Introduction: Thank Yuen!

The following is a brief description of IT644 taken from my course information section of our class' social network site. "Advanced Hypermedia Development: IT 644 is an advanced course in the development and use of interactive, animated hypermedia products for use in instructional design projects, lectures, presentations, and multimedia events. There is an emphasis on producing applications incorporating text, audio, graphics, animation and digitized video which effectively communicate to the user."

It644 was my first class taken in my Masters program at USM. My professor was a remarkable gentleman by the name of Dr. Steve Yuen. I was very impressed by his command of the subject matter and how up-to-date he was on all the new applications. Dr. Yuen also presents the information with enthusiasm that made me want to learn as much as I could. Because of this I took away a lot from this class. The applications I was introduced to, I was able to use right away in my 9th Grade STEM class, other applications will most assuredly will be integrated into my curriculum in the upcoming school year. Dr. Yuen's philosophy of learning new technology by "having to play with it to learn it" is something I believe in and fully understand to be true. This is also a lesson that I will pass on to my students. We live in a technology driven world, but not everything works correctly the first time you try it. Information is being presented to my students at light speed, and they have become conditioned to that fast pace to the point that they sometimes think that technology does not take effort or practice. Dr. Yuen's fair and practical teaching approach to the applications covered in this course helped me to pass along to my students the idea that not everything is instantaneous and sometimes you need to practice, practice, practice!

Overall I enjoyed my time in this class. I learned a lot that can be used immediately to differentiate my learning strategies. What I have learned will also, I feel, increase in the assignment interest level of student as well as the teacher. It is my utmost goal to make my class a virtual class with up to date technology. In this class we covered digital imaging, including capturing and manipulating the images; digital audio, including recording narration and importing music, as well as manipulating digital recordings; digital video, including video capturing and editing; computer tutorials, including still image turorials and video tutorials; presentation software, and animation. Looking back over all of the lessons, it is hard to pick out which I liked the most or which I may use the most. I think this shows how useful all of the information is, because it is all applicable in my day-to-day and professional (teaching) life.