It's easy once you know what you are doing

Once I figured out what I was doing, the animation and audio were not difficult tasks.
My first try with animation was not correct. However, I did get early practice with movie maker. My idea for what to animate was not the best either. I struggled with what to animate. English does not show processes like science or math. I settled on the short story "Harrison Bergeron." In this story people who excel at something are given handicaps to counter act their strength. Since Harrison is strong, he must carry around weights. His other gifts are also handicapped. He rebels against this. My animation showed the process of "handicapping" Harrison. To show this was not difficult, but it did take some time. I had to find the right image and size it correctly. I then had to create the text. Setting the timing on the animation took some time. With so many images on the screen, it was difficult to capture the image to set the animation. After doing this, I had to set the timer to change slides. Again, this was not difficult but I did have to practice & rehearse to get it just right. I am pleased with my final product.
The audio proved to be more frustrating and time consuming. Again, once I knew what & how to do it, it was very simple. I bought a microphone to use and downloaded Audacity and got started. My first problem was that the mic would not pick up my voice unless I spoke directly into it. This caused me to get feedback on the recording. I tried adjusting the settings, but nothing helped. I went forward even though the recording wasn't a very good quality. My next obstacle was converting it to an mp3 file. I sent 15 minutes or so searching for the program to encode the file. I wasn't satisfied with the product so I went to find another mic. The salesman assured me the mic would pick up within three feet. I went home to try it and had the same problems as before. However, this mic came with instructions for trouble shooting. The instructions suggested checking the mic volume settings. It was then that it occurred to me that I not only had to adjust not only the settings in Audacity but also through the control panel. I did this and played around with different settings. After about 15 minutes, I found the settings I wanted. With this done it took me less than 10 minutes to do the audio. My audio is a demonstration on how students can monitor their own reading. I can see doing more of these for my students. Many of my students only "call words" when they read. They don't know how to think about what they are reading, these demonstrations will help them.