Medium Specificity

I used the app Unfold as my medium. It's designed for Instagram stories, but I wanted to see what other purposes it might have. I got this idea because I had made Instagram stories of pictures of md my boyfriend, but I wanted a way of putting them all together as almost like an online scrapbook. I first made a "story" on Unfold of all the picture collages/pages I had made so far. Unfold offers a variety of templates to use, up to 5 pictures in a variety of layouts, in addition to some with words and without. There is also the option to add text, stickers, and change the color of the "page." You can duplicate the page, in addition to switching the order of the pages.
I loved being able to explore how to format the pictures within each page. You could zoom in, switch the picture location, and adjust the filters of the pictures. One thing that I didn't like was while you could choose which picture went in the predetermined location, you couldn't move those around on the page, or make the pictures larger than what was already created. It was really fun because I had a lot of creativity, but after several pages I wanted to have more creativity, and that wasn't available to me. There is the option to upgrade for a fee, but I didn't want to pay for it. I'm sure that if I had upgraded there would be more options for me, but after some research it looked simply like more templates and filters available.
The piece I created is part of my Valentine's Day gift for my boyfriend. It functions as a celebration of this media form, Unfold. I also used the screen recording feature on my iPhone because while I was able to download individual pages, and even the full story, it only downloaded them as individual files or pictures, and I wanted to create a video. When I complete this project (because it is incomplete and hopefully you noticed that), I want to finish adding the memories from each set of pictures (which I didn't do for a class project), and I will add whatever pictures we take from now until Valentine's Day. In addition, my final piece will probably be an iMovie piece because I will add music, and I may add transitions and format it differently than with my screen recording.
I thought it was really valuable to learn how to use this medium because it showed me how I can use things above and beyond their intended purpose, in addition to teaching me how students can use digital media forms for a variety of reasons, not only the ones that I may think of. And while this project was supposed to focus on one medium in specific, by focusing on this medium I was able to see what benefits it had to offer, but also what it lacked. I have used iMovie on several occasions, and I believe that by integrating these two platforms together I will achieve my desired result. I want to teach my students that while I will give them as many resources as I can, and hopefully everything they need to be successful, they should also take what they know and what they have learned and bring them to the table. Media is plentiful and full of interesting treasures, and I want my students to feel like they can go looking for it.