Photojournalism From A Student’s Eye

Hadn’t done a soundslides in a while so I thought I would give it a go on this piece about a 15-year-old pipe organ built by Dobson Pipe Organ Builders.

After playing around with Sprout more over the afternoon, I ran into some of its shortcomings. Then again, I am not sure anyone intended it for trying to create multimedia packages, only small widgets.

I ran into trouble when I wanted to use html within a text box (which has the option to include a scroll bar). Without being able to add html into the text box, I can’t add a collection of videos or photo galleries that users can scroll through.

Still, for the ease of use, I can imagine all sorts of uses for promotion of videos, galleries and special sections.

After reading about Sprout on the JACC Blog, I decided to give it a try and see what widgets I could create. At first I tried something very simple, a rss feed of the top stories from the Des Moines Register, sized to fit my sidebar (it’s on the right under my multimedia links).

But then, I realized that you could build separate pages withing each widget, opening up countless possibilities. You can also insert video and slideshows into these widgets. Here is my latest attempt, which combines four different feeds… The cool thing is that it can be embedded nearly anywhere, and includes easy buttons to allow users to put it in their facebook and myspace profiles, their blogger blog, and their igoogle page among many other places.

Just made another widget using their countdown tool. Did I mention you can also customize the size of the project, something I wish I could do in Vuvox, but perhaps I have found my answer here.

I was a part of my first team multimedia package these past two weeks. For the story, we followed the stories of six main characters, three from a “rural” school in New Sharon, Iowa (population 1,301), and three from an “urban” school in Ankeny, Iowa (population 36,161), as they prepared for, and went to prom.

Six reporters, two photographers and two videographers (I did the video for the Ankeny prom) covered the prom day from beginning to end. That meant getting up early to document hair and nail appointments (and one ACT test) and staying late into the night at after-prom (a school sponsored event in which prizes are raffled off to try and keep kids out of trouble).

I am not sure if the end result came out exactly how anyone envisioned, but it was definitely a good experience learning how much preparation, communication and compromise goes into a project with a team of people involved.

Yes, another Vuvox presentation (is the check in the mail yet?). I know that Shaminder is sick of it now, and I apologize.

Initially, it was suggested that we do a timeline of all of the reader-submitted prom photos, with corresponding data from each year, such as top radio hits, price of gas, Academy Award winners etc. I ended up suggesting the collage app because I had recently finished a Drake Basketball collage and it was relatively simple. In doing so, of course, I took on said project.

Later, one of the online editors, Jennifer Merriman, had the great idea of interviewing couples who were married to their prom dates. Later still, while staring at my closet wondering how I was ever going to clean my room, I thought it might make more sense as a progression of meandering through a room scattered with prom photos, rather than a timeline. Anyways, here is the result (though I still want to add another interview and perhaps some heels and a dress to the background):