BP13-Final Video

Students need to learn about themselves in relation to the world around them and we need to teach them how to make it best work for them.  

PE9-Flash

Flash: Voilà!

Above is my self created image from Flash.  After over seven long hours of Lynda.com training on Flash Essentials and over 24 chapters to view, I must say that I feel filled to brim with Flash knowledge.  

I feel proud that I drew images such as the book that appears to be flying mid air.  I did succeed in working some of the functions such as tweening.  But I couldn't get past how to break apart my images and create them into symbols.  I knew that things like that had to be done.  I just couldn't remember the order and sometimes the process.

So as you look back at my silly but amazingly frustrating journey with Flash, please take this tiny morsel of knowledge; that Flash is a program made for programmers (is my take) and that the best way to handle understanding the dynamics of the it is to take it bits and pieces at a time.  Make a mental to note to learn one thing and then try to execute the activity.  

I learned the hard way that reading the manual all the way through before using the product won't guarantee that you can use it any better than the guy that opened the box and just started fidgeting with the gadget.  So, as my flash picture stated, "Teachers rock because they rule."  And that's even when they aren't successful at Flash ;).

From Flickr

PE8-Flash

Flash: We're Getting There

From Flickr

So as I get closer to my last few chapters of video, I wonder what will I try to produce.  I still want to work toward the challenge of creating some type of motion video in Flash.  I figure based on my previous attempt that it will be short.  The goal is to create most of the images myself with maybe a few shapes and images pulled from iPhoto.  I mean he makes it look easy.  Each step he presents usually takes about less then 10 minutes to view.  

From Flickr

Well, again I realized that every step is contingent on the previous one.  I don't get how lost I can become once left alone to figure out the steps.  It's like I'm back in high school trying to figure out how I am to dissect the frog after the teacher just showed me on the board.  You see all the steps in your head, you just can't for the life of you figure out how to put the mess of information in your head together to figure out the first and next step.  And that is where I am.  I am stuck between one step and another.


So, next I try to work out a chapter together by leaving the screen in the background while I apply the skills .  Again, as before, it is not the same as working with an instructor in person.  Or maybe it is, and again, Flash is such a higher level program that I need to take extra baby steps then I am currently taking.  Well, since again I am almost through the training, I will finish it and see what I can come up with to show what I learned, even if it kills me.

PE7-Flash

Flash: Here We Go Again

So I go on the Lynda training for Flash.  I am very happy to see that I am almost done.  I think that once I am done I will be able to create that marvelous flash video that I promised in the last PE blog.  As I view chapter after chapter of the Flash Essential tutorial, I realized that promise may have been spoken to early.

I am a visual learner.  I thought that if I just listen to each video and dibbled with the program once in while after I look at a few chapters, I would be able to accomplish what was shone in the video, but I was wrong ...again.  It seems that my visual learning is stunted when it comes to media ...or again maybe its just Flash.  I mean, really?  Is this program even made for the average computer user as myself?  I think not.  I keep trying not to get frustrated and mad, but I can't make head or tails out of the many functions involved in creating the simplest thing in Flash.

From Flickr

So, before I pull another hair or bang my head against the wall, I am going to see what happens in the end.  And if anything, I can at least get a certificate of completing the over 7-hour training.  The sad part is that I may not have anything to show for it.

PE6-Flash

Flash: Trying my Patience

From Flickr

So okay,what am I doing?  Even though I am only half way through my tutorial, I wanted to see what I could accomplish with what I learned so far.  And I discovered that what I could create wasn't much, wasn't much at all.  As I fumbled through the program with my new found knowledge I realized that what I thought I knew was pretty superficial.  Every time I thought I knew what I was doing, the thing wouldn't respond or act right.  But the real issue was that I wasn't doing it right.


Trying to put what I learned together with the multitude of things that are interactive was a step by step process.  I wasn't prepared for the amount of involvement that the program required.  I feel now more than ever that I am in over my head ( I knew I should have chosen something less difficult and easy like GarageBand--my bad!).


Seeing is believing and it is being in the program itself is where I will make the most out of my learning.  This program is one that can't be learned over the course of a few hours of video and very little practice sessions--which I found difficult to implement since I had no true person to coach me through the process.  I am truly worried that if this is going to be the case, that if I can't find a way to get a better grasp at understanding Flash, I am going to be extremely vulnerable when we get to month 6 in the program.


But on the bright side, month six is a few months away and you never know what can happen by then ...looking at the very positive side of things.  However, if you thought that from my very low trodden self talk that I wasn't able to accomplish some type of media to present to you, you were mistaken.  Below is an attempt to use flash.  


WARNING:  May cause seizures due to the way the material is presented in the video repeatedly.

Next time, I promise it will be better.  I'll be the postman and bare their motto."Neither rain, nor sleet, nor gloom of night will keep me from my appointed rounds."

PE5-Flash

Flash:  Testing, One, Two, Three...

From Flickr

The next step in my discovery mapping of Flash is testing and getting a feel of the program.  After dibbling and dabbling with it, trying to use my newfound knowledge, I realized that I learned very little.  That when I was faced with actually trying to use the program for something other than playing with the features, I was lost.

I realized that my technology skills are really child's play compared to the tools, tabs, templates, and a variety of other gadgets made available to you with Flash.  One of the major realizations is that even if I go through all seven hours and seven minutes of the videos that I will still just as lost as I am going through the repeated first half that I have been viewing.  I can't imagine how I going to accomplish anything.

What I learned about Flash is sizes and shapes that you can create.  Beyond the two type a main files that are in the program you work with the most, there are several others listed for those who are in business and not a simple home/ school user at best.  The things that where talked about but didn't leave a lasting impression on my poor overloaded mind are the different types of artistry tools I could use to manipulate and create objects.  The tools available to create, change, and use shapes and colors, and an awesome transforming tool.

Overall the best thing I could create on mind own is sad screen shot below.

It is my hopes with further tutorials, I will be able to create a stunning video.

PE4-Flash

Flash: Viewing the Videos

Taking on the challenge of working with a program that I have never even looked at informally or formally was intimidating and down right scary.

From Flickr

But I am trudging through the videos.  At first glance, I am very aware of the complexity of the program.  I admit that even in my fear, I am fascinated by the amount of tools and possibilities that are presented.  Now the tutorial that is available on Lynda.com is pretty intensive.  Yet, even in the massive amount of time that is needed just to get the basics - I mean "essentials" to Flash, the author Todd Perkins seem to be an easy enough tutor to follow along.

My biggest setback will be what can I accomplish with what I learned and is there something - a product that I can create that will be worthwhile.  Reviewing the lessons a second time doesn't seem to help with the amount of information that is being presented to me.  Maybe if I try to open the program and work with it while I view the video it may click in my brain a little better.

Not!  I am by no means ADHD.  I can multitask, but trying to view two screens on one laptop, manipulating one while viewing the other is crazy talk.  I tried and failed.  The effort it takes to juggle your eyes on two miniature screens so that you work with Flash while you learn was a task that was far to difficult for me to achieve.

Back at square one, I am viewed a few more segments and hope that my next post will be worth while.  There is a great chance that Flash is too flashy for me, but I can only hope that  if I view the tutorial enough times I will be able to understand through osmosis. ;)