Thursday, February 25, 2010

My extended absence - Photostory

Hello all.

My apologies for the extended absence, but I took a vacation a couple weeks ago which kind of set me back. Not to mention, we just started a new semester at school and I've been busy working on putting together a class wiki. Anyway, I'm back now (well at least part-time) and will try and post any new findings every so often until I get settled once again.

In the meantime, below is a short film I made using Photostory highlighting portions of my recent trip to Makkah and Madinah in Saudi Arabia (home of the two holy sanctuaries in Islam).
This was actually the first time I've played with the software and found it to be fairly simple to use. One downside I found though is that it is kind of limited on it's feature set (esp. with audio editing). Anyway, I think it's a good tool starter tool for those creating videos for the first time.

Please feel free to leave comments letting me know what you think either of my video or your personal thoughts/opinions and experiences using Photostory.

6 comments:

  1. This must have been a wonderful experience Mohammed. Thanks for sharing. I loved the music. What is it?

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  2. Hi Julia,

    I didn't know my ICT buddies were still checking my blog (that's so cool). I will have to make a better effort to do the same (although I'm really busy these days).
    I'm so glad to hear you liked it.
    Makkah and Madinah are always a nice getaway.
    As for the (Arabic) song, it's called "Ya Makkah" and in it the little girl is basically talking about the beauty of Makkah, via the holy sanctuary (or "Haram" as it's called in Arabic).

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  3. hi Mohamed

    Nice video but we have to install Photostory onto our computer, right ?
    As for the religious sites, never heard of them... Mecca is in Saudi Arabbia .. no ? forgive my ignorance but you know I'm on the side of the Crusaders.., just joking.. just my agnosticism emerging...

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  4. Hi Isabel,
    It's been awhile...
    Yes, you have to download and install the software. Again, it's pretty easy to use but limited on features.
    As for the sites, yes, both are in Saudi Arabia.
    Here's a link for you to learn more, o ye Crusader ;-)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0P_7R-JftSE
    BTW, great work on your project. Will comment soon. Cheers.

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  5. Well, Mohamed I haven't seen your lesson plan but I'll give you feedback.. portfolios are one of my quests... and I am also curious to know how people from a different cuutural backgroiund react to portfolios... As for my lesson plan, I would have liked to have better students' " products" but maybe some other time...

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  6. So far, the project has been going alright. I'm getting more participation than I expected which is great. However, it seems as if the students are more interested in the ePortfolio being a means to improve their technical skills rather than their English. It's only been a week now, so it still may be too early to tell for sure.
    As for student products, I kind of feel the same way. Perhaps over time though and with extended use, results will improve.

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