Well here it is. My last blog post for the unit. First of all I would like to say that I am finally glad this blog is over. For the past fifteen weeks I’ve been struggling to bring myself to write this every week. I just don’t think that blogging is really for me. Typing about myself and what I have been doing because it was an assessment was a hard thing to do. I needed to try and find my own writing style and make it interesting so that people would want to read my blog. I think that it would be a hard task to write about something of my choice and make it interesting, let alone write about something that I was required to write about.
That being said this blog has been a big learning experience for me. I am not going to say that I will never blog again, but it might be awhile before I get back onto the blogging scene. One thing I do know is that when I blog again I have picked up many different skills in which to make it more interesting and accessible for the reader. If you could see a timeline of how my blog progressed over the course of the semester you would see a variety of changes. From the layout, to the content and even changes in my style. The best example of change was my template that I started using after many weeks of having this blog. I was looking at other people’s blogs and seeing that they had really cool backgrounds and mine was just a simple blogger background. So I eventually changed it in to what it is now, which looks much nicer. I also played around with the little tabs that my blog could have such as links and RSS etc.
Now I will get onto the big topic of traffic or rather I should say a lack of traffic generated from my blog. The first thing that I did when I started my blog was got a list of everyone in the class and linked to them on my blog roll. At the start I was going to keep up to date with everyone and read what they were doing. I also got myself an RSS reader and kept up to date with some other blogs that I enjoyed. However I found myself visiting everyone’s blog less and less until I finally had about three on my reader which I read but rarely visited the others. This was because these three people managed to make their blogs good and interesting while talking about the unit. Unfortunately this meant that the other people’s blogs just got shunned to the side. Now if I use this theory in relation to my blog I think the same thing would apply. There are many links of my in peoples blog roll but unfortunately I did not know how to set up any thing to check traffic (ill get more into this later). As for followers I had a whole two of them, which turned out to be two guys from my tutorial. When I linked into people on my blog roll I automatically assumed that it meant I was becoming a follower but apparently you have to do this another way. That being known know I’m actually happy that I even have two followers.
When sitting down to write this final blog post I was unsure what to do about traffic. I had no way to know just how much traffic that my blog was getting. I seen a class member post up on moodle that they were having the same problem as me and the post eventually got an answer. I was still unsure of how I was meant to talk about this so I looked at the class member’s blog and seen how they tackled the answer. I then looked it up on online and found that in order to monitor traffic you needed to set up a counter or use some software such as Google analytics to keep a record of how often your blog is visited. This is very important because if you can keep track of how many people are coming to your blog you can keep it going the same or change it around to suit more people. Google analytics also keeps track of how people interact with your blog, such as which links they click on and how they get there. This could also be very useful data because you can see what people like and do not like. Knowing where people link off to from your blog can give you better ideas of content to put on there. That way you could increase traffic by making it more specific to their interests. The best way to increase traffic is by doing little things like this. Looking at how they interact with the blog, looking at their interests and disinterests, and trying to provide content for them and when that isn’t possible to link them to the content they want. I have found that the best thing about network media is that you don’t always need to be the guy who knows everything. When you don’t quite understand something or don’t know much about on a particular topic you can just link off to somewhere that does. That way you can keep your readers happy and still provide them with the information that they want.
In my blog roll I only had blogs of people that were in my class. I subscribed to many other blogs using my newsreader but did not put them on my blog roll. If any outside people looked in on my blog they would be linked to people who were talking about the same things week in and week out that I was. Also if any one from another tute looked at my blog they would be linked to all the people in my tute. I also directed traffic to the uni home page and just random sites that had to do with the information we were learning about. For example when I started I directed people to a BlogSpot template site.
If I was to do this blog again I think that I would change a lot of things. First of all I would probably post more regularly about any thing. Just to try and keep it interesting to a wide variety of people. I got stuck in the habit of writing the required one post a week about lecture material or assignments that I was working on at the time. I would also do more in the area of setting up a traffic counter and putting more interesting links in my blog. Overall I think that through doing this blog I learnt a lot about network media practices. In terms of how to monitor traffic, linking to other people and how to make a good blog. I think that if I started a blog about a topic I enjoy I would be able to make an interesting informative blog and who knows, I might even make some money off it one day.
Three Nominated Blog Posts
Week 1, A Bit of Content
http://mediayanr.blogspot.com/2010/02/bit-of-content.html
Week 10, Pimping The Ol’ City
http://mediayanr.blogspot.com/2010/04/week-10-pimping-ol-city.html
Week 12, The Business End
http://mediayanr.blogspot.com/2010/04/week-12-business-end.html
Well the term is almost over. Its 1:46 on a friday morning and im pretty much finished my Geo Narrative. I realised that I had not blogged yet for this week so here I am in the early hours of the morn. The things uni students do to make sure they get marks! My Geo narrative is just started to come together nicely now. It has images and video and links off onto other things. If you could be bothered to read my rationale it tells you all about it. Pity the rationale cant be used as a blog post because my Geo Narrative is all I really have to talk about at the moment. I just need to add some finishing touches to it such as the text being spaced and maybe playing around with colours and stuff. I also have another media assignment due tomorrow so when these are both handed in I will be very pleased with myself. Just one more day before I go on 11 weeks of holidays. Or rather 11 weeks of working to make money so im not poor next semester.
Today was the last class for Network Media Production and it was rather sad. I really enjoyed the way our class operated and the people in it. It was a Good Romance. I especially enjoyed Tom Cruise when he showed up. The two hour classes would fly whenever he decided to grace us with his presence. In the end I think that I have learnt alot from this unit. From creating websites to writing blogs and making stories in google maps. It was alot of work but in the end it was good. Now its 2 in the morning and im thinking that this blog post is in trouble of becoming a unit satisfaction survey. So I might head to bed and write some more tomorrow. Or when I come back over my posts and add things here and there. You will hear from me soon!
URL GOOGLE MAPS http://maps.google.com.au/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=111213758830809272135.0004864f3ddf70560879e&z=11
For my Network Media Production Project B I chose to create a Geo Narrative. The reason that I did not decide to create a datavisulization was because when I started the assignment I was still a bit unsure on what a datavisulization was. So I thought it was better to go with something that seemed like I could do a good job of. I looked over the option and decided that the best was to write a fictional story, which I based off four friends. It took me a long time to think of an idea for the story and write down a draft. From there I fine tuned the story and needed to figure out how many location markers I would use, how many images and videos I would need to take and how to organise it all. The thing that I liked most about this assignment was the process of telling the story through Google maps. If you read a novel or magazine story it can be quite interesting or quite boring depending on how well the story is written. However by writing a story using Google maps and adding images and videos to locations as well as text it can create a lot of interest. It creates an interactive environment, which makes reading a story more fun and gives you’re a greater understanding of what is happening and where it is happening.
This is the reason that Google maps is a good example of network media. There are so many different ways in which you can link in different forms of media to the story. As mentioned above you can use text, link in websites, images and videos. When reading the story you can see an image and then click on a link to go onto some further reading. This is really good because it creates many opportunities to get information out of the story instead of just reading a bunch of text. For this reason I found Google maps to be a very handy tool in creating an interesting networked media production.
Some troubles that I ran across whilst doing this assignment was the process of taking the photos and making the videos. Due to the fact that it was a story about four different people, it made it hard to get all my actors in one spot at one time. This was because everyone had their own commitments. If I could do this assignment again I would not choose a class member to be an actor because we both had lots of work to do for our own assignments and was hard to accommodate both persons schedules. I also had trouble getting the images and video to load onto the locations. I found that when uploading onto flickr the image did not come out at a sufficient size when linked onto Google maps. However a classmate pointed me in the direction of Google Picasa which I uploaded my photos to and had no problems.
One thing I tried to do was make the story as realistic as possible. Therefore I created a story which could happen everyday and tried to keep the visuals simple and to the point. I toyed with editing the images in Photoshop but due to lack of skills was not able to do much. However by keeping the photos simple it worked well with the overall story. I also decided to keep Marvin's day a mystery to create more interest with the reader. I thought that by keeping what he did secret the reader would sit there wondering what he was getting himself into. Until finally the video at the end doesn't explain any thing, but leaves you with more to wonder about. I also thought this would provide some good humor to the story to also help add interest.
Seeing as this was my first time doing a project like this I learnt some good lessons when it comes to taking photos and video. It’s always a good idea to try and get them all taken on the same day. Otherwise a lot of variable factors come into play such as costume changes, different weather etc. It is also a good idea to try and get the images taken as soon as possible. There were a few occasions when I put my photos on computer and realised something wrong with them and needed a retake. The sooner the photos are taken the more time you have to organise a retake if they are wrong. I also learnt that it is very handy to borrow photos off other people. For one of the locations I found a really nice photo on flickr from another member of the class. So i asked them if I could use the picture for my geo narrative. Although I did not ask a random stranger for the photo I think that people are generally willing to share their stuff around as long as due credit is given to them. Copyright is a big issue so i tried to stay away from using other peoples images for this project. But if I was to do it again I would probably have a bigger look around and get in contact with more people about using their works.
Another problem I found in making my video was having sound in the background for some shots and not in others. The video turned out to be a bit of a throw together because I did not have time to get the actors all together again to retake it. However I left it in my assignment because I thought that even if it was poor quality it still added a needed element, which would have been missed if I left it out.
Overall I do not think that this was a very difficult assignment but it was time consuming. Not a lot of technical knowledge was needed in order to create a good piece of work. Rather just creative ideas and making sure that you spent time putting all the different forms of media together. I really enjoyed doing this assignment and was happy with how it all turned out in the end.
I almost forgot to blog this week when I got a friendly reminder in class today. I have been so busy lately with work. Someone called in sick for the whole week so I have been working for 7 nights straight. Inbetween uni and work I have been trying to get all my work done but I seem to be getting behind. It is especially showing in Japanese because I have not had time to memorise all the new words. Learning a language is hard. I also finished writing the story that I will be using in my geonarrative today. The hard part about this is taking all the images and video for the different slides. I need to get my actors together all at one time and most of them are also busy with uni seeing as the end of the semester is coming up. Hopefully I can finish it all off this weekend or early next week so I have time to go over it.
I have also been working on another Media assignment involving putting all my images onto a final cut slideshow. This assignment has been frustrating because it involves having final cut to do it. So I need to be at uni and finding a spare computer is usually very hard. This is the good thing about the geo narrative because I can do it at home whenever I want.
On a lighter note I have been keeping track of a new halo game that is coming out this year called Halo Reach. So far I have been very impressed and can see myself playing it alot. Halo lan party wooooo. Any ways good luck to everyone else who has plenty of stuff to finish before the semester is over.
Peace
Hey everyone. It's week 12 and it's time to get down to business. Lots of assessment and not much time to do it in. There was no lecture this week for Network because last week was Michael's last one. This cleared up my tuesday afternoon for other activities. Looking at the amount of assessment due for me this week and the coming two weeks my tuesday afternoon activities will probably consist of working on assignments. Which is exactly what I have been doing all day today. Wednesday my beloved day off from uni and work was slaughtered by the fact that I have a Japanese assignment due tomorrow and an essay due in on friday. Now I am a procrastinator when it comes to actually doing assignments. Then there is a point every so often where I just buckle down and get heaps of work done. Today was that day. I achieved a lot in regards to my assignments. However this is also bad news because it means that I have not had time to start work on my Network Media task.
I have decided that for my Network media task I will be writing a story about a few friends who decide that its going to be a game night. However they are all very busy on the particular day with things such as work, uni, and one guy is even proposing to his girlfriend. However they make a pact that they will all meet up at the designated point in the evening. The story takes place jumping between their days and the hardships they face during the day trying to make the game night. It will be a comedy story (at least ill try to make it funny) and will span Canberra and surrounding areas. I am looking forward to making this story come to life in google maps. I like the idea of reading a book and getting sucked into a story while at the same time you can interactively get a picture of where the events are taking place and what it looks like. I thought about doing a datavisualization but decided that it would take up too much time to collect relevant statistics and turn it into something cool.
Seeing as it is the end of the term a lot of my lectures and tutorials have become mainly time to get assessment done. Which is good however my Japanese class is still going full steam ahead. I left this blog last night because I had other things to do and now I find myself sitting here not remembering what the hell I wanted to talk about. So I might leave it here for this week. I have an essay to write tonight that is due for friday and I am running off little sleep. Just gotta love the uni life ay.
WHOA! WHAT HAPPENED TO MY BLOG! Some of you might be thinking. Then again other people might never have been before and have no idea what im talking about. So to let you all know what im going on about I finally decided to download a template and change the style of my blog. Ever since I created my blog back in the day I had been using the same old boring, some would say ugly, style and coloring. With this new template I have taken some positive steps on the way to coolness.
The semester have been going way to fast for my liking. I have been tied down with alot of assessment. I finally decided to read over the requirements for the blog other then the basic one post a week etc etc. I realised that my blog needed alot of work if I wanted to get good marks. Considering my results from the last assignment I did for Network Media Production I realised I needed to get some good marks. I do not want to just get pass' and finish my degree Im at least aiming to get credits if not better. Getting a pass in the first assignment was not a good step in this direction.
So now that I have changed the layout and had a look at the unit outline I can blog about any thing I want. Ive also decided that in the next couple of weeks im going to go on a blog overhaul. Pretty much meaning I am going over all previous posts and adding some information, labeling them, linking to relevant stuff etc. If I am going to choose three good blog posts to be marked I really need to update.
So in keeping with the theme of assignments I have started to think about the second Network task. Ive been thinking that I will be making a story in google maps. However I have yet to decide if I will be making up something fictional or telling some kind of life story or tour. I think I will need to make some more decisions within the next couple of days on how I will approach this.
Finally I need to make mention of the Japanese oral that I have tommorow. Learning another language is hard especially when doing all the other assignments at the same time. Sometimes I just wish I could comprehend all languages. Then I would never have to worry about Japanese ever again. Oh well when I finally learn how to speak it I will be having a fun time traveling Japan.
Until next time
Peace
Whats happening out there fellow bloggers? To tell you the truth im having an up and down week. Good marks here, bad marks there, not finished tests. Its been an interesting one all around. I ended up doing the quiz today and i got within an acceptable range of guessing Michaels weight. I was pretty happy with this because so far I have been owning these quizes. Today we did an interesting topic in class. We had to talk about multiplicity and create an idea that which uses multiplicity and collective intelligence. My group came up with an idea called Digicity. The basic idea of this was that people would submit building plans to a database. The plans would then be turned into 3d models using software and displayed online. People could vote and rate on designs and create their own Digital City. Some good uses for this would be for people to get their building designs out there, for architects to look at popular designs, or just for some fun. It would require alot of work and intelligence so its pretty much well out of my reach. Unless I decided to dedicate my whole life to it or something. There were also lots of other good ideas presented by other people in my class. I wont go into detail about them just in case they want to keep their ideas secretive. Haha but I think if you go blog surfing you will be able to find all the ideas posted somewhere.
Just to lighten the mood from all this serious talk. If any of you are looking for a good movie to go and watch I recommend Kick Ass. I have seen a few movies lately, for example Clash of the Titans and to be honest not many have been really capturing my attention. However Kick Ass had great elements which kept me interested through the whole thing.
I would also like to mention that there is a new Halo game being released this year and a new Gears of War being released sometime next year. I hate knowing that when these titles come out I still still be at uni and trying to juggle all of my work around having fun.
If any one has any suggestions on some cool movies to watch or any thing like that please leave me a comment. Seeing as we are doing a media class im just gonna assume that at least some of you have some ideas on a good watch.
Until next time
Peace
