Sunday, November 2, 2014
Multimedia Tools
Multimedia tools can definitely enhance the message you want to get across. There is a time and place for different multimedia tools. Depending on the topic, music, videos, and pictures can be great story tellers. There are times, for me personally, I want to read a story rather than watch a video about it, but I will admit there are times when I feel the opposite. I think having the options are great, and that the video, music or pictures, should enhance the story, rather than be the story. I believe there is such thing as too much, and the audience shouldn't be distracted, rather they should be more captivated and it should make them want to stay and take in the information. Some stories are so all over the place that it is more frustrating to figure out where the noise is coming from to shut it off or where the video is playing from. They should be easy to use and optional unless necessary. An example of bad usage of multimedia is this meant to be bad example: http://www.angelfire.com/super/badwebs/ They show all of the horrible ways that multimedia tools are abused and overused. An example of a webpage using the right amount, correctly, I believe would be: www.apple.com. I think apple does a good job of keeping it simple, interesting, and easy to use. I think most multimedia tools can be effective when used appropriately. There is a time and place for each tool and it is important to remember, less is more.
Thursday, October 23, 2014
Blog Week 8: Blogging Best Practices
Ohdeardrea.blogspot.com is a blog run by Drea Duclos, a wife and mother of one. Drea lives a very natural and healthful life. Her blog talks about life, veganism, a natural lifestyle, motherhood, marriage and lots of food. This blog is a lifestyle blog and focuses more on personal stories and opinions rather than outside information. At times Drea will incorporate outside posts from other bloggers and does a great job crediting them and always cites where she gets her information. She is a wonderful photographer and creates a lot of her own recipes which she is using to create her own cookbook. The function of the blog is to help readers learn how to live a natural life and learn about veganism from somebody's personal experiences. There is only information and answered questions, no push for anybody to change their health habits unless they want to. The substance is purely antidotal. Drea brings us into her life and home. She talks about veganism for herself, raising a vegan child, leading a natural, healthy life, and how she and her family live happily. Drea doesn't hold back, she takes the reader through her ups and downs in life and the journey she has been on for the past 4-5 years. "I'm Andrea Duclos, but more commonly known as Drea. I reside in South Florida with my tiny wonderful family, where we live as simply, naturally and as happily as possible" (Duclos, About, para 1).
I believe the best practices for creating a blog are to remember your audience, remember why you started your blog and stay true to yourself. It can be hard to try and keep all of those thing together but it is important to create a meaningful blog. There also needs to be a consistency, blogging frequently keeps your audience interested and curious. Drea has always followed through on posts she promised, always considers her audience's requests, all while staying true to her life and all that is important to her. I love her style, her photos, and her knowledge on a simple lifestyle. She always looks at the positives and I always find myself checking in for new posts (which luckily happen frequently).
Duclos, A. (n.d) About. Ohdeardrea. Retrieved from http://ohdeardrea.blogspot.com/p/about.html
Ohdeardrea.blogspot.com is a blog run by Drea Duclos, a wife and mother of one. Drea lives a very natural and healthful life. Her blog talks about life, veganism, a natural lifestyle, motherhood, marriage and lots of food. This blog is a lifestyle blog and focuses more on personal stories and opinions rather than outside information. At times Drea will incorporate outside posts from other bloggers and does a great job crediting them and always cites where she gets her information. She is a wonderful photographer and creates a lot of her own recipes which she is using to create her own cookbook. The function of the blog is to help readers learn how to live a natural life and learn about veganism from somebody's personal experiences. There is only information and answered questions, no push for anybody to change their health habits unless they want to. The substance is purely antidotal. Drea brings us into her life and home. She talks about veganism for herself, raising a vegan child, leading a natural, healthy life, and how she and her family live happily. Drea doesn't hold back, she takes the reader through her ups and downs in life and the journey she has been on for the past 4-5 years. "I'm Andrea Duclos, but more commonly known as Drea. I reside in South Florida with my tiny wonderful family, where we live as simply, naturally and as happily as possible" (Duclos, About, para 1).
I believe the best practices for creating a blog are to remember your audience, remember why you started your blog and stay true to yourself. It can be hard to try and keep all of those thing together but it is important to create a meaningful blog. There also needs to be a consistency, blogging frequently keeps your audience interested and curious. Drea has always followed through on posts she promised, always considers her audience's requests, all while staying true to her life and all that is important to her. I love her style, her photos, and her knowledge on a simple lifestyle. She always looks at the positives and I always find myself checking in for new posts (which luckily happen frequently).
Duclos, A. (n.d) About. Ohdeardrea. Retrieved from http://ohdeardrea.blogspot.com/p/about.html
Friday, October 17, 2014
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Joe Paterno was a valued, well known football coach for Pennsylvania State University. He suffered his toughest loss, at 85, to lung cancer. Joe Paterno, also referred to as, JoePa, left behind a wonderful football legacy and will be greatly missed. Ohio State coach Urban Meyer said “He will go down as the greatest football coach in the history of the game”. This only further proves how respected this man was in the game of football. Penn State president Rodney Erickson also had remarkable things to say about JoePa, stating he was “a great man who made us a greater university” and that JoePa’s “dedication to ensuring his players were successful both on the field and in life is legendary”. JoePa will be missed by not only his friends and family, but by his players, his university, and football.
Facebook post: Football lost one of its greatest contributors, Joe Paterno, on January 22, 2012. He will be greatly missed and always remembered as one of the greats.
Schlabach, M., & ESPN.com news services. (Jan, 2012). Joe Paterno, 85, dies in state college. ESPN College Football. Retrieved from http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/7489238/joe-paterno-ex-penn-state-nittany-lions-coach-dies-85-2-month-cancer-fight
Saturday, October 11, 2014
Blog 3:
New media tools are a great way to reach a large audience. They can effectively spread information quickly and reach new people that would otherwise not be reached.
Blogs: Blogging is a great outlet for anyone. There are no limits to what type of blog you want to run. There are picture blogs, written blogs, written with pictures. There are information blogs, life blogs, medical blogs, the amount of different blogs is endless. There is something for everyone. There are sites that you interact with other bloggers more, and there are sites that you keep your own blog more on your own. As blogs are becoming more popular they are becoming more well known. There are some blogs that have hundreds of thousands of followers or readers. It is a great way to get information out.
examples: tumblr.com, bloodspot.com, wordpress.com, and blogger (what we are using for this class).
Social Networking Sites: Social networking sites are similar to blogs in that you can post any information you want, but they have a little more structure than blogs. There are places to post information, pictures and contact information. Social networking sites are more accessible than blogs. Once you find a blog you want to follow, it is easy, but there are so many blog platforms it is hard to discover new ones. Social media sites are easily searchable and you can easily find people or companies you are interested in.
examples: Facebook.com, twitter.com, pintrest.com, linkedin.com, (some overlap: tumblr.com).
Video Sharing Sites: Video sharing sites are another great way to spread information. In this case you don't have to rely on written word to get your message out. Videos are a great way to connect with people. Using charm and charisma you can connect to many people and create a following that way.
examples: youtube.com, vine.com, vimeo.com.
New media tools are an excellent way to spread your message in this new technological age.
New media tools are a great way to reach a large audience. They can effectively spread information quickly and reach new people that would otherwise not be reached.
Blogs: Blogging is a great outlet for anyone. There are no limits to what type of blog you want to run. There are picture blogs, written blogs, written with pictures. There are information blogs, life blogs, medical blogs, the amount of different blogs is endless. There is something for everyone. There are sites that you interact with other bloggers more, and there are sites that you keep your own blog more on your own. As blogs are becoming more popular they are becoming more well known. There are some blogs that have hundreds of thousands of followers or readers. It is a great way to get information out.
examples: tumblr.com, bloodspot.com, wordpress.com, and blogger (what we are using for this class).
Social Networking Sites: Social networking sites are similar to blogs in that you can post any information you want, but they have a little more structure than blogs. There are places to post information, pictures and contact information. Social networking sites are more accessible than blogs. Once you find a blog you want to follow, it is easy, but there are so many blog platforms it is hard to discover new ones. Social media sites are easily searchable and you can easily find people or companies you are interested in.
examples: Facebook.com, twitter.com, pintrest.com, linkedin.com, (some overlap: tumblr.com).
Video Sharing Sites: Video sharing sites are another great way to spread information. In this case you don't have to rely on written word to get your message out. Videos are a great way to connect with people. Using charm and charisma you can connect to many people and create a following that way.
examples: youtube.com, vine.com, vimeo.com.
New media tools are an excellent way to spread your message in this new technological age.
Thursday, September 18, 2014
Blog Post #3 - Create a new entry using Blogger. Choose an online news article published by Time, The New York Times, or The Huffington Post and track its cited sources. Visit each source online and evaluate its credibility based on the guidelines set in Criteria to Evaluate the Credibility of WWW Resources. Draft a blog post that briefly states a potential impact of unrestricted web publishing through mass media as it relates to this article.
Scrolling through Huffingtonpost.com, I went to my main interest, the health tab. This brought up a few articles, but I decided on "Are Positive People Really Healthier?". This article talked about positivity and health, how they're related and if positive thinking can really keep you healthy. This was a post taken from MensJournal.com. While this website itself isn't necessarily "reliable", the article itself cited some very credible sources. These sources ranged from PubMed, which is part of the U.S National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health, Harvard.edu and the Mayo Clinic. I also searched for the professor cited in the beginning and he was a credible, psychology professor from Loyola University. Overall, this article was credible and gave good, scientific information to back up their claim.
Once I found the original article, it was easy to locate the sources cited. In the post from Huffingtonpost.com it wasn't as clear where the information was coming from. The article talked a lot about research but there wasn't any way to locate the research from the article. This was only possible once I found my way to Mensjournal.com. In this case it was all reliable information, but it could have easily been information pulled from random sources out of context and misconstrued. If this article had gone the way the title made it seem, asking "Are Positive People Really Healthier?", and they talked about how this was not true, they could have easily written a similar article without sources and it wouldn't be much different. Not having the sources readily available makes it seem less reliable. Unrestricted web publishing can pass off scientific sounding information as real. Articles like this get passed around often on social media. They are posted and reposted, and I doubt people are looking into the sources before they pass it along. Wrong information could be easily posted and passed around and the people passing it around wouldn't realize they were doing it.
Scrolling through Huffingtonpost.com, I went to my main interest, the health tab. This brought up a few articles, but I decided on "Are Positive People Really Healthier?". This article talked about positivity and health, how they're related and if positive thinking can really keep you healthy. This was a post taken from MensJournal.com. While this website itself isn't necessarily "reliable", the article itself cited some very credible sources. These sources ranged from PubMed, which is part of the U.S National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health, Harvard.edu and the Mayo Clinic. I also searched for the professor cited in the beginning and he was a credible, psychology professor from Loyola University. Overall, this article was credible and gave good, scientific information to back up their claim.
Once I found the original article, it was easy to locate the sources cited. In the post from Huffingtonpost.com it wasn't as clear where the information was coming from. The article talked a lot about research but there wasn't any way to locate the research from the article. This was only possible once I found my way to Mensjournal.com. In this case it was all reliable information, but it could have easily been information pulled from random sources out of context and misconstrued. If this article had gone the way the title made it seem, asking "Are Positive People Really Healthier?", and they talked about how this was not true, they could have easily written a similar article without sources and it wouldn't be much different. Not having the sources readily available makes it seem less reliable. Unrestricted web publishing can pass off scientific sounding information as real. Articles like this get passed around often on social media. They are posted and reposted, and I doubt people are looking into the sources before they pass it along. Wrong information could be easily posted and passed around and the people passing it around wouldn't realize they were doing it.
Saturday, September 13, 2014
Blog 2: How do you know what you know? Name one new thing you learned using a social media site today and explain why you believe it is true. What source did you use to acquire this information? At times, are social media sites reliable for obtaining credible information?
Today I learned that George Zimmerman is in the media again, this time for road rage. He is being accused of threatening another man's life. From this article, I've learned that this isn't the first time he's been accused of threatening somebody's life since the murder of Trayvon Martin. I learned this on FaceBook. It was one of their trending articles, and I clicked on it. With FaceBook recently, they will give you all of the articles they have found about the topic you've picked and list them all for you. In this case, there were many accounting the same information, many different sites and reporters. In this case, I believe that what I've read is true. Some of the sites weren't the most reliable looking, but all in all, they had the same information and it seemed that it was true.
I believe that social media can be reliable for credible information. If I wanted to look up a certain topic or news story that I heard about, social media probably wouldn't be my first choice in obtaining it, but it is where I learn a lot of new information. I usually take what I learn from social media and then do my own research to find out more. The same goes for all other social media, Twitter, Tumblr etc, they have their place. They are good outlets to get the original story out, but their goal isn't to get accurate information out, it's to get the most updated information out. It is helpful, for me, when something big or important happens, I see it on social media first, because it might take longer for me to get the information if it wasn't on social media. I think that goes for a lot of people. Social media helps get breaking news out quickly, to a large audience.
Today I learned that George Zimmerman is in the media again, this time for road rage. He is being accused of threatening another man's life. From this article, I've learned that this isn't the first time he's been accused of threatening somebody's life since the murder of Trayvon Martin. I learned this on FaceBook. It was one of their trending articles, and I clicked on it. With FaceBook recently, they will give you all of the articles they have found about the topic you've picked and list them all for you. In this case, there were many accounting the same information, many different sites and reporters. In this case, I believe that what I've read is true. Some of the sites weren't the most reliable looking, but all in all, they had the same information and it seemed that it was true.
I believe that social media can be reliable for credible information. If I wanted to look up a certain topic or news story that I heard about, social media probably wouldn't be my first choice in obtaining it, but it is where I learn a lot of new information. I usually take what I learn from social media and then do my own research to find out more. The same goes for all other social media, Twitter, Tumblr etc, they have their place. They are good outlets to get the original story out, but their goal isn't to get accurate information out, it's to get the most updated information out. It is helpful, for me, when something big or important happens, I see it on social media first, because it might take longer for me to get the information if it wasn't on social media. I think that goes for a lot of people. Social media helps get breaking news out quickly, to a large audience.
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
Blog Post #1 Com 510
Blog post #1 for Com 510 - Knowledge and New Media
What forms of new media do you use daily? How has new social media influenced your perspective of events? Are these positive or negative influences?
New media has become second nature in today's world. Between the computer, my iPhone and iPad, I use new media constantly throughout the day. I wake up and check FaceBook, Instagram, Tumblr and sometimes Twitter. I am now using new media to work towards getting my Master's Degree. Having access to all of this information at my finger tips at all times has allowed me to be more productive and up to date. For example, if I have down time at work, I can check FaceBook or another social media site, and I will be updated on anything that has happened on a small and/or global level.
I feel like I am much more up to date on world events because of new media. I think in the case of getting new information quickly, it is the fastest way. I don't always believe what I've read. I will usually check multiple, reliable, sources before I take what is being said seriously, but all in all it is a good way to get updates. I think when you are getting information from on online site, it is important to look at who is bringing you the news. You have to be aware and careful of opinion articles as opposed to fact based articles that will bring you all sides of the story. I think social media does a good job bringing the events and news forward, and bringing it to more people. It allows a larger audience to stay updated on news events, people that may not have cared to pick up a newspaper before.
What forms of new media do you use daily? How has new social media influenced your perspective of events? Are these positive or negative influences?
New media has become second nature in today's world. Between the computer, my iPhone and iPad, I use new media constantly throughout the day. I wake up and check FaceBook, Instagram, Tumblr and sometimes Twitter. I am now using new media to work towards getting my Master's Degree. Having access to all of this information at my finger tips at all times has allowed me to be more productive and up to date. For example, if I have down time at work, I can check FaceBook or another social media site, and I will be updated on anything that has happened on a small and/or global level.
I feel like I am much more up to date on world events because of new media. I think in the case of getting new information quickly, it is the fastest way. I don't always believe what I've read. I will usually check multiple, reliable, sources before I take what is being said seriously, but all in all it is a good way to get updates. I think when you are getting information from on online site, it is important to look at who is bringing you the news. You have to be aware and careful of opinion articles as opposed to fact based articles that will bring you all sides of the story. I think social media does a good job bringing the events and news forward, and bringing it to more people. It allows a larger audience to stay updated on news events, people that may not have cared to pick up a newspaper before.
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