Oops!

I got way too caught up in how much I liked the class to even talk about what I did individually on the project. Here goes.... Mainly for the Dormland Security and Hoosier News projects, I was on-screen talent as the anchor for Hoosier News. I also did the preliminary...eh hem very very preliminary stages of the story board for the news broadcast shooting. I also drew up the "Training" page for the Dormland Security website and I wrote the contents of the page. For the Dormland Security campaign, we had an idea to make a video that was a lesson on how to lock your door and I wrote the script for that based on a flight attendant's speal about fastening your seat belts. That's as much as I can remember right now.

~Sharayah

I miss our class already!

I have to agree with many of you in that I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I walked into the computer lab our first day. Fortunately, Thom didn't really know either. He started us off with "We, the Media," which gave us some insight into ways individual citizens can become reporters with the rise of digital cameras and video cameras. It also taught those of us who are sort of technology illiterate how important new technology is in transferring information in this up and coming knowledge-based economy. Although I didn't love the quizzes every day, I learned the material better because I knew I needed to know it. I can't say I was psyched about the book reports either, but I must admit that "Everything bad is actually good for us" gave me a seriously new perspective on video games and the virtual world.

Although I was frustrated by the spontaneity of some of the projects as well as the complexity of the web coding, I certainly learned a lot that I never thought I would learn. Also, because of all the group work, I made some friends I may not have made. Looking back, I'm definitely glad I took this class. My thoughts about the class are so positive and I would encourage anyone who is or isn't interested in media and current events to take the class. In the beginning I was frustrated with getting assignments at the last minute of class when we had no clue what they meant. For example, as we're all walking out the door one day Thom yells, "Write one page on Lonleygirl 15 for next time!" No one even knew what he was talking about, but we figured it out on our own and learned something about how to get yourself out there without going through Hollywood. Over the course of the semester, Thom's tangents about anything and everything grew on me and I've come to enjoy story time with Thom, who has done just about anything one can think of. Thom is an enthusiastic professor and I'm grateful to have taken such an enjoyable class with him.

Also, I'm really happy with how far the campaigns went with such little experience on our part. I loved the group work and it's neat to be aware of what we can do. I learned a great deal in this class in a really fun way. Thanks a lot Thom for your enthusiasm and your inspiration, and of course all your help with the technology.

Have a wonderful break everyone and stay in touch!

Love,
Sharayah

Jason Johnson

I would have to say that I loved this class as a whole. The project at the end was pretty cool, though I think more direction would have been nice. I kind of felt like I was just kind of shooting in the dark most of the time. I didn't really know what we were supposed to be doing or where we were supposed to be going. The group meeting outside of class were helpful for figuring out where we were on the project, but we probably should hav met more often. We usually met at least once a week, which seemed like alot, but in hind-sight, it wasn't enough. I liked using the web sites as kind of a central focus, but then the central focus seemed to become the video, then the group presentation, then the paper, then the group presentation again. I'm still interested to see how that goes.

Review of Citizen Media for Social Change

After the first day of Citizen Media for Social Change, I was seriously considering dropping the class. I e-mailed Thom to confirm that I had made a mistake in signing up for it: "Dear Professor Gillespie, I had no idea we would have to know so much about computers for this class... I think I'm in way over my head!" Thom replied: "You'll be fine." So, I took a deep breath and took his word for it, and although at some points I felt I had no idea what I was doing, I am very glad I stuck with the class. It actually ended up being my favorite one of all. It was one of those classes where the professor was actually interesting, and the lessons didn't put me to sleep. I liked reading the book "We the Media," and the quizzes on it weren't too bad either. Thom has been so many places and done so many things. He's so knowledgeable of so many different aspects of the subject, too. Any problem that surfaced, Thom would show us an example of something similar that had happened in previous classes, and how the problem was resolved. He was also very patient with us.

We spent a lot of time working on HTML. I believe that only a few people really conquered this, and to those who did, I applaud you. I was a little frustrated with HTML, but Thom was always available to help. When we were introduced to Dreamweaver, I was happy. I didn't quite get it at first, but I think now I sort of have the hang of it. I put together the website for Dormland Security using Photoshop and Dreamweaver. I wasn't quite sure what I was doing and had to seek help from Thom outside of class. I think the Dormland Security website is a little bit aesthetically boring. I wish I could have thought of something else to make it more interesting to look at. Overall, though, I am proud of myself for succeeding in putting it together. Also, I like our website logo, that David created. We had all brainstormed to come up with the logo, but we ended up picking David's design. I liked working in my group. Everyone was very eager to participate. I felt like I needed to be on my toes in order to contribute something significant to the group, because I was always getting ideas after others in the group had already gotten them. My major contributions to the group were putting together the final website and filming the video. Overall, I had a very good experience in this class.

~Alison Stake

Citizen Media and My Campaign: A Learning Experience

Four months ago, I walked into a Windows computer lab, not knowing what to expect. What did “Citizen Media” mean? Citizen media is more than just a class and a book title. It is a knowledge base. In this class, I learned more about my society than I have in any history class; I learned more about my abilities to recognize and understand societal movements like those of the modern, interactive media era; I learned a new language: html; I learned how to interact with a group to produce something truly special: a campaign to make our campus safer, a campaign to promote smarter decisions regarding late night transportation at IU.

At first I seemed skeptical of this campaign project. In high school, I had always been the type to hate group projects because I always had to do all the work, but not this time. Citizen Media was a truly unique learning environment in this way, which, in turn, fostered the production of a complex, multi-faceted campaign promoting the use of a bus called the “Midnight Special,” a bus that runs Thursday thru Saturday night from 11:00 pm until 4:00 am. The idea of having an open-ended project where we could formulate our own plan of action regarding how to reach out to IU students incited motivation and sparked our creativity.

Every member of my group contributed to all aspects of the campaign, a characteristic that made this experience exciting and opened my eyes to forming a system of equitable work distribution in the learning environment. As such, I think it is unfair to say “I did this” or “I did that” but accurate to say, “I contributed to this” and “I contributed to that.” For instance, I was a primary contributor to the “Hoosier News” skit, as I spent many hours over the course of two intense days working to edit the segment. I do, however, acknowledge that many of my group mates also contributed to this piece. I also contributed to the “Drunk Bus” commercial as I wrote the skit and offered my ideas to the film and editing crew when necessary or called upon for advice. So, while everyone else might be trying to remember what he or she specifically created, why not simply explain what I was a part of? I know I was a major contributor to the designing the “Drunk Bus” campaign, but I believe we all can say we were all a part of the whole.

P.S. Thom, I know you asked for suggestions, so here it goes. Start the campaigns early! Like the first week. I know you wanted to let us explore the media first, but there’s no time to wait. These projects take a long time and you should get your students started on the projects, then start teaching them about topics like html and flash. Perhaps in class, they can begin integrating these techniques into their campaigns. This way the Citizen Media students will have enough time to design well thought out, effective, and complete campaigns by the end of the semester that utilize all of the skills taught in this class.

Josh

S104 overview

Generally speaking, I think that this class really helped me to push my imagination. At the beginning of the course I had no idea how to design a site and put it up onto the web. However, by the end of the course I designed a site consisting of 5 pages without using former templates. I think that Thom really helped us to see our potential. It's nice to see what we can all do when we put our individual talents together. Having people who are expericenced with design elements, video recording, and editing was really beneficial to our group, because we were successful in many aspects of media.
Although I think that we could have had more experience with dreamweaver, we accomplished as much as we could within our given time frame. My only critizism of the class is that I think we would have been able to accomplish more, if we were introduced to the project earlier. I think that this class is a good intro media classe, because now I have a good idea of what aspects of media I am interested in, and I can see where the skills we learned in this class can take me.
-andrea

sorry forgot my name

sorry to take up all of the prime blogging space...but the thing didnt post my name!!

anyways that last blog posted by "whoseyournews" is me.....BETSY!!!