Google Map Update for My Newsplex Weeks

After my two weeks in South Carolina, I have updated my first Google Map including a representative photo that I took at each location. Here's the map:
View South Carolina June 2010 in a larger map

It's interactive, so click on the sites to see the photos.

If you want to see all of the photos that were taken at each location, go to my Flickr streams:

• Columbia, South Carolina
• Charleston, South Carolina
• Folly Beach, South Carolina
• Savannah, Georgia

Animoto Slideshow of Newsplex Week 2

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.


The final week of Newsplex is coming to a close. A great group of folks attended for the second week as well. It's been a great way to meet and learn about new people, including two international journalists/professors.

Because many of the exercises from this week were the same as last week, I didn't do most of them; however, I did do some additional exercises using some of my own content.

I also did this great exercise today--a stand up, on-camera response to a news anchor. I have a more profound respect for my broadcast friends. Wow--remembering what to do and say and listen to that person in your ear is tough! I'll definitely need more practice on this, and now I have a great exercise to subject my students to. I know you're all looking forward to that. And so am I, but I'll tough it out with you and get the practice as well.

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.

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