Blog Archives

Google Hangout with Guadalajara

8/29/2013

Today we had the wonderful opportunity to skype with students in Guadalajara who take one class that sums up the entire concept of Innovation Academy.

These students were very excited to talk to us and showed great interest on our Innovation Academy. I felt very motivated and happy to hear their comments and to connect to other students who are passionate and interested in the same things we are. They had very interesting questions and opinions, one of the kids asked how can we help each other with our projects? As I was reflecting about this I thought about how cool would it be for them to comment in our blogs and give us feedback, and for us to do the same thing for them. It is a great idea to connect with each other more often and ask for help and feedback on our projects and websites since we learn different things, come from different cultures and have different experiences We can learn from each other and come up with really cool projects that we might be able to work together even though we are in separate countries. I am excited for the next google hangout meeting.

The discussion was great, however, I was also able to realize that I need to work on my oral skills, not because my english is weak but I need to ask more questions, be inquisitive, I also need to speak up more (I have been getting better).

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Storytelling

8/26/2013

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There are two important components that make a good story, telling an anecdote in sequence of actions and having a moment of reflection. From Ira Glass Storytelling video I learned some important concepts that will help me with my future story time videos, the break articles and my TED Talk.

No matter how boring your anecdote is if you present a sequence of events and include reflection moments the story will become more alive and therefore grab the audience attention. In my next Story Time video I will include moments of reflection by having an anchor talk about the different things people have said about ICC, this will allow me to sum one idea up and make a smooth and easy transition.

Another important aspect of story telling is giving the audience a reason to care. We always talk about how important is quality over quantity but does quality matter if you are not serving or contributing to the audiences needs. When creating a story or even a product we have to think about "keeping the promise the customer wants you to make" (Seth Godin).

Finally the most important thing is to be natural and be your own self. Imitating people who you revere or admire isn't fun because their style becomes too repetitive, people want new and unique styles.

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Photography Workshop

8/24/2013

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I've own a professional camera for a long time now, I love it because it takes amazing quality pictures but the truth is that I hadn't taken advantage of all the cool things you can adjust and change to take even cooler pictures. Today we had a small workshop with Gabriel Barreto who taught us about aperture, speed shutter and ISO. This three settings help you adjust the light in different ways so you can have a better quality image or video, it allows you to increase the light focus
and have a cleaner image.

Aperture

Large Aperture: focuses on one single object or thing allowing you to make the background blurry. This creates a more intimate effect because it makes the audience concentrate and only pay attention to one thing. Large aperture is usually used when there is little light.

Short Aperture: focuses the entire image, it doesn't make anything blurry and it gives you an entire clean shot of all the setting. Short aperture is usually used when there is a lot of light.

Speed Shutter

Fast Shutter Speed: It's used when we have a lot of light.

Slow Stutter Speed: It's used when we have little light, especially at night. We should be using a tripod otherwise the image will move and we want to capture all the possible light.

When holding the camera the maximum shutter speed should be 60.

ISO

A lower ISO will produce a higher quality image but you need more light. When manipulating ISO we sometimes get grainy images so we have to be careful not to go over 100. If more light is needed it is better to adjust aperture or shutter speed instead.

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Learning Premiere Pro CC

8/22/2013

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Today I had one of the coolest learning experiences. I've always been passionate on editing and filmmaking, the only things is that I've only experience and worked with iMovie, a great program but it's very limited for editing to a certain extent. Sara arranged a workshop so that we could learn a new program for editing called Premiere, a program that allows you to go above and beyond with editing, it allows you to do very cool things.

Learning Premiere was a little challenging because it had different settings, options and tools different from iMovie and I had never experienced using before while editing. First we learned the basics, the teachers taught us how to insert clips and how to cut and select the specific parts you need. The advantage of Premiere is that it allows you to cut more specifically the unnecessary parts of the footage, using the cutter and allows you to be more precise. Then I learned how create effective transitions for audio and for clips. Jouse also taught us the short cuts for the different tools used in Premiere, by learning them it saves you time, instead of taking the time to look for the tools. He showed us a couple of cool effects for the films and also how to insert text, film clips of pictures in top of other footage. Finally he taught us how to import the movie properly, with the correct settings and quality.

After learning the basics of Premiere Jouse taught us how to edit when using chroma screen. Editing with chroma can be really easy and cool if the film clip is well made meaning that the setting and the person or people, you have to make camera do the same movement when filming setting and character, otherwise when joining the clips is not going to be real and we want it to be as realistic as possible. The only thing you need to do is look for the keying effect then ultra keying, in the key color option you select the background (green or blue) color and then it's deleted. You place this clip after the setting clip or setting picture and then you can adjust the size and opacity of the person or the people.

I had a great time today, I was very motivated and engaged in the class and I can't wait to edit my next "Story Time" video using Premiere.

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Story Time is finally out!

8/20/2013

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Finally we released or first video, Story Time, I am excited to continue producing and learn more about editing and filmmaking!

FDR secondary secondary students, our campus is full of great stories and the innovation academy wants to share them all in film, please email, Facebook or send us a message in Twitter. Share your stories!

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Field trip to Innova Schools and Interbank Explora

8/19/2013

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Today we visited Innova Schools and Interbank Explora. Both of this places have innovated their spaces in order to foster the education of their students and for the commodity and comfort of their clients.

While visiting Innova Schools Jorge, the founder, explain us about his project and purpose of Innova Schools. Something I really liked about what he had developed is how children that are younger they have more group learning but as they grow older, gain knowledge and experience they begin to have more independent learning. During our visit I was able to visualize many cool things Jorge had incorporated and that we had considered for our innovative space. We saw the glass whiteboards, they we very cool, and the white board doors in the middle of the room. This doors could be a very good idea for our class, specially when we brainstorm and we give ideas. Their architecture is very interesting, everything he has incorporated has a purpose and specific function.

Visiting Interbank Explora was a very cool experience. Today I realized that organizing and designing a space is not easy, a lot of though has to go behind the planning because every small aspect makes a difference and an impact.

Interbank Explora is a trail agency, here the Interbank Innovators try out different things, chairs, counters, information displays, offices and more, to see which things are more effective and what clients like the best. Interbank realized that the people didn't like going to the bank, because they felt unsafe, they got bored and they hated long lines. So they went through the design thinking, tackled the problem and brainstorm for possible solutions. Once the ideas are all out they build a prototype and test it the Interbank Explora agency.

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Ready to release our first video

8/15/2013

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Today was extremely productive day, after receiving the feedback on the first draft of the video I realized that things don't always end as expected so it's good to plan and leave time for feedback and to improve the video. As I edited what my peers had told me to improve my group filmed the missing footage.

Finally as I received all the footage I put everything together with the help of Gisella who has experience editing as well. Even though I stayed up late I am very proud of the video we've created. It was worth making the changes, our video looks very professional.

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Producing our first video

8/14/2013

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Today we started working on our first video for Story Time! My group separated into different roles so we could be more productive. First we begun by planning our video and how to structure it. We had the most important part since we had to tell "our story", what is the Innovation Academy and what do we do. I feel that many people think that we don't do anything and that we chill all day but through this video we are going to be able to prove them that we are much more and how hard we work. We learn differently but we still work very hard.

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Trello

8/13/2013

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For those of you who don't know Trello is an amazing online tool that helps you organize everything together. From ideas to schedules to events.

Today I learned about Trello and how to use it in order to help me and the Innovation Academy stay organize. By creating new boards you can separate projects, events or ideas and then you can edit every board to organize it more specifically. Something very cool about Trello is that you can invite people to join a board. For us, in the Innovation Academy, Trello is super useful since we all share different boards and we can organize our projects like The Break articles, by separating the story ideas, stories that need to be edited and stories that need to be published. We organize ourselves better and help out the editors who need to correct and publish the articles every thursday.

If you are having trouble organizing and keeping up with all the things and ideas you have in mind use Trello. It is easy, it is fast and it is online!

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Story Time!

8/12/2013

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Sean Anchor

Happiness leads to success. People think that if we work harder then we will become more successful and therefore be more happy. No, it is the opposite way. Sean Anchor said much of who you are comes from how you think and what your perspective is about things. If we are happy about what we do and how we do things then our brain is going to think positive. This allows the brain to perform better, we become more creative and energetic. This connects to what Randy said, if you are not happy with your your product then the costumers are not going to like it. From Anchor's Ted Talk I learned some tips that make you happier by doing positive things.
-3 gratitudes
-Journaling
-Exercise
-Meditation
-Meditation
-Random acts of kindness
My goal this week is to use these tips to have a more positive so I can be more successful on the things I do.

I also learned that story telling is a very powerful skill that we should all master. It will be the # business skill. " By telling a story you make it more memorable to the audience, it's a way to make an impact and stick in people's minds to ditch the small talk, learn how to unspool meaningful narratives". This is why as a class we've chosen to make the Roosevelt newscast story time, here we will share news and updates about things that are happening in our campus through stories.

Filming "Story Time"!

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