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