In my first assessment piece for ETL 523 – Digital Citizenship, I researched and created a web guide on developing a personal learning network (PLN) through social networking sites.
Whilst I feel I am already a digital citizen, this piece forced me out of my comfort zone. Before engaging with this subject, I had never actively developed my PLN, and whilst I had a LinkedIn and Facebook, I had not used Twitter. Furthermore, for the creation of my digital content, I chose to record a video. Again, I challenged myself, in learning to edit videos with a new movie maker – Davinci Resolve.
Firstly, the creation of my Twitter account led me to ask numerous questions, such as:
- How do you decide if something is important to share?
- How do you decide between sharing (retweeting), liking or commenting on a post?
These questions helped direct me in the development of my web guide.
Using Davinci Resolve in itself was a problem I had to overcome. I have edited videos before with iMovie, however, never with Davinci Resolve. With a firm understanding of what a PLN is and how to develop it, I sought tutorials and tips from professionals who use Davinci Resolve daily to edit videos. This involved expanding my PLN to include YouTube and personal blogging sites.
Since I did not know anything about the program, the use of my PLN was (and I say this modestly) a success. I was able to import and cut media, insert fancy and professional-looking titles, import pictures and import and adjust audio levels. My understanding and use of the software developed, to the point where I am extremely proud of the video.
I came across a particularly difficult situation, whereby when exporting an error occurred after exporting only 18 seconds. Through the use of my PLN, I was able to overcome this challenge and export my completed video.
To put this in context, I ran a spelling bee house competition in December 2020. I filmed the competition with plans to share the filming with parents and the community. I was instructed by the Director of Technology, to try Davinci Resolve, as it worked best with the camera I was using. I was able to import my videos, however, beyond that and with my full-time teaching load, I was unable to progress any further. Since then the videos have remained stagnant on my laptop. Now I possess the knowledge and confidence to attack these videos, just in time for the end of our school year.