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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Reflection 

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.

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 audience or an audience who loves cats. The interactive aspect went through many phases and trials where I piloted a trio of choices 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.

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 wasn’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/

During the first ten minutes of class, quickly write your summary memo of Miller’s Chapter 16, “The Internet” in Digital Storytelling. We will discuss it after you have posted your responses and then transition to building your HTML-based digital stories.

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?

Copy-and-paste your details memo for Project 4 into a comment made to this blog entry. We will use this document today to create the Structure document.

Over the weekend, you wrote your Project 4 planning document. Please copy-and-paste this document into a comment made to this blog post. We will use class time to work on the next step in the project.

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.