Reflection Blog

I have learned a ton in this class. Being a communications major it is absolutely vital that I learn how to do a bunch of this stuff for my career. At some points during this class I wanted to kill the Mac computers, mostly because (yes I will admit it) operator malfunction. Perhaps this is because I had never even signed onto a Mac, but in general there was a huge learning curve for all of us involved with the Mac's, and that might be extremely beneficial in the future. As far as the final project goes- it has been both challenging and rewarding from the beginning. One of the challenging things is the fact that I am completely addicted to NCIS, and I have done a lot of work with it this semester. Because of this my original remix was speaking to an audience that was very familiar with NCIS and I was very attached to my clips, making the whole thing about 20 minutes long. Clearly this didn't work for the audience I was going for, so I took a suggestion from work shopping and made it into a website. That presented a whole different set of issues. Macs and PC's don't get along when it comes to websites- we found that out a little late in the game- so it didn't turn out exactly how we had expected. Also websites are EXTREMELY picky about their links which is understandable, but still very annoying. Then the videos were not showing up- nor did they ever, which is certainly not from a lack of trying on both Stephanie and my part, and my fiance's for that matter. If I could go back and change something I think I would force the video to work and possibly add something about the rise in popularity of forensic science shows and the effect that has on society today. I talked a little bit about that in my paper for my other class but I didn't have time to add to the website with all the problems that come up before it was due. In the remix project I learned a lot about how to operate iMovie and make a good argument in less than 5 minutes- which definitely prepared me for the remix part of my final project, even if they didn't show up on the website. Although the website was really annoying at times I would like to continue to learn more about them because I think the more I learn about them, the better and easier they will become. I would like to possibly make a website where Matthew and I can show pictures of our wedding and maybe even a live stream of the wedding itself for those people in our family that don't come- because our wedding is going to be on a cruise and our grandparents won't be able to come because of health problems, but they do have Internet access. They could potentially watch the wedding and look at photos etc. That doesn't even touch on the career opportunities that would open up if I was familiar with websites design. It would definitely be challenging and rewarding work to do. My final project showcases my abilities as a media maker in many ways. For one when I began this class I was somewhat scared of the computers, especially because they were Macs. After the wiki I somewhat understood how to put stuff on the web, the PSA will be really helpful if I go into radio- or even advertising for that matter. The remix project helped me out the most because a big part of my final project. The challenge for the website was huge. I had no clue how to even begin to make a website and now I know a lot. I am proudest about the fact that in the end all of my links worked within my website and each of the background colors symbolize something- which I thought was very creative. Each of the color symbols are as follows: Ducky- red with white text because he always has a red pock-a-dotted bow tie which contributes to his personality. Abby- black with red text because she is Gothic- and that makes up for a huge part of her personality. Tony- silver/grey background with black text because he used to have a prized car that color that he adored. Ziva- sand colored background because she is from Israel, and that is a huge part of the show. Gibbs- dark green background with lighter green text because he has been a Marine since he was eighteen- and those are similar to the colors Marines wear(I couldn't use brown for the text because it was too hard to read). And finally, last but certainly not least is McGee, which is a simple black and white because he is a computer programmer, and everything must be black on white paper.
My project has the underlying argument that each of the characters in NCIS present specific ideologies that effect it's viewers. My project is significant because there are millions of people that watch this show religiously, but there has been very little academic stuff written that analyzes it- and that is very important for show that is this popular.

Final Project Blog #10

The workshopping we did today really helped me in ironing out the details. First of all where to cut my clips was really helpful because that seems to be one of my week points on most of these projects. I get so wrapped up into driving the point home I forget how long the clip really is. After someone said that Abby was in a lot of the clips I started looking for clips that had more Ducky and less Abby. Unfortunately most of the clips I found on YouTube involved Abby. The fact that she has a ton of clips on You Tube makes perfect sense because she has A LOT of fans out there. After hearing everyone's reponse to my project I realized that most of the people in the class have never heard of NCIS, much less watched an episode- which changes my audience more than I thought it would. Because I am doing my project for two classes my audience needs to be redefined, because clearly NCIS doesn't target college students. Becausde of that I think I will take a suggestion made in class- which is break each remix into a seperate character and then do a wiki page on it. That or a website. This way I can do some deeper descriptions of each character- including some background information, and explain what ideologies they represent, and then people can watch my video. This broadens my audience because like Stephanie said people that already know a lot about NCIS can just go to the remix, and the people that don't can read a little background information first. This will also solve the problem I was having with transitions between characters. I will definitely need help for a website if I decide to do that because I have never made a website before and at this point I am on a bit of a timeline. I have to present this project in my other class next week, and considering we are workshopping everyone's stuff this week, our time is short. I need to find out if I can just finish the iMovie project I am working on and then be able to split it up by each character- or if I have to reimport each clip into seperate iMovie projects and re-edit them- which would not be very efficient or fun. I also need help with my volume levels, because I have no clue how to fix them in iMovie. Whatever happens I know the workshopping really helped me figure out a lot of grey areas! So thanks everyone!

Director's Commentary on Remix

I chose to remix the song "Letters From Home" by John Michael Montgomery with its original video and still photos. Originally I wanted to simply highlight the communications the deployed military troops use to keep in contact with family back in the U.S.A. After workshopping however, I decided that I really needed to add to my argument with more, different photos and less video. I still wanted to keep my general idea of communication between troops and loved ones, but I added how important it is to communicate with the troops whether you communicate with a family member in the military or not. I also began to think of the general support this country provided for the troops when we started the war, directly after the World Trade Center was attacked- and now. On September 11th this year there was very little recognition of what happened a mere eight years ago. Whether you support the war or not is irrelevant when it comes to supporting our troops because they sacrifice more than most of us can even imagine- sometimes this includes their life. This is why I added the quote at the beginning "We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude." ~Cynthia Ozick. My uncle has been in the military for over 20 years and he is on his fourth tour to Iraq. The conditions the men and women that serve our country live in while deployed is nothing desirable. We send a care package to him as often as possible, and the number one thing he asks for is baby wipes because it is a rare occasion that he experiences the luxury of a shower. Considering the fact that most of us consider a shower every day a neccesity-we often don't give the soldiers fighting for us the gratitude they deserve. I did this remix project to remind all of us of what soldiers are doing and why they deserve our gratitude and a word of encouragment. We often get so wrapped up in our own lives enjoying our freedom we forget what an important job the soldiers are doing for us. This is why I added the pictures of the mother grocery shopping, the college kids in class and the farmer working. I contrasted them with multiple pictures of soldiers working and soldiers excitement and gratitude for the care packages and letters they received. I really wanted to show the difference in our every day lives and a day in the life of a soldier. The least we can do for these soldiers that put their life on the line daily is support them. I chose to do the entire song, even though it becomes a little repetitive because I really the song itself is a story- and when the father writes "Son, you make me proud" it showcases my call to action- because it doesn't have to be just family members supporting their soldier by writing- I could be anyone. I also added the pictures of soldiers reuniting with their families to show that they have families and loved ones just like the rest of us which makes it that much more important to drop them a line of positive encouragement supporting them so the time of seperation from their family passes as quickly as possible.

Blog #9

There are a variety of interactive media that we have learned to do as a class. Throughout the class I have really came to appreciate the user friendliness of Mac computers when it comes to dealing with media- especially iMovie. I love having the ability to cut, split and otherwise mangle my own work and other people's work to make an argument- whether it be for or against what the media form was originally saying. Because of my new found fondness of iMovie I would like to do some sort of remix/mash up of NCIS for my final project. I have just finished a research paper on NCIS and I think it would be interesting to extend my paper into a non traditional academic medium(I stole the previous term from Dr. Malach). In my paper I analyzed each character on NCIS and discussed how each one represents seperate ideologies. In this project I was thinking of analyzing one character, most likely Ziva or Gibbs- and maybe adding some music. I could also do a mash up of all the characters and showcase their stark contrasts. I noticed while doing research for my paper that there is a ton of fan culture stuff that I could just go wild with- but connecting that to my previous ideas might be a challenge. I would like to work alone unless there is someone else in the class that knows a lot about NCIS. I realize this is a very infant idea, but the topic is something I have commited a lot of my time to this semester. On the other hand I could do something completely different- like maybe do a mash up of sexual connotations Scrat (the squirrel) in Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs and another movie that is recognized for having some very adult sexual content. Here are a couple clips-one from NCIS and one from Ice Age.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP-xFvTIdNk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htev-XpND_k

I agree with Rojas on many different levels. First of all I thought it was interesting that Rojas mentioned that it would be a good idea for the record companies to not only allow bootlegging, mashups and remixes but to market it! What better way is there to sell more stuff than to make kits for remixing etc?! As a consumer of music and someone who is just getting introduced to the idea of remixing and bootlegging I would definitely buy kits that not only have technology to remix but also the coverage that the copyright cops aren't going to come after me! Not only that remixxing things sparks my interest in the original songs, so oftentimes I will look up the original songs and listen to them because then I understand the remix better! In this digital era marketers are having a hard time trying to figure out how to market to our generation because we block things out- so what better way to market your product than by connecting with something that we are already doing? The mashup I decided to post here takes two very different genres of music and mixes them into something that actually flows together very well. Both of the songs are talking about some difficult things in life that people deal with. Teen pregnancy, suicide, trying to make a living and be a good parent, and parent/child tension just to mention a few. I have heard What Hurts the Most by Rascal Flatts many times because I am a fan of country music- I had never heard the Eminem song before BUT because of the fact that someone mashed these songs together I have a greater appreciation for Eminem's music- something I never would have dreamed of before. While I will probably not ever be a huge fan of what people I know call "rap crap" I will look into more of Eminem's songs- which could benefit the record company in the long run in the event I decide to buy the CD.

Blog #7- Remixing

What a messy thing copyright is! And now that we have the internet the copyright world is going to end! While I do think the laws dealing with copyright is outdated the idea that credits shouldn't be given to the original author at all isn't acceptable. I think there should be some sort of balance for how much credit is given to the remixer and the original singer/songwriter. I think that if we "cited" our sources in remix projects, like we do in papers there shouldn't be such a huge issue about using copyrighted work. We haven't been allowed to use other people's writing without citing it, so why not do the same with video, remixxes, etc? Something that McLeod points out is that oftentimes we change the meanings of other peoples work when we remix it. But we also do that with our papers. We only quote little pieces of other pieces of work that showcase what we want to say- but what we want to say may be very different than what the author of the quote is saying. We should be able to use other people's work if we are doing something creatiely different with it. This video shows how one song can be connected to a lot of movies.

All of the movies showcased in this video are from Disney. In a lot of ways this mashup shows a very common ideology that are presented in a bunch of Disney movies. Love can conquer all, even if you argue at first. This mashup enables us to think about Disney movies in an entirely different way than many of us have thought about. I think this is one of the great things that comes out this kind of media. We have the ability to look at media products and critique them.

Podcasting- BLOG #6

This article was interesting. I have never made a podcast or listened to one before. The idea of pod casting sounds like something that I would definitely enjoy. I think it would be most enjoyable if it is on a subject of our choice. I know as a student that each person learns very differently. Some people can simply read something and understand it. I am jealous of those people- because I learn best through audio and writing and re-writing stuff. Others learn visually. Pod casting can really assist in the audio part of learning. Listening to highly complicated ideas has the potential to really help students. For those students who don't learn through audio there are plenty of other resources that they can use. Judging from the article it seems like a technology that can be accessed fairly easily and the information can be streamed onto MP3 players and Ipods. As a student a Fort Lewis College I would definitely use this technology for say- review for at test as I walk across campus to class. I feel like the structure of a podcast may be just a little different than a radio show. For one the likely hood of the podcast being interrupted by commercials would probably be very low. Depending on the nature of the podcast the need for different voices and actors would be lower than that of a radio show. In general I think podcasting is a great idea for access to information and has the potential to be very beneficial to students.

Mars is Heaven!! BLOG #5

This story was very different from what we have read in this class so far. Because it is fiction it must be approached as fiction. That is to say that rather than reading it to gain academic information we read it for pleasure, and perhaps to analyze it- but nothing more. If I was in charge of translating this into a radio show I would first make it completely clear that this story is ficction- and not something on the news. I know this sounds ridiculous, but some people would freak out if they were used to listening to music and when they turned their radio on they heard this. Then I would have different actors perform the parts of each person mainly so their would be an audible difference in their voices. I would also have a narrator though to read the parts that aren't dialogue. Some of the dialogue is describing a sound though. In a book this is finwe because we have to imagine the sounds themselves, and if there is no description of a specific sound we don't know it is there. But in radio we can actually produce the sounds. So, for instance when the text says "Hollow echoes sounded from under the boards as they walked across the porch"(327) I would actually make the hollow sound for a radio show. Different sounds are very important in radio because you don't have the visual aid, nor do you have written aid to assist in the depiction of the story.

Vie/ deWinter Article

This reading relates to our project on the history of copyright in many ways. For one, while researching our topic we immediately realized that since technology has become a staple in our society the laws abou copyright change constantly. The idea of a wiki really does make us question the values of authorship and the ways in which we see copyright. When there is more than one person constantly editing, commenting and changing work the concept of one author is impossible- which makes it complicated.
Vie and deWinter are right when they say students typically write knowing their audience is the professor, and because of that it seems like most of our writing is aimed at pleasing that particular professor. When writing on a wiki the public can read your ideas and comment upon them. I will admit that the only people to read my term papers are usually a few of my peers for editing, my professor, and if I choose to share, my parents. Wikis make that number of readers look ridiculous. While I don't like the idea of sharing my work with everyone, I do like the idea of getting multiple people's perspectives on things because it is so easy to forget other ways of thinking when you are engrossed in research.
I think the writers of this piece probably struggled with writing collaboratively because I imagine they had somewhat of the same problem we do when someone mentions writing something collaboratively. My first reaction was "What if my group steals my ideas, or worse, completely twists my idea to fit theirs? Where are the boundaries on change?"Everyone is different, and because of that everyone finds things they deem more important than others, so I wonder what their process of negotiation was and how that effected their writing.

Response to WIki Reading

Before reading this piece on wikis I was not familiar with them at all. In fact, today before class I noticed what we would be doing in class and actually had to Google "wiki". I now understand that it is a website in which anyone can edit, upload and change information on that webiste. What actually suprised me most about this piece is the fact that these teachers liked the way the wiki worked in a classroom setting and adopted it into their other classes. As a student I really feel like a wiki is a very insecure way to submit your work because everyone can see your ideas- edit your ideas and basically ruin your project if they really wanted to. On the other hand I can understand one of the points they make in this aticle that students can contribute to a project without having a very specific meeting time where everyone gathers around the computer and collaberates. I can appreciate that because I work 30 hours a week and it can be a real challlenge to find a time that works for everyone to meet. With a wiki we can all still contribute to our project but we can do it at all hours and seperately. One of the problems that Martin and Dusenbury mentioned was that students felt "pressured to protect their ideas from eachother to make sure they get appropriate grade-related credit". This is one of my main concerns too because credit should be given where credit is due and I would personally be extremely unhappy if someone took one of my ideas. This article did convince me that using a wiki is worth a try because of the convenience- but I am still rather skeptical about who has access to my ideas.

Copyright blog

I am in the how has copyright changed over the years and and the legal changes of copyright over the years. We haven't really split up what exactly each person is going to be focusing on specifically because we don't know much about copyright, so this is just our preliminary research. I am in a group with Avery and Lori. I would like to focus on the timeline of copyright, to show as evidence that copyright has changed over the years. Just in recent history The Family Entertainment and Copyright act of 2005 focused on more recent media, like "free" downloadable music online. Also the content industry was worried back in 1975 about massive copyright infringement from video recorders- that seemed to be the start of the issues dealing with copyright and what we consider modern technology. I also learned that amount of time copyright has be extended throughout the years. It started out as a mere 14 years, and now it is literally up to 75-95 years. Huge diffference! Why such a huge difference? I still have a lot of questions about copyright because I have never really researched it thoroughly which I also find interesting. We are told not to copy peoples work but I have never been taught how copyright works.... I used the following links:

http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/~howard/papers/copyright99.html

http://permissionplease.today.com/2009/08/21/2009-coptright-form-changes/

http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_fair_use_Overview/chapters0/0-g.html

Vision of Students today

My vision of students today is a combination of multiple technologies from outside the classroom suddenly being switched to something they do in classrooms- while the teachers are scrambling to find ways to appeal to 21st century students.

Response to Takayoshi/Selfe Piece

Takayoshi and Selfe seem to have a very direct message in their piece. They attempt to expalin why multimodal texts are absolutely neccesary to teach a composition course in the 21st century. While I agree with what Takayoshi and Selfe are trying to say, I also believe it is just as important to include some of the traditional ways of teaching- simply because everyone learns differently. I personally prefer writing papers after doing a variety of different research. By writing I work my way through the my ideas. On the other hand there are students who actually have to be making something- like a movie- to actually be engaged in it and therefore learn more. For instance- in my Radio Practicum class last semester we had to write our story down entirely and get it approved before we were actually allowed to record the story. The way that was balanced worked for me because I worked through my ideas by writing them down and then did an audio clip. In my opinion this sort of balance is absolutely vital because it teaches a combination of traditional writing and "multimodal". Daley's piece shared many of the ideas with this piece but added to Daley's piece by truly explaining the advantages of using multimodal learning in the classroom. In the Takayoshi/Selfe piece it says "such instruction is often refreshing and meaningful"(4). Multimodal instruction is refreshing and meaningful to us because (1) we usually don't get to do multimodal projects in ther classes and (2) we spend a lot of our free time using these technologies for fun- so the project for class is that much better. Our blogs in 308 are a way for us to articulate our ideas in a less formal way than writing a paper and maintaining a community forum by sharing our ideas without having to physically meet and take turns talking. Both of these are reasons for blogging- according to the Walker/ Nardi piece.

Response to "Expanding the Concept of Literacy"

Daley's main argument in this piece is very intriguing.Daley argues that literacy should now include the abiltiy to understand and analyze interactive media, and show not just be about understanding the written word. But she also argues that it is important that we are taught how to analyze interactive media- and not just assume we know how to truly analyze it. While I think the ability to read and write is extremely important, in today's world it is just as important to be able to understand and analyze interactive media- because it is, as Daley says "the most common methods of receiving information, communicating with one another and entertaining (our)selves"(34). For a class like English 308 it is obviously important that we not only have the ability to produce this media- but also learn how to analyze it.

Let's try this again. I am excited to be back for the fall semester. I have never used any of the technology that we will be using in this class. I have used Vegas Pro for the Digital Video Production class I took last fall, but that's about it. I feel a little behind the times because I choose not to spend time on myspace, facebook, etc- but I am excited to learn more about interactive media in today's world.

Hi! I'm Courtney. I had this blog in Engl 304 last fall, and now I'm back!