Final Project - Resorts of the North East Kingdom

Final Project Synopsis

For our final project, Chris and I chose to interview the co-owner of Jay Peak resort and Burke Mountain, Bill Stenger, about the advancements that have been done with each resort and the ones that are planned for the making in order to improve the entertainment in the North East Kingdom. Aside from a recorded interview of Bill, we plan to use pictures of Burke Mountain and Jay peak and of the kinds of people who are the demographic for these resorts and areas.

Video #2 Write-up

The library faculty has expected making changes in their part of the building for a while now.

Their main objective has been to clear out most of the books in the library in order to make more room for something else. The only problem is that they haven’t completely figured out what they want to do with the leftover space.

The staff has been discarding (getting rid of) all the books in the library that don't have much importance anymore. The process consists of marking the books as discarded through the web system, stamping the word "discarded" on the back page of the book, and by covering the bar code with black marker, so that it is no longer visible for people to scan in the Lyndon State library. The stamping of the word "discard" is shown in the beginning of the movie.

As the books have been taken away and discarded, the shelves of each floor (more specifically the second floor) in the library have been left empty. The faculty continues to discard and shift the books, still not positively knowing what to do with the leftover space yet.

Librarian Garret Nelson sheds light on the situation, "Primarily, we’re looking at the next few years to create the learning commons, and what this is is having the academic support units such as tutoring, writing center, and advising." Says Nelson. "We hope to have us all in one place helping students." He then adds. He explains that these ideas still need to be approved.

The process of discarding began in the middle of the summer of 2013. There is still much more discarding and shifting to do until the project is complete.

According to Nelson, it is common for most school libraries to have "learning commons" in the library center. He learned this by visiting most of them. He predicts that the intended project he and the rest of faculty has will take approximately two years. Before the project can go any further, the faculty needs to keep a close eye on what books are being used in the library, and take out whatever is not being used. This will create more space for the librarians to work with.

The librarians hope for this project to have a positive outcome. A bigger and more advanced learning center will give the students at LSC a better welcoming to the school and promote available assistance if any of them are in need of it.

Lyndon State College Library Changes- Video Project 2

Video Project 2 Synopsis

Chris and I plan to create a journalistic narrative about our school's library and their plan to add more study space for the students.
We will record one of the faculty members from the library and ask them questions about their plans of shifting bookshelves with the goals of creating more study space. We also plan on including sound from our own narration as well.
We will be using a video recorder for this project, along with our own voice recorder in order to record any voices more effectively.

Casino Night video project 400-word story

The first reaction Chris and I had when we walked into the Casino Night at Lyndon State College was that hardly anyone was there. We were already informed that a company was being paid to come in early and train the students and teachers. When we arrived around 6 pm, hoping to get a glimpse of the training, we noticed no one was even there. The CAB director was on the phone with the company helping them with directions to campus. Chris and I decided to leave and show up a little later, hoping that the even would be up and running when we returned. The training ended up starting at 7 pm. CAB pushed the event to 8 pm since they had originally planned on the even being at 7. When we came back there were different stations set up with Lyndon state faculty members at each of them, controlling the games. There was no issue filming without getting the approval from the faculty members, but there was hardly enough people there to participate in the games. The room was decorated very professionally. There was a long table towards the back of the large room with all sorts of refreshments. There was also a collection of cool prizes for people to win over the course of the night, such as a kindle and a keurig coffee maker. Chris and I were surprised at how expensive these prizes were, and were curious how no would find this event appealing enough to show up.

As time went on more people were showing up. The most popular game seemed to be black jack; considering that was the game every one was going to first (although it could’ve been because it was the first station you see when you walked inside.) We worried that as we filmed people playing the games our camera wasn’t picking up enough natural sound. We tried to put the camera as close to the games as they were being played as we could, in order to pick up the sound easier. When we were editing the film clips we realized we had a great natural sound, especially when we filmed the spin wheel of the game roulette. The sound of the ball on the spin wheel is very distinct. The narration added to our video was scripted by ourselves before we edited the video. This narration accompanied the video by giving the viewers a brief idea of what happened at the event. Our conclusion of the event was that the lack of participants was unfortunate, because the casino night itself was a clever idea and both CAB and the casino game company seemed to have put a lot of effort into it. Chris and I were glad to have witnessed the event and hope that if casino night happens again in the future at LSC it has a bigger turn out.

Lyndon State College Casino Night- Video Project

Video Project- Intermediate Deadline

For our project, we will be covering Casino Night on November 7 at the college, which is presented by cab. We plan to interview whoever is in charge of the event, along with some people who are participating in it. We are going to be video recording the event for our project, including sound from the event and interviews. We hope to get a lot of natural sound in our project from all the commotion from the event. The order of the video will be in chronological order of the event, from the preparation

Video In Newspapers

The website i chose is called Seacoast Online.This is the local news website from my hometown in New Hampshire. It covers news from the surrounding towns on the seacoast, including some from the seacoast of Maine.

The website it well organized once you've come upon the home page. It shows the weather and date at the top of the page in a little box, and it shows multiple tabs along the side of that. One tab gives you the option of reading news from the towns of the seacoast including Exeter, Portsmouth, Hampton and York county. Other tabs include business, entertainment, sports, jobs, real estate and more.

The website offers different forms of multimedia including photos and videos. The videos that are displayed are not very long. Most of them are only about one minute long, although there were a few that were about 3 minutes longer. The videos are informational and interesting, but could be more attention-grabbing. I was only allowed to view a couple videos until the website requested for me to log in with an account in order to read any more articles.

I would consider this website as a little amateur. There may have been an abundance of written articles that were interesting. But it was lacking in the other forms of multimedia. The videos were short and their were only a couple that were recorded during each week. I think the website can improve in regards to the videos.

iReport Critique

iReport Critique What I liked about iReport was the fact that once I created my account, it brought me to the main page where it displayed several reports that were favorited by the website, allowing iReport users to view and read them. These were the recommended stories. Users are also allowed to share their own news on the website. For beginners, there is a link at the top of the main page that gives a tour of the website and how to use it. I also liked that this website allows you to upload your own news stories through video.

Soundslide Interview Project- Jon Huber

Jon Huber: A Hardcore Musician at Lyndon
A LSC senior shares his involvement in a unique kind of music

Jon Huber, a Senior Music Business Industry major at Lyndon state, explained that he has only been playing hardcore music for two years.

When Jon first arrived at Lyndon, he joined a SKA band called Defeat the porpoise. The second band in which he still records with is a hardcore band called Perceptionists.

Jon was first inspired by hardcore music in high school when he started going to a lot of hardcore shows. He met a bunch of other guys in college who were into the same music and interested in the idea of starting a band with him. That’s when Perceptionists started.

Huber explains how it has been hard booking shows for hardcore music at Lyndon. “Public safety doesn’t support the dancing involved in hardcore music,” said Huber. Hardcore music shows have become a little more popular in the last couple years. Perceptionsists have found quite a few shows in the last year.

The instruments Huber uses in his band are two electric guitars: an Ibanez RG series and an Ibanez Ironlable 7 string, along with and an acoustic: Martin 6 string acoustic. The Sheffield cabinet and Behringer head are both amplifiers. Huber explained that the Behringer is used when the band plays their music live.

The band records most of their music at their house. Their recording station is set up in one of their rooms. It includes two speakers, two computers screens, and other equiptment. They have also used the recording studio on the college campus.

Jon is still making music with Perceptionists. “We’re just going to release our recording as a studio band right now and see if they pick up any attention.” Huber said about his band.

“I think hardcore music will be in my future,” Huber adds about his plans for the future. “I’m a senior MBI major, so I’m definitely planning on being in the music business for the rest of my life.”


Contributions to this slideshow/interview are as follows:
Band Photos: Ashley Heath
Other photos: Diana Herlehy
Audio (voices): Chris Moriarty (interviewer), Jon Huber
Audio (recording): Audacity.
Music: “A man, An Image” by Perceptionists (intro) and “I Lead the Horse to Water and it Drown” by Perceptionists (outro).
Slideshow: Soundslides

Band interview- audio slideshow project (synopsis)

For the audio slideshow project, Chris and I will be recording and taking pictures of a past band group. This group of boys happens to be Chris' roommates. Our goal is to capture the style of music in which they enjoy creating. We will interview a member of the band and ask him some questions about the band, like what instrument he likes to play and how long he's been playing, or why he and his band decided to stop playing in the first place. The pictures involved in the slideshow will be of the band or band members themselves, playing their instruments.

Chris and I will be using a recorder for the project to record their answers and maybe a little bit of their music. If we are not able to use a recorder we will just use Chris’ IPhone. We will also use some music that the band members like to listen to. Chris and I intend this project to be directed towards an audience that has a passion for music. This will be very different from the other group who is also interviewing a band from Lyndon state. The band we will be interviewing focuses on playing hard-core music, whereas most bands around this campus plays folk and indie music.

Slide shows and storytelling

The slideshows that I found were all relevant to my biggest interests.
The first slideshow I found had audio included. I went to Vimeo.com, because I've always gone to that website to look at all kinds of videos. I started searching for slideshows of topics I am interested in, like yoga. I eventually found a slideshow that told the story of a woman's 10-day journey practicing yoga while teaching and enjoying accompanied by the natives of Nairobi, Africa. The concept of this slideshow was inspiring to begin with. The photos of African children and adults were very well taken and colorful making it entertaining to watch. The African-themed music accompanied the pictures to give the viewers a good feel of what the woman's experience in Africa was like. Without the music the slideshow would not be very interesting to watch.

The second slide show I found was from a website called Dwell.com, which was originally created to display architecture and design. I was interested in finding a slideshow about travel on this website. The slideshow I eventually found a slideshow that displayed pictures of all different aspects of the city of Honolulu, Hawaii, with the purpose to give people insight on what else Honolulu has to offer, other than the obvious beautiful ocean fronts and tourist areas. This slideshow does not include audio, only pictures of local Hawaiian's hand-made goods, the chinatown market area and many other fascinating features of the city. The slideshow did a good job of giving each slide enough time for the viewer to observe the picture and read it's caption. There was about 6 seconds between each slide. The pictures were professional and captivating. The lack of audio was appropriate for the slideshow because the captions told the story of each picture.  

The photo gallery I chose was one incorporated in my friend's tumblr account. This tumblr page is a collection of photos of all different points of interest (live and let live). It is mostly based on fashion trending these days. There are also pictures of different celebrities, foods, quotes and animals. This tumblr is very diverse. It contains some pictures that are shocking to the eye whether they be some what revealing or just simply strange, but the purpose of the gallery itself is a representation of expressing oneself of being care-free and fun. The pictures are so intriguing and flamboyant that the gallery itself does not need audio.

Each slideshow and photo gallery each represents something in their own way. The first slideshow with audio clearly described a story with its pictures and music. It was easy to follow the story. The second slideshow did not necessarily tell a story, but was still interesting because each slide had words to describe the pictures captivity. Music does help a slideshow become more interesting to watch, especially to people who are more attracted to sounds and music, but that does not necessarily mean a slideshow needs audio in order to tell a story. Actually, sometimes a slideshow without audio can make it easier to focus on the photos and be able to visually understand what story is being told. The photo gallery was of all different images, letting the viewer to perceive it however they please. However, a photo gallery can tell a story quite easily. Consecutive photos in a gallery can show someone a certain sequence of events which all together tell the story.

headline here...

NewsLINC critique

NewsLINC Website Critique

I enjoyed exploring through the NewsLINC website. I like that it is simple and easy to Navigate, while still using nice colors and design to make it appealing for students, faculty and other members of the North East community. The website displays informative news coming from the surrounding towns of the NorthEast Kingdom including Burke, Danville and Lyndon. Along with talking about news in the NEK, the website also talks about whats happening in other parts of VT and NH. The site includes an 'about us' section that explains the purpose of the website and it's association with the Electric Journalism Arts department at LSC.

I did not find anything I didn't like about the website. I think that it is overall a good way for the students involved in Electric Journalism Arts to get experience in finding news on their own and reporting it through the media.

Audio blog project - what is it like to live off campus?

In our podcast we talked to each other in a discussion about how we felt about the transformation of living off of campus at Lyndon state and the overall pros and cons of the matter. We also talked about the rules one needs to abide when living or thinking about living on their own in an apartment.

We used a recorder to record ourselves for the podcast. It was easy to use, but we made a lot of mistakes when recording, which made it a little more difficult when we edited and finalized the podcast in the end. The podcast started off with an introduction of what Chris and I were going to be discussing, after that we shared a reasons why we enjoyed living off campus rather than in a dorm room. We both agreed that the freedom of living on campus was a nice comparison to living in a house with RA's back at school, but we also explained that you still need to consider obeying the rules of a landlord when renting an apartment.

Chris and I gave a little insight on some of the rules you need to play by when renting an apartment, such as paying your rent on time and maintaining a well kept home in general. We gave some information about certain rules that landlords in Vermont hold towards their fellow tenants, such as eviction information. We found this information from the CVOED Renting in Vermont Informational Handbook for Tenants and Landlords. We both thought that this would be useful information for anybody who was new to living in an apartment in Lyndonville or anywhere else in Vermont. The information we found was a good addition to the podcast because it made it informational along with being opinionated with our beliefs of living off campus.

Chris and I focused our topic mostly on the responsibility of renting an apartment as a college student. Not only did we spend the time talking about tenant’s responsibilities, we also talked about the responsibility of the landlord. Again, this was something we thought students might find useful to hear, because if a student is interested or already is living in an apartment in the area, they very much deserve to know their rights as a tenant, in case they ever get ripped off for some reason in the future.

In the end we put all of the audio on the computer. We had to convert all the recordings into a WAV format in order for us to be able to use it on Audacity and create our podcast. Converting took a little bit of time but once it was done the process of editing the audio clips was simple. Chris and I were proud of our podcast and think that students will find it informative and also entertaining to hear, especially if they are curious as to what living off campus is like, and what significant aspects to look out for when looking for an apartment.

Podcast Assignment Outline

My partner and I are doing our assignment about the life of living off campus at college. We are going to be giving advice on what a college student should be prepared for when moving to an apartment off of campus. We will also be giving other kinds of information about living in an apartment such as the rules and regulations the tenant agrees on following according to Vermont rules. The overall idea of this podcast will be the pros/cons of living in an apartment compared to living on campus in a dorm.

Soundcloud- "Hi I'm Diana"

infogr.am LSC Enrollment

lsc eNROLLMENT  | Infographics

Podcast Critique

Podcast Critique

"Freakonomics"

One of the podcasts I chose to subscribe to is called "Freakonomics." It is a podcast that New York journalist, Stephen J. Dubnerand  and economist, Steven D. Levitt created where they study and survey very interesting events and problems that we encounter and hear about every day, including cheating teachers and bizarre baby names. I found this podcast on iTunes after searching through  the society & culture genre. I am very interested in sociology, so I thought I would find one that related to it in some way, and so this did.
The episodes I watched from the podcast were called "Do You Really Want to Know Your Future?" and "A Burger A Day." The second one was my favorite, where the two speakers discussed the possibility of a McDonald's McDouble being the cheapest, most nutritious, and bountiful food with all of it's protein, daily fiber, calcium and iron, that has ever existed in human history.

Likes:

• The men on the podcast had a good balance of using humor in the podcast while also being informational.
• They recorded surveys given out to other people whom they'd just found walking down the street.
• There was beneficial information given about the value of nutrition and the social observations relating to people's preference of fast food over healthy food.

Dislikes:

• The podcast was only 6 minutes and 49 seconds. It could've been longer and had more information.
• The podcast was a little more opinionated than it was based on facts.

There were not many things I disliked about these episodes. I plan on listening to them further because I find it very different. The podcast itself has a lot of variety of subjects, some are unusual but that is what makes them interesting. 

"Relations" Podcast

The second podcast I chose is called "Relations." The authors are Elijah R. Young and Sarah J. Storer. The two discuss practical relationship advice and other social advice. I also found this podcast through iTunes while I was browsing through different genres. It caught my attention because it seemed entertaining. I wasn't interested in listening to a boring, "school-book" educational podcast, so this seemed interesting and more popular. 

The episodes I watched were called "How to Combine Dating and Social Media Properly" and "Dating While Shy: How to Overcome Social Shyness." I connected more with the second episode, because I am very interested in certain social aspects and what causes them in the first place, so I was curious as to what this was all about when I read the title. In the episode the two basically discussed the fear and anxiety over social shyness (whether it be involved in dating or not), and solutions to the anxiety that exist. 

Likes:

• Right when the episode started, it sounded like a legitimate and professional radio show but also giving popular information that is amusing and easier to engage in.
• Since there is a girl and boy speaking, it offers different perspectives from each opposite sex.   
• The two people are understanding and sensitive to the subject of being "shy" and try and help people out there who suffer from the subject.

Dislikes:

• The podcast's website is not very up-to-date. It isn't very inviting, which makes the podcast itself seem less popular and it only has 5 out of 15 ratings.
• The two speakers sound very sweet and mellow, but it also makes the episodes less exciting to listen to. Their tones are soft, which at times caused me to lose their attention.

Along with the first podcast, there wasn't much to dislike about this one. I found the episodes very inviting and plan to keep my subscription. 

WOODTV website critique

Wood TV Website Critique

Pros:

• The website is designed to be user friendly, in that they have created tabs at the top of the website which group content to make topics more accessible.
• The site is built in a scroll-friendly way, which was obvious because as I started at the top of the site, my eyes were drawn down the site from topic to topic.  Photos and headlines were helpful in pulling me from the top to the bottom of the site.
• The site does a god job in prioritizing news in that bigger news that would concern a larger population is first to catch the eye, along with other big stories that are accompanied with audio and video.
• There is a lot of information that has been well placed above the fold line to make it immediately viewable, including the title of the site, major stories, and headers.

Cons:

• Visually, the site is boring, which may be suitable for a news website, but still lacks basic principles like contrast, and repetition which are good tools for attracting the viewer's eye.
• Advertisements take up a good amount of space and are styled similarly to the site's content, which makes them distracting.

Writing for the web II

Roaring Creek Bridge Rebuilt

Bridge becomes open again after some help in funds.

The County has been looking to fix the bridge ever since it was washed out by a flood last year. The cost is $700,000 to replace.

The county has promised to pay $100,000 of the cost; the state paying $200,000, and the U.S Department of Transportation funds were $400,000.

The bridge was in bad shape when it was destroyed, but there wasn’t enough money to repair it. Once help came along in funds the town was able to finally fix it up.

Without the bridge it was difficult for the Oak Grove neighborhood, because they had to drive a lot farther to get to highway 19. The bridge made it possible for people to drive there within a miles distance, whereas a detour would take them a total of 9 miles.

“Traveling all that way has made it very inconvenient for a lot of people, but not having this bridge erected so quickly is a blessing.” Josh Spiva, an Oak Grove resident said. All residents say they’re happy about the bridge opening.

Writing for the Web I

Car Crash Leads to Man’s Heart Attack

Vermont Resident is almost hit by a driver while eating his lunch.

Annie Coulter of Barton, VT was driving southbound on Depot Street today at 12:31 p.m. when she accidently crashed through the front of Central Restaurant, leading to a man's death from a heart attack although he was not directly hit by the car.

The 82-year old driver swerved as she was driving through Lyndonville to avoid a pedestrian until her breaks failed, resulting in her crash into the restaurant window, almost striking John Barker, 59, who was seated, eating his meal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNT8-ig7Oxs

Barker was not hit by the car but received minor cuts from flying glass. As he tried to help Coulter out of her car, he started complaining of chest pains, which lead to collapsing to his death from a heart attack.

The driver only suffered minor injuries from the accident.

 

 

Online Writing Homework

Sunoco Cashier Robbed at Gunpoint

At approximately 1:15 AM this morning, a lone male robbed the cashier at a Hometown Sunoco in Swanton, VT.

The robber was described as being a white, 6'0" tall man. He ran away from the scene with an undisclosed amount of cash and items, no one was injured.

The Vermont State Police continue their search for the suspect in order to follow up on all investigative leads. Any information should be reported to the Vermont State Police at 803-524-5993 or Franklin County Sheriff’s Office at 802-524-2121. 

Online Writing Excercise

Vermont Bear Hunter Charged for Aggravated Assault

Conrad Masse of Albany, Vermont was headed to Urie Road accompanied by Wayne Goffe in order to begin a bear hunt.

Masse drove his truck with Goffe to the site, using radio telemetry and a GPS to track the two bear hounds which they had put on the trail of the bear.

Goffe got out of his truck while the dogs pursued the bear, waiting for the bear to cross as Masse drove approximately 541 feet down the road.

When the bear eventually crossed the road in between Masse and Goff, Masse fired his gun three times with a Remington .30-06 rifle

One shot hit struck the bear, one hit a tree and the other struck Goff in his red and black jacket.

The bullet entered Goff in his midsection and hit him in his pelvic area, resulting in his transportation to Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center for treatment where he was treated.

Goff has since been released from the hospital and is in stable condition.

This incident caused Masse a citation to appear in the Orleans Superior Court on February 28, 2014 where he will answer to his charge of Aggravated Assault.

Masse was also issued a fish and game ticket for shooting from the road, having a loaded rifle in his vehicle and not having a proper display of permits for obtaining the bear hounds.

Blog Critique

The blog I chose to critique is called Smitten Kitchen (URL: http://smittenkitchen.com/ ). I knew that I wanted to find a blog about cooking, because lately that's what I've been most interested in. I'm not a good cook, but now that I'm living in my first apartment this year, I think its a great opportunity to become one since I have a kitchen. So I typed in Google, "cooking blogs" and found this one. It was hard to find any thing bad about this blog because I liked almost everything about it.

Pros:

• The food looks amazing. The homepage has pictures that seem to be almost professional of foods that the author, Deb, has been making along with step-by-step directions on how to make them. Some include butterscotch pudding popsicles and almond crisp peaches.
• The blog is organized. There are different links on the side of the page for every season, which contain recipes for foods most people would enjoy for that season. It also has separate links for vegetables and fruits, containing recipes following the two different groups. Deb's "About Me"is organized by separate links as well, explaining the different aspects of her life and cooking. For example there is a section about the kitchen which she spends most her time experimenting with foods and another section about her family which she considers her inspiration.
• Lots of information. This blog has tons of recipes coming from all different food groups. When I clicked on the recipe index there was so many to choose from I didn't know which to click on first. 

Cons:

• The decorating of this blog is a little boring. The colors involved are a little plain and almost too simple, making it seem less inviting and appealing. 
• The blog only consist of text and pictures. It would be nice if it had a little more to offer, like videos of her making her recipes or of any other food related entertainment.

Blog Process - "Pimp My Blog"

Creating this blog was a bit of a challenge for me. I guess I've been so used to using Facebook that all of this was really confusing and unfamiliar. The whole HTML code and profile editing reminded me of when I created my first Myspace account in middle school. I like this though, its kind of like an online journal thats easier to customize (if you can figure out how to do it.)

In the beginning of the process I had trouble figuring out how to edit the title of my blog, change my small profile picture, and create posts. I'm usually terrible at following directions, but I managed to look everything up on google and figure it out from there.

I chose to make my first blog simple. I found the background on a website called shabbyblogs.com. I wanted my background to be one of scenery because I've always liked having scenic backgrounds on my computer desktops, phone backgrounds, etc. Especially ones of tropical places because I'm naturally drawn to anything having to do with beaches, palm trees and ocean. I live by the ocean and love traveling to new tropical places. New Hampshire may not be the tropics but I guess its the closest thing I have to it. I thought the overall layout of my blog portrayed me well. I posted pictures on my blog of the things that were most important to me, which is family and friends.