With all the speechifying going on during the presidential campaign season, the kids and I have gotten an idea for a new project.  We know that it is a good thing to be able to speak well in public, but, other than when we give our testimonies in church, we really do not have much opportunity to hone our skills.  We have decided we would try our hand at some video blogging.  It dawned on me when we came up with the idea that we follow almost exactly the same procedure every time we want to learn something new.  We did it many of our academic pursuits when the kids were little–math, reading, handwriting, etc.  We also did it with hobbies–knitting, drawing, cartooning, computer programming, etc.  The process we follow is the following:

  1. Just dive in and start doing it, even if we do it badly.
  2. Start buying books on the subject.
  3. Read through the books together.
  4. Use the new things we learn during our reading as we go.
  5. When we do something that does not come out so well, try to remember it takes a lot of practice to get better and realize that, even if it is bad, it is still better than when we first started.
  6. Laugh about how bad we were when we first started.
  7. If we REALLY like something, start over again at step 2 with some more advanced material.

So, to get us started, I have ordered three books from Amazon. The first book, Broadcast Voice Handbook, covers the use of one’s voice for broadcast media.  The reviews said it was a good book for those who are speakers of English as a foreign language, so it should be great for Lorena as well as Kelly, Christian, and I.  We will start with that book because it is supposed to arrive a couple of weeks before the other two.  The second book is titled It Takes More than Good Looks to Succeed at TV News Reporting.  It is about how to write broadcast television news reports.  It got great reviews.  I was a little discouraged with the title because it says it takes more than good looks…  That is great with Lorena, Kelly, and Christian, but some of us do not even start with the most basic necessity and it take MORE than that.  We will read that second.  The last book is titled Sound and Look Professional on TV and the Internet.  It is about the actual video presentation of the material after it is written.  The should at least get us started and give us some ideas.

In the meantime, we have decided to just go for it.  Kelly has written her first report that we plan to video this weekend and put up on Monday or Tuesday.  Stay tuned.  If it is really good, that is great, but if it is really bad, out of our ignorance, we might not even know it.  At least we have a plan on how to get better.

June 25, 2004 – Putting up our sign
June 28, 2004 – Going away potluck

Update for Ruthie:

Another update: I found Poetry Out Loud. It looks very, very cool. Thanks for the tip. This looks like it would be a great thing in which to participate.