Kress 84-121

I would like to comment on the discussion of writing beginning on page 89. This passage made me think about my high school English classes and how the only correct interpretation of a poem or other piece of writing was what the teacher said. I used to write papers that were considered "way off base" from what the poem was "really" saying. This was a very discouraging experience and once I got to college, I realized that it did not have to be that way. I was always challenging my English teachers because I enjoyed reading, writing, and using my imagination to figure out what the author was trying to say, which did not bode well for my grade. In college, I found, you can say anything as long as something in the poem or piece of writing can back you up. In high school, my classmates always had differing points of view about whatever we were reading and some of them were even more "off base" then I was, which is a testament to the fact that they were teaching the way they had been taught, which was to assume that their students "shared a homogeneous social background", while in college, most professors realize that this is not the case.
I am not sure if any of what I just wrote makes sense and if it is even pertinent, but it is what I thought about when I read that part of the book.

Individual Project Proposal

So, far the only idea I have for my final project is to redesign a website page for the little boy I babysit. He has his own blog right now, which mainly showcases his work with his fellow boy scouts. I think it would be cool to revamp his blog and add a lot of cool applications, etc.

I would have to gets some pictures and short movie clips of Noah’s troop. Also, I would need to research some details and history about the boy scouts. I haven’t decided if I just want to show the website or get still frames of the website and incorporate that into a movie.

I need to learn how to create a blog. I also need to ask Noah, if he wants this and would be willing to help me. This will take the whole time I’m allotted for the project most likely since I'm working with a 10 year old.

I will start by asking Noah, if he would be up to helping me the week after spring break. Then once I have Noah’s input/pictures/movies, I will start putting together the website. After I finish the website, then I will decide whether or not I will create some kind of movie using Windows Movie Maker or use breeze to incorporate Noah's input.

Individual Project Proposal

For my individual project, I want to show how computer use at a young age is beneficial to the learning of a child. I want to explore the use of computers in schools as well as in the homes of the children.

I want to research facts on how common computers for children are, the effectiveness of computer learning programs, and whether or not most schools promote the use of computer related learning.

I want to provide video footage, pictures of children on computers, and facts. I hope to use microsoft movie maker to put this together.

I will need to explore and gain a better understanding of movie maker in order to make this a successful project. I also will need to borrow a video camera from the library, and gain permission from the parents of the children who I will be filming.

I hope to make this an interesting and fun project for the class to watch, so that they too can learn about children's computer use.

Creative project details

I don't think I provided sufficient details re: my creative project, so ... I plan to create at least three deliverable elements of a marketing campaign to promote my (entirely fake) private bartending business, including a business card prototype, snazzy letterhead and possibly a specialty-drink menu with color photos.

Individual Project Proposal

Subject/Focus: I am doing my creative project on celebrity blogs and their effect on the way people spend their time on the internet. From working at US Weekly this past summer I spent a considerable amount of time on blogs catered toward the gossip and scandal of celebrities. I always found these blogs outrageous and now having been in this class I find them an interesting aspect of digital literacy. Some of the blogs that are out there already are very outrageous and some are milder. For example, Perezhilton.com is very shocking and blunt, while blogs like JustJared.com simply pose the facts about celebrity gossip. I want the “mock” celebrity blog that I create to fit somewhere in the middle. At first I wanted to make it so ridiculous that it would almost be unreadable, but after researching what blogs are already out there I saw that you couldn’t get more shocking than Perezhilton.com. So I then decided to create a blog that is witty, catchy, still shocking, but also a little classier than some others. This way I could still poke fun at the notion of celebrity blogs, but also not go to far with it as so it looks tacky. But perhaps tacky is the way to go? I am still open to suggestions on this detail of the project.

Technology Specifications:Blogger.com, imovie, Adobe Photoshop

Task Breakdown:
Get caught up with major celebrity gossip (that worth covering and information that will surely attract bloggers)
Visit other celebrity blog sites and compare/learn
Select images or movie clips to blog
Upload images or movie clips to blog
Work with images and or movie clips
Comment and “blog” these situations that arise from celebrity photos, clips, and anything else readily available.
Edit and work with blog
Polish final results
Develop the best way to present the project

Timeline:
Proposal completed 3.13.08
First draft completed 3.21.08 Final draft completed 3.28.08
Final project due 4.1.08

Individual Project Proposal Draft

Starving for Acceptance
by Sharon Reese

Subject/Focus

The subject is the almost “proana” body image messages that the highly popular media carries for young women. This project will focus on the influence that media has on the views and behaviors of young women and how these views and behaviors are embedded in our being even as adults. It will also show the shifts in “what’s hot and what’s not” overtime.

Treatment

Documentary video.

Technology specifications

The software that I will be using is iMovie and Adobe Photoshop.

Task breakdown
· Research statistics , proana sites, blogs, etc.
· Select final images/photoshop images
· Select music that tells my story
· Upload images and music to IMOVIE
· Add textual statistics, voiceovers, and transitions
· Polish final product
· Work on presentation of material

Working Time Line
Proposal completed 3.13 Final draft completed 4.28
First draft completed 3.28 Final project due during exam time

Creative Project Proposal

Don't Judge a Person by their Cover Shot on Vogue

by Sharon Reese

Subject/Focus

My creative project subject deals with celebrities before and after photoshop. This idea is something that is cool in a way, scary in another. The problem is that after seeing these photoshopped pictures for years, we start to believe that people with flawless skin exist. This makes real people with real, human 'flaws' appear to look bad. I know this type of photo retouching has been going on since way before Adobe Photoshop, but it seems to create an ideal that doesn’t exist. I guess the argument could be made that retouching pictures is art. For this reason, I will attempt to create my own art by retouching photographs of myself and others.Treatment: Digital Portfolio.

Technology specifications:
Nikon DSLR, Adobe Photoshop, and iMovie (maybe)

Task breakdown
· Select images from magazines
· Take images/photoshop images
· Select music
· Upload images and music (not sure what software I’ll use; Perhaps, I’ll use iMovie)
· Edit transitions, etc.
· Polish final product
· Work on presentation of material

Working Time Line:
Proposal completed 3.13 Final draft completed 3.28
First draft completed 3.21 Final project due 4.1

Creative Project

For my individual creative project I am going to select an online game from yahoo and keep a record of my experiences. I will record thoughts before, during, and after my experiences playing an online game.

What Clemson Kids Like

For my creative project, I plan to create a blog that enumerates and explores the stuff Clemson kids like. I plan to parody this funny blog- http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/.
I'll incorporate pictures, videos, and links, including linking to the above site when fitting.

Individual Project

I will document and record my digital literacy as I explore and learn computer programs that I have never used. In doing this assignment, I will not only be talking about my digital literacy progress, but also showing it.

My creative assignment will be submitted as a Powerpoint presentation.

I plan to compare and contrast music videos and their you tube counter parts. I hope to find the amateur music videos that I have seen before on the internet over spring break along with the actual music videos. This creative project is mainly for enjoyment and entertainment. I hope also to do a survey of the class and see what music videos they prefer!

Creative project

For my creative project I anticipate creating a video scrapbook for the graduating sixth graders at Townville Elementary School. I plan on using digital photographs taken during the school year by the staff, as well as taking some photos myself. This presentation will be part of the graduation ceremony at the end of the year. Each sixth grade student will also receive a CD.

I believe I will use PowerPoint. I have used PowerPoint for training and academic presentations, but I have never put together a presentation with timed slides coordinated with a musical theme. I am looking at various songs to incorporate into the presentation that will be fitting for this milestone.

Individual Proposal

For my individual project I am going to explore [probably in documentary style] the change from PC to Mac. It applies to me personally because I grew up using a PC and then got a Mac for a laptop in preparation for college. This base of switching from a PC to a Mac gives me a wide variety of things to explore for the final project. I'm going to be interviewing Mac and nonMac users alike and gathering information on why Mac users are 'sold for life' when they switch.

Detailed Creative Project Idea

My creative project is going to be a story of a gumby-type clay figure who is having a normal day when something extraordinary happens to him. The inspiration for this idea stems from the Pixar shorts that are hilarious, like this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9erlZnMekZ0

Unlike the Pixar shorts that are either computer graphics or drawn and then animated, my project will be done in a different style. I'll be taking pictures to illustrate the story and then I'll put the pictures in order in IMovie to tell the story. There probably won't be voiceover, but I'll figure that out as I get to it.

Here are some more Pixar clips just for fun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m75i68Ob8ko&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Zv9vRz4QYM&feature=related

Kress Reading

I also had trouble really getting into this reading, but since I have read some of Reading Images by Kress & Van Lewen (Spelled that wrong!), so some of it made sense to me. The part about affordances, though, reminded me of a reading from my workplace comm class from a book called The Myth of the Paperless Office. In that reading, it talked about the affordances of paper and why those affordances make paper something that people like and will continue to use despite having the internet. I felt like Kress was kind of taking the other side of this idea by discussing the affordances of new media.

I felt like I couldn't post about this reading until after we had discussed it in class. Having the class discussions about some of these really dense things definitely makes it easier to understand what's going on!

Clarification on Individual Project

Now that I understand the difference b/w the creative project and individual project, i am going to use my initial idea for the Creative project for my Final Project.

Final Project--the narrative of elections and how digital literacy is changing how we choose who we are going to vote for. Starting with the beginning of our country, moving through the transition of photographs, to radio, to the most current Youtube elections.

Creative Project Idea--I want to make some representation of "online knowledge"--like Wikpedia and online encyclopedias. I will post my proposal by thursday, but i am thinking about some kind of physical representation of how I use these websites to define my knowledge of the world.

Project Proposal

For my project, I have decided to do a funny advertisement for all of the obsurd things being sold on EBay. I plan on picking several of the most out-there items being sold on EBay and creating a flyer to try to convince you to get online and buy things from EBay.

I want to start by researching EBay and the qualifications for selling things on their website. Once I figure this out, I want to go on EBay and look for weird and unusual items that leave you wondering, "who would buy this?"

Once I have composed a sunstantial list of items, I want to print their site pages out, and combine them on an attractive flyer, promoting EBay.

The idea of the flyer, is new to my project, because Dr. Fishman helped me come up with this creative idea. So I hope that I can make the flyer appealing and eye-catching.

Jennifer Salane: Creative Project Proposal

*The Onion vs. The New York Times*

Project Focus
Jennifer Salane proposes to create a “play on roles”, so-to-speak, concerning the relationship between what is real, hard news versus what makes fun of the real, hard news. Jennifer will demonstrate this comparison through the creation of a blog that contains information from both a tabloid-type newspaper, such as The Onion, and a hard-news newspaper, such as The New York Times. The proposed title of the blog is “Real vs. Superfluous News: What Modern Day Society Really Needs to Know vs. What They Are Actually Reading”. Within this blog, Jennifer will explore what sorts of articles would appear in each type of publication, the effect those articles have on the reader, and the overall benefit of the publication to the general public, whether available through hard copy or online. Jennifer hopes to approach this project with a sense of humor, but also hopes to show the irony of having “superfluous” news, which might prevent or distract people from real life, pertinent news.

Background Information: The Onion
The Onion features satirical articles compiled of international, national, and local news. According to Frank Athens in “Area Readers Get the Joke,” The Onion claims a national print circulation of 710,000 and says 67 percent of its website viewers are between 18 and 44 years old. The publication is available online daily and in hard copy once a week. The articles contained in The Onion discuss current events, both real and imagined, that parody traditional editorial-style writing, layout, and Associated Press (AP)-style editorial voice. Much of the humor in these articles is created by conveying what is hard news in a lighter, more comical way; in some cases, this can be a play-on-words with simple things like headlines on stories.

Specifications
Jennifer plans to create a basic, yet specified blog with creative visuals of articles, photographs, and interviews, in a way that they would be presented in the real news as well as the superfluous “Onion” news. Jennifer will make a number of sections on the blog, including a part devoted to pieces of research (“artifacts”) that she finds pertaining to her subject that provide good commentary from various users of both types of publications. The blog will be done from a third-party point of view, like a birds-eye view of what goes on between these two news sources; the news will essentially speak for itself.

The technology and software we will potentially use includes the internet, www.blogger.com (to create the actual body of the blog), Photoshop, and music sources. Other software may be needed as we work through the project. Once she has completed her blog, Jennifer will save the link to it and email it to Professor Fishman. Screenshots can also be taken.

Tasks
1. Create the body of the blog (color, font, font size, etc.)
2. Choose how the information will be organized on the blog
1. The New York Times
2. The Onion
3. Collect research
4. Screen captures of online versions of newspapers?
5. Other images that pertain to the subject/main idea
6. Text/ Audio from articles, clippings, interviews
7. Full interviews- funny and real
8. Web sites, blogs, YouTube clips, etc. that support the ideas and go with the blog’s theme
9. A poll?
10. Insert research, complete blog, get interaction/feedback?

Footnotes
Ahrens, Frank. "Area Readers Get the Joke", The Washington Post, 2007-01-18, p. D07. Retrieved on 2007-01-18.

www.theonion.com

www.wikipedia.com

Creative Project

I am sticking to my idea of creating a mock celebrity blog. It has always interested me that the celebrity blogs out there attract so many viewers and get so many hits regardless of how ridiculous the stories are about the celebrities. It almost seems the more embarrassing the more attention is given. With that in mind I plan to make the most outrageous mock blog and poke fun and this interesting aspect of digital literacy. For examples of celebrity blogs see

Perezhilton.com
pinkisthenewblog.com

Kress 35- 83

While reading this text and evaluating what it meant I found that I could really relate to what the text was saying. I like how it states that everyone interprets things differently. I think this could not be more true. The more and more you think about it everything and anything is interpreted differently by everyone. Like with the example of the child and the car... I was trying to think of other examples of people interpretation things differently and I realized that the possibilities are endless. People interpret how movies end differently, what a piece of art is trying to convey differently, what a outfit is trying to express differently, what message a song is trying to give differently, there is really no limit. I think this idea of everyone approaching things differently plays nicely into our semester long discussion of remediation. Digital literacy is re mediated from different peoples points of view so it works out they way they think it should... the way they want it interpreted. I am excited to see how else the text can play into my understanding of remediation.