July 19

Catalina Island - July 2012

It's already almost the end of another week of summer. I was down in southern California last week to take my son (the archeologist) to Catalina so he can participate in a dig. He will be there in connection with Sonoma State for six weeks.  There is a great web site describing the history of the island. The original people had a distinct lifestyle , "They called the Island Pimu and themselves Pimungan's (or Pimuvit's). They lived a hunter-gatherer life style, utilizing the island's abundant ocean and plant resources." You can read more at this site, Catalina Island at  http://www.ecatalina.com/history-catalina-facts.html. http://www.ecatalina.com/history-catalina-facts.html

Traffic in LA - July 2012

Catalina is a beautiful island. It is an hour and forty-five minute boat ride to get there from Long Beach. However, I must say that after my visit to southern California, I like northern California much better. The thing I noticed most was that the trees in the south look very sad and droopy. 

I spent some time working on a digital story that was completed during summer school. I decided that it would be better if students weren't recognized as themselves. I had some fun with Photoshop touching up some pictures. I thought you might enjoy seeing what we did for fun, and it might inspire you to try doing something similar for summer extra credit. I'm trying to add the video to the blog. I'm not sure how it will work. Hopefully, someone can give me some feedback. The music is "Tybalt's Anger Management" by Todd Barton from Romeo & Juliet Remix. I purchased it in Ashland, Oregon, at the Shakespeare Festival several years ago.  

I'm working on another digital story from summer school. It's called "Pignapped". It was written and illustrated by many of the students in the Digital Storytelling class. I found the Movie Maker program at school to be difficult to use and then I lost some of the work we had done. I've had to recreate some of it. The Windows Live Movie Maker is much easier to use. As soon as I get it done, I'll share it on the blog.

Kind regards!

Mrs. Watson