Blog #10 LAST ONE!!!!

So the final project really didn't turn out as well as I thought it would. The program we chose to use was very limited in the amount of changes and settings you can adjust. The program rejected the video we made which was very frustrating however the moving aspect of the project was intriguing and could be used to give any project ethos. I will probably use prezi in the future to make power points more interesting because in the end that is kinda all it is good for. It is much more limited in the options and effects than a power point would be but the spinning effect is cool i guess. All in all I was disappointed with the amount of influence I had on the way the prezi operated and looked. It was a good project idea and was a fun to create, I just wished i could have created a more "interactive map" as I originally planned to make. But hey at least I figured out how to use the prezi so i can use it in the future. Not to make an interactive map but maybe for some other purpose.

The other projects my classmates created where very interesting. The project I enjoyed the most was the music video mashup created by Chris. I thought the idea behind mixing the loosing my religion video and footage from the passion was a great idea and mixed very well together. My least favorite was the athletes paige. Maybe I am just not interested in this information and maybe I believe most if not all of the athletes they profile are good for nothin but basketball crooks. However the Wiki was very well created and i liked the interactive aspects of it.

Besides the final though I'm glad for school to be over and I greatly enjoyed this class. I usually despise media classes however this class was fun, interesting, and educational. I now posses the knowledge to use programs to create all different types of media!

PEACE!

Blog # 10

After reviewing my peers reviews of my final project, a few things which need attention become apparent. It is obvious that my project is lacking in the media aspect. Sound and more visual elements are needed to improve the projects' ethos. To remedy this my partner and I have arranged to go fly fishing on friday morning to gather footage of the river first hand. I plan to travel to the most popular holes and collect video footage of the geographic surroundings as well as some other aspects needed like methods to tie flies used on the san juan. In the process I plan to gather footage of my partner as well as myself, fishing, tying flies, and hopefully catching fish. I will then add this to my project to give it more visual appeal. Another aspect of my final project that is obviously lacking is the interactivity of the media. Because "prezzi" is such a new program to me I experienced and am still encountering a large learning curve. As cool as prezzi seems it is actually very limited in the way you can control things. I am still trying to figure out if I will be able to link a certain part of the map to a certain part of the outlying information regarding the area. So I plan to hammer out all of the kinks, so to speak, and add more visually stimulating material.

One of the projects that I was interested in was the other prezzi project. It appears that she is running into similar problems with the program. I really had high hopes for prezzi, however it is turning out to be a cooler looking way to give a power point, which is not very interactive.

Final project

While thinking back on the variety of types of media I was exposed to throughout the course some good thoughts as well as some bad memories came to mind. I tried to think of which form of media was easiest for me to use, create, and understand. One of the more simple projects we created was the class wiki project which required much more research than the other projects but was not as demanding in a technical sense. I rather enjoyed this project probably due to the amount of research which was required. For some odd reason I think researching topics and learning more about a specific issue is interesting to me. Maybe because I have done a good amount of research throughout my educational career and am more or less used to it by now or maybe I enjoy understanding a topic in depth. The other projects such as the psa announcement and the video remix required much more understanding of the technologies and the way to operate the programs rather than the material which was mostly created to be original ideas of the group. Anyway, in regards to my final project I had a few ideas run through my head and they all seemed to tie back to creating a well researched and developed topic and presenting it in the form of a website. I had an idea involving the development of an interactive website concerning the writing styles and themes of classical authors like Hemmingway and Emerson. Unfortunately this topic would be extremely difficult to research without reading an ample amount books. So in thinking more about the things that interest me and ways I could incorporate them into my final project I kept coming back to my love for the outdoors. I started to think about creating an interactive map of a recreation area I am familiar with. A couple of things that came to mind was a map of the San Juan River with dots you could click on that would show the best times to fish the area and the best flies to use there and maybe even directions on how to tie the flies. I could also include links to tour providers and some of the best fly shops in the area. Another idea similar to the map of the San Juan was a map of a climbing area which is familiar to me such as the Sandias mountains in Albuquerque, New Mexico or Indian Creek which is a world renowned climbing area in Utah. Again the same idea of having links which give information about the climbs such as the difficulty rating and the size of gear to use and I could even include full route descriptions. These are just some of the better ideas I have had, any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Blog #8

OK, so I still hold to my first argument of I wish there where more artists who created new and artistic form of musical creation. I agree that being able to "bootleg" is taking away from the necessity of a composer to posses any form of artistic value. You don't even need to know the difference between musical scales or the certain notes or style of music being used. All you need to know is how to use a computer and how to pick out sounds that will somewhat mix together. Sad that the artistic side of music composition is fading away. Here is an example of a talentless person creating music by mixing together different sounds, none of which are their own personal creations.

Maybe I just have no respect for Kanye but its sad that he is capitalizing of the musical genius of a great musician (Ray Charles).

One thing I will say I like about the new age of creating new music from old music is the increased amount of accessibility and the decreased amount of earnings made by DJs which is causing the musicians to make profit by putting on shows. For example a very popular DJ named Pretty Lights makes all of his music available for free on his website which proves he is not making any money off of his musical creations in the form of selling singles or even albums. He makes his money purely through putting on shows and the amount of tickets he sells. I love this movement back to concentrating more on live concerts than creating single tracks to be distributed. Anybody with a computer can remix and mash together songs however it takes at least a little talent to create new music and to freestyle on stage in front of thousands of people.

Here is an example of Pretty Lights playing live at Rothbury 2009 (one of the biggest music festivals there is) in which he freestyles from his original song to create a good live performance. Notice his music is nothing but samples and clips of music.

Blog #7

I believe copyright today isn't necessarily outdated, it just needs to be clarified somewhat. I do not disprove of people creating mashup's, sound collages, and remixes. I do however believe that permission to use the sound clips should be attained from the artist. Yes, using different existing sound samples to create a new sound clip can be considered a form of artistic creation but it is a compilation of other peoples art and ideas and requires permission from that person to build upon their original work. An example of a remix/mashup is this song by Cypress Hill.

This song uses the music from a song entitled "Cisco Kid" by the band War. The rappers simply remix the instrumental version of the original song while rapping their own lyrics over the remixed music. I believe this is a form of artistic creation because the rappers are using their own lyrics. While they are rapping over another groups musical creation they had to acquire permission from the original creators to use the music. This is a good example of old music being used in new music. I personally believe is an overly common theme in todays music. I would guess that less than half of all new music created today is purely a "new" creation. Most songs contain at least a small clip of somebody else's music. Some music like "The Gray Album" is created purely by using samples of other peoples music. I do not mind musicians creating new music using old music but I wish remixing and mashing songs together was not such a prevalent theme in todays new music. I wish there where more artists today who could create new and innovative forms of music by not using other peoples creations.

Podcasting

After reading these two articles concerning "podcasts" i was surprised at the depth podcasting has expanded. I previously thought podcasts where mostly recorded radio shows which you could save and listen to at any point. I had no idea that you could download virtual tours of museums and zoo's as well as download lessons on how to speak another language. I have never created a podcast, however I have listened to a few and as I said before they seemed to be recorded radio shows and had no educatonal or virtual aspects to them. I would rather not listen to radio talk shows or educational material for that matter while I could be listening to my own selection of music, however I do see the benefits students as well as teachers can reap from podcasting. The article mentions an Austrailian proffesor who, instead of confiscating ipods, chose to incorporate history lessons in the form of podcasts so students could listen to lessons instead of music. I'm not quite sure of the effectiviness of this technique which could backfire easly and give students a way to listen to more music in class but the teacher is being innovative in trying to adapt to the new technologies which now rule our world. I could see the benefit of incorporating podcasts in Fort Lewis by maybe making proffesors lectures available for listening if a student misses the lecture or if they just want to review the lesson. I could see the relationship between podcasting and radio shows because that is the only type of podcast I have experienced however educational or virtual tour podcasts would probably have a different tone than the radio podcasts with maybe more informational content than musical.

Mars is Heaven! (or hell?)

rather enjoyed the transition away from academic pieces. As interesting as academic articles are they tend to get a little dry sometimes and it is good to get a dose of creative writing. Which I must say this piece is incredibly creative and interesting to see the spin Bradbury puts on reality. I have read this piece before and it is more enjoyable each time I read it. I believe turning this story into a radio show would be a great idea because it is short enough, compelling enough, and captivating enough to interest radio listeners. There would not have to be much editing or changing that would need to be done to make this piece a radio program. If I where changing this into a radio show I would change the story into a screen play with multiple characters voices and an announcer to handle the narrators job of alliterating the situation and setting through words. Bradbury does a magnificent job in bringing to life the settings and situations he portrays in his story. For example when Captain John Black's troops see all of their dead relatives and friends he describes the setting as "A brass band exploded in the sunlight, flinging off a gay tune from upraised tubas and trumpets. There was a bang of drums and a shrill of fifes. Little girls with golden hair jumped up and down. Little boys shouted "Hooray!" And fat men passed around ten-cent cigars. They mayor of the town made a speech. Then, each member of the crew with a mother on one arm, a father or sister on the other, was spirited off down the street, into little cottages or big mansions and doors slammed shut." This is a spectacular job of alliteration and I do not believe these words would have to be changed too much by the narrator.

Shifting too a different genre does not always involve a huge set of changes, especially switching from a written to a spoken genre. It helps too when the author has as much talent for writing as Bradbury does. However changing the deliverance method of something does not necessarily change the genre completely. The change from a academic to a fictional genre will change a story very fast. Fictional genres let the imagination run wild with crazy ideas while an academic genre is a little more down to earth and factual. Changing an written academic piece to a spoken academic piece would be much more difficult and painful due to the need for mass amounts of information that need to be delivered in an interesting and captivating way.

Reaction to "Disrupting Intellectual Property"

The connection between "Disrupting Intellectual Property: Collaboration and Resistance in Wikis" and the research I am completing with my group is relatively obvious however a little more in depth about a certain topic which is discussed within this piece. Vie and deWinter discuss the way new technologies cause problems with the supposed ownership of a specific document. They state "wikis bolster the view that no individual can "own" ideas-there is no solitary author." While wikis may bolster this view it also raises many questions about who is the creator and owner of work published on the Internet which different people can change and manipulate. My project concerns copyright and the protection of ideas created by an author. I believe that there is more to the protection of intellectual property. While it is good to collaborate on works so they are more truthful and correct I also believe producing your personal writing and having your personnel tone, flow, style, ideas, beliefs, and values be reflected in your writing should be protected to an extent. I can see the need and use of collaborative writing and pooling of ideas with sites such as Wikipedia, however, I believe in some cases your original and creative ideas should be left as they first were published with your own personal style and ideas.

Something in this piece which surprised and interested me was the discussion concerning the creation of an audience for the student to write to. It is true that students view their ultimate audience as their teacher and in turn create their writing to appeal to and impress the teacher. However when creating a Wiki or adding onto an already existing Wiki the student must then tailor their writing to not only appeal to their professor but also to a much larger and more diverse audience. Also writing within and for a specific discipline is difficult to achieve when your professor is your audience and not actual people who study and are beneficiaries of information which are created by students studying gaps within the discipline.

I believe not only the authors of this piece but most authors who collaboratively write encounter problems with intellectual property and the protection of their personnel ideals and contributions to the writing. It will be interesting to see the extent to which the class and more specifically my group will be able to cope with these problems or if these problems will exist at all.

Reaction to Wiki Lore and Politics in the Classroom

Before I read Martin & Dusenberry's essay and previous to this class I had come into contact with Wiki's due to my enrollment in a previous media class. Some of the topics discussed in Martin & Dusenberry's piece were topics which both, where discussed in class and became actual problems. In particularly students reactions to the Wiki. I recall being hesitant on using the technology when it was first introduced, that feeling passed as I realised it is fairly simple to operate the Wiki program. The problem I encountered which caused the most confusion was the writing style which should be used for such a public environment which is also considered an educational place. Should you keep your writing professional as you would a short educationally tuned essay and leave the slang which is often used in most public pieces out? Or should you write as you would in private documents which are intended for piers where much slang is used and a more of lackadaisical style of writing is acceptable and more relevant to the conversation? Dusenberry comments that "students articulated both their excitement and frustration at continually having a public audience to consider when they created documents." I have chosen to follow a more formal path of writing for the education related documents I post for public view on the Internet.

One thing that surprised me in Dusenberry's piece was the relevancy of the style of writing used by the student when the Wiki was to be graded. It is interesting to me because when I am writing for public view on the Internet I tend write in a more lackadaisical and somewhat cynical style than I would if I were writing a traditional assignment to be turned into a professor. I now see the need to write in a more professional tone when writing a document for a grade.

I also now see the depth to which distinguishing intellectual property can be a problem which needs to be addressed. I am excited to research and elaborate my personnel as well as my groups ideas concerning intellectual property.

multimodal composistion

After reading the two texts "Thinking about Modality" and "Why We Blog" it seemed the theme and ideas behind "Thinking about Modality" stood out to me more. "Why We Blog" is simply an observation on the motivation people have to blog and the content of peoples blogs. The similarity between the two pieces i saw was the discussion, or lack of discussion in "Why We Blog", of blogging for educational or academic purposes. It seemed the majority of people who blog write in a lackadaisical manner. While blogging is a personal medium of communication I believe there was a lack of attention to the communication skills required to be able to "write" a blog in the first place. "Thinking about Modality" discusses quite frequently the lack of need for composition teachers because they teach a traditional and dying form of rhetoric. I believe comp is not a dying form of rhetoric but a founding form which gives writers the basic knowledge and ability to write and use "all available rhetorical means of communicating effectively." If you did not have the basic writing skills to appeal to and persuade your audience in the beginning you would be sunk trying to write a convincing argument no matter how many forms of multimodal communication you choose to use. Yes, there is much meaning to be had by using sounds and pictures to illustrate a point but if you do not posses the ability to first organize and interpret an argument than what are you illustrating but a bunch of pictures. In response to "Thinking about Modality" I say why get rid of or downplay a composition teachers role when it is the first step to being able to use as well as interpret multimodal composition? So the world is changing and we need to adjust to the new technologies which are becoming more and more prevalent in our time but that does not mean the basics of writing rhetorically are becoming obsolete or useless, mearly more important in giving students and other writers a foundation in rhetoric.
Some of my favorite collegiate classes I have taken include comp 150 and 250. While I am an old man in a sense that i prefer written assignments (despite my horrific handwriting) and bound texts it is inevitable that multimodal texts are becoming more popular and much more use full and can improve as well as add a little spice to your writing. But hey that's why I am taking an interactive media production class. Despite how traditional you like to be you must stay current with the technologies of our world to stay on top of all of the new and upcoming composition (which is currently me) but that does not mean you should forget everything you learned in comp because that is the basis of your multimodal composition.
The phrase that keeps popping into my head every time this conversation comes about is "is the movie better than the book?" I say NEVER! But you must respect motion pictures as a legitimate form of communication just like written word, spoken word, song, or pictures. Reading these pieces has shown me that my love for composition will not only apply to but greatly assist me in creating multimodal arguments and using them to help illustrate an idea and create a better understanding of my work to my audience.

Response to "Expanding the Concept of Literacy"

Elizabeth Daley lays out her four main points of discussion as (1)Multimedia language being " films,television, online games and music" has become the current vernacular, which means the main form of communication, which i believe is somewhat true on more of a macro level as to say companies and industries communicate with the public through multimedia language. While i also believe it is very common and easy for complex and convincing plots and meanings through the use of multimedia i do not believe it is used to such an extreme as is implied by Daley. It is easy to see the use of such things as sex appeal and other common advertising strategies and just because the advertising staff of a company is keeping up with the advancing ideas of their department does not necessarily make them manipulators of the public. Dayes statement differentiating multimedia from text is an observation more than an idea however adapting to this observation is what is the big concern or concept of this piece. I agree full heartily that multimedia is a new and useful tool that should be taught and actively pursued by both students and professionals looking to better their understanding of the new technology which is looking to become the most accepted and used form of communication of our time. As for how this argument could affect us? It already has!!!!! We are sitting in a multimedia production class and if you have not taken a media literacy class yet the corporations could still be controlling your mind!!!!!!!

Three things that are my vision of students today are that your future, for both education and occupation, lie in your ability to navigate and appropietly use technology.

Most of the classes I am currently attending have moved away from traditional bound books to e-books and have also moved quizes and homework assignments onto the web.

Now with mobile technology becoming so advanced you can access the web from almost anywhere which in turn means you can access your reading material for class or even take a quiz from anywhere your phone gets service.