Week #8 Collaborative Creativity Slides

Week #7 Creativity and Photo Stories

Reflections on Creativity and Making Photo Stories

Creativity

This week I learned what it means to be truly creative in a society that molds us to think a certain way from the time we are children. From grade school, we are trained for standard professions like factory work and teaching by sitting quietly for 7-8 hours 5 days per week and reiterating what is written in textbooks and on chalkboards.  We are encouraged to pay attention to subjects that do not interest us, trained to answer questions and complete assignments exactly the way instructors tell us to, and taught that the most intelligent among us are those who get the highest marks on standardized tests. 

After listening to Sir Ken Robinson speak about creativity I thought about how important it is for people to pursue what brings them happiness and not live in fear of making mistakes. People are most productive when they are doing what they love and some of the best inventions were created on accident by people who did what they were passionate about without fear of failure. http://list25.com/25-accidental-inventions-that-changed-the-world/ 

While thinking about what it means to be creative, and how people tend to be more productive when doing the activities they enjoy the most, I found an interesting TED Talk on the concept of flow. Flow is a mental state characterized by complete immersion and focus on an activity that is being performed with great precision.

While I believe dedication to activities that bring us joy and a sense of purpose are important for mental well being, I also believe that taking a step outside of one's comfort zone and trying new things are also an extremely important part of being creative. This Multimedia Apps and Tools class has played a major role in enhancing my own creativity recently because it has forced me to use online apps to create and publicize unique videos, audio, and images- something I never would have had the confidence to do on my own. Since I've always wanted to start an online business or have a popular blog, I'm hoping that one day I'll be skilled enough to be in a state of "flow" while creating online content and that I'll be creative enough to make something that people will want to look at.

Making my Photo Story

Speaking of trying new things, I got to make my first photo story in WeVideo this week. To get a good idea of how images can be ordered and manipulated to create a captivating story, I looked through the stories on The Boston Globe. After looking at several stories on natural disasters, war, and pollution, I decided that my favorite photo story was the one on the graduates of 2017 because it was the most uplifting and inspiring. The photos were incredibly inclusive and full of people from all walks of life. They gave me the feeling that even in my current circumstances, I will be able to get my degree.

After deciding that I like uplifting photo stories the most, I chose to use images of myself enjoying time spent with my fiance and my best friend at the Great Escape. After some technical difficulties, I was able to create an account with Google Plus and create a video in the F17 Photo Stories folder. Following along with the video tutorial, I added my photos in an order that showed how I spent my day at the park. I also incorporated a festive title and an old film countdown, as well as upbeat music entitled "Chasing the Dream" from WeVideo's audio selection. After adding page flip transitions, a spooky sound effect, and a fade out to my music, my photo story was complete.

Week # 6 Blog on Audio Recording and Video Hosting

Reflections on YouTube, SoundCloud, and Free Online Audio

 

Exploring YouTube

This week I took advantage of the opportunity to explore YouTube's privacy features more than I ever have before. I was amazed at YouTube's capabilities, and though I have always been more of a video viewer than a creator, I was a little embarrassed that I have been using YouTube for 8 years without fully knowing how it works. So just for fun, and to make myself more media literate, I uploaded my first YouTube video ever which was a video of me playing my favorite game, Fallout 4. Upon doing this I edited my settings so that viewers can rate and comment on the video. Here is my video (contains graphic content) and the link to my channel https://www.youtube.com/user/killerclowns871. Amusingly, the name I gave my channel when I was 13 (after the movie Killer Klowns from Outer Space) stuck around in my channel's url. 

I also discovered that I can make uploaded videos private or public and remove ads from my videos. Digging even further, I learned that I can use Google Ads Settings to make it so I'm not targeted with ads based on my browser history. Preventing Google from targeting me with ads will make my future internet browsing feel more enjoyable and less imposing.

 Editing Audio in Soundtrap

This week was a week of firsts for me as I also got to make my first ever edited audio recording using Soundtrap. This was a fun assignment for me and I enjoyed all of the different effects, layering and sound cropping that are possible with Soundtrap. I experimented with different volumes for each of my sounds and different effects for my voice such as the resonating "cave" effect and the crisp and clear "clean" effect. After trying many different kinds of music and sounds to blend with the intensity of the poem"The Tyger", I truly learned just how much audio can make or break otherwise compelling content.

 Discovering Free Audio

To find the audio for my Soundtrap recording I explored YouTube's audio gallery along with the other copyright free audio sites listed in the assignment for week 6. I found that many of these websites contained music and ambiances rather than actual sound effects, so I sought out a copyright free website where I could find just the audio I was looking for and came across freesound.org. This website contains all kinds of recorded sounds that fall under Creative Commons, and many are free for use with or without attribution.

Week #6 Soundtrap Blog Post

Emily Reading "The Tyger" by William Blake

Week # 4 Blog Design and Website Platforms

My New Blog Design and Website

After learning about good and Bad Blog Design this week, I began to notice all of the ways that my design was not very effective. For example, my fonts and images often were not sized appropriately, my text was too cramped, and I had several typos and poorly written sentences all of which took away from the message of my posts. I also had a shameful amount of beginner mistakes such as underlining things that weren't links, and *blush* having light text on a dark background. Using my knew knowledge of white space, the importance of drawing attention to content, and the role of colors from 5 Keys to Make Your Blog Visually Awesome, I made several changes to my blog.

First Impressions

The first thing I did was change the theme and images in my blog because those are the things that viewers will see immediately. I decided on a simple theme: A white text background on a library webpage background. This was because my previous theme and background were too distracting, and unrelated to the blog's message. Next, I made my images smaller so that they fit nicely with the text, without taking attention away from it. After realizing that I had been sizing everything based on my huge 17 inch laptop screen, I also adjusted the width of my blog to make it more compatible with smaller computer screens and mobile devices.

Text Content

After fixing the general appearance of my blog, I made sure the font types, sizes, and colors were all uniform in each of my blog posts. I also got rid of the cramped appearance of my text by spacing the lines and paragraphs neatly. Next, I fixed the text size organization in my blog by making headings the largest, followed by subheadings and content. Taking advice from 5 Beginning Blogging Mistakes You Can Fix, I got rid of anything that said "click here", and just kept the links.

Layout and Gadgets

To improve ease of access, I followed the design of other attractive blogs and put the search bar and blog archive on the right sidebar. I kept other information viewers might want such as my profile information, number of views, and a link to report abuse in the footer, so that it wouldn't be a distraction.

My Google Site

This part of the assignment proved difficult for me because I am accustomed to using HTML and WordPress to make websites. Once I watched the Google Sites tutorial and played around with the features for a while I was able to make a cool website that I think looks great on mobile devices. Using the tutorial, I gave my homepage a header image with a welcome message, a link to Nasa with a map, a calendar, and links to my other pages. In my other pages I added captioned and clickable images, text content and a video. Here's the link:

https://sites.google.com/view/fateofstars/home