HKU - JMSC 0007 - New Media Workshop

Final Week

jmsc0007 — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 07:36:31 +0000

In our last session of the semester each participant will present his or her final project to the class. You will be graded on your presentation which should take no more than five minutes. So you would be wise to prepare in advance.

We want to know what you have learned from the project. We are NOT looking for a presentation of the content – instead it should focus on the journalism involved. What you would do differently, what you would do the same? What was the most difficult aspect? Was there an angle you wished you had covered? And so on.

I also want to hear constructive feedback from the rest of the class.

You will then be asked to fill in a feedback form.

jmsc0007 — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 11:19:24 +0000

Dear all, First of all I apologise for getting the day wrong for your first uploads to Joomla – it should have been Monday, April 13 but as I wrote the 14th, you get an extra day.

That said, 10 people failed to make the deadline. Of those who did make it, can I suggest you all review the requirements here at http://jmsc0007.wordpress.com/final-project/ – and re-read the previous post on this blog.

Please check specifically: the maximum word count and maximum page count.

Also check that your article is comprehensible to a non-Chinese speaker not familiar with Hong Kong.

Remember, this is NOT a wikipedia project it is a news feature.

Choose a snappy headline. Look for your news angle and get right in there. Avoid flabby leads and remember, as a journalist your job is to answer questions, not ask them!

Make sure you resize your photos before you upload them to Joomla – you cannot edit in Joomla. Keep them at 72 dpi so they load quickly.

Weeks 11-12 Class Notes – April 7 – 21

jmsc0007 — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 15:45:27 +0000

NOTE: The deadline for your final project is noon, Monday, April 20. Late submissions will not be accepted.

There will be no formal session on April 14. We will use the session for housekeeping; viz:

Soundslides completion (some teams had to make changes – these must be done before class on April 14)
Ensuring published Soundslides are linked to the Google map
Reviewing progress of your final project.

Well done those of you who posted your first drafts to your blogs by the deadline on April 6. Some students had yet to finalise their projects by the deadline which is a matter of concern. Remember the final deadline is noon on April 20 for EVERTHING to be finalised and posted to the Joomla site.

Can you now proceed to start uploading what you have to the Joomla site.

BY NOON ON MONDAY, TUESSDAY APRIL 14 YOU MUST HAVE POSTED THE BARE BONES OF YOUR FINAL PROJECT TO JOOMLA.

Those who have done their first drafts will have no problem with this.

I need to see at the very least:

A working headline
The intro
Where the various elements fit in

Your Joomla categories are stated here on the class wiki

Reminder: Joomla tutorials are available here

In the final class of the semester on April 21 you will present your project to the class. You will need to describe what worked, what didn’t and what you would do differently in future. Once it has been approved and gone “live” on the Hongkong Stories website, you will need to link it to the site’s Google map. The project will not be considered complete until that Google map stage has been completed.

Please double-check the final project requirements. Purely FYI, I will be grading this according to the following broad-brush criteria:

Journalism – how well it tells the story for a non-Chinese audience with little knowledge of Hong Kong; proper sourcing and attribution, legal use of elements, inverted pyramid style of reporting, tight reporting, good use of different media to best tell elements of the story
Use & quality of photos/graphics
Quality & coherence of text
Quality & coherence of audio & multimedia
Attention to detail
Overall effectiveness

Tips:

This is not a wikipedia project. It is a journalism project. You need to tell a story. Some of the most difficult decisions you will face concern what you need to leave out.

Ensure photos etc are correctly compressed and formatted for the web so they load quickly.

Take advantage of the web medium. Use hyperlinks to third party sites when appropriate.

Week 10 Class Notes – March 31

jmsc0007 — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 02:36:38 +0000

We will discuss your final projects to ensure that everyone is on track.

Then we will continue with Dreamweaver. We will:

Link pages together to make a small site
Make roll-overs
Look at adding RSS feeds
Practice with i-frame
Look at drop down menus and javascripts

Tutorials:

Graphics:

Free backgrounds – http://www.free-backgrounds.com/

Free icons – http://www.iconbazaar.com/

Iframe generators:

http://www.htmlbasix.com/iframe.shtml
http://7thspace.com/webmaster_tools/iframe_generator.html

Javascript – day and date

Javascript – simple drop-down menu

Week 9 Class Notes – March 24

jmsc0007 — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 10:19:36 +0000

We’re back (or should be) in the DML. So you will re-export your Soundslides via the paid-for version on the DML PCs.

You’ll then upload them to JOOMLA viz:

1. Upload the SS files ( contained in ” publish_to_web " file ) to one group member's hkstories.net file via ftp

2. One member should then create a page in Joomla – put a headline on, bylines and an intro: then use the following code to iframe to your soundslides (note the use of curly rather than angular brackets):

{iframe height="550" border="1" frameborder="1"}http://www.hkstories.net/yourfilename/publish_to_web{/iframe}

3. When inserting pix into Joomla (for your SS AND FOR your final project) you will need to use the {mosiman} command (to be demonstrated in class)

Joomla tutorials can be found here

Some SS projects need some tweaking before they can go live. We’ll discuss them in class and work out a sked.

Finally, we’ll address the joys of Dreamweaver.

Final Assignment – Individual Project

jmsc0007 — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 02:34:45 +0000

Outline due: noon, Monday, March 30
First draft due: noon, Monday, April 6
Final deadline: noon, Monday, April 20

At the end of the semester you will complete an individual online report using multiple media related to this semester’s topic, Hong Kong’s heritage. It will be published on the Hong Kong Stories website.

Your work will combine text, links, pictures and/or graphics and audio, as appropriate. The written text is not supposed to be too long, the point is to show that you know how to tell a story in an innovative way by combining visuals, text, and audio. Weeks 9-12 will focus on learning and practising the skills you’ll need to complete this project and publish it on the content management system used for the class website.

Specific requirements:

Your final story will be ONE Joomla document, separated into 2-3 sub-pages (depending on the nature and size of the media elements that you are using), using Joomla’s “page continuation” function. (This will be explained in class.)
Text should NOT EXCEED 800 words, but can be as little as 3-400 if you are relying on strong visual, graphic, and audio elements to tell your story. This is NOT a term paper or newspaper story.
Make coherent use of multiple media elements to tell the story you have chosen. That includes photos, audio clips, charts and graphs when appropriate, maps when appropriate, and possibly photo galleries or slideshows. (We will talk more about multiple media vs. multimedia in Week 9)
You WILL be evaluated on whether you tell a story clearly and journalistically, in a way that a member of the public (i.e., somebody who is neither your teacher or your relative who is not obsessed with your topic) would actually want to spend time reading/watching/listening. The longest and most complicated story will NOT necessarily get the best grade – less is often more when you are trying to tell a compelling story to a general audience.
This website is in English for an English-speaking audience. Assume that you are working for a news organization whose editors and audience cannot read or understand Chinese. Therefore your work must be comprehensible to non-Chinese speakers as well as to people who do not live in Hong Kong.
Professional standards of language usage, grammar, punctuation, and spelling apply to your web work in the same way that they apply to your print stories.

Examples of coherent use of multiple media by students in Spring 2008:

Residents Suffer from Traffic Noise Pollution by Xie Yuan
Dead Bird Ignites Nature Reserve Controversy by Bong Miquiabas
Tourism Supports Hong Kong’s Organic Farms by Xie Rui

Week 8 Class Notes – March 17

jmsc0007 — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 05:12:40 +0000

In class we will:

Review your Soundslides. Every team completed its project on time.

We will view all the Soundslides, one after another. Class members should take notes about the strengths and weaknesses of each project. They should view them with a critical eye (addressing positives as well as negatives) and be prepared to discuss the pros and cons of each one.

Each team will then present its project to the class and we will dissect each one in detail. Team members will describe what worked and what didn’t. They will consider what they would do differently, what they would do the same and what they found most difficult/simple.

Some teams may be required to change/improve on their project before it can go live. The grade, however, is based on the original submission.

Class participation is mandatory and you will be graded on your input as usual. This exercise is useful when it comes to your final project: you need to be thinking in terms of how best to present it in a cogent multiple-media format – which may include Soundslides, or a slideshow (ie pix and non-audio), stand-alone audio, video (if you wish using skills taught in Rob McB’s class) as well as text, ordinary photos and graphics including maps.

We will then look at Joomla, the content management system used for Hong Kong stories and consider the pros and cons of CMSs and Joomla’s eccentricities.

Given we will not have access to the DML, we will NOT be uploading your Soundslides files to Joomla this week. We need to re-export them through the paid version of Soundslides (available on the DML PCs) before they can go live. We’ll do that next week.

FINAL PROJECTS

We will then review your final project in detail, including the who what, where, when, how element and which aspects lend themselves to particular media treatment.

By the end of class, we will have:

finalised the categories for the heritage topic
fine-tuned each project and
ensured there will be no duplication of stories

Be prepared to stand up and inform the class about your progress and future plans. Class members should be prepared to offer constructive suggestions and feedback as would occur in a story planning meeting of a major news organisation.

FYI – JOOMLA AND SOUNDSLIDES

Before uploading, each team will need to prepare a headline, a thumbnail photograph and an introductory paragraph to be inserted above the Soundslides iframe entry on the web page.

Reminder: the Joomla tutorials can be found here

Class notes – Week 7 – March 10

jmsc0007 — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 13:17:23 +0000

REMEMBER: One member of each Soundslides group needs to post the completed SS to his/her hkstories.net ftp account. All members of the group need to link it on their blog.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSsssssssssssSoundSSSSSSSSsssssssSlides.

PLEASE NOTE THIS CLASS WILL TAKE PLACE IN THE FOUNDATION CHAMBER USING MAC PRO LAPTOPS.

Due to the DML being under renovation for three weeks, this entire class is given over to working on your Soundslides project.

Kevin and I will be present from 2 – 5 pm.

Class Notes – Week 6 – Feb 24

jmsc0007 — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 12:12:15 +0000

With one week to go before reading week – and little more than two weeks to go before your Soundslides project is due at NOON on WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11, 2009 – we will address and review:

SOUNDSLIDES / AUDIO / FILESHARING

We will:

Check progress on your projects ( and find out why some of you failed to make your class assignment deadline to post your work-in-progress on the class wiki )
Review the Soundslides program, audio editing and file-sharing.

The Week 7 Class of Tuesday, March 10 will be given over to Soundslides production. There will be no lecture. Please note: given renovation work planned for the DML, you may have to work on Macs set up in the Foundation Chamber during reading week and beyond. That means you will have to use a demo version of Soundslides. Once we the DML is up and running again, we will re-output your files before they go live. Please note you can download the demo version of Soundslides here (for both Macs and PCs) should you wish to work on your project on your own computers.

If we have time we will address:

HTML / DREAMWEAVER

Why
What

We’ll use your LNY files as content

Tutorials:

Assignment 6

jmsc0007 — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 11:35:15 +0000

Get cracking on your Soundslides assignment.

DEADLINE: 12 NOON, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11