Last Chance to Rant!

I didn't realize I was a cloud participant until I took this class but now I know that Im a proud cloud participant.  I found this class to be a great experience for me especially because I didn't think this class would be a challenge.  This class was a challenge for me especially because technology and I bump heads and plus video taping myself was the most challenging and frustrating.  But completing each assignment I have completed each challenge. 

I am taking the summer off but taking more classes in the fall.  I don't think I am going to take any more technology courses through ccv because my main goal is to complete my associates degree and I don't want to waste time and money on taking unnecessary classes for my degree program. But I am glad I took this class because I learned a lot. Taking this course I figured out that I should take a public speaking course because as I mentioned earlier I had a difficult video taping myself so I thought taking that course could be a great challenge for me and hopefully help me on my "stage fright." That's my next skill I'm going to work on.

I honestly hope i'll never have to video tape myself ever again but unfortunately that won't happen so instead I'm going to practice that fear and hope to "not mind" it. 

Overall great class!  I had a lot of fun!

Refer to the list of 12 characteristics of online life mentioned in the article. How do you think online life will change (or has changed) your workplace, living situation, or other areas of your life?

"The experience of growing up online will profoundly shape the workplace expectations of “Generation F” – the Facebook Generation. At a minimum, they’ll expect the social environment of work to reflect the social context of the web, rather than as is currently the case, a mid-20th-century Weberian bureaucracy." 

I didn't realize that this generation is based on the most used media source "Facebook."  My question following this quote was when did this generation take the name "generation F"?

12 Characteristics: Example of my opinions:

1. All ideas compete on an equal footing. -  I believe this is a true statement because the web has allowed other's ideas and opinions to get out the public and allowing them to receive feedback.

2. Contribution counts for more than credentials.- I think the web is a great place to get out your stuff out because you don't need to have a degree, have fancy video equipment, or even have special permission.

Based on the 12 characteristics in this article and my personal opinion I believe that the online life will change in every area because nothing ever stays the same especially the web, technology, and even the ways we communicate.  Currently Facebook is a great source to locate people, workplace, and even advertise, create groups, and events.  Facebook is not just a place to socialize but has become more then that. .  It has allowed business to expand and get out to their local community.

What's The Long Tail mean to you?

I read the article The Long Tail by Chris Anderson. After reading this article I could relate and I have used those online recommendation and reviews to help find great books, music, and even movies that were similar to something I have already enjoyed.
I find the online recommendations and reviews a great resource especially in this present day because there is so many authors, genres, and sometimes you don't have a clue on what your looking for.  Seeing other people enjoy and hearing their personal thought about the book or media helps sell it to the right buyer.  Then if you really enjoy one book or media story line then trying to find another similar to the one you like that's where the recommendations come's useful.  I personally use the recommendations source on iTunes to find similar movies like my favorite movies or songs that I have recently purchased they have recommended songs that I like to check out because most of the time they are similar and I really like them.
I believe that the recommendation and review sources has defiantly helps increase sales especially on smaller titles and not as popular books and media. Hearing the public opinion I believe is the biggest seller.  People like to hear personal experience stories because if someone else really enjoyed then they think they will it enjoy it themselves.

Podcasting For Dummies!

On Itunes I listened to a podcast called Podcasting for Dummies episode 1: Podcasting on a Budget. The podcast was about 8 min long and the main theme of the podcast was how to take a one take free podcast. The guy doing the podcast talks about downloading a free editing software called Adasidy. In order to do a podcast you will need some kind of microphone and usually every laptop has a microphone built in.  In order to produce a podcast you don't need to buy high end software or equipment, just use what you have.  It's extremely easy to produce a economic podcast which is usually all in one take and no editing required.  Editing is time consuming because if your podcast has to many lit smacks, pausing, and natal noises that may be to distracting to the audience as there listening. Podcasting is beyond the book because we are putting in sounds that we can't explain in print.  It's also all about putting in practice what we talk about,  something we have already experience and sharing to the public our personal experience.  He also talks about the difference between podcasting verse audio blogging, from what I understood there wasn't much of a difference between the two.  Audio blogging is everything happening at the moment for example if you hear the phone ringing, baby crying, or even dog barking . . everything is spontaneous and depending on the type of podcast casual or formal.  Most modern podcast are spontaneous but will follow some sort of theme from beginning to end.
I believe this was the first podcast I have ever listened to and by listening I now have a better understanding of what a podcast is.

"On The Road"

Hello Everyone,
I did a On The Road video of me heading to work this morning.  Well I wasn't quite sure what I would do this assignment of and thought this would be a great time to video the everyday process and pit stops I make on my way to work.  I hope this video works because I made little individual videos that i attempted to put together creating a slideshow.  I tried editing but had a hard time figuring out how to upload it to YouTube from photo bucket so I used photo bucket link instead.

So I wasn't successful with photo bucket so i decided to redo the whole video editing and to use a different software.  I downloaded Camtasia 2 and I was able to get better results and I was also able to embed my video on to my website.  I had a very hard time trying to figure this out but now that I have figured it out.  It feels great!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihF0fVojULg


http://samanthaashline.weebly.com

Vlogging:

I did my video on how to make brownies from a box.  I went over to my friend Hannah's and she filmed me on how to make these delicious brownies.  I was super nervous to do this assignment because I don't like taking videos of myself and I don't like center of attention on me.  Before I ended up with the final results which isn't even the greatest but I did my best, it probably took a good 10 to 12 shots because I either screwed up the process or I just kept laughing.  I find it a lot more difficult explaining something rather then just doing it.  After the first 5 shots I finally decided to measure everything before hand and by doing that made the process of explaining a lot easier. Overall my friends and I got a few good laughs in the process of making this video.  

http://youtu.be/96EUNW9jlKE

Wk8: Blog: Presentation magic

 How he uses technology to enrich and enlighten his content and deliver it. What are the key elements of his technique? What can you take away from his talk and apply to your presentation this week?

         This week we were assigned to watch Hans Rosling presentation: The Good News Of The Decade, with the best stats you've ever seen presented on Ted Talk. The content that Hans was educating us and showing his audience visual improvements of how child property has been reduced through the years in different countries.  After watching the full video I think the his main point he was trying to get across was proving there is improvement and statistic documentation showing that we are making progress within the millennium development goals which goals our nation has made to make progress in countries throughout the world in: "ending poverty, education, gender, child and maternal health, control infections, protect our environment, and get the good global links between nations in every aspect from aid to trade." 
         He took advantage of today's media source by using a PowerPoint type software that he added animated graphs (GapMinder World software) that he used to show visual representation of data that would make the audience understand it more clearly. The way he delivered the data and presented using the animated graph which allowed the audience to see the movement of improvement through the years made it that much more rich and more enjoyable to input the information he was sharing. I believe one of the key elements he used was movement and color to help make the graph more understandable to read. I really like how each line was a different color but in the top right corner he represented the world of countries and each country was a different color to match the line that was represented on the graph.  I thought that was a great way to present a color key.   Adding movement in the graph I thought it made it much more realistic because seeing the improvement is more believable then just seeing a bunch of standstill lines because sometimes you never know if they are representing up or down. 
       Those two key elements that I thought was used throughout his presentation to help his audience understand the data was movement and color and I would like to apply that to my presentation.  Color and movement helps liven the "dull original PowerPoint" to more exciting and more interactive presentation and hopefully help engage my audience. Plus that software called GapMinder that he used to create the data graphs and I would like to try to create my own graph because I like how I could input the dates in the background and as the dates are increasing you see the increase or decrease.  Over not a bad Ted Talk and he did a great job in presenting his research and data that shows the improvements in child poverty.