My final project will consist of audio, video, and newspaper text because I want this to be a communication style that is viewed as more than one literacy outreach. While the pictures will tell one story by themselves, they will also be explained in a greater detail by the text that will be used as a transition between these photos. My audience will primarily be my son but I am almost positive that once he views this gift, he will be so impressed at the outcome, he will want to take it to his high school basketball coach (they are still very close) and some of his “homies” he continues to stay in touch with, even though it seems as if these five guys went in different directions when it came to applying for college. The modalities I have used to bring this project together is a digital camera that captured these special moments, music CD’s to transfer the audio to my CD-R, a scanner to scan the newspaper articles and of course a computer that offers audio and video software capability that makes these various literacy styles come together.
I chose to compose individually for the simple fact that my subject matter is of interest only to my family; therefore I can place the order of things to accommodate my son’s interest. On another note, I am not using actual game action pictures of Tyler; I have decided to let the newspaper headlines speak of his abilities. On a second note, I am also incorporating pictures and articles that mention his academic skills and awards, as I wanted to make a reminder for Tyler of all the challenges he excelled at in a single school year!
My technology skills have always been quite amazing, especially to me. My first semester in college consisted of four courses, one of which was a computer applications course. I don’t know exactly what I thought our class would be doing, but I couldn’t even turn a computer on and off, much less anything else. By the end of the semester I had such an impressive grade, my instructor informed me that I did not have to take the final exam for that course! I have been on a role ever since, by that I mean that I am pretty adapt at discovering how computer software works, but I am still very hesitant at asking aloud for assistance. Is this procrastination, stubbornness, or intimidation? Fixing to drive to class. More later.

final project

While I have mentioned aloud in class my plans for a final project, I will discuss the workings here in greater detail. The plan is to surprise my youngest son with a DVD of moments from his senior year in high school. Even though he was a major sports figure in his high school (earning recognition in four sports, he also had fun driving in his 5-speed, 4 X 4 Isuzu Trooper (I have decided a shot of this vehicle covered in snow is the way to end my project. I have already downloaded I think 38 pictures from my digital camera, and I believe I have them in an order that spans his year from beginning to end. For a different style of transition, I am intending to use newspaper articles from two separately owned newspapers that cover our region as far as sports events. My reasoning behind using the news articles is that the sports writers focused on my son quite a bit, placing his name in the headlines. I have been trying to download a particular song that I know he likes. I would like to be able to place this audio on top of the video. One problem with the audio part of my project is that I cannot seem to download my chosen song due to copyright issues, and I am also having trouble finding this as a single song to copy it onto my DVD that way. I have someone I work with helping with solving my audio problems now, so things may get under way once spring break is over. She is also going to work with me on scanning the news articles. Sometimes I have trouble getting going because I don't know how and I'm very hesitant about saying aloud that I need help, especially when I keep hearing how simple this technology is. Some of my questions are, "Are my 38 pictures too much video for the DVD?" "How does one find this answer?" "Which sounds better to have more than one song playing (I'm thinking that with this much video I could have two songs) or stretch out my one song?" At this point, I'm going for the easy way. When I say what my project is, it sounds to be a very quick process, but getting the things one needs isn't always easy. Like my challenges, I can't seem to get past the audio hold-ups. More later.