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Thursday, April 29, 2010

Portfolio Number Review II

Once again, for my Lost followers, this is another post for my class and I apologize for the delay in new posts. School has been very busy, but I will resume once school is out and I have time to catch up and finish the series. Here is a list and explanation of my work that I have done for this class since my last portfolio update.

· Clicking here will take you to the fourth story I wrote. This article was about how students that were involved heavily in Spring Sing were adjusting back to life without it. This story was timely at the time because it was the week after Spring Sing and it asked students how they would spend their first free weekend and time after that. This story was fun because I talked to five sources and covered many different aspects of Spring Sing involvement. I was once again able to use a bulleted list in this story, a technique that is often easier and more accepted to do on the web than traditional print journalism.

In the true sense of transparency that we talk about in PR classes all the time, I was a little disappointed with my video. I used the tripod but at one point the camera wiggles for just a second or two; I’m really not sure why. This was the first time I’ve ever filmed and put something on YouTube, so this was definitely new ground for me. This exercise showed me that I need to expand my skills in the video realm so I can be more versatile in backpack journalism.

· This link will take you to my fifth and final story on the Link for this class. This story was an audio slideshow covering a group involved with Bison’s for Christ. I did some research to see how many groups were involved and what all they were doing. Once I got the list I determined that TNT was a good group to cover because they were helping reroof a house which I figured would be a good story to cover for an audio slideshow. While on the site I used my iPhone to record audio interviews with two of the leaders of the site. I was really proud of these two interviews because I got a lot of good “natural sound.” After taking pictures I returned back to the dorm to work.

This article was fun because I got to “learn by doing,” a favorite pastime of mine. I had never used Garage Band before and only used iMovie once on the project mentioned above, but certainly not for a slideshow. It took a while but I figured out how to edit the audio, merge the two clips, set up the slide show with Ken Burns effects on some, sync the audio with the video and upload it to YouTube.

Today (Thursday, April 29), I decided to update this article. I went back and re-edited the video some to change some Ken Burns effects in order to help it flow a little better. One thing I hope you notice, but I certainly want to point your attention to, is the “natural sound” that lines up at 1:09-1:13 on the video. It is showing a guy hammering. While Mark Baur is talking you hear hammering in the background. I just really thought that was neat how the “natural sound” matched up really well with the photo there.

· When the last portfolio was due I had turned in a story early. I am not sure if it was graded then or if it was held off until this portfolio but I will link that story here as well. It was just the story with an audio clip about Zach Cantrell finding Beth Anne Colvin’s lost engagement ring. Honestly I was a little surprised by how this article took off. It is still, at the time of posting this, the number six most visited article on the Link. I am very proud of that, especially because it hit that number very soon after I first uploaded it.

· This does not really necessarily pertain, but this is a story I wrote for the Bison that was also teased on the Link.

· This link will take you to my first portfolio that was put on the Link.

· This link will show you more of my blog posts. I have hit the limit necessary of posts for this class but will continue it until Lost is over.

This class has been exciting and I had hoped to write more for the Link this semester, but between this class and writing for the Bison weekly it was hard to find time to write extra for the Link. Next year I will be able to spend more time on the Link. I hope to be able to be a part of this project and lend my help to expand it further. As mentioned earlier, I’m a big proponent of “learning by doing.” This class has allowed me to do that with the different techniques I was asked to employ in my articles. While on that note I want to stress again my interest in looking into what all it takes and is involved with making an App for the Link. I would love to take something like that on if it looks possible. I think the Link is an incredible opportunity on so many different levels and I am excited at the prospects of being able to work on this more next year.

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