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Thursday, August 18, 2016

Crafting Digital Media

As I surround myself with a stack of books on the topic of creativity, I look for a common thread to inspire me. A line in Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert pops out to push me to create"Don’t be afraid of reaching for your creative edge."

When we reach for our creative edge, we move just a bit beyond what we usually do to stretch ourselves. While I enjoy crafting digital compositions, I decided to move into different areas of digital literacy to mix up my approach to crafting digital media. I first purchased the app, Word Swag, since I heard it was an interesting digital tool.  As always when I am trying out something new, I ran into some roadblocks but I persevered through the messiness. If interested you can read my post on this here

Steps I took to create digital inspirations on learning that have an abstract feel for a #BackToSchool poster campaign to motivate students to create:
  • Take a photo with Photo Booth using the Pop Art feature.
  • Use Word Swag to create the saying and bring the photo into PicMonkey to add a border.
  • Be bold - try a different set of effects in PicMonkey; use the color and sharpen buttons; add another thought.
  • Design a short video with Animoto and then preserve it in YouTube to amplify voice.
  • Create individual digital abstract art jpegs in neon colors. 

  • Design an abstract art collage combining the above images in Word. Take a screen shot to bring the combined design into PicMonkey. Continue layering the images to create the final collage. 
Reflection:
These digital creations were crafted over two days. I used the trial and error method of creating. Multiple platforms and different photo-editing tools were involved. I could not have achieved the final products unless I became involved in the productive struggle inherent in the learning process. The concept of "play" was guiding my moves that integrated art, technology, and literacy. 

What Did I Learn:
I learned to work with new tools to create individual posters, a video with pizazz, and a collage with visual appeal while reaching for my creative edge. 

There is big magic that explodes when the learning process leads the learner to a product that validates the time spent. Is there more that I can achieve? Of course, there is an unlimited amount of learning to be had when we continue to notice, wonder, explore, and discover new paths. 

Information on the DigiLit Sunday Community:
Margaret Simon, founder of DigiLit Sunday posed the topic, Crafting Digital Media, for last Sunday's digital challenge. If interested in exploring the world of digilit, you can join the community Margaret formed on Google + under DigiLitSunday. You can access that here. You can also visit Margaret's blog site, Reflections on the Teche,  to view what the DigiLit Sunday writers contributed. 

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