Monthly Archives: April 2016

Overcoming the Fear of Public Speaking *Archived*

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Background

The story revolves around an intern who begins working at JNN Networks as an Intern Assistant to the anchor Deborah Anderson. They work on a top secret for the duration of the internship leading up to the taping date. On the day of the taping, Deborah is nowhere to be found until director John Michael receives a phone call notifying him that Deborah will not be able to tape the segment. The temp anchor tries to learn the topic and lines but struggles. Until the director ask the intern, Louanne since she knows the topic to come on camera and participate in the segment. Will Louanne conquer her fear of public speaking or will she give in to her fear?

Click to explore Louanne’s Story

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ReflectionĀ 

When I first discovered that I would be creating a project with HTML, I wanted to cry. When I hear the word HTML, I think of websites, letters and symbols without any meaning. Oh boy was I mistaken. Creating a story within the HTML story interface was a unique and satisfying experience. Truth being told, I don’t like learning complicated software, if I had my choice I would never learn it but I don’t have my choice so I choose to learn it. I guess I feared it at first and naturally I did not want to do it. After weeks of creating the flowchart and playing around with the HTML notepad, I began to open up to learning a new tool. At first, I found it to be incredibly overwhelming and I wanted to give up right then and there but Professor Ellis was so kind to believe in me which I appreciated. The project turned out to be a lot of fun. I enjoyed creating a website, a least having the little background knowledge about how to build a site from scratch. I must say that I have a entirely new appreciate for website developers and will never look at another website the same ever again.

In long run, I appreciate the breakdown of the project. I was introduced to the different aspects of the project and it was scaffold ed which I loved. I would definitely recommend continuing to offer a project like this because it challenges students even when they don’t want to be challenged. I really loved this project.

 

Project #4 – The Fear of Giving Criticism

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Managers have a responsibility to lead and motivate their staff effectively to reach their full potential. Being able to give and receive critical feedback without fear is crucial but managers resist giving negative feedback because they donā€™t want to hurt their employees feelings. Even harder for a manager is to criticize his or her own boss. This can be seen as a being insubordinate and have lasting effects. Yet, the only way to improve is to provide a clear picture of the situation and offer clear solutions to the problem.

This module is targeted towards managers and highlights important aspects of critical resolution. Even the best managers need to hear when things are not going correctly and need to be reviewed. The user will have a chance to engage in the module by first reading about the scenario of Roger, a middle-manager and choosing certain outcomes for a selection of choices.

Training Module for Managers

Reflection

This project was once again a challenge for me. Yet coding is something I am interested in and the ability to create compelling webpages is a very useful skill to have. also creating something quite new using methods I have never used before really allowed me to push myself. My goal for this project was to create something that others could actually use and that would be of a help.

First of all, it was very helpful having a starting point. Developing on the idea of criticism was the starting point and made the process a whole lot easier. I knew that I wanted to create a training module but I wanted it to be a little different. So I decided to make managers the focus of my module and therefore, my target audience. These are managers in a middle-management position so they have staff who they are responsible for and a boss who they answer to. I wanted to not do the usual boss criticizing their own staff but investigate what a boss could do to criticize his or her own boss. I felt that this is not an issue commonly dealt with when writing about criticism. Ā 

Being introduced to Notepad ++ programming was interesting and I found that it was well suited the assignment and remarkably easy to use. Then came the challenge of using the Hypertext MarkUp Language (HTML) which I found to be very useful. First, I used the Dia Diagram to create a flowchart of my module. Secondly, I created a folder to store the code and began coding. I wanted to build a decent webpage that would really reflect my concepts of a module while learning the basics of coding.
I designed the module to start with an overview of the problem and followed by a scenario and several choices that the user can choose. Based on the choices, there are conditions to consider and outcomes for each choice. Although no answer is perfect, the third choice provides the best outcome.

The Adventures of Theo the Cat (Project 4)

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Play the Adventures of Theo the Cat!

SUMMARY

Ever wonder what you cat does while you’re at work all day? In this playful and interactive story about Theo the house cat you can navigate through a typical day. Help Theo get through the day and make sure you don’t break anything or get into mischief!

This narrative aims to teach the user about cat mannerisms and habits that we may not even realize our cat has. Though they’re on the more independent end of the domestic pet spectrum cats are still affection seeking creatures and they miss us too! Take a step by step look with Theo and then check out the kitty gallery at the end!

REFLECTION

Creating project four was the most challenging but has been my favorite to date. I set out with one concept in mind but later changed it because fitting the story and some form of graphic together proved to be too complex and unending. My new concept was centered around my cat Theo and showcasing or educating people about cat mannerisms. By combining pictures and scenarios that are common to cats the user gets to navigate through a life in the day of a house cat. When composing my story, both the original and second one I was picturing a kids audienceĀ or an audience who loves cats. The interactive aspect went through many phases and trials where I piloted a trio of choicesĀ vs. just two. Ultimately I decided three choices was too complex and confusing for the younger demographic of my target audience and narrowed it down to two. Instead however I added a gallery and about page to supplement information and aspects of interactivity.

For me the most involved aspect of this project was story mapping because although I mapped out and created a sequence when I was executing it in HTML I realized many things had to be moved or changed. This wasn’t all bad however because as I created and linked pages I was able to enhance and modify the user experience for the better. I also toyed with numerous color schemes and decided classic black and white was the way to go, it just looked cleaner and more professional. Overall I really enjoyed making this project and I look forward to displaying it in my portfolio.

Archiving “Tim The Titan and The Killer Klovers”

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To: Professor Ellis

From: Mariah Rajah

Date: 04/18/2016

Subject: HTML Project Reflection

 

This project was challenging in the sense that I have never worked much with HTML before. However, when I learned that it wasnā€™t as complicated as I thought it was I was able to create a project which I am quite proud of. At the beginning of the project when the concept was first introduced I found myself lost because I knew nothing much of HTML besides what I had practiced with back when Myspace.com was a thing. Since then, most of my websites I had not played around too much with the codes of backgrounds or anything or the sort. I just used preexisting, premade ones which worked out just fine for me until this project. With Professor Ellis, challenging us to create and use less premade functions I became quite frustrated until I found myself catching on what codes do what. By this step I was able to create and produce not only an immersive story but also a story that is participatory in my eyes. With time and more development I believe that these web pages can become a great component of my portfolio.

Visit the page:

timthetitan.neocities.org/

Beginning of Class Writing: Miller, Digital Storytelling, Video Games

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For today’s class, you read chapter 15 in Miller’s Digital Storytelling textbook. Write a summary memo about the reading and copy-and-paste it into a comment made to this blog entry. In your response, consider: what is the difference between narratology and ludology? What is a platform? What are some challenges of non-linear storytelling?

Beginning of Class Writing: Miller, Chapter 14, Using Digital Storytelling to Inform

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For today’s class, you read Miller’s Chapter 14, “Using Digital Storytelling to Inform.” Of course, this chapter has a lot of relevance for our current project and much of the kinds of work that you will do as PTW practitioners. Summarize your reading in a new memo, and copy-and-paste your summary into a comment made to this blog post during the first ten minutes of class.