Meron – Spring 2015 Class Blogs

Project 4: Computer Issues

Meron — Mon, 20 Apr 2015 14:52:53 +0000

I had already started working on Mulan. Unfortunately yesterday, my computer crashed, so I lost the Mulan photos I took. Therefore, I made some slight changes:

I’ll make an actual flipbook with drawings of the scene I want and record it as I flip it. OR I could take photos of the pages and put them in iMovie and create a video. With the interest of time, I’m just going to make the whole theme of the flipbook a simple love story.

Finding a tool for Project 4

Meron — Mon, 13 Apr 2015 14:57:06 +0000

For my 4th project, I chose Mulan. As ridiculous as it may sound, I’m going to use eggs, photography, and a flip book tool to create a trailer or a scene from Mulan. Trust me, I know what I’m doing…hopefully. Today, I sketched the scene I want to shoot for my flip book movie. It is a rough draft, really. I tried using Flipsnack, but I hadto manually click on my pictures for the to make them move. I want them to play like a movie, but with a flip book effect, so I didn’t find Flipsnack useful.

So I went on to try Free HTML5 flip book application. It still the same. I have to manually click my pictures to make them move. I didn’t even bother to work with Smilebox, because I would have to download it onto my computer first. At this point. I think I’m going to create a children’s story book using one of the flipping tool.

It’s decided, I’m creating a story book! I’ll still be using eggs and photography, so here’s the plan:

I want to script my story and take photo of the scenes I want by today.

By Wednesday, I want to use the Free HTML5 flip book application to create my story book.

Presentation Day

Meron — Mon, 30 Mar 2015 14:55:03 +0000

I love photography, so Thematic was an application that caught my attention. Essentially, Thematic is a tool that enables you to create a visual story using the pictures you upload from your computer. I have lots of photos that I was thinking of using to create a story, so it’s great I got to learn about this.

Another tool I found interesting was Text 2 Mind Map, it looks like something I would use to brainstorm or organize my thoughts for a class or an exam.

Presentation Day

Meron — Mon, 23 Mar 2015 14:55:40 +0000

Through today’s presentation, I learned about online softwares and tools I completely had no idea about. Out of all of them though, I found AudioBoom interesting. It is both a website and an application that lets you create, share , and listen to sound files!

I love music and listening to other creative artists, so I think AudioBoom would be a great tool to check out.

March 18, 2014

Meron — Wed, 18 Mar 2015 14:42:34 +0000

Today, I signed up for my presentation for my Interrogating Interface project. It’s going to be on March 25, 2015. I have a lot to work on before then: the web essay and putting my presentation together. The web essay is not going to be as difficult, because I have been working on the Designer Analysis questions and compiling good notes. So, I’ll use these notes and expand on them for my web essay.

Before and After

Meron — Mon, 16 Mar 2015 03:34:00 +0000

For my third project, I’m working with PresentationTube. PresentationTube is a tool that that “offers a free screen recording software and online video sharing platform.” What I did today was analyze what this tool does effectively, along with some of its constraints.

Since my evidence photo is not clear, at all, below is some of the affordance and constraints of PresentationTube:

Affordance:

What the PresentationTube tool makes easy is access to presentations made using its program. It provides ample of different types of presentations. Some presentations are accompanied by recorded video of the presenter talking at the bottom-right of the presentation screen. Others are just audios of the presenter in the background.

Also, the first/home page of the tool provides different sections: recent uploads, popular presentations, most viewed presentations, most shared presentations.

Constraints:

The first thing I wanted to do when I got to the home page was find out how the PresentationTube tool works. But the program did not offer a quick start guide. I had to go to the support page to find out how the tool works, which I thought is for trouble shooting.

Interrogating Interface: Schedule with Projected Dates

Meron — Wed, 04 Mar 2015 15:51:22 +0000

Thursday 3/5: Research what my tool, PresentationTube, does and how it does it while keeping in mind the Designer Analysis questions. Start on the Designer Analysis questions.

Friday 3/6: Continue working on the Designer Analysis questions. Be sure to answer them thoroughly, Meron! Make a blog post that shows my work so far–with evidence of course.

Monday 3/9: Outline my web essay, making sure it highlights different parts my tool.Take screenshots of my tool to support my analysis.

Thursday 3/19: Draft my web essay and presentation slideshow

Lessons Learned from the Video Star Verdict

Meron — Mon, 02 Mar 2015 15:38:24 +0000

Today, a group of us assessed a project that analyzes the web interface Video Star Verdict. Here is the link to the project: https://sites.google.com/a/vt.edu/video-star-interrogating-the-interface/

It is evident that in this project’s essay the author doesn’t assume the reader has a prior knowledge about the interface. She includes all types of detailed information on how the tool operates. The fact that the author includes web links that leads readers to different sites such as the Writing & Digital Media course page and different App Websites is very effective. This is something I would certainly apply in my own project. Also, the way the author chronologically labeled the tabs ( Home, background, First Impressions) helps readers move step by step without being bombarded with too much information all at once. Although it has minor constraints, I would consider this project to be one of the exemplary ones.

My Interface Choice

Meron — Fri, 27 Feb 2015 15:29:46 +0000

I’ve never made a video presentation in any of my classes before. But that is about to change! Today, I signed up for my first interface choice: PresentationTube! I chose this interface because it is an interactive tool that incorporates audio or videos of the narrator (me) in presentation slides. It basically brings life to your presentation. It seems like a tool that engages its users wholly; and that’s what drew me to it.

Bear with me or Bare with me?

Meron — Mon, 23 Feb 2015 15:59:29 +0000

English is not my native language, so sometimes I have the tendency to misspell words or use them inappropriately. Ok. Maybe I’m just using this as an excuse. Either way, I find autocorrect convenient when it comes to communicating through text or email. Although it is easier to spell passively, thanks to autocomplete and autocorrect, I usually spell my words out fully and then check them with my autocorrect options to verify if I’m right or not. Although this defeats the purpose of autocorrect which is to make communication faster, it actually helps me remember words and their correct spellings better.

It didn’t always work that way, however. I once sent out a mass email to teachers in high school asking them to assist me in a fundraising project I was involved in. Due to the long content in my email, I told my teachers to “bare with me.” This was the most embarrassing thing in my email writing experience. If only autocorrect knew what I meant to say!