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Final Update - 12/08/2017

As of today, I have completed my project and submitted my final report for evaluation.  Overall, I felt my project was a failure as it did not deliver what I would consider acceptable results.  The primary reason I feel this way is that I had very low participation in the lesson and believe that this may be the result of poor instructions on how to complete the class.  If I were to redo this course, I would put more detailed instructions on what the learner needs to accomplish and also include a means to reinforce that the lesson needs to be completed. With regards to the learners that did complete the lesson, two of them did meet the assessment requirements and were able to explain the key concepts in the video.  I don't think the video achieved its tertiary goal of inspiring either of them to want to learn more about mass spec, but they did walk away knowing what mass spec is about.  As for my third learner, and only remote learner, I did not get any feedb...
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Status Update - 12/01/2017

This week's status update is a big one as I have completed my video and am preparing to launch it to my audience.  I feel the overall quality of it is fine, but do admit it feels a little shallow in terms of actual information.  If I had more time and resources, I believe I would have fleshed out some of the information more and added one or two more animated videos to better convey some of the information. When it comes to the audience for my course, I am just sharing it with a few select friends and family.  Most of them do not have a background in chemistry, so I am not expecting the level of feedback I would receive from my co-workers.  If anything, I am expecting the feedback to focus more on the cosmetics of the course.  When it came to the audio track, I used a Blue Yeti microphone to record my script using Audacity.  Once each slide's audio was recorded, I would edit it in Audacity to remove background noise, mouse clicks, and the sound of me ta...
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Status Update - 11/24/2017

With the holiday this week, my progress on the final project was a bit slower than I would have preferred.  I primarily worked on writing the script for the audio that I will be recording this weekend to include in the video.  When it comes to the script, the biggest challenge has been deciding what level of detail to include in it.  Typically when I write a script for a course or video, I have a few SMEs review it but since this is a school project and not work related I don't have the same option.  Not a huge deal, but something I am thinking about has I progress with the project. As for the presentation, it is 90% complete and just needs a few more small adjustments.  I ended up borrowing an animation from a work project for one slide as I lack the technical skills to create such a complex image.  Since it is a generic image I had commissioned for a previous project, work didn't have any issue with me using it for my class project.  Below is an ...
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Status Update - 11/17/2017

With my project approved, I have begun the process of designing the PowerPoint (PP) presentation that I will incorporate into my YouTube video project.  The reason I am using PP is that is allows me to create basic animations to my video that couldn't be achieved with a simple slide deck. Below is an example of what one of the slides I am building looks like for this project.  I created the 4 phases diagram using SmartShapes in PP and an image of an ion.  Using animations, I am able to cause the first topic to move across the screen while the other three steps fade away to be discussed later in the video.  Since this is just a draft, I used SnagIt to do a quick video of the presentation running to show on the blog. 
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Project Proposal - Mass Spectrometry "Simplified"

I am proposing for my final project to do a short YouTube video that is a simple explanation of mass spectrometry (MS).  It is intended for learners who are not familiar with the science and only need a basic understanding of what it is and how it works.  The reason I am selecting this topic is that it is one I am familiar with and believe teaching it to the intended audience can be accomplished using a Web 2.0 technology. When it comes to the video, it will be broken into two sections.  The first section will be a brief discussion on the history of the methodology to review when it was invented and some of the ways in which it is used today.  It will also briefly talk about mass-to-charge ratios and their importance in mass spec. The second section of the video will break the methodology into four components.  The first component will talk about how ions are generated.  The second component will be how ions are moved from the point of generation to the...
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Location: Plainfield, IL, USA
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