Category: AAD Community

Story Catchers Practicum: Week 2

This week I finished listening to all the stories. I really like Ibrahim Hamide’s story, especially the part about his friendship with a Jewish Rabbi and catering the Rabbi’s son’s bat mitzvah. That story alone is great, but it’s fairly short. However, he talks a lot about what it means to be a Muslim, an activist and an immigrant. I think I could weave together those parts to create a well rounded themed story about cultural understanding. I’m still planning to start with Alito’s story because that feels more straightforward. But hopefully once I get more familiar with the editing process, I can tackle a more complicated story arch. Unfortunately, the recording for Ibrahim is very quite. I know there is a possibility to boost the sound with editing software. So, I may be able to fix that, but the interviewer also tended to interrupt Ibrahim or make sounds in the background. So, while the content is great, his story may be hard to edit for radio. I also listened to Scott Barkhurst’s story and while the interview was a great overview of the history of the Very Little Theater, I didn’t hear a good story in there.

I emailed Nancy from the library about the indexing project but I haven’t heard back. If I still haven’t heard back from here by the end of the week, I will try calling her. In the meantime, I’m hoping to start the indexing on my own. It would be helpful to have examples from Nancy on how to categorize the information, but I think I can at least start typing up the info into an Excel sheet. I will begin working on that this upcoming Thursday. I also plan to download Audacity and start playing around with and learning how to use in the following week. I’m not sure at this time how possible it will be for me to have edited my first story by week 5, but I will try to start the editing process in the next few weeks. Since I’ve never done this before, I’m unsure of how long the process will take. I will have to update my timeline once I have a better idea of the time necessary to edit audio.

Story Catchers Practicum: Week 1!

This starts off my first week on the Story Catchers project! Marsha and I met before the term started and discussed the goals for this practicum. My general schedule is to start working on the indexing project next week and continue that throughout the term. I don’t know yet how long the indexing will take, but I definitely plan to have the stories indexed by the end of the term. I will be focusing more on the indexing at the beginning of the term and the editing at the second half since my audio editing class doesn’t start till May. However, I plan to work on my audio editing skills through the Audacity program over the next 4 weeks and attempt to edit one story on my own. This way I will be able to perfect that story with the knowledge I gain from class and use it as an example for KLCC. This will also allow me the time to edit at least 2 stories this term. The schedule for these projects will develop overtime, but for now that is my general timeline.

This week I listened to most of the stories Marsha gave me. I still have to listen to Ibraham Hamide and Scott Barkhurst, which I will be doing this week. So far, my favorite stories are from Alito Alessi and Minalee Saks. Alito’s interview has so many amazing stories in it that it’s going to be hard to edit down, but I think that may be the story I start off with. I was originally excited about Nikos Ridge’s story because I am a fan of Ninkasi, but I found that most of the interview was centered around the beer making and felt very promotional for Ninkaski. I think it would be difficult to create a good personal story out of that interview. On the other hand, Minalee talked a lot about her Birth to Three organization, but in a way that discussed the Eugene community and the importance of building support systems for parents with young children. I also liked Fern Jacobson story, especially her experiences as a woman in the military, but I didn’t find any stories in her interview that could provide a good 5 minute story arc. Her interview was more of an overview of her life than an in-depth discussion. But perhaps I can edit together a 5 minute story focused on the theme of women in the military, although that part isn’t based in Eugene. I don’t know if the stories should represent Eugene or the people of Eugene. Can I share a story about Fern’s experience in Washington DC and still call it “The Face of Eugene?” This will have to be something I discuss with Marsha and KLCC (when the time comes). Now to start working on the indexing project!

Learning Goals

Learning Goals for Media Management:

I will expand my knowledge of media forms and management practices through readings, discussion and assignments.

I will become more familiar with how to use transmedia or interactive media in my career and research.

I will take advantage of class visits by broadening my understanding of arts management professions and asking questions.

I will do my best to be prepared for class and develop thoughtful responses for assignments.

And as always, I will participate in discussions but not dominate the conversation. Listen more!

Professional Showcase ePortfolio Website

Assignment Description: Students will create and make live their Prototype Professional Showcase ePortfolio websites for presentation to the class.

Here is my official Showcase Website!

http://pages.uoregon.edu/ethorne

Reflection:

I had a lot of fun designing the layout for my website, but it was pretty difficult to transfer to my design to Dreamweaver. This is partly my fault since I created a fairly complicated design with two templates and a flash page. However, it wasn’t connecting these templates that I found difficult but the getting little functions to work like the light box gallery or the tagxedo. I actually ended up taking out the interactive tagxedo because I discovered it didn’t work on Mac computers. I also didn’t use a contact me form, because I wanted my email to be accessible, but I might change it be encoded later. I will be updating my research and internship information as that develops, but I tried to include interesting information for now. I don’t think I really understand how to use Dreamweaver yet, but I will be able to edit my website in the future.

OFN Practicum: Final Reflection

Practicum Learning Objectives:

1) To place arts and culture activities, projects, and communities on the map for Oregon in partnership with OFN

2) To actively engage the RACM platform (PlaceStories.com), gaining hands-on experience with the use of this digital tool and reflecting on the potential it holds for arts and culture work.

3) To assist OFN and its partners in documenting and promoting the variety of artists, programs, and communities it serves across Oregon.

The first point was the main purpose of this practicum. As I explained in my weekly posts and evaluation, the posting process took longer than expected. Maya and I spent a bulk of our time researching artists and building a foundation of information for the next practicum students. Thus, we were only able to post 4 stories all together to the RACM, but they were high quality posts that will serve as good examples for future students. Emily and Riki agreed that it would be better for us to post a small number of quality stories then to rush in posting mediocre stories. This meant that we spent a lot of time editing our postcards and didn’t get to post them till the last 2 weeks. However, these stories represent the OFN and rural artists, so it was important to post our best possible work. Furthermore, I don’t know if it would have been possible to post more based on the time constraints of having to balance multiple people’s schedules. This is why I suggested on my evaluation that the practicum should just be 1-3 students at max in order to insure efficiency.

The 2nd objective connects to the first. As just mentioned, we were not able to really use the RACM platform till the last few weeks of the practicum, however I wrote in my log that the platform was extremely easy to use and very interactive. We have also created practicum guidelines for future students that describes a step by step process on how to post to Placestories.com for the RACM. Hopefully, over time the types of artists and media represented on the RACM will grow. This platform is a great transmedia tool for representing local and national rural artists. I’m excited to see how the map advances.

The last objective was the underlying point of the practicum. Everything we posted on the RACM had to also represent the OFN with the goal of enticing people to learn more about the OFN. This was why we had to edit our postcards to sound more promotional and personal rather than informational and formal. We want these stories to catch people’s attention and direct them to the OFN website. This was an interesting challenge, since I had to figure out how to write a promotional piece based on limited information. However, I think the stories turned out well and will hopefully bring more people to the OFN!

Overall, I really enjoyed working the OFN! Emily was a great supervisor and was very open to us leading the practicum as well as discussing challenges and solutions. It was somewhat difficult to get Riki involved with the project, but I do feel she should edit the postcards before they are posted. Hopefully, the work Maya and I did will be a good foundation for streamlining this practicum in the future.