Week 2 Newsplex Training 2010

Today starts my second week fo training at Newsplex at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, South Carolina. This week focuses on teaching and researching convergence.

I spent the weekend touring a couple of cities--Charleston, SC, and Savannah, GA, so I'll be posting content from those whirlwind trips shortly. You all will be subjected some more multimedia storytelling techniques when I'm posting this content so that I can continue to practice some of the software programs that I learned last week.

A couple of great tips from last week's seminar:

• Adrive allows you 50GB of free storage space. Sign up for an account and begin backing up your data. Too bad I hadn't discover this until one of my external drives had a meltdown. Unfortunately for me, this is the drive that has, or rather had, most of my content. I'll be checking with the good folks at Texas Wesleyan's IT department to see if anything can be recovered--I hope; I hope.
• GimpShop provides a toned down, free version of Photoshop, so for those of you who can't afford Photoshop, download the software and play.
• Audacity also provides free audio software. Just download the software, and you can edit digital recordings, add effects, etc. before associating the ditigal recording with a slideshow.

I'll offer more tips that I've gleaned from Newsplex throughout my two weeks of training, so stay tuned.

Flash Animation Exercise from Newsplex

This is my final Newsplex post for this week--a brief Flash animation that we created. Now I'm off to Charleston.

My Newsplex Video with My Awesome Group

Thursday was video day at Newsplex, and my team shot this video using a Kodak Zi8 and MovieMaker. It was a good learning tool and a really basic video. Hopefully, I can remember how to do this for a movie of Charleston and Savannah. Check back after my worldwind tour this weekend, and thanks to everyone for their suggestions of sites to see in Charleston.

Thanks to Sue and Warren. You two are awesome!

Adobe Photoshop Allows for the Kay Colley iPhone

colleyiphone
Originally uploaded by klcolley

It's amazing what you can do with Photoshop. As you can see, my face now appears on the iPhone. Not really. But at least on this iPhone it does.

The IT department at Texas Wesleyan will be upgrading The Rambler's Photoshop software this summer, so don't forget to check us out in fall. You'll never know what you might see.

St. Patrick's Day Slideshow Exercise Using Visual Communicator

The slideshow software program Visual Communicator offers the ability to record on-camera video (see opening), audio and provide some cuts along with a teleprompter-like running script--a really cool feature!

Thanks to Newsplex for making the content available. Hopefully, I can provide some of my own content and create something of my own, but for now, here's St. Patrick's Day in Columbia, SC.

Last Day of Newsplex Convergence Bootcamp

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.


During the last day of the Newsplex convergence software bootcamp, we learned how to put together a quick video using Animoto.com. This quick and simple program gives s brief glimpse of the facility and the folks who spent the week toiling over software challenges.

My Newsplex Journey Using Google Maps

This week has been a week for Convergence Software bootcamp at Newsplex, including use of Google Maps. One of my students did an awesome Google Map for murders of journalists in Mexico, but this is my first Google Map. I'll update it as my weekend between Newsplex training sessions progresses.


View South Carolina June 2010 in a larger map

What I'm Doing This Summer (at Newsplex)

So check out my Grammy coverage created today at Newsplex using the free software program Audacity and some clips that were provided. My voice overs aren't the greatest, but it does take practice.

I hope my students are keeping up with this, especially you Rambler folks, because you're in trouble now. I'm actually learning how to use the software to create multimedia projects so the bar will be raised once again.

Maybe by the end of the week, I'll have a unique project to post. Stay tuned to see.

My First Week at Newsplex

Today starts the first week of my convergence training at Newsplex at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. That's the back of my curly hair on the far right while Dr. Augie Grant speaks at front.

Eleven other intrepid journalism faculty members from around the nation are here, and right now, we're all trying to blog. I've been fortunate to have the blog established, so I'm cheating...no new blog created; you all are just going to be exposed to my Newsplex experience for the next two weeks. Lucky you, and lucky me--since I'm here for two weeks instead of just one.

Again, the basic skills of journalism were stressed as imperative in convergence journalism: reporting, writing, editing, basic photography, basic videography and basic audio production.

I'm always floored by how public relations people seem to be ahead of the curve in this struggle, since they've been needing to learn everything for so long. Now, it seems all of the folks who practice communication have fallen into the same boat--the all or nothing boat. Learn it all, at least the basics, or no job.

So stay tuned to see what happens this week. You can also check out my Twitter or Facebook accounts to get updates as well.