Alex’s World

ITE 270 Course Reflection

In finishing the second semester of my Junior year of Highschool, I will also be finishing the second portion of Advanced Multimedia Applications. A subject that I have absolutely not mastered, but a class in which I have learned an immense amount. Throughout this class I have experienced a handful of trial and error with various websites being blocked by my school provided Chromebook, but that only led me to work even harder on some of these assignments. Going along with that, my multimedia knowledge has grown in an indescribable way. Every single assignment was something totally new to me and there is simply no better way to learn than that.

When I began this class I had no desire to go into any sort of career involving multimedia applications. In fact, I still have no interest in a profession with the need for multimedia, so one can imagine how surprised I was when realizing that what I’m learning through this course can benefit me so heavily outside of the multimedia world. In ITE 270, each student was given the choice of an issue, any issue in the world that bothers or affects them in any way. Then, we would use the process of design thinking to develop a public service announcement to address this issue. It is simply astounding. Every week I would work on something new, and each assignment contributed to my end PSA project. I learned so much about starting small and working towards a big goal. It took time and work, but it paid off extremely well, and all into a topic that I was passionate about.

There has without a doubt, been a severe transformation throughout these past 9 weeks for me. Although in the first portion of Multimedia (ITE 170) in the first semester I was doing interesting assignments, they were just not necessarily my thing. However, in ITE 270 our assignments made a huge change and they, of course, like I mentioned previously, were about a topic of our choosing. Doing assignments that worked toward this particular PSA made me much more motivated to complete my work. I have never worked super successfully online, and this being an online class, there were plenty of times were I did not prioritize properly. There were also many emails sent to the professor. Luckily, my work ethic changed during these past 9 weeks and I’m proud to mention that today is April 16th, and this assignment is not due until May 3rd. So yes, these 9 weeks have been very different and all for the better.

Finally, my absolute most favorite part of this whole class in both ITE 170 and ITE 270, has been using my ePortfolio. Reaching the audience via blog is just so efficient. Although, WordPress (I know I’m criticizing while I’m currently using WordPress, so this is a tad hypocritical) has given me some frustration by not allowing me to post a video along with my blog without paying extra money for some premium subscription. I still believe that using a blog for this class is nothing less than genius. Blogs were popular 15 years ago and they still are today, so I fully believe this is a skill that I have picked up that will show to be quite handy throughout my professional life. Another beneficial factor that comes along with using an ePortfolio, is just being graded. It feels so unbelievably better being graded on a blog post appose to a test. Using my ePortfolio I can put in my own personal style which not only makes me more confident and comfortable with my work, but it grants everyone the ability to shine outside of just basic grades and quiz scores. It also comes in handy to view one’s peer’s blog to get an idea or share an idea.

In conclusion, I have learned about general Multimeda, I figured out where my work ethic shows best, and I realized that Multimedia courses can teach you so much more than one could possibly imagine when signing up for the class. I truly have picked up wonderful ideas and knowledge throughout this semester, and throughout this whole year. I am so grateful for my professor Alica and I without a second thought in mind, recommend this course!

Final PSA

Here is my official PSA addressing gun violence in America.

Throughout this semester, I have worked on this topic. I started with an infographic addressing this issue. Then I quickly began making story boards. I made 2-3 story boards during this process. Through many mistakes and trial runs, I finished the official story board. From there, we went to the demo PSA animatic. Then, I added sound. Finally, I fixed the sound and adjusted the animatic. This is what it looks like today.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the experience and working with this topic. I hope y’all enjoy it and also understand the issue and do all that you can to further address it or make any bigger impact necessary. Thank you!

Gun violence Animatic

A few months ago I designed an infographic PSA about Gun Violence and the need to further address it. Two weeks ago, I began practicing with storyboard/story tables. Today I built my story table and then made an animated presentation using my story table. I used Canva due to it being simple, efficient, and available. I am relatively happy with the way my presentation turned out, but most of all I am proud to serve a part in addressing the heavy and horrifying issue of gun violence in the U.S.

Below is the link to view my presentation. Sadly, wordpress will not allow me to upload the animated version due to my subscription level.

i-am-alex-amrbrister-addressing-the-heart-wrenching-widespread-of-gun-violence-in-america.-as-well-as-the-urgency-for-solution-and-the-cry-for-change Download

PSA Practice Story Table

My first attempt at a story table…

I watched a PSA about drug/alcohol abuse, picked a scene that seemed considerate towards the topic, and made a story table. In my practice story table, I explain what is going on in the scene, as well as the dialogue between those in the scene. Overall, this story board is a practice effort that I did in order to prepare myself for making broader, more advanced story boards in the future. Next, I plan to make a story board about gun violence awareness.

Gun Violence Infographic

kami-export-gun-violence-infographic Download

I created an infographic about gun violence in the United States. I focused the statistics around the number of deaths yearly and daily. The primary colors, and background colors on this slide show are dark and gloomy like. I also added red font color to some of the statistics to imitate a bloody look in the words, which I feel adds a little extra emotion involving the violence explained in these stats. My target audience for this infographic is the American citizen, because “the people” are the only ones who can make a real difference in this country. I hope this brings more awareness of the exceedingly horrific brutality each and every number represents.

Three Favorite Assignments From My Media Course

Although it looks simple and only lasts for milliseconds, I think my favorite assignment of the course was making a GIF. I did not have any experience in GIF creating, until November 6th when my assignment was to create one. It was and still is silly to look at, I do not believe I will ever use this particular GIF. However, I now know how to make a GIF and that is a tool I most definitely will take advantage of.

Another one of my top favorites is the animation I made through google slides. It required a good bit of creativity due to the fact that there were no requirements on what the animation should be about. I just added whatever I wanted as I wet with absolutely no plan in mind and it turned out wonderfully! I do not often have or feel the need to animate something, but luckily if I ever do, I know how to start.

This photo is from my 10 Image Types assignment. This Flat Lay Photo. It is composed of objects on a flat surface; a leather cowboy boot, a zippo lighter, and an SG Bass Guitar. Although easy, this assignment taught me a good bit about photography and showed me tips and instructions that I will without a doubt use when picture taking in the future. I used this Flat Lay Photo because it is my absolute favorite out of all of the pictures I took.

GIF!!

Tonight was my first time making a GIF using Canva. It was not too complicated luckily. I took six pictures of me strumming a ukulele and then uploaded them into a Canva’s video template. After changing the video speed to 0.2 milliseconds per frame, I downloaded it using Canva’s GIF option. Then, boom! It was complete. Canva makes creating your own GIFs as simple as possible and I love it!

My Experience at the 2023 Outdoor Track Regional Meet

Beginning:

Sometime around the middle of May, Me, along with the other athletes on Marion Senior High school’s Track and field team who had advanced past districts, boarded the bus for an hour and a half long bus ride to Wise. This was the region’s meet for outdoor track. The meet that, if you succeed, lands you a spot at states. I was focusing on running the second leg for the 4×800 relay team, a team in which I made it states with the season previously. I had also planned to run the one mile race, my favorite and primary event of the season. However, I caught a virus the day before, and woke up the morning of the track meet feeling horrible.

Upon arriving in Wise, I had to instantly start warming up for the relay, it was the very first running event of the day. Me along with my distance team made our way towards the start, not expecting there to be an hour long delay. After stretching in the blistering heat for what seemed like eternity, we were called up to run. I took as much cold medicine as I possibly could hours before and was putting all my efforts into bringing this relay to states for the second time this year. We were seated fourth in the region and needed to finish within the top three to advance to states. Sure enough, we ran like we were being chased by a cheetah on cocaine. We finished first in the region. Little did I know, that would not be the most exciting event of the day. I went ahead and pulled out of my mile competition knowing my lungs would not be capable of running a state qualifying time.

Middle:

Now, with nothing left to do and a whole day ahead of me, I decided to explore. Earlier in the season, my first time running at Wise, I stumbled upon a huge junkyard while I was doing a warm up run. I realized with all this time on my hands, I should go back. I took three other adventurous teammates with me. We walked to the junkyard and looked around at the interesting cars that surrounded us. My courageous friend, Jim (fake name) wanted to look around the stacks of tires for a snack. My other teammates and I figured that was an idiotic idea so we kept moving forward. A little while later, I got a text from Jim stating that someone else was in the junkyard. I was a little concerned, but Jim’s smart. I knew he could hide long enough for the person to walk away. Sadly, I overestimated Jim’s brilliance. As it turns out, Jim decided to climb the tallest stack of tires to take a selfie. The man in the junkyard spotted him and started walking over to him. Jim quickly shot down into the stack of tires hoping the man in the junkyard would not find him. It was then that I got a text from Jim saying, “He saw me”. Then another message saying “help Alex”. My other two teammates and I were on the entirely other side of the junkyard. It was then that the old junkyard man climbed the stack of tires and peered in to see a scared Jim hiding at the bottom. The man told Jim to follow him. Jim was being led towards the man’s truck. Which happened to be blocking any of us from leaving. After a scary few minutes filled with panicked text messages, Jim told us to find a way out. He planned to turn around and bolt towards the entrance. My other friends and I crawled through at least 40 ft of prickly bushes and made our escape. Jim texted me to meet him by the trees at the front of the road that led up to the junkyard. We sprinted up towards the trees and sure enough, there was Jim. We then walked back to the track meet, all very shaken up by the experience. Once back to the track meet, we agreed not to mention what had happened and by no means go back to the junkyard.

End:

Later on, when I got home, I pulled up the junkyard on google maps. As it turns out, the junkyard was not Wise’s highschool property. It was a huge junkyard, a huge junkyard on private property. Long story short, qualifying for states in the 4×800 relay is not the only reason I remember that track meet.

Here’s what the back side of the junkyard looked like.

Here is another picture taken from the very back of junkyard.

My Audience Prolfie:

I expect my audiences to be all ages, from 10 years old to maybe even 100. I plan to include very few blog posts that relate only to those my age. This site, these blog posts are for anyone interested in the topics I discuss and the opinions I share. I hope that the avid music enjoyer will find my posts interesting. I will be discussing albums, songs, artists, bands, album art, music history, instruments, and maybe a few things about myself here and there as well. My audience should feel free to share their opinions with me as I share mine with them through these posts. I hope to see comments from those intrigued by what I discuss.