One of the video assignments that really caught my eye was filming as if I was speaking to my sixteen year old self. This was back in 2021-22 and the reason it caught my eye was because it immediately reminded me of how much I was going through at that time. I wanted to be able to make a video to show how much I’ve grown since then. I was also challenged in my attempt to not overshare. In my mind when completing the assignment I thought back to movies that state that if you tell your past self any details about what happens in the future then that future will not occur. I thought it would be a good challenge to uphold.
Now that we’re a third of the way through the class, I feel like I’ve made some real progress. I’ve had the chance to grow my creativity, and even though there were times I doubted my work, seeing my classmates vote for Finn’s Walk Home post gave me a confidence boost. It reminded me that we really are our own biggest critics.
One of my original goals was to explore new tools, and I’ve definitely done that—especially with Canva, which I now use regularly for this class. I’ve embedded assignments I completed using Canva below.
Something I didn’t mention before but have also struggled with is finding time to work on my personal website. I’ve wanted to get more comfortable with WordPress and Domain of One’s Own, but it always felt like something I’d put off. Now that it’s required for class, I’ve finally had the time to use it more, and I’m getting the hang of it.
A big highlight for me was seeing my website get a shoutout in the Week 5 video by Jim—that definitely made me happy!
Looking ahead, I want to keep pushing myself creatively and take more risks with my work. I also hope to refine my storytelling skills and get even more comfortable with the tools I’ve been exploring. So far, ds106 has been a challenge in the best way, and I’m excited to see where the rest of the semester takes me!
This assignment requires you to take a video of yourself or someone else and finger spell a word or a phrase in Sign Language alphabet and let others guess what you have spelled. Make sure you do a word that is bigger then 5 letters so you can learn some of the letters. Link to assignment: https://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/signing-words/
For this assignment, I signed something related to my character. It’s just two words, and it’s very connected to them. I hope you guys can guess what I signed.
This was really fun because I learned ASL in high school and haven’t practiced in a while, so I had to get back into the groove of things. But I really enjoyed it!
10 tips…so many different options to do. What do you have 10 tips on? You could inform me on tips when going to the movie theatre, tips to get through quarantine, tips to get through school, ds106….hehe. Anything you want! What are you an expert in? Link to assignment: https://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/10-tips/
Alright, for this assignment, I wanted to use an AI avatar and a synthetic voice because it’s from my character’s perspective. I’ve included some of my previous assignments related to my character for anyone who isn’t familiar with them.
Instead of my usual Canva workflow, I used HeyGen. I had never used it before, I found it online, but I highly recommend it for anyone looking for an alternative to Canva. They offer a free version as well as different premium plans, but for this assignment, I just used the basic features.
It was pretty easy to use, most of it was drag and drop. You can create your own AI avatar, select a voice for them or use one of the available options, then add a script. They also provide options to include elements like graphics, images, videos, audio, and more. For this project, I added text, a script, videos, and my avatar. After arranging everything, I added transitions and edited the background audio to sound more natural. I also adjusted the voice, though I wasn’t completely satisfied with the selection.
Avatar Selection
Script
Text
Elements
Editing Section
Overall, it’s a great application and I would definitely use it again.
Create a video using some of your favorite pictures/videos that you have taken while in school this year! Add a wide variety of pictures from throughout the year. Make sure to add some music to the video before you post it! Here is a link to the assignment: https://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/favorite-moments-in-college/
First things first, I really enjoyed doing this assignment! Lately, I’ve been feeling a little upset about graduating next year and my college experience coming to an end, so this project gave me a chance to appreciate my time at UMW.
It was a bit challenging to include memories because I don’t take many photos, so my options were limited. I also didn’t want to include pictures of myself or others, so I intentionally kept it vague. Because of these limitations, I had to look back as far as my sophomore year. This video collage features a few memories from then until now. I have many more, but these fit my criteria for being included in a video.
I used Canva to create the video by adding each image to its own slide along with a short description. Then, I chose a fun, lighthearted audio track to keep it engaging. After that, I adjusted the frames, timing, and audio.
Overall, this was a really fun assignment! I do wish I had included more personal and playful memories, but I’m happy with how it turned out. Oh, and by the way, my favorite slide is at the end, so I hope you stick around and watch till then!
As the title very proudly states, I LOVE TikTok. You probably could guess that I was devastated by the potential ban (and did not know what to do in my free time when it was banned for like, a day). But, I enjoy it in the sense that everyone can enjoy it! Any age, any fandom, there is everything for everyone on it. When I saw the video assignment to make a TikTok of your pet to any sound, I immediately wanted to do it. I have four pets, 2 cats (both boys) and 2 dogs (both girls), so I thought I would feature Jolene, the youngest of the bunch. Jolene is still a puppy, so she entertains herself with toys and treats all day. This specific toy is a puzzle/maze that you could hide treats in, and dogs could sniff through and move pieces around in order to get to the treats. When I say that she loves this thing, it is an understatement. She could spend HOURS sifting through the pieces and spinning the wheel in order to find treats. Even if there aren’t any treats, she could still just mindlessly fidget with it all day. One day I decided to take a video of her playing with it, and speeding it up a little just for comedic effect. The music adds to it as I feel this is what plays in her head, 24/7. Overall, I did not really see this as an assignment, more as a fun side quest.
I used a clip of the Black Mirror episode “Hated in the Nation“, provided in the ds106 weekly assignment. I screen recorded a scene and cut out disturbing portions from it, instead using a PowerPoint to put images over the video. The thumbnail comes from IMDB’s review of the episode. I recorded and put it together with OpenShot and Audacity, both free programs.
For the video essay I picked apart a scene I found interesting based of the music that was being used to create the scene I got the idea for the video about the marvel symphonic universe.
I decided to watch the episode of Black Mirror that was linked on our weekly ds106 page for the video essay assignment, and I enjoyed both the episode and the process! I thought the premise of the episode was really interesting, particularly the integration of social media within the plot.
To make the video essay, I first wrote my script and decided which scenes I wanted to use. I then utlized OBS to record my screen while playing Netflix in order to capture the episode. I did record the episode audio, too, but didn’t end up using it. I recorded myself in Audacity, and brought everything together using ClipChamp. I cut up the clips I had recorded earlier and pieced them together. I added some background music from FreeSounds and lowered the volume of it so that it would play under the audio of me speaking. I discovered that ClipChamp has an auto-caption feature, so I used that to quickly add closed-captions to my video. The captions required minimal editing, so I exported and saved the video.
I had some trouble getting the video onto my blog, initially. The file was too large to upload directly to WordPress, so I instead published the video to YouTube with an unlisted link and included that instead.
Overall, I think making a video essay was enjoyable but not something that I would do on my own time. I watch a lot of video essays already, and I think I have a standard for them that I don’t feel like I necessarily met. While I’m sure I could get there eventually, it doesn’t feel like a skill I’m presently going to work on.
Happy Valentine’s day everyone! I am looking forward to my Valentine’s day plans with my girlfriend, I hope you all are getting to enjoy your Valentine’s day with your partner, friends, and/or family.
One thing I love (but am not good at) is video editing. In high school, there were a few days where I filmed “vlogs” and sent them to my friends. It was pretty ridiculous but I enjoyed it and everyone was entertained, so I was excited to get back into iMovie.
This is my video essay, definitely not the highest quality but I did my best!
If you’d like to read what I wrote about it, visit the blog post for it!
I emailed Professor Bond and he showed me how to make the embedding a little less ugly, so hopefully if you click on the picture(s) it will lead you to the post(s)!
Day 2:
Hopefully anyone that has seen Kim Possible will find my response entertaining.
That’s it for the week! I hope everyone has enjoyed their week, I felt much less overwhelmed this time around. Again, have a happy Valentine’s Day!
