Sunday, April 24, 2016

Assignment Prepares Broadcasting Teacher to Teach Broadcasting

One would assume a broadcasting teacher would know how to produce a video story.  Not this one!  Almost the entire school year has passed with Broadcast Journalism I on my schedule, but we’ve encountered endless delays in ordering equipment.  In the meantime, I’ve learned very little about video production (and that through my friend Louise, a former broadcasting teacher at a nearby school)—until now.

With no real video camera equipment (see paragraph above), I had to use my trusty Nikon D3100 camera and figure out how to take video with it.  It was perfectly serviceable for a brief video story since it can film in segments up to ten minutes in length.

Sisters in Crime: Palmetto Chapter from Stephen Milligan on Vimeo.

Capturing audio was another matter.  The Nikon’s microphone captures sound, but when I played a few test videos, the sound was rather faint and tinny, so I went to Best Buy one and purchased a small, relatively inexpensive Sony clip-on microphone that would plug directly into the camera just to be on the safe side.  It appears to have done the job, but I wish the cable had been a bit longer to provide some more wiggle room (literally and figuratively).   

Setting up the video shoot taught me the wisdom of keeping multiple options open.  I reached out to a contact person for each of my two ideas, and one didn’t get back to me after almost a week had passed, by which time I had already committed to the other because of the time factor involved.

Upon arriving to set up for the event, I realized I would be filming a meeting, which does not necessarily make for exciting B-roll, but again, time was a factor, and the organization’s leaders had expressed interest in using the final video story on their website, so I felt I should make the best of it.

The filming location wasn’t ideal, but I had no control over it—the organization holds monthly meetings at Grecian Gardens in West Columbia.  The restaurant had just opened, so the clatter of china being stacked can be heard in the background, and the Greek music started up midway through my first interview.  Luckily, the group has a standing reservation in a private room, so at least we were away from the bustle of the main dining room.  This room was rather small, but the expected number of members didn’t show up, so I had room to maneuver but still less that I would have liked, particularly with the tripod.  Despite these obstacles, along with the hardship of watching plates of Greek salad, spanakopita, and baklava passing by while I was working, I persevered.

I conducted the interviews first, and only after everything was said and done (literally and figuratively) did I remember I should have positioned the two interview subjects on opposite sides of the frame for visual variety. 

I have realized through this experience that filming is very different from photography.  Many times I had to resist the urge to turn the camera to get a vertical shot, and I had to take more care with framing the shots because distracting or unwanted elements couldn’t be cropped out as they can be with photos.

The editing stage was pretty straightforward, thanks to the previous training on Audacity—Adobe Premier Elements 14 is similar to the audio-editing program in many respects.  At first, I didn’t see the need for the set-in and set-out points, but they are used to pare down the clip before placing it on the timeline (as opposed to placing the entire clip and then cutting), and fine editing can be done on the timeline as needed.

Now I’m totally prepared to dig in and teach broadcasting this fall.  Wishful thinking!  But I now know more than I did three weeks ago, and I have a better idea of how to start and where to start.  Action!

Saturday, April 2, 2016

Lifelong Learning Theme Lends Itself to Interactive Journalism Experimentation

This week’s assignment brings a romper room of multimedia toys to play with.  Some played more nicely than others, though. 

First up: maps.  I love maps.  I’ve even wallpapered my hall with them. 


Since I normally use Google Maps, my first impulse was to use Google’s services for this activity.  I have since learned how important impulse control is.  When I opened Google Maps, I was presented with an empty map of the world with no instruction on how to proceed, so I Googled using Google Maps and somehow stumbled upon the Google Developers page, which showed me all sorts of complicated things on Google Maps APIs, which I have since found out could mean application program interface” or “American Petroleum Institute,” but it may as well have been one in the same because this was way out of my league, and I scoffed when I saw a button entitled “View Pricing and Plans.”

On to MapQuest then!  This appeared to be much easier to use, although at one point (after I had marked and described all of my locations, of course), I managed to lose everything, but I was quickly able to recreate the map just as I’d had it and save it under my newly created account.  Going back to edit the map was a chore, though, because the log-in screen for MapQuest isn’t very easy to locate; in fact, if I hadn’t saved the account set-up confirmation e-mail message, I might never have found it.  Even then, I went in circles for several minutes trying to log in—I kept getting messages saying no account could be found under my username.  Finally, I was able to log in through Facebook (somehow).

The next task was to create a poll or survey using Polldaddy.  After wrestling with Google Maps and MapQuest, this was a breeze—the hardest part was devising the questions!  Polldaddy allows various types of questions to be asked.  I wanted to try one of the Matrix/Likert questions but didn’t like the way the choices at the top of the chart came out looking squished up, so I abandoned that format.  Polldaddy has several options for the font and style of the survey.  I was able to choose a font similar to the blog font, and after testing several styles, I settled on the default, Surveymattic, because it was easy to read, and the gray coloration fit with the gray background of this blog.  There are also choices for how to embed the survey in the blog: button, banner, or slider popup; within these choices are further choices for customization, although I see now hardly any are compatible with blogger.  The survey link below is supposed to be a gray button, and it's supposed to open up in a smaller pop-up window, neither of which is happening.

Share your experience as a lifelong learner!

The final component of this assignment is a timeline, with the choice of creating one using either Tiki-Toki or Dipity.

I’d seen Tiki-Toki in action recently when the website my English II students were using to research the historic structures on Columbia’s Bull Street property (the former home of the state mental hospital) went down.  The professor at USC (that’s the University of South Carolina, not that other university somewhere in California that tries to use that designation) whose students had created the original site directed me to a Tiki-Toki timeline her class had also created, saving (most of) the day.  I created an account and began working with it, only to be told I couldn’t upload photos or embed the timeline in this blog without paying.  What to do?  Dipity-Do!

Which should be called Dipity-Don’t.

I spent entirely too much time going in circles on Dipity.  I could never find the timeline I had named, and after clicking around on the site, I was told I had created the maximum number of timelines allowed with a free account…even though I had only created one and hadn’t even edited it.  The help feature is a misnomer, and every time I tried to access my account settings, I kept getting sent back to what appeared to be the homepage.

So, with credit card in hand, I upgraded my free Tiki-Toki account to allow photos and embedding.  Creation of the timeline went smoothly after this.  The only drawback is that the timeline insists on use of the full date, not just month and year, so in cases where I couldn’t remember the exact date, I had to estimate.

  
Well played, if I do say so myself.