Okay – someone is going to get mad at me for this one…

So something that I have known for a while is that some public libraries have been using services and databases that gives access to these resources without a username and password. I’ve never been big on public money being used without public access. So keeping that in mind -here goes.

So if I wanted to get access to Tumblebooks as an example, I go to my town’s public library website (Ajax Public) and then scroll down to TumbleBooks, click on the link, and then I have access.

If I was in Brampton – I would go to Brampton’s Access Web Site.

I'm back from a three day canoe trip to Killarney Provincial Park, with my brother-in-law and sister-in-law. It was a beautiful trip with only one bear sighting along the trail up to Silver Peak. We gave the bear some space and carried on without any incidents. Killarney was beautiful and I can't wait to go back again.

I took my digital recorder and digital camera with me on the trip. As I snapped the photos, I would pull out the recorder and add some audio clips to the pictures. It ended up being a nice way to document the trip through the audio while we were on the trails, camping, portaging and in the canoe. If I was to do the recording again, I would try to hide the recording device a little better to get more authentic recording.

After bringing in the audio clips and photos to my computer, I edited the audio clips for clarity in Audacity . I used PhotoStory 3 to pull everything together. It was a really easy process. One small issue is that PhotoStory 3 doesn't allow you to browse for audio files to associate with photos, so I ended up playing the recording on my laptop and using a microphone to associate them with the photo. I added background music from ccMixter . Finally, I fine tuned the focus and transitions of the photos.  I also burned a few copies to play on our DVD players.

My Digital Story Recipe:

Hardware

1. Digital Camera
2. Audio Recorder

Software:

1. Audacity
2. Photostory 3

Web Sites:

1. CC Mixter

And of course, a trip somewhere enjoyable.

I can see so many possibilities for classroom uses, especially with the new Media Literacy Strand that has been added to the Ontario Language Arts Curriculum .

I have added a shortened version of the project to give you a taste of the final project.  The original project was 17 minutes long.