LIS6303

I believe makerspaces are a powerful tool not only for stimulating creativity and problem solving, but most importantly, for the sense of community that implicitly posses

Our times are complex and we are always in a rush. Finding  a place where we can be ourselves, at our own pace, is an important outlet. Ideas, creativity, and curiosity require time and patience. Makerspaces can provide an environment that fosters them.

I decided to plan for a storytime at the beach. For that purpose I created a poster (Tabloid size 14×17 in.) See below

The poster was done in Illustrator. My main difficulty was the handling of the fonts and content. I don’t have a large variety of fonts in my computer and in that sense the final product is perhaps a little bland. In the end, I changed the background to a “comic” type instead of a real beach photo to make it more attractive to children.

I designed a coloring book that will accompany the event. I was struggling between doing it as letter size folded, but I figured that, if it is intended for little kids, the larger the images the better. I decided for full letter size. The pages may be printed both sides resulting in an 8-page booklet.
Pdf is included below

Podcast Project

I decided to do it about something that personally touched me. We hear so many bad news everyday that we forget there are many individuals performing wonderful acts. I imagine that a podcast of good ideas and actions may be interesting for a large audience.

I’d like to work on an intro and a coda for the podcast. I didn’t have time to do it for this week but I’ll keep working on the recording to improve it.

I need to incorporate a citation for the interview snippet, but not sure how to do it. 

I also want to add that I feel to self-conscious about my accent and it is really hard for me to do a program using my voice. It happened last week with the Prezi presentation and again this time. I probably will have to work on getting used to it.

Note: Music is copyright cleared

Vodcast Project

For the video, I decided to work on a storyboard first. See below

It took me longer than expected because I wanted to learn to do animations on Adobe After Effects. The first version of the video can be found at:

New Prezi Presentation: 

https://prezi.com/view/91dN3jcGu46i1cmtEgXT/

Before attacking the new audio/video project. I decided to re-do my Prezi Presentation. I didn’t feel I used the power of animations that the software provides. I watched few tutorials and, despite the difficulties in getting used to the way it works, I came up with a new presentation which is, in my opinion, more graphically appealing with a simpler organization. I definitely need to keep practicing with the software to be more pro efficient.

I don’t like about Prezi the fact that it doesn’t allow the use of animated gifs. Additionally, it requires lots of resources from the computer which makes it very slow sometimes.

I worked on a pdf handout to accompany the presentation. Jpg version is shown below

https://prezi.com/view/fFfE2TXqieFsswAaX66s/

For this project I decided to try Prezi Next. It was the first time I worked with this platform and I have to admit it was a long learning curve for me (That and that my computer had memory issues, but that’s another story)
Using one of the Prezi’s predesigned templates helped enormously. Nonetheless, I’d love to create new presentations with designs of my own.
I think that the presentation, in its current state, requires more detailed work. The audio, for instance, is not the best and the animations could guide the viever better if I’d managed to handle the paths differently.
Another difficulty was the fact that the voice-over didn’t allow automatic play of the presentation. I have to rely on the viewer to know when to move forward which I don’t think is the best option.
As I was working on the presentation, I concluded that it might have been a better alternative to work on a motion graphics animation for this topic, even if it could have taken much longer to finish.
As a general idea, I think that working with Prezi, though it is for me a more interesting alternative compared to PowerPoint, it still lacks the attractiveness of a short video. As a standalone product, it doesn’t have the magnetic power of a video with good music and voice over. I say this, because I thought that working with the idea that the Internet is, beyond all its magic, a cable infrastructure it could have more “punch” in a video that simple voice over over a static image.

I found the article “Presenting with PowerPoint” very concise and useful. I’d say that it contains a summary of the most important tips about good presentations. However, what I liked the most where the keyboard shortcuts. It is not common to find these tools and they are extremely useful to provide a smooth experience to the audience. Many times, like looking for a slide, for instance, can disrupt the rhythm of the presenter. Knowing shortcuts may go a long way in keeping the audience engaged.

Reflection – Week 1
After I finished writing the objectives and goals, I realized that perhaps this is a too broad subject to tackle with only one training session. It might work better on a serial approach with less content per class.