New Media Workshop

Week 8 assignment (by 9am the day of class): Upload one or two of the best photos that you have taken so far for your advancer story (cropped and adjusted but not resized) to your Flickr account and add it to the NMW group. Also prepare 15-20 seconds of accompanying audio to go with it (can be a “soundbite” from the person in the photo or some other sound from the scene). .

Progress report: by the beginning of next week’s class, please post a “progress report” on your blog letting me know how your story is coming along, whether you have any concerns or questions, etc.

Week 9 ADVANCER STORIES DUE. See Assignment Desk for your exact due date. Feel free to start putting up your content early if you would like comment or feedback before the deadline.

NOVEMBER 18 DISTRICT COUNCIL ELECTIONS: This is a Sunday. You are required to attend class on this day, as a make-up for the missed class in Week 5. Exact time will depend on which coverage team you are on. Go to the class wiki for Election Day coverage teams. Some of your stories will be posted on the same day, and other wrap-up stories will be posted on Monday, as warranted.

Final blog post assignments are due Monday December 3rd by 9am. More here about the assignment.

We are starting to form Election Day coverage teams. You need to sign up for your preferred time and role.

You should all have accounts on the Hong Kong Stories website.

We will spend the first half of class learning how to do the following:

• Posting on HKStories
• Uploading photos
• Adding and formatting photos in your story
• Slide Shows (without sound)
• Audio in HKStories
• (How to embed your Soundslides project coming soon – meanwhile see the end of this post.)

In our remaining time I will introduce you to Soundslides, and demonstrate the workings behind a simple Soundslides project.

You will get a chance to practice using Soundslides with Jerry next week.

Remember, the New York Times multimedia page has great examples of audio slideshows.

Here is a professional Soundslides project by a journalist working freelance for a local newspaper website in the U.S. Mindy McAdams has more analysis of it here. Other great examples of professional Soundslides stories are here and here.

I suggest you also take a look at the following Soundslides tutorials:

• Photopop Soundslides Tutorial
• Soundslides Tutorial Part 1 by Multimedia Shooter.
• Chaptered SS Tutorial by Multimedia Shooter.

Week 8 assignment (by 9am the day of class): Upload one or two of the best photos that you have taken so far for your advancer story (cropped and adjusted but not resized) to your Flickr account and add it to the NMW group. Also prepare 15-20 seconds of accompanying audio to go with it (can be a “soundbite” from the person in the photo or some other sound from the scene). Upload it to the “files” section of the JMSC6019 Google Group.

Progress report: by the end of Monday, please post a “progress report” on your blog letting me know how your story is coming along, whether you have any concerns or questions, etc.

Week 9 ADVANCER STORIES DUE. See Assignment Desk for your exact due date.

NOVEMBER 18 DISTRICT COUNCIL ELECTIONS: This is a Sunday. You are required to attend class on this day, as a make-up for the missed class in Week 5. Exact time will depend on which coverage team you are on, TBD once we get a better idea of the timeline for that day. Some of your stories will be posted on the same day, and other wrap-up stories will be posted on Monday before and during class, as warranted.

Election coverage posts may be completed on that Sunday or may need to be completed on Monday/Tuesday, tbd.

Final blog post assignments are due Monday December 3rd by 9am. More here about the assignment.

You should all have accounts on the Hong Kong Stories website.

We will spend the first half of class learning how to do the following:

• Posting on HKStories
• Uploading photos
• Adding and formatting photos in your story
• Slide Shows (without sound)
• Audio in HKStories
• (How to embed your Soundslides project coming soon – meanwhile see the end of this post.)

You will practice with the help of some photos and audio I have uploaded to our Google Group.

In our remaining time I will introduce you to Soundslides, and demonstrate the workings behind a simple Soundslides project. You can embed Soundslides projects into your blog and into the HKStories website. See more detailed instructions below.

You will get a chance to practice using Soundslides with Jerry next week.

Remember, the New York Times multimedia page has great examples of audio slideshows.

Here is a professional Soundslides project by a journalist working freelance for a local newspaper website in the U.S. Mindy McAdams has more analysis of it here. Other great examples of professional Soundslides stories are here and here.

I suggest you also take a look at the following Soundslides tutorials:

• Photopop Soundslides Tutorial
• Soundslides Tutorial Part 1 by Multimedia Shooter.
• Chaptered SS Tutorial by Multimedia Shooter.

EASIEST WAY TO PUT YOUR SOUNDSLIDES PROJECT ON THE WEB IF YOU HAVE A HKU.HK ACCOUNT:

All HKU students, in addition to having a HKU e-mail address, have a personal homepage. To access it type in http://www.hku.hk//YOUR_USER_NAME. Once you’ve confirmed where your homepage is, you can FTP your soundslides project onto it via Windows Explorer (only while on the HKU network) by following these instructions.

You can also send files to it from elsewhere via an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) program. A good one that works with Firefox is FireFTP which you can download for free and install as a plugin into Firefox. Chapter 1 of Journalism 2.0 explains what FTP is and how it works. I suggest you review that.

EMBEDDING SOUNDSLIDES INTO JOOMLA AND UNIBLOGS:

Embed Soundslides into HKStories (Joomla):
We will use an “iFrame” plugin. Click here to see what the final result looks like.
If the URL of the soundslides project is http://web.hku.hk/~rmack/publish_to_web/ , then you need to type the following code into your edit area: {iframe height="550" border="1" frameborder="1"}http://web.hku.hk/~rmack/publish_to_web{/iframe}
So in other words, {iframe height="550" border="1" frameborder="1"}URL{/iframe}

Embed Soundslides into Uniblogs:
If the URL of the soundslides project is http://web.hku.hk/~rmack/publish_to_web/ , then create a new post in your Uniblog. Click on the flash or “f” icon. A window will open. Paste in this http://web.hku.hk/~rmack/publish_to_web//soundslider.swf (in otherwords URL plus //soundslider.swf) You will then be asked to enter dimensions. Enter 620 for width and 533 for height.

This will only work well if you are using a blog theme that allows you to have room for large pictures.

Embed Soundslides into other blogs and websites: This handy utility can help.

NOTE: THE BJ AND MJ ASSIGNMENTS ARE SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT. Be sure not to confuse them.

Don’t forget to review the resources linked in our Week 7 Class Notes. I will be able to tell from the quality of your finished product whether you have absorbed the concepts discussed.

Week 7 assignment (due 9am next Tuesday): Write a blog post. Now that you know what your “advancer” story will be and when it will be due, your assignment this week is to make a plan. What are your elements? Who will you interview? What kinds of photos will best illustrate this story? What audio will you record? Which online and real-life sources will be most useful for background information? Link to any websites and articles that are relevant to these things.

Week 8 assignment (by 9am the day of class): Upload one or two of the best photos that you have taken so far for your advancer story (cropped and adjusted but not resized) to your Flickr account and add it to the NMW group. Also prepare 15-20 seconds of accompanying audio to go with it (can be a “soundbite” from the person in the photo or some other sound from the scene). More detailed instructions to come next week.

Week 9 ADVANCER STORIES DUE. See Assignment Desk for your exact due date. All BJ’s are working in teams, mainly of two. Stories should around 500-800 words (though they may vary a bit depending on subject matter and the mix of other non-text elements) and should emphasize the use of photos, graphics, soundslides, and audio. Some video may be possible with instructor permission. (The info and resources team will have a somewhat different assignment, which I will discuss with them separately.)

NOVEMBER 18 DISTRICT COUNCIL ELECTIONS: This is a Sunday. You are required to attend class on this day, as a make-up for the missed class in Week 5. Exact time will depend on which coverage team you are on, TBD once we get a better idea of the timeline for that day. Some of your stories will be posted on the same day, and other wrap-up stories will be posted on Monday and Tuesday, as warranted.

As we start the second half of the semester, we begin to focus in on our District Council election coverage. Your “Advancer” stories and your election day coverage will be published on the Hong Kong stories website.

In class today we will discuss your various story ideas and organize our story assignments for the stories you will post before the election.

We will also get introduced to the the Joomla content management system, which is what the Hong Kong stories website uses. I have posted some useful how-to’s and tutorials for posting your stories on the HKStories Joomla platform here.

Some examples of online storytelling from last semester include stories by Jonathan Magee, Fion Li, and Nick Westra, Eileen Jong, and Mona Lam. Note your assignments this year are going to be different because you’ll be doing an “advancer” plus covering breaking election news. So your advancer does not to be nearly as long as their story packages.

We go through Mindy McAdams’ Online Journalism website for the best collection of tips. In particular, see Online Media Types and Using Online Media Types. Also see Chunks: Writing for the Web.

The Elements of Digital Storytelling breaks down the different kinds of elements used in online journalism. It also includes some very useful examples. This class doesn’t cover all the skills needed to create the advanced multimedia examples, but reviewing these examples helps you think about online storytelling, and how the approach differs from print or TV. Berkeley’s multimedia story planning tutorial focuses on how to plan a story for a stand-alone website, rather than the contributions you’ll be making on a group website, but many of the concepts in terms of mapping out your elements still apply.

I am going to list your assignments for the next four weeks here.

Don’t forget to review the resources linked in our Week 7 Class Notes. I will be able to tell from the quality of your finished product whether you have absorbed the concepts discussed on those websites or not.

Week 7 assignment (due 9am next Monday): Write a blog post. Now that you know what your “advancer” story will be and when it will be due, your assignment this week is to make a plan. What are your elements? Who will you interview? What kinds of photos will best illustrate this story? What audio will you record? Which online and real-life sources will be most useful for background information? Link to any websites and articles that are relevant to these things.

Week 8 assignment (by 9am the day of class): Upload one or two of the best photos that you have taken so far for your advancer story (cropped and adjusted but not resized) to your Flickr account and add it to the NMW group. Also prepare 15-20 seconds of accompanying audio to go with it (can be a “soundbite” from the person in the photo or some other sound from the scene). More detailed instructions to come next week. (NOTE THAT THIS ASSIGNMENT HAS BEEN REVISED SINCE I FIRST POSTED IT ON MONDAY.)

Week 9 ADVANCER STORIES DUE. See Assignment Desk for your exact due date.

NOVEMBER 18 DISTRICT COUNCIL ELECTIONS: This is a Sunday. You are required to attend class on this day, as a make-up for the missed class in Week 5. Exact time will depend on which coverage team you are on, TBD once we get a better idea of the timeline for that day. Some of your stories will be posted on the same day, and other wrap-up stories will be posted on Monday before and during class, as warranted.

As we start the second half of the semester, we begin to focus in on our District Council election coverage. Your “Advancer” stories and your election day coverage will be published on the Hong Kong stories website. But first, a discussion of how online journalism gets put together on websites.

We go through Mindy McAdams’ Online Journalism website for the best collection of tips. In particular, see Online Media Types and Using Online Media Types. Also see Chunks: Writing for the Web.

The Elements of Digital Storytelling breaks down the different kinds of elements used in online journalism. It also includes some very useful examples. This class doesn’t cover all the skills needed to emulate the advanced multimedia examples (Jerry’s class will), but reviewing these examples helps you think about online storytelling, and how the approach differs from print or TV. Berkeley’s multimedia story planning tutorial focuses on how to plan a story for a stand-alone website, rather than the contributions you’ll be making on a group website, but many of the concepts in terms of mapping out your elements still apply.

In class today we will first use the wiki to organize your story ideas into a final story list. Then we will assign due dates at the virtual Assignment Desk.

If there is time remaining, the final part of class will be spent on an introduction to the Joomla content management system, which is what the Hong Kong stories website uses. I have posted some useful how-to’s and tutorials here.

Examples of successful online storytelling from last semester include stories by Jonathan Magee, Fion Li, and Nick Westra, Eileen Jong, and Mona Lam. Note your assignments this year are slightly different because you’ll be doing an “advancer” plus covering breaking election news. So your advancer does not to be nearly as long as their story packages.

Back in September, Hong Kong blogger Roland Soong who writes the influential blog, EastSouthWestNorth, gave a nod to our District Council election coverage with this very detailed post. This month he has helped us out some more with the following posts:

Hong Kong District Council Elections: A Preview Based Upon Previous By-Election Results – Derek Greyhound analyzes how the DAB did well in the last several District Council by-elections and says that this has caused some of the Pan Democrats to lose confidence.

The Hong Kong District Council Ballot – Johnson Lau at Derek Greyhound thinks that the ballot is badly designed and could create confusion.

Hong Kong District Council Election Candidate Profile Analysis – statistics from 2003 and 2007, showing an “increasing professionalization of the candidates.”

Hong Kong District Council Candidates – In-depth profile of four candidates translated from Next Weekly.

Interview somebody briefly about the District council election. They can be a candidate, a campaign volunteer or worker from one of the political parties, a political analyst, a voter, or a journalist who covers local politics. Take his or her picture. Then create a blog post containing the following:

• The person’s picture – in action if possible. Nicely cropped and resized.
• A 2-5 minute interview segment (If you interview them for longer, you must edit it down to something NO LONGER than 5 minutes.)
• One written paragraph summarizing the most interesting things they said in the interview. Include any relevant hyperlinks that would be useful for the reader.

NOTE:

• The interview must be in English, OR you will need to overlay English translation over the person’s answers.
• Save and keep the full recording, especially if it is much longer than your edited interview segment, along with any notes you take. You may want to use other quotes or soundbites from the interview as part of your election coverage project.
• When you decide who you will interview, please list it on this page of the wiki next to your name.
• If you have suggestions for people who your classmates can interview in English, please post them on the experts & interviewees wiki page.
• If you know of political events where there are likely to be interesting people to interview please share them on the Events wiki page.
• Sign out an MP3 player if you need one on the equipment sign-up page.

Review these resources before recording and editing your audio:

• Super-Fast Guide to Audio Editing (PDF) and Editing Audio With Audacity (PDF) by Mindy McAdams.
• Audio section of the J-Learning website.
• “Chapter 7: Digital Audio and Podcasting” from Journalism 2.0
• Handy Audacity Tutorials

In class today we will learn to do the following:

• Record clear sound on an MP3 player
• Transfer sound files from the MP3 player to the computer
• Use Audacity to edit your sound file
• Export your edited sound file as an MP3 file
• Upload the file to your blog.

Important resources for your future assignments using audio:

• Super-Fast Guide to Audio Editing (PDF) and Editing Audio With Audacity (PDF) by Mindy McAdams.
• Audio section of the J-Learning website.
• “Chapter 7: Digital Audio and Podcasting” from Journalism 2.0
• Handy Audacity Tutorials

DUE TUESDAY 9AM: Shoot a photo essay, and choose the best 3-4 pictures that go together to tell a story. Use photoshop to clean them up, crop them, resize them, and upload them to your blog with appropriate formatting. Write accompanying text to go along with the photos. The goal is to use the pictures to tell a story in a more vivid way than would be possible with just text alone.

What topic should you choose? If you can find a photogenic subject that relates to local Hong Kong politics or the District Council elections, that is ideal. Will any of the political parties be holding events that you are able to attend? If not, you can choose a subject that relates to some kind of community issue in Hong Kong, and which you think may come up as a citizen concern for voters this Fall. Examples include: a controversial redevelopment project, environmental concerns, housing issues, etc.

It may be helpful for you to refer back to last week’s recommended resources and readings about good online photography.

Other Photoshop tutorials & references. For reminders about what we went over in class plus more detailed, advanced tips see these resources:

UC Berkeley Photoshop tutorial

Photoshop how-to’s from the J-lab:

• Preparing Images and Photos for the Web
• Checking and Changing Resolution
• Getting Familiar with Photoshop I
• Getting Familiar with Photoshop II
• Editing Photographs

DON’T FORGET YOUR ONGOING DC WATCH:
As explained last week: Keep an eye on the feeds and tags you have subscribed to about the district council election, and continue to update/add to them as needed. Post ONE PARAGRAPH (no need to be long) on your blog linking to and describing anything that comes up which you think is potentially relevant to our district council election coverage. (NOTE FOR THIS WEEK: If your photo essay is on the same topic as your DC watch post, you can combine them. It depends on what photos you get..)
Based on your new discoveries make one contribution (new item on the ideas list, a note about or an addition to an existing idea, etc.) to the story ideas or experts and interviewees page on the class wiki. (Feel free to help re-organize material your classmates have added into logical story clusters with headings.)

Today we start the class with veteran photographer Siuki Yip, who will discuss what makes a good news photograph. He will take a look at some of the photographs you posted to the NMW Flickr group and pick out a few examples for discussion about what works and what doesn’t work.

We will then go through a quick and dirty Photoshop tutorial to make sure that everybody knows how to crop, adjust, resize, and save their photos for the web.

Other important Photoshop how-to’s from the J-lab:
Preparing Images and Photos for the Web
Checking and Changing Resolution
Getting Familiar with Photoshop I
Getting Familiar with Photoshop II
Editing Photographs

We will then upload our properly cropped and resized photos onto our blogs, and learn a little bit about custom formatting with a little HTML.