We have come to the end

So when I started this class I was really nervous about trying to figure out all the things we would have to do. I was sure my grade would be a big fat F. I ended up enjoying and learning so much in this class that I used it to create my final presentation for an on-campus class. The slideshows, videos and animations were my favorite parts of the class. Although the out and about vlog was a nightmare. Doing it was easy. Getting it from where I had recorded to online where anyone could see it was another story. I was so happy when it was finally off the phone and on the internet. In the future I may use some of the things we learned here to redo my website. It will become a chronicle of my journey as I become a shaman. I already have some hidden pages within my website that I'll be opening up for viewing once our grades are posted for MM class.

Copyright again

I agree 110% that all creativity is a remix! I say this even with writing when doing my reports. I know plagiarism is different than copyright law but there are some basic concepts shared. How many times can a subject be written, videoed, sang, painted, etc. before someone ends up copying some part of what another person already did? Think about it. If I wanted to write, for example, a story about a princess that was completely original; she couldn't live in a castle, marry a prince, have an evil sister, or live happily ever after. Actually I couldn't even write a story about a princess at all. She's already been made up by someone else so even she wouldn't be MY original idea. Scratch that I'll make a painting with flowers in it. Nope, I won't it's been done. See what I mean?! Every idea has at some point in time already been done by another person. If you don't remix things with your own personal touch you will have nothing to do.

The Long Tail

I was reading through some of my classmates blogs this week to see if I could find something that would help me figure out what to write on my own. The long tail stuff wasn't really making much sense to me. I was listening to it, reading it but my brain was thinking what on earth are they talking about??? Then the light bulb suddenly came on!

I realized I do use the long tail in my life. This weekend I'm working as an independent contractor running a diaper demo for a cloth diaper company. My diaper obsessions website plus my blogging about cloth diapering has a direct relation to being hired for this job. Without having used those things nobody outside my small little world would know I did demos or had the knowledge, experience etc to do them.

I'm also guilty of waiting until the price of something goes down before I buy it. One of my children wants an item for Christmas this year that cost several hundred dollars when it was the newest thing. She's getting it now that the price has fallen below $100.

P.S. Thank you Lynn for your blog post that gave me my light bulb moment!

podcasting

Making my own podcast this week just isn't going to happen. All it would accomplish is showing everyone all the things not to do during one. Between me being sick and sick children it would be a podcast of uncontrollable coughing, sneezing and crying. I was hoping to at least make a short one because I do enjoy listening to them. It's not meant to be though. I've listened to all the Podcasts on this website. It has free podcasts of Alison Armstrong talking about her relationship work. They are worth listening to if you have the time.

There is also a Podcast here I enjoy listening to from Marcey Hamm. Scroll down to the black box below the title Listen to Album Tracks. Within that box scroll down to the track titled Yin Yang to find my favorite one.

Anyhow real life is calling me back from the computer. My 5 year old woke up with her left eye swollen shut, saying it itches and hurts. It doesn't look like pink eye so I'm not sure what is wrong. Have to wait for 9am to call to see if I can get a Saturday appt with the pediatrician.

Video Assignment

presentations

The video we had to watch about presentations called Hans Rosling: Debunking third-world myths with the best stats you've ever seen.was a really cool presentation. I loved how he had so much movement and movement within his presentation. It was almost halfway through (I didn't see a timer to mark a certain time point) when he was giving the information on the graph that had a high peak in the middle and colors for each piece of information start falling from the top right into place! I am definitely going to try to learn how to use some of his techniques in my presentation, I don't know what you mean Lisa, by the question what are his key elements? If you let me know in a comment I will come back in to add more to my post.

week 7

In the first article this week what caught my attention was this paragraph: "The guild is also accused of wanting to profiteer off family bedtime rituals. A lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation sarcastically warned that “parents everywhere should be on the lookout for legal papers haling them into court for reading to their kids.” That is just a smartass comment meant to ruffle feathers and serve absolutely no good purpose. If you want people to take you seriously about a wrong you feel has been committed against you (profiting off ereaders without sharing the profits) then you need to remain cool headed. If you start acting like a child having a temper tantrum people will tune you out.

I didn't see the demo for the kindle 2 on the third link. I did a search for kindle 2 which brought up 30 pages of results. I tried to refine it from there by searching kindle 2 demo. I also didn't see a demo. I did find some more articles about the author's guild but it wasn't any new information that isn't included in the other links.

As far as the debate about text to speech undermining audio book sales I think there is a lot of merit to it. I go looking specifically for audio books that I want to be able to listen to instead of read and I pay for them. The writers and publishers are making money off from my purchases. If I get them for free from something like the kindle 2 that leaves a lot of people no longer making money off from me having the book. In this day and age the last thing we need is yet another loophole to take money out of someone's pocket or a job away from them.

To be continued......have a baby awake crying upstairs

Wk 6

I agree with the first article that says the photo is so far off from the original that it's not copyright infringement. One article (the second one maybe) mentioned that even the photographer didn't recognize it as his photo. I also don't believe for one second that the AP would have cared at all or raised any kind of fuss had there been no money to be made. Another story said the use of the photo undermines the AP's ability to cover the news. I'm not sure that's true. Tshirts, buttons, posters etc are not going to keep them from covering the news. That's a bit of an exaggeration on their part.

There is also a lot of talk about plagiarism, not only in this class but all of my classes. I didn't realize it was that much of a problem. A couple of things I don't understand but follow the rules just because that's what I'm supposed to do. 1) With so many publications both online and in print there is bound to be someone somewhere who has had the same idea as you. Even if you have never heard of that person nor read their work would your idea be considered plagiarism simply because they thought the same thing then wrote it down at some point in time?

Week 5 blog post

I wasn't sure what to title this one so I just used the week number. There is a link below that has my pictures I manipulated this week for the assignment. One is my drawing from the previous week. I downloaded Picasa then used sepia on one of them, softened edges, added borders to some of them, changed one to look like an aged picture. I was having a lot of fun with it so I did more than the 2 we were assigned.

http://shannonmultimediaapps.weebly.com/drawings-and-pictures.html

Week 4

Ok so I read the article from Creative Commons. It was clear as mud. Copyright laws make my head spin and my brain hurt. I understand the reasoning behind them but I'm not sure they work for much in the real world. If you put something on the internet you really do need to be prepared for the whole world to see it. If you only want it being seen by certain people or used in certain ways then you shouldn't put it online. That of course raises a dilemma because you won't get the exposure plus possible revenue if that's what you're after.

Internet in the future

I noticed he said that by 2040 the internet will exceed humanity in processing power. I would have thought that was already true now in 2012. It seems nearly everything is internet based now. He also compared the web to a black hole. I agree with him. It's only going to increase as time goes on. So much of our life already has the internet intertwined that it's difficult at times to separate. 

cloud presence

I think I was supposed to put this here in my blog as well as in the discussion forum. So here it is, my presence online. I used to use Facebook a lot but got bored with it. Now I will go check if someone says they posted a new picture. Otherwise I don't care what's there anymore.   This is mine. It represents my interests, my recently started non profit, my son's modeling, school of course and email. I included my little man in the picture because he's home all day while his three big sisters go to school so he's usually online with me. I used the simple paint program that came with the computer. I did download Gimp but wasn't able to figure out how to use it yet.The logo for Diaper Obsessions is mine for my non profit. I created it using www.logomaker.com.

Goals

I'm hoping to learn how to make better websites with pictures, videos etc since I am in the process of trying to get a new site off the ground for something that interests me. My biggest anxiety about this class is the requirement for video and voice capability. That means we will probably be making recordings of ourselves which I don't like at all. I become nervous, self-conscious and tongue tied when trying to do it. I'm much better at writing than I am at recording myself. This is not my first online class. I've taken several over the last couple of years. I don't really have any sort of background in technology except normal student types of things.