BP5_link to Cricket's blog

One of my favorite things to do is photography. Although I find it so challenging sometimes between work and school and fighting off advances from Kate Beckensale and Mila Kunis. Ok...part of that last sentence might be a stretch....I'll let you decide. Anyway...

One of my classmates at FullSail has a link on her site for anyone who wants to get their photography work out into the public eye. It's called mylivegallery.com. It allows you to put your photos up, resize if you like, and get a pretty professional slideshow going. All for the sweet price of zero dollars. That's right. No more starving artist excuse about not having enough to get your work out there. If you like photography and people named after animals, check out Cricket's site. It's worth your time!

Cricket's Site

PE2_iMovie

I am really enjoying iMovie....a lot. I always had problems with compression in After Effects. I could never find a good balance between quality and size. iMovie handles that very well and it's great to have the problem solved.

I completed the training for iMovie last week, and learned a ton. It is a very deceptive program. Because of the ease of use, you tend to think it's for 7 year olds. Completely misleading. Once you get into it you find it is really a pretty robust video editor. The site I went through for training, Lynda.com, gave me this nifty little certificate when I finished. So how about them apples....

BP4_Vyew

Well here I am again. I have spent a considerable amount of time looking over the web and finding all kinds of tools I never knew existed. Thank you FullSail! To be honest, I’m usually pretty hesitant to use this kind of stuff, but I’m quickly changing that attitude.

The web is starting to offer some incredibly valuable tools. Where have I been you ask? I’ve been very comfortable back in my 1999 Internet cocoon thank you very much. But I’m finally out in the real world now and ready to try some new things.

The web tool I finally went with is a perfect blend of tools for some things on my horizon. In October, I will be opening a one of a kind unmanned aircraft school here in Florida. Students will come here and get FAA ground school, start of the art unmanned aircraft simulation instruction, and finally end the program with hands on training flying actual unmanned aircraft at Eglin AFB. It’s a brand new concept and I’m sincerely hoping for success. As you can imagine, I’m excited to utilize any type of tool that helps make the program a success. So the program I went with is Vyew.

Vyew is a wonderful communication tool. Once you create an account, you can create a room. Once you have established a room, you can invite up to ten people in. You have the option for text chat, video chat, or both. You also can draw directly on the screen within the program, or even screen share. You can upload files from your computer for all to see, as well as loading url’s. All of this is real time and can be seen by everyone in the room. Best of all kids…it’s free. Woohoo!

My plan is this. Let’s say I teach students in ground school one day about weather. Well, Johnny doesn’t quite understand why thunderstorms form, but is a little hesitant to ask in front of the class. I make it clear that there is an option for those situations. I tell the students that I will be online from, for example, 8:00-8:15pm. I wait in the Vyew room and if Johnny shows up I spend all the time I need to explain that you need lifting action, unstable air, and high moisture content for thunderstorms to form. He comes in the next day all caught up and confident he is where the rest of the class is. See, everyone wins. All due to the media sharing tool Vyew.

Happy days…

PE1_iMovie

I finished the iMovie course and was very impressed. I have to be honest. I was only utilizing iMovie as a kind of compression tool for other video. I had no idea that it was as versatile as demonstrated in the class.

I've been in the hospital with my wife for the past four days. She had an operation and didn't do that well, so they had her sedated for most of the time. She will be fine and is home now. But sitting in the hospital gave me some time to really look into Lynda.com and specifically iMovie. I'm pretty excited about this project now.

I've decided to bring my daughters in on this one. I am going to make a quick movie trailer that involves them. I've been working on the shots and effects for the past few days. I might go a little over on time, but will not go crazy with it. I know that we have to create an ad for the product we pick that has very strict time limits, so I'm ho[ping this one is a little flexible.

I'm posting a screen shot of one of the scenes I'm working on...I don't want to give it all away though.

This post is BP2_eduslide

Well there has been an interesting turn of events recently. It seems I have lost access to my one and only classroom. The Academy is no longer available to me. Insert concerned sighs here please. Oh, don't you worry, I'll figure something out. I watched an episode of MacGyver once.

The new plan goes something like this: I start a new school here in Florida to teach basic through advanced flight training to government and law enforcement agencies. I will go through all the concepts of unmanned aircraft with them. Sound fun? Well, you're right...it's crazy fun. And cool too.....my mom told me so.

So in my Web 2.0 search, I found a site that I think will really help me out. I am really impressed with the Wimba classroom and would like to emulate it if I can. Eduslide.com seems to be a pretty close replication of Wimba. It will allow me to interact with students from a distance, which I think will be a huge benefit.

We learned about how much learning can be increased by simple providing the students with information before the actual class. I really want to try this. The plan would be to have the first class through eduslide.com before they even arrived in Florida. Hopefully, I will be able to cover the basic concepts of flight with them through the site, and when they arrive they will be more familiar and receptive to the lessons.

If you want to check it out, here is the link: http://www.eduslide.com/features.php

BP3_iGoogleScreenShots

Well I finished setting up the igoogle page. So far, I like it. I'm a little torn on a few of the elements, but it certainly does help to have a centralized hub to access everything.

I was really pleased to find some gadgets in other languages. I never get a chance to really keep updated on Hebrew and this is a pretty good resource. I also found some great graphics references.

Here is a screen shot

I also found out today that I won't be going back to the Air Force Academy which totally messes with everything I've done in this program so far. So stay tuned to see how that all comes together.

Have a great fourth!

My first blog...

So, who's ready for my first blog story? Here goes ready or not.

I was going back and forth about what to write about. I ended up writing about a variety of topics. That's kind of my personality I guess. I really love to learn about a variety of things. I love to listen to people's opinions. I love debate. I love trying to deeply understand logic and logical fallacies. So, I said as much. But then, I decided to press the wrong button....and poof; my whole page disappeared. So, that was my first shot at blogging. Let me say this web gods....vengeance shall be mine, oh yes, it shall be mine.

Well, now that I've gotten my threats out of the way, I can give this a second go. Hopefully it will make it to the web before disappearing into nebulous ether.

I've recently gone through a pretty rough spot. Lost a sister at thirteen which was very difficult for my parents. I've been with them the past few weeks. I've also found out I need to get my flight instructor rating for work and am starting helicopter lessons as well. On top of trying to get the masters program finished. AHHHH!!!! Must...not....explode.....

But in the end, it will all work out one way or another. In a thousand years, who's going to be worried about Chris' bad month? Not many I'd venture to guess. So it can't be that important. ;)

So come back if you'd like. I'll update this often so that you can follow my month to month existence. :)

Here's a quick pic I took of my father and I while I was visiting. More to follow!