Reflective writing assignment

As you work on your Final Multimedia Project, I’d like you to blog about it. Over the last few weeks of class, please write three blog posts reflecting on the process of completing your project, as follows:

1. Getting started: Near the start of this process, reflect on your expectations for this project. For example, what do you expect to accomplish? Do you think it will turn out to be a worthwhile effort? How is this project different from working on in-class lab projects? If you’re part of a team, how do you plan to divvy up the work? How much time do you think it will take? (Due 4/24)
2. Checking in: Partway through the project, assess how you’re doing and what you’re learning. What new things have you learned so far? Is your project turning out like you thought it would? How much more time do you think it will take you to complete this project? (Due 5/8)
3. Assessing the project: When the project is completed, assess how it went and what you learned…and maybe, what you unlearned. How do you feel about the project and what you’ve done? Did it turn out as expected? What parts of this project did you enjoy the most? The least? What were you best at? What skills do you need to improve? Did it change your outlook or expectations in any way? Would you recommend a project like this to another student? Why or why not? (Due 5/16)

This assignment is worth 30 points — that’s 10 points per post. Since it’s subjective, it’s mostly ungraded. That means if you complete all three parts, you’ll get full credit (unless you publish a post with a bunch of typos and errors – I’ll still take off points for that). That makes it a low-risk, high-reward assignment.

Fighting over sports bloggers

OK, sports fans. Do bloggers belong in the locker room? That’s one of the questions posed in this NYT article, Tension Over Sports Blogging.

Might make a good topic for an individual blog post. Here’s a taste:

Tension over sports blogging is one of the strains between sports franchises, leagues and reporters to have emerged during the digital age.

The dispute has grown lately between the press and organized sports over issues like how reporters cover teams, who owns the rights to photographs, audio and video that journalists gather at sports events, and whether someone who writes only blogs should be given access to the locker room.

Here’s the direct link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/21/business/media/21bloggers.html?th&emc=th

Bee photographer coming to JMC

Brian Baer, a photographer with The Sacramento Bee, will speak to students in Instructor Steve Sloan’s APSC/MCom 63 class at 6 p.m. next Wednesday, April 23, in DBH 226. All JMC students are welcome to attend.

“Brian is a ‘hot shooter’,” says Sloan. “He has one of the keenest eyes I know of. He is an alum of our photojournalism program and is still passionate about photojournalism.”

Extra Credit: If you attend this session, take notes and you can write an extra credit blog post about it. It’ll be worth up to 15 points.

Hot topics for blog posts

Looking for a topic for this week’s blog post? Here are some candidates:

• An Ad Age article on Web 3.0 and the dearth (and perhaps the death) of original reporting
• Blogger Mayhill Fowler reflecting on her reporting of Obama’s “bitter” comments
• The Churner Prize web site/blog, focusing on examples of “chournalism”
• Actor Tim Robbins’ rabble-rousing speech at the National Association of Broadcasters Show in Las Vegas

If you have some other hot media-related topics you’d like to suggest, please add them in a comment to this blog post.

RSS…the Oprah version

A friend of mine, blogger Stephanie Quilao, has a good explanation of RSS feeds and why you might want to use them. You can find it here.

Her blog is Back in Skinny Jeans — check it out.

Dueling videos…courting the youth vote

Forget the debates…the Democratic presidential candidates are going direct to potential voters…via video (virally, they hope). Here are two videos posted on You Tube that clearly target young adults, one in support of Clinton and one in support of Obama.

Please take a few minutes to view these videos and offer your comments/observations. Do you think they work? Why or why not? Post your comments here by clicking on the “comments” tag at the end of this post.

“Hillary and the Band” video created by the Clinton campaign organization:

Direct link to video on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IA8Wy51Ionk

“Yes We Can” video created by Will.I.Am of the Black Eyed Peas in support of Barak Obama:

This video is also available at http://www.dipdive.com/

By the way, I looked for similar online videos targeting young adults from the Republican candidates, but mostly found clips from campaign speeches, debates and TV show appearances, and television campaign ads that had been repurposed and posted online.

If you’re interested, you might want to compare one or two of these Republican videos/ads to the Democratic candidates’ videos listed above.

Here’s a link to the results of a YouTube search for “Mike Huckabee” videos.
Here’s a link to the results of a YouTube search for “John McCain” videos.
Here’s a link to the results of a YouTube search for “Ron Paul” videos.

More on the Super Bowl ads

For last week’s “Late Breaking” blog post assignment, a number of you wrote about your favorite (or your most disliked) Super Bowl ads. So I thought you might be interested in hearing what ad critic Bob Garfield of Ad Age had to say about the Super Bowl ads he disliked the most.

You can watch his scathing video at http://adage.com/brightcove/single.php?title=1402023019

Tips for student bloggers

Here’s a helpful blog post by Karen Miller Russell, a PR professor at the University of Georgia, with tips for developing a successful student blog. It’s got some good ideas for blog post topics, and for getting your blog noticed.

Check it out at http://teachingpr.blogspot.com/2008/01/tips-for-promoting-pr-student-blogs.html.