Individual Project - Last revision :)

My digital literacy project will document my experience using Final Cut Pro and Movie Maker. This project will discuss my use of Final Cut Pro, Movie Maker, and podcasts, but will be taped with a video camcorder and edited in Adobe Premiere. Integrating these forms of media will express my digital literacy while also narrating my comprehension of these various technologies.

The project may not explicitly address vocabulary from class, but the concepts will be evident through the way the project is arranged. The project will be organized in segments to address the steps I took in learning the programs.

The projected time it will take for me to complete this assignment will be approximately a month. The reason this project will be so time consuming is because I will have to record myself while in the MATRF lab using the Mac computer since I do not own one; also, I can only check out a video camcorder for a twenty-four hour period. Since I will be learning the program and recording, I will end up with more material than I need. I will also have to write a script to accompany my taping. Therefore, it is somewhat difficult to create an accurate timeline for this assignment. I will be tasked with both taping and learning the programs while also determining what footage to discard in order to make the documentary relevant.

Infotopia 1 & 2

This passage made me consider, like we have mentioned in previous classes, the idea of "general consensus" on the web. If a web community agrees that something is true or fact, then it is because of the power of the majority. The best example of this is obviously Wikipedia because its very existence depends on the idea that the agreement of the majority is truth. I think this brings up some really interesting questions about social misconceptions--for example, if the majority of society defines a word the wrong way (a common example might be the definitions of liberal and conservative) does that mean that the real definition of the word no longer has meaning? I think its a scary thought that the majority defines knowledge--but then again, what makes something true if the majority doesn't agree?

Individual Project Revised

My digital literacy project will document my learning process using Final Cut Pro. It will show my progression from a first time user to a user more familiar with the program and production process. This project will include the use of Final Cut Pro, a video camcorder, and an instructional podcast recording. Integrating these forms of media will express my digital literacy while also narrating my comprehension of Final Cut Pro.

The project may not explicitly address concepts from class, but the concepts will be evident through the way the project is arranged. The project will be organized in segments to address the basic tasks I completed in Final Cut Pro. Moreover, the recorded material will be of me actually working on the final project and show how I would have presented my creative assignment if I had used Final Cut Pro.

The projected time it will take for me to complete this assignment will be approximately a month. The reason this project will be so time consuming is because I will have to record myself while in the MATRF lab using the Mac computer since I do not own one; also, I can only check out a video camcorder for a twenty-four hour period. Since I will be learning the program and recording, I will end up with more material than I need. I will also have to write a script to accompany my taping. Therefore, it is somewhat difficult to create an accurate timeline for this assignment. I will be tasked with both taping and learning the program while also determining what footage to discard in order to make the documentary relevant.

Creative Project

Just in case ya'll wanted to take a longer look at my project here is the link
http://annelir2.blogspot.com/

Exam Time

12pm April 26th in the Studio

Infotopia 1 & 2

I took away from this reading a message very similar to that which Molly took away from it--the cliche "two heads are better than one." This idea in support of collaborative thinking made me think of this class in particular. When working through the concepts of our reading assignments on my own I, more often than not, find it a daunting task. Sometimes I close the text more confused than when I first opened it. My understanding of the readings come from our collaborative class discussions of them and similarly our blog posts. It's as though we all hold a piece to the puzzle and that which makes no sense makes perfect sense when interlocked together.

In addition to our readings, I also thought about our first project for this class. I can't imagine accomplishing what I accomplished in the first project without my group members. While none of us had knowledge of the programs that we would be using beforehand, working together to decipher through the technical manuals explaining iMovie among other things proved very beneficial. Things that I didn't necessarily get Vanessa and/or Anna did get and vice versa.

Infotopia 1 and 2

In the first chapter I was shocked to read that large groups are often "wiser than experts." This idea is supporter by the idea that a statistical answer is an accurate answer. These answers from large groups hold evidence of quantatative estimates. Sunstein also suports his writing by telling of the Condorcet Jury Theorum, that says "the probability of a correct answer by a majority of the group increases toward 100 percent as the size of the group increases.

Chapter 2 dove further into this idea. The quote from Aristotle on page 49 was very direct, saying "all come together...they may surpass- collectively and as a body, although not individually- the quality of the few best....When they are many who contribute to the process of deliberation, each can bring his share of goodness and moral prudence...some appreciate one part, some another, and all together appreciate all." This quote states the idea that "two heads are better than one." This is true in most situations. By having a concensus of a group, you are more likely of getting the more correct or best answer than by just asking one person.

Infotopia, 1 & 2

I found this reading interesting, particularly if you consider much of the topic in chapter's 1 and 2 would be hard to imagine accomplishing just a few year ago without the Internet. Sunstein talks about how a group of people or society collects and filters information so that they can make a decision.

Sunstein suggest that in a group setting, people will often gravitate towards a strongly stated opinion, especially if their own opinions are not fully formed. People tend to find it difficult to stray from the majority of the group especially if the majority opinion fall within our own prejudices and reaffirm our devout beliefs. As I read this section my thoughts turned to Bush's' justification for the Iraq war. Was the group setting that assembled the information dominated by one strong opinion? How much deliberation was there prior to submitting the evidence to Bush? Was there someone who chose to delete certain items that they did not want presented (as Megan referred to in her blog about Wikipedia)?

Infotopia Intro, 1, and 2

While I was reading the introduction I was reminded of the Technical Writing class I took last semester. We were required to make a new entry on Wikipedia. As a class we decided on the term Professional Communication, since it was not already included. Since we did this as a class there were many posts. The site itself is monitored by someone, and I actually had some contact with this woman. We were supposed to post something and then the rest of the class would look at it and change it as necessary. In the midst of all of this, some of the stuff we posted was deleted before we could get back to it. I sent the monitor an e-mail explaining what we were doing and she told me that, since other people read the site, she could not leave something that was not true or something that seemed like publicity. This made the task challenging because we did not always work on it in class. I think it is interesting that Wikipedia exists so that anyone can have some input. But, I also find it interesting that if something you post is not entirely true, someone else can delete it. This is like the idea of the majority being right. If a lot of people agree with something, then it could be true and left on the site, but if not, it will be removed.

Infotopia 1 & 2

I thought that these two chapters were very interesting. I am intrigued by the "group think" mentality, especially because the population can be so easily swayed. I particularly found the jury example attention-grabbing because the motivation to agree with your fellow man can often be overwhelming. It made me wonder how many trials go awry because of one strong personality among the jury that believes one thing when in reality he or she may be wrong. This led me to think about the entire basis of the U.S. government in its sway toward the majority. Democracy is set up to make the most people happy as much as possible. Often, as history has shown, the democracy chooses against what is "right" (especially morally) in favor of what they selfishly believe is right. Slavery is one of these things that at one moment in history the government was for it because of its own selfish interests. Finally, this decision was reversed in light of the minority speaking out vehemently against it and finally persuading a majority into thinking as they did. But this is just an example of how sometimes the majority is wrong.



This might be a hotspot for people, but also take Bush's election... coughregimecough. While at first, the majority (although not by popular vote) decided that President Bush and his policies were acceptable, his approval rating by his second term was the lowest of any president.



Groupthink and mass mentality are a powerful tool and are interesting to explore in terms of majority rule. It is also a point of current political discussion.

Infotopia Chapters 1 and 2

In these two chapters, Sunstein addresses the importance of numbers and the effect of group influence. In chapter one, he specifically talks about the Condorcet Jury Theorem, which states that "the probability of a correct answer by a majority of the group increases toward 100 percent as the size of the group increases." In other words, Sustein contends that groups do better than individuals overall. However, Sunstein contends that large groups are not always correct. In some cases, the smaller groups are better informed and should speak on behalf of the larger population (like state representatives). Chapter two further delves into the accuracy of the deliberators' decisions and the influence of informational and social pressures. These readings were interesting and adds a new perspective to how I understand digital literacy.

Infotopia response (1-73)

Throughout these chapters Sunstein refers to the way people exchange information to come to conclusions or produce knowledge. He specifically talks about the way jury members must decide upon a person’s guilt or innocence in legal matters. As he was discussing the ideas of “groupthink” and the Condorcet Jury Theorem, I immediately thought of the 1957 Henry Fonda film 12 Angry Men. The plot synopsis of the film can be found here. The film shows the story of Henry Fonda’s character as a jury member who tries to convince the other jury members that they should vote to acquit the man on trial based on reasonable doubt. Although at first Henry Fonda’s character is the only jury member with this opinion, he presents his own evidence that slowly convinces the other jury members that he is correct. Even though the film is fictional of course, I think Sunstein’s following idea is interesting in light of the way the film plays out: “Most people don’t like being the sole dissenter. If all but one person in a deliberating group have said that some proposition is true, then the remaining member may well agree that the proposition is true—even to the point of ignoring the evidence of his or her own senses” (66).

Creative Project - Updated

Originally, the following was my proposal for the creative project assignment:

For my creative project, I will be making a mockery of people who cannot "function" in class without their laptops. I will probably take some interesting spin on Movie Maker and drawings as a mode of presentation.

Since then, some aspects have changed and others added. The current project will focus on the remediation of pencil and paper to laptops. As comic relief, the project will also end with another form of remediation associated with the pencil/paper to laptop shift.

The programs used in the project will be Microsoft PowerPoint and Adobe Photoshop. The presentation and transitions between the slides should give the impression of flipping pages in a book.

Kress 122-175

I feel that Kress brought up something very interesting in regard to the topic he chose for closing the book. Punctuation and white space. These are very postmodern ideas that indicate the fixation of the mind on the importance of the meaning surrounding words that we have picked. In particular, it reminded me of an Italo Calvino book entitled Invisible cities in which about half of the book, including pages within the book, was blank. The idea was to find and interpret our own meaning within those empty spaces. While some may say that white space, or negative space as the artist's call it, is attributed to loneliness, it is also a place of hope. It gives oneself room to think and expand farther than one is capable within a word. Punctuation was also another closing point for Kress. We've discussed the use of punctuation in regards to different interpretations and many other people on the blog have brought up good examples of strange punctuation and its effect on the message.

This is a passage from Calvino's Invisible Cities. It emphasizes the importance of negative space. To Calvino, the white space is what is holding us all together.

Marco Polo describes a bridge, stone by stone."But which is the stone that supports the bridge?" Kublai Khan asks. "The bridge is not supported by one stone or another," Marco answers, "but by the line of the arch that they form."Kublai Khan remains silent, reflecting.Then he adds: "Why do you speak to me of the stones? It is only the arch that matters to me."Polo answers: "Without stones there is no arch."

Screen shot help

This is a message I sent to Kerry Gomer about screen shots.
Kerry,
Sorry if I keep bothering you with stuff. I have attempted to take screenshots on my work computer and am still having difficulty. I found the print screen button, what do I do after that? Thanks,
Megan

Kress 122-175

What I thought about while I was reading this section and in today's class discussion (I know I posted late) was my Technical Editing class. In this class we had to learn pretty much everything about grammar and take a midterm on it. I know that technical writing is supposed to be clear so that the document users can figure out what they need to, so, without punctuation and grammar this would not be possible. I have learned in technical editing that if a document user gets frustrated or does not understand, they will not use the document, which defeats the purpose of creating it.

Kress 122-175

While this section was once again very dense to get through, I found myself also interested in the importance of punctuation. Like many have pointed out, being an English major means having to go through the painful process of learning very precise grammar rules. However, the ways you can use punctuation to your advantage, whether through casual communication or a formal paper, far outweigh the task of learning the correct way to use it. As Kress points out, " Punctuation is the framing of an overall organization...It is a necessary condition of communication. 'Without framing, no meaning', we might say."

An example of the importance of communicating through punctuation is AIM. It sounds a lot different if you say something like "good luck with that" as opposed to "Good luck with that!! :)"
The whole tone is changed by adding exclamation points. I often find that is why things said on AIM can be very misinterpreted--if a person doesn't use punctuation to express their tone or attitude it can be very easy to take something the wrong way or not understand their subtle hints. This also applies to things like facebook wall posts and txt messages. The whole manner of the communication can be changed by "friendly" punctuation. Or using ellipsis to communicate the fact that you don't understand something.

youtube downloading....

Here are two links that allow you to convert youtube videos into several different formats and then download/save them to your computer. For our collaborative project we worked in Adobe Premiere, and in order to work with youtube videos, we had to convert/download the audio and video separately. Hope this helps!

http://catchvideo.net/

http://convertyoutube.com/

You Tube Downloading Help

Does anyone know how to get movies off of YouTube?

Thanks, Ardi

Kress 122-175

This section dealt with the importance of punctuation. To be honest when I started to read it I dreaded the pages to come. I am currently enrolled in grammar survey as well and the thought of punctuation reminds me of that class. Don't get me wrong I agree that writing could not exist without it, it just isn't the most fun thing to study. I learned the value of punctuation and all grammar for that matter when I worked as a copy editing intern this summer and even when I worked as a public relations intern this summer. None of the documents that I worked on would make any sense without the right punctuation. I believe that this in turn reflects on the reliability of the magazine. I was working at a celebrity gossip magazine so anything to add to the reliability of the material was always a good thing. This notion worked in press releases as well. The public relations company did not want a press release being read to a celebrity that was grammatically incorrect. Even if there was just a missing period or a comma that is misplaced, the wrong message can still be conveyed. If a company doesn't take the time to send out grammatically correct documents then what else does it not take the time to do? Even though I dread the study of punctuation and I know many English majors do, it is actually one of the most important things to take into consideration when writing. I think Kress expresses that in the text.