End Of The Semester

Well, the first semester of my senior year is over and it was a semester of ups and downs. This semester I have really grown as a sports anchor in all aspects. I feel that my writing has espeically gotten better since I anchored last semester. Some of the downs of the semester however, were the actually show itself. After all the Titan Town Sports shows were done I didnt feel that there were a lot of strong shows. And a lot of that came from the technical perspective of putting the show together, sometimes the audio would get messed up or the wrong video would play. So one of the main things that I have come to realize is that no matter how well prepared you may think you are, you can never be too prepared. And there a lot of things to consider, such as what if the teleprompter goes down while you are reading your scripts? Or what if you introduce a package and the wrong video gets played. Most of these things I as the anchor have no control over and so it is key to be able to put trust into your crew memebers. And there were times during the semester that the crew was fantastic, and other times they werent up to par. But I have great hopes that everyone learned from their mistakes and triumphs last semester and will come back next semester ready to put on a great show.

KDKA Trip

Wednesday our broadcast journalism class had the oppurtunity to go to PIttsburgh and pay a visit to the first radio station in the country in KDKA. This trip was one of the best experiences i have had in all my years here at Westminster. I learned so much going on our walking tour of the station. to me the most enjoyable part was to be able to walk down and be on the set of KDKA news. Just to be able to see a professional news set, since this was my first time in a real news station. this is a trip that i think should be mandatory for every broadcast journalism class just for the experience of being there and seeing all the work that goes into doin the news. It is also a trip that i would love to do again. And I would just like to say thank you to Mr. Weaver for giving us the oppurtunity to be apart of this experience.

DISASTER STRIKES SPORTS AGAIN!

I spent the entire day Thursday trying to put together a package, featuring the All-Star soccer match that took place at Wilmington High School but I kept have trouble. Everytime I would get done capturing some of the footage to the computer, the computer would freeze and then i would have to start all over again. Finally with the help of Mr. Weaver we were able to get the package done 10 minutes before the show, needless to say I was feeling pretty good and confident about the show. I ran through my scripts and that went well also...but then it came time for the show. Basketball highlights went fine, but then I introduced a package featuring a football player at the college who is deaf, and when i looked up at the monitor to see the package I was shocked to see some high school football game highlights being played. Some how the tape with the package on it got cued up to the wrong spot. Normally, if this was a first occurence of this happened, I really wouldnt be too upset and just but it behind me, but this is at least the 5th time that something like this has happened this semester. So needless to say I am glad that we only have one show left, I could use a nice long break to just relax and beginning getting my mind in gear for next semester.

A WEEK OFF

Yes I have the week off becuase the crew was live at Light Up Night in New Castle. But this week wasnt a complete blow off week, we still had to do sports. This week Garrett got his feet wet as he made his debute on Titan Town Sports. T.J. and myself made sure he was ready to go when it came time to pre-record the show today at 3, I helped him write up his script, while T.J. showed him the Westminster highlights for the week. So it really was a pretty relaxed week and Garrett did a great job his first time ever anchoring, I was very impressed. And with only two shows left, Garrett still has to produce one of them, but T.J. will be showing him the ropes so I am confident that Garretts first time producing will be as good as his first time anchoring.

I Got So Mocked Up Thursday Night

THE MOCK CONVENTION IS OVER!!! And I am glad that it is done, but it was also a great experience. I have never been a part of something like this before and it was great to be paired up with Chris who has a little more experience with these things. It was also great anchoring the 8 to 9 shift becuase there was always something going on and Chris and I had a lot of material to go to, whereas the other anchors had to ad lib a little more. But everyone did very well, the anchors and the crew included. It was also fun knowing that we made a little history that night, by being the first mock convention ever to be streamed live to the internet. So this was by far one of the best experiences I have had at Westminster. It was also difficult becuase of all the background information I had to find on the candidates, knowing where they are from and what issues they stand for. Great job to the crew and faculty for putting this together, especially Mr. Weaver for putting in all that work in preperation for the show.

The County Line

Here is The County Line episode from Oct. 18 (Make sure to watch for the incredible sports show called titan town sports the anchor is incredible) http://www.westminster.edu/student/orgs/radio/county_line.cfm

Under Pressure

When coming back from fall break I thought that I was going to have a nice easy three day week. But then I came to the realization that we still had to put on The County Line. Which for the most part isnt too bad, we just have to re-rack some past news stories. The only problem with this is sports can not be re-racked becuase then nothing would be up to date. So T.J. and myself are going to be seriously under the gun for the show this week. We have all the highlights we need and we also have Garrets Soccer Second from the previous week that we didnt have time to use. And my script is already written up, all that is left to do is to go over the highlights before I have to go on T.V. So this will be a realy test for T.J. and myself but I think that it is also something that is going to help us out for the future.

Remembering On The Road

I was going through The County Line website when i came across these old episodes of On The Road. Check them out. http://countyline.wordpress.com/on-the-road/

Soccer Second Success

For this weeks show I focused more on shooting and editing then I have in the previous weeks. I went do to the soccer field with Mr. Weaver to shoot “The Soccer Second,” which is hosted by Titan Town reporter Garret Horvath. Having Mr. Weaver down there with me was a big help, he acted as a producer/director and gave me some new ideas to try out. I experimented with new angles when shooting. I also used a canting shot in the segment. After filming I went up to the news room where I viewed the tape to look for the little things such as making sure I white balanced and had the correct filter on. The following day I edited the segment putting it together a little differently then the first segment. T.J. was down with me in the edit bay giving me his insight on how he thought the segment looked. I felt that this week on the County Line sports went over great seeing as how we only had one highlight to show, plus Garrett’s Soccer Second which turned out looking great.

Out Of The Class Room

Last week for Capstone we did something a little different then sitting in a class room. Mr. Weaver thought that it would be a good idea for the seniors to have a little bonding experience, so we ventured up to the Titan Travers ropes course to have a good time and mabye learn some new things about one another. Well i really dont think we learned anything new about one another since we all have been working together for almost four years, but it was still a good experience none the less. Out of al the games we played i really thought that the "Spider Web" brought us a little closer in the respect that we had to really work together and listen to one another for ideas about how to get everyone throught the web. It showed me that we really do work together well when we need to. No ones ideas were ignored, everytime someone had an opinion everyone listened and gave input back. so overall it seemed as though it was a successful day for all of the broadcast seniors, and i believe it was so successful becuase we all get along well and we all rely on each other every week in order to put our news show together, so working together to achieve our goal at the ropes course was not a issue. I would love to do this again for another Capstone.

senior year

Well... it is that time of the year again. The time when baseball season is coming to a close a football season is starting up, which means a lot to some but for other it just means that it is time for school again. And I am back at Westminster for my senior year with a lot on my plate. I have been back in class for two days now so i have been able to experience all my classes and determine which classes im going to like and which ones i am going to dread. Out of all my classes i feel that my sports broadcasting class is going to be my most enjoyable, and beneficial since this semester ill be co-anchoring titan town sports on the County Line. Im looking to learn a lot this semester from this class which may help me find my sports annoucing job after i graduate.

final post

This class was a great learning experience for me. I realized some of the things that i do in CMC that i didnt really notice as much before. For example i starting thinking about whether or not I am the same person in CMC that i am in FtF. And I think for the most part I am, but i also came to realize that most people may have some kind of different persona in CMC then they do in real life based upon who they are talking to.
I had a couple of "oh wow" moments in this class, like watching Buffy (which was an oh wow moment for a different reason, but the biggest one was when we went over all of the different types of expressions that are used in CMC such as ;) or other faces such as that.
Im not sure whether of not i changed the way i communicate online, but i am more conscience of it.
I learned that CMC is everywhere and it is growing. CMC is only going to get larger in the future. With technology becoming more advanced everyday, there is no way to tell what tomorrow is going to bring to CMC.
To be honest this class is pretty much what i thought it would be. I was exactly sure what to expect, but I did think that we would be dealing a lot with things such as IM, and how people communicate online.
Overall I really enjoyed this class and felt that it opened me up to thinking about how I personally communicate online.

youve got mail

You've Got Mail is a good movie when trying to relate it to subjects in the class. There were times when i found myself trying to stay awake, mainly becuase it was a chick flick, but other then that it was pretty good.
One of the major things that i noticed was the difference in personallities from the Joe Fox that was online and the Joe Fox who was offline. This realy stuck out to me the most just becuase i think that this is one of the most common things that occurs online. When someone talks to someone else online, but then if they see that person in public, they communicate completly different. this was a different case though, becuase Kathleen knew who Joe Fox was becuase he was putting her out of buisness, however when she talked to him online, she had no idea that she was talking to the same person.
This just showed the pros and cons of CMC. The ability to be someone else is great for someone who mabye has trouble meeting other people. However on the other hand when talking to someone whom you are hoping to meet eventually, it could be hazardous to to prentend to be someone youre not just to trying a impress the other person.

Ipod

I have determined that this post is going to have nothing to do with Electronic Communications, but it is an attempt to save my fellow classmates. I was hanging out in my room downloading some music when i pop up came asking me if i wanted to upgrade to the newest ITunes. So of corse i said yes, after the upgrade i then discovered that something was wrong with my Ipod the next day. I couldnt get anything to come up on my Ipod except this flashing battery icon and a picture of a frowning Ipod.
So i went to the Apple website and tried going through all the trouble shooting options hoping that this could be fixed. After spending hours plugging away i began to realize that my attemp was hopeless. No matter how i plug my Ipod in, no computer will recognize that it is there.
Now i have to send my Ipod to the Apple company in hopes that they can fix it or send me a new Ipod. Becuase i got my Ipod from Apple i was given a one-year warrenty which is still in effect.
So hopefully everyone reads this and will not fall victim to the ITunes update.

avatar

Class was a little unusual today with all the talk about Avatars and everything about them. I knew that certain people were involved in these kinds of things, but i only associated them with online gamers. I know right away i thought of my younger brother becuase as i have said in a previous blog, he plays World of Warcraft online and he has his little character that represents him.
However some of the things that i saw today blew my mind. I didnt realize how many different Avatars there were and how many different sites there were for all these people.
Now im all for people persuing happiness and finding that thing or person that makes them happy, but seriously, that a coulple hours, step outside of your house, call up your friends (assuming that you have any) and GO OUT!!! The only people you are going to meet in these sites are divorced moms and shut ins, and who really wants to be with that.
I understand that people get lonely and that is understandable, but instead of sitting around wallowing in your self pitty, take the time to go out and meet some new people, it isnt that difficult.

Myspace privacy

So i have been hearing a lot about Myspace recently and the problems with privacy as well as chilidren being stalked by "predators." So when looking into this issue i found an online article written by Marcy Zitz, in this article Marcy discusses the pros and cons of myspace. she says, "You may not have heard about the "secret" society called MySpace. Almost everyone in school has a MySpace page that lists everything about themselves and chances are your child has been encouraged to create one. T'weens are told how to bypass the rules so they can get a page even though they aren't old enough. They are a fun way to share information about yourself and post pictures but they can be dangerous for kids, including teens." this just being a breif discription about what myspace is. She goes on to say what things get posted on Myspace, the requirements for Myspace, and of corse the dangers about Myspace. This is what Marcy has to say on the dangers of Myspace, "Your child can easily post enough information about themselves to be abducted. An online predator looking at your child's page has enough information to arrive at your door or the playground that your child frequents. You must teach your child the dangers of posting too much information and you must follow up to make sure they aren't posting too much information.

Another problem is that children tend to post things that should never be put in print. They say things like they want to burn down the school or they want to kill so-and-so with not literally meaning it but threats like that could be taken seriously.

MySpace is for kids over 14 years of age. There is sexually explicit information on the site posted by other users and the profile questions that users create is geared towards adults." In this article she briefly talks about the parents and how they need to get more involved, but I think that there needs to be more to it then that. For example parents need to take time out of their day to simply talk to their kids, not entirely about Myspace, but also what is going on in their lives, what is going on at school, take interest in their extra corricular activities. Becuase a lot of the time of Myspace is used by kids to bitch and moan about all the things a wrong in their lives (whihc for the most part there normally isnt anything wrong in the first place). so parents need to not online talk to their kids about Myspace and about what they are posting on it but know their children, talk to them, eat dinner as a family, simple things like that.

nontouch screen touch screen

So when trying to come up with something to write about in my blog, i decided to look into the Iphone and see if there have been any new improvement made to the phone. When i looked at the website i found that the company is talking about taking the iphone from a touch screen to a non-touch screen touch screen. Confused yet? I was when i started reading about this new quality. Apple still isnt sure about applying the new technology but it was brought up becuase of all the smudges and finger prints that are going to be left on the iphone. Basically how the new screen would work is when someone moves their hand or finger infront of the screen to change what is displayed on the screen. For example to scroll down, the person would simply move their hand or finger in the direction they want to the screen to scroll. http://http://www.appleiphonereview.com/iphone-videos/non-touch-touchscreens-for-future-iphones/. This is link that will take you to the website where i found this information, it also has a video imbedded in it that shows off this new technology.
Apple says that this technology probably wont make it to the Iphone, at least not right away. But mabye after enough complaints about all the smudges and fingerprints that are going to show up in the screen of the Iphone.

online gaming

My little brother is a huge online gamer, myself personally i dont see the appeal. The big game out now seems to be World of War Craft, where you have a character that you use online and play with other individuals from anywhere in the world. That alone doesnt bother me, so you're playing a game online with other people, no harm there. However recently my brother has purchased a microphone which he has hooked up to the computer. With this microphone, he talks to his friends that are playing World of Warcraft with him online at the time. I suppose that it isnt enough to be able to communicate to online gamers by typing your commands and having them appear on the screen during gameplay. And the point of this blog isnt to put down my brother or others who play online games, to me it is just another display on how lazy we have become. When it gets to the point where kids dont even want to type responses, or commands but instead they have to use a microphone to communicate. It is also pretty amazing to see how far electronic communications have come in a matter of years. The fact that you can talk to someone anywhere in the world through your computer through a video game.

Cell Phone Bill

so i recieved my monthly cell phone bill today, and of corse once again i was about 40$ dollars over. Mainly for all the text messaging i do. This made me realize that i would much rather send text messages then actually talk on my phone, for several reasons. First of all, unless a call is extremely important, i really dont care who is calling me or what their message is. All i know is that they are calling me during peak hours which isnt helping my bill either, especially since i with Cell One, quite possibly the worst cell phone company ever. But since my parents pay for it i really have no say in well provider i get, my parents went with cell one for the "family plan," which to me is also stupid being as my parents are probably the people i talk to the least on my cell phone.
Any way i think that texting would not only save money, (if i had unlimited texting or corse) but also it would save me the headache of having to endure most of the stupid phone calls i take part in. When i looked further into this, i came across something, "Seattle based Jott will launch its new voice to text product sometime this week. It’s very simple - a user calls a specific phone number and leaves a voice message along with a recipient or recipients (an obvious use for Jott will be for people to leave themselves quick notes). The voice message will then be converted from voice into text and delivered via email or SMS. The recipient or recipients can choose between reading the text or listening to the original voice message."
This would be a huge time saver, i know personally i hate having to go through voice mail to get my messages it is just a huge pain.

wiki's / flaming

After class this week i really began thinking about how using a Wiki would be beneficial to every communications class. I'm not saying that every comm class should use a wiki all the time, but i think I would be good to do some experimenting with them. for example taking am assignment such a reading from the book and set up a wiki for the reading. then have everyone in the class ad their opinions to the reading. this would also be a lot easier for a professor to grade. instead of going through 20-30 individual blogs, every one's post would be on one web page. hopefully this will be something we see put in to effect in the near future just as an experiment and make sure to get the classes feedback about using Wiki's.

we also discussed flaming this week. when going through most of my classmates responses, i found many of them said that flaming would mostly occur in a group dynamic, which is also what i said. i have found this to be true from personal experiences. i have worked in a couple of groups I'm my almost three years in college where half the group would agree with one view while the other half would agree with the opposing point. and to me the most important thing to do in these situations is to make sure to hear everyone out. often times people hear their own idea and shut out the other options. several times i have changed my stand point when hearing someone else's view. patience is also keen, because when you jump the gun and totally ignore someone else's idea, you are going to come across problems and eventually to someone in the group getting aggressive. so keep your cool and keep an open mind