to the final finished crescendo!
History of Regional Commissions in Georgia
The module on the History of Regional Commissions in Georgia, was produced during the last studio class, Edit 6210E. It was brought to us by one team member, Tracy Arner, who is an employee of the Carl Vinson Institute of Government who had been contracted to produce a series of training modules for Regional Commissions. Team members included Tracy Arner, Megan Bracewell, Lana Garner, Cheri Tenhouse, and myself. The drawback to this project was that the majority of material in the lessons was verbal in nature and would be challenging to teach in a creative way. Our professor, Dr. Clinton, mentioned early on that he hoped we would not simply present the content like PowerPoint slides with voiceover and ask questions about afterwards. I immediately began thinking of gamification or graphic novel layouts but Tracy feared such touches would not be widely accepted in her conservative government environment. We settled on fairly straightforward instruction but with many interactive elements interspersed throughout to keep the learner engaged and lighten the cognitive load from so much information being presented all at once. What we ultimately implemented is light and fun but still manages to convey crucial information. An idea I was specifically responsible for that we included was the separation of voiceover elements so they do not play until the learner clicks on a particular trigger. These are evident in the "timeline" slides towards the beginning and the Bonus slides. By doing this we have lightened the cognitive load further and enhanced learning by ensuring the relevant vocals are spoken at the same time the visuals are displayed. All projects suffer from not enough time to get everything done. With this one, therein lies the things I would change. The design could benefit from more enhancements similar to the vocal separation mentioned. Several slides are too crowded with text and could have their bullet points timed to come in with the narration. Similarly, these slides could be split so that elements of them are layered and only appear on the click of a trigger. All-in-all the module, as it stands, should serve the client's needs for some years to come.
