Portfolio pt3

Mission 3-Methodology Digital Journalism

Review/Reflection

For this mission I was unable to complete it, but as this is a review/reflection section of my blog I felt that this allowed me to still write about the assignment, such as what I did wrong, why i did it, what led me to make the mistake in the first place, if I got another chance what would I do instead.

To start, I did not do the third mission that I  was assigned, this was because the week of a review with my lecturer and I had been working on what I thought was the right thing for Digital Journalism. My group had filmed through the week what we thought was asked of us in the brief but we  were sadly mistaken and we ended filming a sort of spoof of an RTE news room which really wasn't what the mission asked us to do, which was to learn about the historical relationship between journalism and media technologies (print, radio, TV), learn how the Internet has made new modalities of communication possible and learn how digital tools make new kinds of research possible. My group and I misunderstood what our aims were and when we were told this during our review we then had no time left to work on it as we had other responsibilities with other modules.

If I were to do this mission again i would probably do it on a time map, which allows you to place things in history on a map of the world depending on your topic of choice. I plan to do mine on historical events covered by journalism, examples could include the fall of the Berlin wall, the Syrian crisis or the fall of colonel Gaddafi e.c.t. I would to use the resources given to me on the brief and as well as mentioning how my goals are included in this for example how digital tools make new kinds of research possible, ie new special cameras, equipment e.c.t.

In my honest opinion I felt that this mission was a failure as I did not do any work for the mission and wouldn't be able to produce and work(meat) or presentation if I were suddenly asked to do so.

While I did spend some time looking at the brief, I thought it was something which I was able to understand but obviously I was mistaken, if I had of went and asked my lecturer if what I was doing was right earlier on in the week i feel that I may have been able to even grab a small amount of video and have something to present to the lecturer, but this experience has thought me to always ask a lecturer if ever I am doubting what I am meant to do in an assignment.

To conclude I made a mistake which cost me a grade and was caused by a misunderstanding between my group on what was expected of us in the assignment. Also that I was able to learn from this failure and that I can know work from this.

Portfolio pt 2

Mission 2-Culture-Digital Privacy

Product

For this assignment in Introduction to Digital Media I had to research and learn all about the topic of Digital Privacy. What I had wished for my end product to be was to be a presentation show all of the ways Digital Privacy impacts the lives of everyone with an advanced piece of technology in today's world and how to protect against the dangers that can come from your device's having access to your private information.The goal which I was given in the brief was to understand digital privacy and to be proactive in protecting your own.

How I started this project was by using some of the links given to me on the brief to get an idea of how I should go about using the information given on Digital Privacy. I went out and discovered how much information was actual known on the user of device's such as smartphones, laptops, tablets and other smart devices. I wanted to be able to show people how vulnerable they were even if they didn't even know that they were and that they should be cautious the next time that they use such devices as they are endangering themselves.

I mentioned different ways that one can protect themselves from the dangers such as identity thieves and other people trying to take your information as their own and also some example of the type of information that companies and websites have about you. I also mentioned some stories of how some of your smart devices can listen in on your conversation. Here I wished my end product to show that websites like Facebook actually store your information and sells it on so that you are targeted with specific ads that are connected to things that you recently liked or searched, the next time that you go on to the internet.

For a more in depth look I decided to also talk about a film which I watched in my presentation, it was called Citizen Four. In this movie a woman named Laura Poitras is making a documentary while in contact with someone only calling themselves Citizen Four who has tasked her to make a documentary about how the United States government has been spying on people both abroad and in their own country. I wished to show how technology used in this film is able to actual do the things shown such as spy on people and how easy it was to do so, I also wished to show that this this the type of world that we live in.

Overall I had hoped to show through my work on the presentation that Digital Privacy is extremely important and that it is always at stake, whether it be from an individual or a company and that you should always try to protect yourself to the best of your ability. I had hoped to achieve the goal set out for me in the brief and I believe that I did.

Process

My aim of this mission was to understand digital privacy and to be proactive inn protecting yours. How we started this project was that first we discussed which of the missions that we would choice to do our project on. After discussing we started this mission, Digital Privacy, which led us to talk about what we wanted to include in this mission. We would meet up in the library and work on the presentation of the mission, this allowed us to discuss what we wish to include in our presentation. We had to research information but we also were able to use the helpful links in the brief to guide us as to what information was relevant to the mission.

We also had to work separate and in doing so watched the movie Citizen Four, the movie itself was very interesting and was well incorporated into our presentation. We also choice to divide some of the work so that neither of us were wasting time doing the same thing the other did, an example of that was where I talked mainly about the dangers of not having Digital Privacy, the other group member talked more about the solutions that could stop the dangers. We spent several hours working on the presentation only as we didn't really know how to incorporate the mission of Digital Privacy into an actual goal,( what I tried to say was that we didn't know how to make the meat.)

I mentioned earlier the helpful links on the blog that I used from the brief. These links were able to give information such as articles about smart devices listening in on people's conversations or hear them through televisions, or even examples of the type of information that websites can take from your accounts on them, or even people's own bad experience with their data being taken and having adverse effects on their lives. These links were able to help my group as they gave us a guideline to follow and how to keep all of our information relevant to the mission and not get sidetracked 

After our group had gathered all of the information that we were going to use in our presentation we sat down in our group to discuss how we were going to show off our information, we decided that we would use topics such as the ones mentioned before,(how to protect yourself on the internet) and try to use them to gain the interest of the rest of the class so that they can keep informed on such topics.

To conclude I worked on my mission with my group in hopes to show how to better understand and protect your Digital Privacy.

Review/Reflection

I believe that our goal given to us was achieved as we were able to show in our presentation that we were able to understand and protect ourselves from the dangers surrounding Digital Privacy. I felt that through the presentation we were able to express that your data is always being looked for weather its by individuals or big companies that are running the website that you were using.

Looking back though I do feel that there was more that my group could've done as we were only able to show off our work through the presentation that we did. I would've liked it if we had shown people something like our group screen-recording ourselves securing our own digital data by updating passwords and such or we could've made a fake cryptoparty web page and used it to explain how to safely use the internet. We also could preformed a digital detox, by having one person in our group abstain from using the anything digital and have the other group member record the results,(see if they feel different in anyway), either with a camera or just asking them questions.

I also felt that we could have improved our presentation as it seemed to be a bit too long in comparison to all of the other presentations which I saw. I think that we could've improved it by shortening the amount of slides we had and also by keeping them simply and easy to read. Our group felt that as we were missing the other work(meat) that we should make our presentation longer to make up for it. In hindsight all it did was just show too much information on each slide make the presentation uninteresting.

I found the links in the brief to be very helpful as when I first looked at the brief I found it to be very daunting and confusing, it made me nervous about choosing this mission as I didn't want to be left not knowing how to even start it and also compared to the previous mission it seemed much harder. But as I continued on to the links they helped to explain the aim of the mission further and made it easier for me to understand when I actually started it. They also gave me new ideas on where to go when I got stuck on what to write down for the presentation.

To conclude I thought that the presentation was good as it included the important parts of Digital Privacy but it could've been shortened down, we also could've included more work outside the  presentation(meat) to show how we could implement what was shown in the presentation,i.e the cryptoparty. The links given on the brief were very helpful and allowed me to gain a further understanding of Digital Privacy or enough of an understanding to start it.

Portfolio

Mission 1-Creativity-The Art of the Animated GIF

Product

My first assignment in introduction to digital media was on the Art of the Animated GIF. The goals for this mission were to learn about the design and history of the GIF format, to learn of the technical specifications of the GIF file, explore the cultural practices around the GIF and it's use in different communities and produce and share some GIF files.
My first goal was to learn about the history and design of the GIF format, so I began looking up information and ended up finding out that the GIF format was invented by a man named Steve Wilhite while he was working for the company CompuServe and that the format itself was ideal for sending images using the slow modems at the time, from this goal I wish to show how far the GIF format has come, from being a way to send images and to overcoming the poor level of technology at the time to being what it is today.
Next was to learn of the technical specifications of the GIF format, this led me to learning things such as how the GIF differs from JPEG files as the GIF uses lossless compression which basically means that it's image quality doesn't degrade and also that the original 87-a format was an innovation as it allowed for images to be sent across the internet,whereas the JPEG files were, I wanted my end product to be able to show the technical specifications of the GIF format, but also how it evolved to become the format it is now.
Next was to explore the cultural practices around the GIF and it's use in different communities, using a mix of my own personal experience and research I was able to conclude that the GIF has a very strong presence in today's society and is used everyday, however it does seem to be only used by young people and people who would've used it when it first came out back in 1987, I wished for this end product to give clear stats on who uses the GIF the most, whether it be young or old.
Finally I can talk about the last of the goals which was to produce and share some GIF files, this goal I enjoyed the most as it was different and let me feel like I actually worked on something. I  wanted my end product for this goal to show I had the  ability to make and animated GIF and below is an example of the GIF that I made.
My final product was the actual presentation which I felt was able to show all of the work that I had done to my class as well as give a more in depth look at the Art of the Animated GIF.
Overall I felt that the end product that I wished to produce was completed and that it showed the completed goals set out by the brief, also the suggested/helpful links that showed me how to actually make a GIF were to help to .

Process

My aim of this mission was to be able to make an Animated GIF, which included explaining how I went about doing it and discussing  the other methods that were used to make an Animated GIF,i.e the GIF made by other members of my group.
When I was doing my project I found that there were plenty of resources that helped me to do the assignment as well as other resources present that could've helped me too. My overall project was to make an animated GIF and to also present it to my class and this is how I did it. I first discussed with my group to work on a project based on the Art of the Animated GIF, from there we decided when we should meet up,for how long,how many days a week, e.c.t.
We also discussed what we would do in our own individual time and what to include. We would come in and meetup in the library and discuss what we wanted to include and what we didn't want to include. We talked about the resources we could use such as the links on the CDM website page.
 From there we learned the history of the GIF as well as the history of some famous GIFs and how they came about, one example being the super Mario cloud GIF which was of the sky moving by, it was invented by Cory Archangel who took apart his NES cartridge and made it so only the clouds were visible. When working on my own I was able to make my own GIF of a dog walking on it's own.
 I was able to make this GIF by using the programmes Inkscape which let me draw the animation and another  programme called GIMP that allowed me to alter and layer the images upon one another so that it would appear like the images where moving. Other members of the group were able to include their own GIFs using different methods, where mine was all done by me , they took a video and edited it so that it was turned into something else, something new. As we continued working together we talked more about what to include and what not to include, we used both the information given in the links on the brief as well as searching things for ourselves on the internet as it required both for  us to fully explain ourselves.
We tried to speak to other groups that had chosen to do the same topic as us and try to see how they were going to do their assignment. After the main work was done all that was left was the presentation, this required us to make a slideshow explaining GIFs themselves as well as how we made our own ones. We used GIF examples in our presentations and were able to compare early GIFs to more modern ones and how their uses aren't just for entertainment purposes.

Review/Reflection

Over the period of time I had to do this assignment I was able to learn loads about GIFs themselves such as the impact they had back when they were first introduced and how they allowed images to be sent across the internet in a new and better way, to the cultural impact that they have on today's world and also the making of them. I initially knew very little about GIFs and my original impression of them was very wrong as I had only thought them to be useful in text conversation but there is more to them. They can be used for demonstrations or instructions or even as attention grabbers.
Looking back now I do feel that I could've definitely improved on my assignment by including extra things such as, I could've made more animated GIFs as I did only have the one, I could've focused more on the actual assignment rather than the presentation and I could've included more relevant information inn my presentation or gone into more detail about how to make a GIF.
I also discovered that it was a lot easier to make GIF than what I had originally thought as there were plenty of instructional videos on YouTube and as well as the links on the brief explaining different ways to make a GIF and different techniques. The programmes themselves were very straight forward and easy to use, for Inkscape it was a simple matter of just drawing the shapes and arranging them the right way as well as colouring them. For GIMP all it was just layering the images on top on another and going back between the two programmes, editing it by moving parts around and then opening it back up in GIMP and layer it again.
At the start of the project there was only myself and another in the group as we couldn't find a third member, so this just meant that we had to work harder, so after working on it for a bit we found another member without a group and decided to let them join, we immediately gave them work to catch up on and the did so. While I was working on my GIF, they worked on their version of it and because of that it gave us a better variety of material to use in our presentation.
Overall I felt that the actual work on the GIF was good although some more could've been done to improve it and our work on the presentation was good and allowed my group to get our points across while also keeping it reasonably simple.

Ye this is my first blog, my name is Killian, I'm doing CDM in TuDublin near Blanchardstown. I'm 20 years old, live near the area and did a PLC course last year in Colaiste Dhúlaigh up in Coolock, didn't like it but it got me int this house so I'm happy that I did it. Em I play Gaelic and hurling and hoping to play for the the college in both. I was very excited when I got excepted to do this course and so far I've liked it. It's all really new to me so I'm hoping that it'll all come easier as I go on.