Monthly Archives: February 2016

Project 2, Execution Memo

During today’s class, begin writing a memo about your plan of action for filming and editing your YouTube video. Where do you plan to film? Who will be helping you? How will you be editing? We will reserve some time during our next class for me to help in any way needed to move your projects forward. Post your execution memo as a comment to this blog entry before our next class.

Beginning of Class Writing: Beginning of Class Writing: Miller’s Digital Storytelling, Chapter 6: Characters, Dialogue, and Emotion

During today’s class, we will start with your beginning of class writing assignment, discuss the reading, and then turn our attention to your scripts and storyboards for Project 2. With the remaining class time, you can plan the execution of your video (filming, editing, etc.) and record it in a brief memo.

To begin, spend the first ten minutes of class writing a summary memo of your reading from Chapter 6, “Characters, Dialogue, and Emotion.” This chapter is packed with information, which we will review together momentarily. For now, memorialize what you took away from the chapter as being important or useful information. Did you think of examples from your own experience that connect to the different topics in the chapter? Make a note of these in your summary and tell us about them during discussion and lecture.

Project 2, Structure

Before class on Monday, Feb. 29, write your YouTube video script and draw your storyboard. Remember, the script should capture setting, action, edits, and dialog, and your storyboard should depict the video shots you need to capture to create your video. By thinking through your digital video story with the aid of these documents, it will give you a solid plan for capturing and editing your video, which saves you time and energy later in the process. Put another way, measure twice and cut once.

Bring five printed copies of your script and storyboard to class on Monday, Feb. 29, and copy-and-paste your script (text) into a comment to this blog post. Save the PDF of your storyboard for your completed project in your portfolio.

Beginning of Class Writing: Miller’s Digital Storytelling, Chapter 5, Old Tools/New Tools

During the first ten minutes of class, write and post a summary memo of Chapter 5 from Miller’s Digital Storytelling as a comment to this blog entry. Consider how you can connect some of the topics discussed about storytelling tools and your observation/experience of them in contemporary media. Can you name some examples?

Project 2, Planning

Before our next class, complete your planning memo for Project 2 (available under the Projects menu above) and copy-and-paste it into a comment made to this blog post. Instructions are included below.

Planning: Think of at least two fiction stories that you could tell in this project, and write a brief memo (approximately 250 words) describing the two possible fiction stories that you would like to tell in this project, and explaining why, of the two possible choices, you selected the one that you did. Post this as a comment to OpenLab. Also, you should confirm that your YouTube account has a fully formed profile with profile image that fits into your interconnecting online professional image/brand, which of course, you might change over time but it suffices to have a profile in place that you might decide to change later. Also, all students should subscribe to one another’s YouTube channels and Professor Ellis’ channel (www.youtube.com/dynamicsubspace). (in-class Feb 22)

Due to the extra work required for this project, it is recommended that you continue with the next modules, which we will devote some of our next class to working on, too. Good luck!

Beginning of Class Writing: Miller’s Digital Storytelling, Chapter 4, Interactivity

Let’s use the first ten minutes of class today to write summary memos on your reading for today’s class: Miller’s Digital Storytelling, Chapter 4, Interactivity and Its Effects. As you write your summary of the reading, you should note examples of interactivity that you have experienced or know about that we can discuss when we discuss the chapter. Post your memo as a comment to this blog entry.

Tasting Success: An Intern’s Journey

 

Reflection

The first project of the semester was so much fun! I enjoyed the project immensely. The Twitter project afforded me a chance to craft and participate in a non fiction storytelling via the platform and incorporate multimedia. I loved every bit of it! As I look back, one of the hardest moment I struggled with was deciding on a subject to discuss, there were so many important stories that I wanted to share. In the end, I decided to talk about attaining a summer internship in a field that was unfamiliar to me and talk about the struggles and triumphs that it comes with and how I discovered myself in the long run. I really enjoyed sharing my story because many of my classmates are dealing with similar issues and I hope to be a resource for them. After completing the project I realized that I had social media strategy to share my story nor did I have any target audience. But I do think that I was successful in delivering my story because I received user engagement on Twitter from my classmates, Professor Ellis, as well as the social media manager of Indeed— which was really cool! I used a few hashtags and was expecting an increase in my impressions but I was unsuccessful. My task for this semester is to build a following on my professional Twitter page where I can interact with industry leaders, connect with unique socialites and network network network!

 

Analytics

For the Twitter project I went back and forth on whether or not I should use my already established account or create a new account, in the end I ended up creating a new Twitter account. Looking back, I believe if I had used my previous account with my 200 plus followers I would have had a much stronger user engagement apart from my classmates and would have received a surge in impressions. This was a fun exercise because building a Twitter persona from scratch is not easy. This may seem like a daunting task but I am completely ready for a challenge.

Embarkment on a Vegetarian Path

Reflection:

This was a very engaging and interactive experiement. I enjoyed expressing myself through my writing the series of tweets and experiencing it through different mediums has made it more and exciting. It bacame a way of sharing my story with a larger audience who may be primary vegetarians and vegans, and secondary, really anyone who has an interest in making that change. Allowing my audience to know me in a quick yet personal way quite challenging. Also challenging was going beyond the limitations of Twitter to turn a few tweets into a powerful tool where the story is divided over several tweets while keeping it cohesiveness. Learning this technique has added a new dimension to tweeting and it made me look at tweets as not just individual messages but connected to a larger spread of information.  I feel that my experience was a success and the feedback was quite positive.This only makes me want to experience more in different ways. It was interesting to think that if the tweets were posted over several days or even weeks, would the audience come along for the journey? I also feel that the audience are now a part of a large collaboration with me and can engage in the writing, editing, publishing, and reading stories.

Analytics:

Being new to Twitter, other than using it last semester in class and previously for class projects, the idea of posting it all over and linking it to other sites is quite new to me. I posted 15 posts which contained 3 photos. I find that the photos increase the likes and the discussions even more than just the text. My analytics is low because I have a lot to learn about optimizing my tweets for user engagement but this is a challenge I will happily participate in.

Archiving “Moving While Gaining Momentum”

https://twitter.com/MariahRaj/status/700107514759811073