DigitalWriting

Source: Reddit.com

I like the idea of reflecting back upon all that I have learned over the course of this semester because I can easily get lost in all of the information that has been gleaned. When thinking back upon my first ideas of digital writing, I thought like most people digital writing was limited to blogs, emails, and web coding. What I have come to realize now that I have come through the class is not only the immensity of the subject (almost all forms writing in the 21^st century), but the influence and change that has occurred through the way we view and comprehend each subject (Insert MindBlown.gif).

Source: Reddit.com

 

That, I believe, is the most important part about this course. Whether we realize it not, we are all influenced by the subtleties that exist in creating a piece of digital writing, which can extend from the tiniest of font and color choices to the overwhelming themes of repetition that can engulf an image. Being able to analyze and decode an image is part of being a twenty-first century individual. Technology has not only changed the way we live, but continues to shape the way we think. The ideologies and principles have remained the same, but the way that they are disseminated through mass communication have forever changed.

And Jenkins’ article, “Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century” was a main part of decoding these facts. In it, he elaborates on a set of eleven social skills which help in understanding of this concept of digital writing. I will transfer my understandings of the these skills upon my workings over the semester.

• Play— the capacity to experiment with one’s surroundings as a form of problem-solving.
  • I exhibited the use of play in almost every endeavor of the class. I have never before edited a wiki page or created a video slideshow for the internet. With more programs developing user-friendly software with intuitive designs for the common layman, there becomes less issues in problem solving. However, in my case with Project 2, I encountered the problem of compatibility between software. But it all worked out through trial and error.
• Performance— the ability to adopt alternative identities for the purpose of improvisation and discovery
  • To some extent this skill was demonstrated in the identification of our alter-egos for Project 3 when we analyzed our current virtual selves. We all have chosen specific ways of representation before our given audiences whether we realize it or not.
• Simulation— the ability to interpret and construct dynamic models of real-world processes
  • I believe we showed this skill in Project 3 when we took a digital approach of how an job recruiter would go through the process of checking on the applicant through internet search engine searches and the analysis of resumes.
• Appropriation— the ability to meaningfully sample and remix media content
  • This skill was obviously shown in my presentation of Project 2 where I remix the media content of the description for my voice with the slideshow that I had created to meaningfully display the content.

• Multitasking— the ability to scan one’s environment and shift focus as needed to salient details.
  • Multitasking is a skill that can be completely harnessed through the use of digital media. I remember one cell phone provider advertising the use of being able to surf and talk at the same time. Indeed, I am using the details of this assignment to guide my response as I look back on the article in question. This back and forth style allows for almost all material to used efficiently.
• Distributed Cognition— the ability to interact meaningfully with tools that expand mental capacities
  • I feel this is a big part of most of the programs and websites out there today. Their competitiveness relies around two goals: efficiency and intuitiveness. In Project 1, the idea of a wiki worked well in creating a web page. The class was able to navigate and “interact meaningfully” with the presented tools to help explain the concept of Digital Media.
• Collective Intelligence— the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes with  others toward a common goal
  • I think no other project exhibited this trait that ing Project 1. It required this very skill and we all had a class on how we might learn to cooperate and pool knowledge into our Wiki.
• Judgment— the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information sources
  • In every project, we incorporated the use of hyperlinks which not only add credibility to our work, but give credit back to the originator of the source.
• Transmedia Navigation— the ability to follow the flow of stories and information across multiple modalities
  • This ability encapsulate the entire semester. We, as a class, transferred our ideas of Digital media through a Wiki page into Visual Postcard. The idea was the same, but the mode of communication had changed.
• Networking— the ability to search for, synthesize, and disseminate information
  • This skill was used almost every day. I will refer to the “Rhetoric on the Town” postings where we searched for an image and then analyzed the information according to our curriculum. Following, we “disseminated” the results onto our blogs for our classmates to read as well.
• Negotiation— the ability to travel across diverse communities, discerning and respecting multiple perspectives, and grasping and following alternative norms.
  • I remember one specific time when we were broken into groups during Project one and given the task of analyzing a set of articles. Many people had some differing takes on the subjects and themes, so we all had to come together and come to a way of working together and post our results.

I think play is probably one of the most important of the skills displayed because it is the basis for the rest. It is the way a person can learn through experimentation and trial and error. The poking and prodding that occurs is basically the basis for problem-solving and allows for certain principles and idea to run through to seemingly different fields. Keeping a child-like curiosity and willingness to learn through failure is key to the skill of play.

I would like to increase my use of appropriation because I believe it to be the heart of really getting into digital writing. Writing was of course “analog” a time and half ago but has sense transformed into digital. I would argue that this is the first type of appropriation to occur. I would like to spend more time possibly in PhotoShop or in some of the moviemaking programs installed on my computer.

 

Part 1:

Current Web Presence Analysis: An Online Professional Identity

Part 2:

Traditional Resume: Traditional Resume

This traditional resume was taken from a template installed on my computer. My whole goal from this is to express formality and professionalism. I felt the headings and use of border exemplified those goals. The color scheme is not too aggressive and seems to complement a professional image. The font again is a serif family font which allows for readability.

Scannable Resume: Scannable Resume PDF

This scannable resume is basically an identical copy of the traditional without all of the add-ons. Everything is aligned on the left to allow for scanning compatibility with only the headings being in a greater . It is short, only one page, which makes for easy reading as well.

Complete LinkedIn Profile: My Profile

My profile is fairly straight to the point. With not a lot of excess interests or other ideas that may distract from my original goal of professionalism. My picture is my most formal one, which gives a very serious look to the profile. I could not get the resume to upload for some reason, so it is omitted.

Video Resume: Video resume.

I had a lot of fun working with Animoto. It is an intuitive and easily navigable program. The music I choose helps ease through the photos without distracting from the message. It also gives an almost casual feel, which I wanted to convey because of the sense that video resumes are not necessarily the way of the future just yet. I want it to basically showcase a multimedia overview of my resume.

Experience Map: My Experience Map

My main emphasis was to display my range of cultural experiences throughout my life and exhibit a sense of diversity to my future employer. My job experiences are not the most adequate for my goals, so I opted for their absence to focus the attention on my travels.

Here is a list basic list of how application to OCS training school is accomplished:

The Ugly – I would of course try to avoid the ugly part of the video resumes by all means. That is of course a joke. I used to wince at the sound of voice, but I have grown to adjust to it now that I have done more forms of public speaking.

The Bad – As with any video, a video resume only allows for a fixed perception of the individual. You are not allow to respond to the interviewer’s actions, so it could be your only silver bullet. If you miss, then you could be in trouble. Also, certain fields may not be interested in this sort of resume, like when a certain skill or qualification is required over a personality

The Good – A video resume can give you a notch on certain jobs. I would think any marketing professional would do better by creating a video resume. It can be a place to display their own personal skills and talents. However, I think that a video resume in my case will fall short as I must enter candidate school. But will for the intents and purposes of this assignment

I guess I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up, so I choose an pretty broad degree that is pretty much good for everything (but at the same time nothing…). I have a few choices that I will pursue once I am finally graduated. I would like to enroll in Officer Candidate School partly because of my father who spent practically 30 years in the service. All throughout my life I have considered myself a military brat. Growing up in schools around the eastern US, I was proud to say that my dad was a Marine. My brother and I would unashamedly put on our dads old uniforms, travel on restricted bases, and visits to the Pentagon. My dad has often been deployed and has served in different parts of the world. Many times, he would have to travel separate from our family for months, even years at a time, but we knew that he did such out of a sense of duty and service. He has always been a disciplined individual with strict regiments for physical fitness and lifestyle. He was the typical marine getting up early and working out, but simultaneously being a down to earth country boy. Five years ago, our family accompanied him on his tour in Japan and Korea. It was a great experience for me because it really showed me what military life was like. We spent time living on and off the military bases, which were basically like cities with medical, social and entertainment facilities everywhere.

 In your blog, discuss ideas for your video and timeline or map resumes. What is the key “message” (or two) you want readers to glean from these resumes? What details do you need to include for the reader to understand your message? What images and other content might you include (especially content you can not normally include in a regular resume)?

I think that the key message from the readers/watchers of my resumes will be the professional endeavors that I have partaken. They are to highlight aspects of my person that fit into job material and characterize a hardworking educated individual. The details would include the periods of work and education, and how I might benefit are job situation. In my hypothetical job, I would stress the details of my father history with the service, traveling and familiarity with the military. I don’t suppose they consider at video resumes, but I would model mine out of a hypothetical interview with an officer-selection officer.

I’m uncertain about the images I would consider placing since the video will not be too long. Possibly, I would dress in a professional fashion and try not to include to much in the background. I would avoid places outside of a business model, say a kitchen or living room. Maybe a bookshelf…

Here are some videos on making a resume that I have found useful in the past.

Here are some videos on making a video resume.

In your blog, discuss types and aspects of fonts that would represent you personally. Also discuss types and aspects of fonts that would represent you professionally. Describe how, why, and the differences. Be sure to use the terms and concepts from the chapter and discuss specific font categories, tones, and specific font names–consider linking out to examples on the web

I think plainly and therefore choose to represent myself in that manner. While I haven’t much dealt with fonts as deeply as others, I think a square or sans serif font is most appropriate. Sure, some people may appreciate some of the decorative or stylish ones to represent themselves, I kind of like the classics and think that one can never go wrong using them. In many cases like advertisements and posters, those types of fonts are quite appropiate as long as they are read in short amounts. But when their is a plethora of information, they become a distraction and sometimes un-readable. I think if they are used strategically and intelligently, they will convey the right emotion and message. Much like this gatorade bottle I’m looking at. It incorporates the use of traditional square serif font for only one word “Series”. It gives it a sense of nobility and credibility apart form the sans serif fonts surrounding it.

Rhetoric on Town Website Analysis: The New York Times

• The New York Times
• rhetorical analysis: Identify the purpose and audience of the website and describe how you know that these are the purpose and audience. Who do you think is the intended audience, be specific? Can you define the probable readers in terms of age, gender, occupation, education, position of power? How can you tell based on the image and/or the context in what the website is found? What range of positions on the issue might target readers hold before reading? What is the image prompting the reader/viewer to do after consuming the text? The audience of the New York times is practically the world whole outside that of non-english/illiterate people. I remember when I was traveling over in Asia and on many of the flights, they would offer this newspaper. Their audience is global in terms of printed paper and I expect none the less from their website. I believe the intended audience to be mainly Americans of an educated and wealthy status, a person that is involved with current events. The front page offers advertisements that aren’t household goods, but brand name accessories. This targets an audience with a high disposable income, so possibly upper-middle class and definitely not the people in your average public library. The front page also carries many international issues, which generically are not the main concern of lower class individuals.
• design element analysis: Identify the all seven design elements and how they working within the website.
  • Repetition: The website does have certain repeating themes, but not many seeing that it is a newspaper site bent on having the most up-to-date information as possible. The window panes and headings are repeated to show uniformity in structure and clarity of reading.
  • Balance: This is where I always have trouble with newspapers because I find the articles so unbalanced. They are wishy-washy in my opinion even though I know that they try to fit the most information in the possible spaces, but this is a website. I expect more than a conglomerate of window panes, but a better structure. There is a heading at the top and correlating sub headings.
  • Contrast: There isn’t much in terms of contrasts outside the white background and black lettering that mimics newspapers of old.
  • Flow: The flow is tied with the Balance. At first the paper wants you to read from up to down, but the disjointedness of the window panes doesn’t direct your attention to any next specific target.
  • Alignment: The page is aligned against a grid.
  • Emphasis: Emphasis is placed upon the headings of each article with a different blue font.
  • Proximity: Everything is held tightly placed together. In my opinion, too tightly.
• design & rhetorical analysis:
  • The design elements are made to mimic the olden days when newspapers were circulated more than toilet paper. This has ceased to be the case, since the internet has been more readily available to others. They do accomplish their goal of being readable just like the old newspapers, but I wish they were different. There is also the use of images in the site that makes it more attractive and the use of a sidebar column for navigability.
• copyright & attribution:The site is professional in its uses of copyrights. The images are either watermarked or captioned with respect to the author. All of the articles are listed with the authors name either at the beginning or the end depending if they are editorial or not.

• How do you invasion the rhetorical situation for this project? What is the purpose? Who is the audience? What are relative aspects of the context?
  • I envisioned the rhetorical situation as described in class. I thought that this project would serve as a preview/overview for the class. It would act as a more up to date class description that one might see in the catalog. The audience would be the same as those who might wish to take the class (those who might not be familiar with the term digital writing). The purpose would be to introduce and slightly describe what digital writing is. The relative aspects of this context serve almost the same as a maybe a movie preview or a marketing advertisement.
• Describe at least 3 ways in which you edited the image you used for your audio postcard.
  • I edited the image many ways with the text boxes that would coincide with the statements. In my slideshow, I formatted the picture to best fit the slide. Each of the text boxes were also edited. They all carried the same font and semi-transparent background. Also, YouTube has a lighting feature that enhances it in a clearer manner. I used it as well.
• What elements of your audio postcard were you required to provide some form of citation. How did you cite it? Why does that citation format best meet the needs of your rhetorical situation?
  • I have cited the image in the YouTube description. This best meets the needs of my rhetorical situation because it is appropriate for the Video sharing website.
• Why and how do at least 3 aspects of your audio file (at least one of which must be an aspect of the audio/aural nature of the file) meet the rhetoric situation?
  • I feel audio examples meet my rhetorical situation because it gives everyday examples of what the audience may use that also serve as forms of digital writing.
  • The audio also gives examples of what is not digital writing. This serves a distinctive purpose because the concept of digital writing is so broad. It shows the overwhelming influence that digital writing has on today.
  • The audio itself proves to be a form of digital writing because the words come up as digital text throughout the video.
• Why and how do at least 3 aspects of your image (at least one of which much be an edited aspect of the image) meet the rhetorical situation?
  • The image shows a view of the world. In this way, the idea of digital writing is already being associated in a broad understanding. It shows that digital writing help create the world that we now live in.
  • The lines on the image show how different parts of the world are now connected, which would not have been possible before the digital age.
  • The text and text boxes serves to guide the reader and listener in a way that only digital writing can. This combination of audio and visual enhances the understandability reaching two senses at the same time (hopefully at the same time).

In the Reflective Letter you will answer the following questions:

• What are you most proud of in the entire project? I am most proud of how the project came out… aka that it actually worked. I had the idea initially as the project was being introduced and was glad that it was able to make it all the way through without major alterations. Even though it took a different route that planned, to see it in its final state is a good feeling.
• What do you wish you had time to further expand, include, or revise in the project? I wish that I had further time to elaborate on the concept of digital writing and give a more conceptual definition than the examples may have given. I wish that I could somehow time the project to reach exactly 30 seconds. I don’t know exactly what went wrong. The timing that I had in SoundCloud met the limit as well as the slideshow in Keynote. I would have also like to use some music to detract from the monotony of a (particularly mine) voice.
• What technologies did you use to complete this project? Why were they appropriate? As stated earlier, I used SoundCloud to record and download the audio portion to use. It was the easiest way for me to record and understand the timing. The sound graph showed me which points were emphasized through loudness and points were I could stand to increase/decrease my pace. It also helped me in Keynote when I needed to make the transitions for the text boxes. The timing of the voices and the structure showed exact times for the new word boxes. From Keynote and SoundCloud, I moved them over to iMovie which combined the two into a file that could be uploaded into YouTube.
• When did you get stuck while working on the project? How did you overcome your problem? I became stuck when I couldn’t figure out how to combine the files from Keynote and SoundCloud. I overcame this problem through some guesswork, but most effectively from the advice of my intelligent professor.
• What did you learn about yourself as a digital writer? I learned that I am still rather novice in my skills at writing digitally. It also takes a lot of creative thinking and guesswork to come to an effective product. There is not an exact science for there are many variables and preferences to think off. It also helps to use compatible software.
• Discuss at least three of the course outcomes you feel you worked towards with this assignment. Provide evidence of your learning by pointing to specific aspects of the project. I feel that I have learned a great deal when it comes to making digital writing, not necessarily writing. The writing part was particularly easier, but the digital part requires a certain skill in problem solving and a patience involved when roadblocks occur. However, the more innovative and intuitive a product is increases the user-ability and the overall appearance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcV0WyXUgfM&feature=youtu.be