Ireport Critique

I found this site a little hard to navigate. I had to search to find reports that used video, possibly because so many of the reports prominently displayed were also on CNN. I did find three different reports to look at. The most interesting story that I found did not use video which is unfortunate. It was posted by habforham and called "Houses Being Given Away in Detroit" It only had one picture which was too bad but the story had a lot of information and explained about the organization that is buying and giving away houses in Detroit. It would have been a much better story if it had a slideshow or even better video to go with it. It was very interesting and news worthy, I think I would put it on CNN if it had more of a multimedia aspect to it. I could do the same because it really just took some research, not much else. The first video I looked at was posted by Sessle called"Castle Wall Video from Sweden" it was terrible. There was video but no audio and no text so it was just a look at a castle wall. It was not at all interesting and it definitely wasn't news. I would not put it on CNN. The final video I looked at was posted by Coryboehne called "Bosque Fire Video" this was a much better example of video journalism, it was a man covering a wild fire in New Mexico. Unfortunately the audio was terrible, the creator must not have edited at all because if he had done a voice over and lowered the background noise it would have been much better. It was not as interesting as the first story could have been but it was much more interesting than the other video I watched. It was news and with audio adjustment it could have possibly been on CNN. I think I could probably do the same thing because it's pretty clear he didn't do any editing to his video or his audio.

Go Green...Even With Construction

Today, more than ever, the world is creating more and more ways to "go green." Or simply, live more efficiently. Many of us have realized the world will eventually run clear of resources if we don't effectively start to conserve them, immediately. By living greener, one can minimize pollution, protect our environment and create a healthy, non-hazardous place for us all. This is very important for those of us who plan to build new homes as well. The new building LSC is constructing is using recyclable wood all throughout the structure. The California Energy Commission offers the following tips for "greener" building.
First of all, make sue your project is appropriate for where you live. Certain materials and methods are better suited for specific geographical locations. Heavier construction materials should be used for drastic temperatures in the Southwest, for example, and lighter ones in places like Southern Florida. Secondly, when possible, build with materials that are of recycled content. This aspect pretty much speaks for itself. Examples of materials that can be recyclable are: metals, timber, plastic, glass and ceramics. Thirdly, buy your materials locally so you can cut down on transportation and environmental costs.
Following these easy to follow tips will help our environment and the home builder in the long run. Investing in quality products may cost a little bit more, but will last a lot longer in the end. which is the efficiency the world needs now more than ever.

CNN Critique

CNN.com is definitely a "professional" website. It is very organized starting with the numerous news categories you can choose from at the top of the site. This makes it really easy to navigate right to what you're looking for. They have a video section so you can be sure you're getting a video newsclip if that's what you're looking for. Near the top is also a list of headlines (about half of which I could understand) You can pick a story based on the quick headline although you don't know if it will be text or video until you have clicked on it. There's a section on the main page to find what's on CNN's television station, and a section called "Quick Vote" which is interactive and allows you to vote on a question, then see what others have voted. It also brings you to an editorial about the question throughout which there are links to a number of related stories. Another section of the main page allows you to get your local weather and news headlines which I thought was really great because it means you can access this one site for all your news instead of having to find a local site also. In addition to the interactive feature of the vote they have a section called ireport which is a site where anyone can send in news stories, CNN has specific stories that they use and you can look at them based on the people reporting them or the topics that are being covered.
There are also a number of blogs and podcasts that you can get to from the main page. There is a lot of information on the opening page, and it's really easy to get lost in the site because there are so many options but for CNN this is probably a good thing. I thought that there was pretty minimal advertising on any given page which is nice because with so much information in front of you a lot of advertising would be really distracting.

Family Slideshow

fish show

Slideshow Critique

It wasn't hard finding slide shows on the Internet, they seem to be a pretty predominant form of presenting information. However, I did have a little trouble finding a slide show that wasn't accompanied by audio. This in itself is a pretty good indicator as to which way is more effective in communicating a story to an audience.
The first slide show I looked at was from the New York Times website. It told about right whales and used both pictures, slides of writing, and audio to tell its story. This was a really effective story-telling technique. It is really easy to take in both audio and visual simultaneously and you are able to really focus on the pictures because you aren't distracted by trying to read at the same time. The story about the whales was able to contain a lot of information delivered in a relatively short time, covering everything from why the whales are endangered to numerous solutions and current statistics.
The second slide show I looked at without audio was on the White House website. Not only did it not have audio it also didn't have captions under its pictures so while I saw pictures, I had no idea what was actually going on in them. Definitely not a good storytelling tool.

Podcast Critique

For anyone with average technological skills finding and choosing podcasts seems like a pretty easy endeavor. Unfortunately, I don't have anywhere near average skills, so it took me a little more work than I would generally care to admit. However, once I had someone show me how to do it, it was quite easy and straight forward. I downloaded three different podcasts and put them onto an ipod so that I could listen to them anywhere. Since I don't have a computer at home this was a particularly useful feature for me. I choose two podcasts from NPR, "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" and "Car Talk". I love listening to these but rarely get the chance because of the time they come on the radio and the fact that having two children leaves little time for leisurely listening. This was my favorite thing about the podcasts, that you can listen to them anytime at your own convenience. The automatic download of each installment means that you also don't have to remember to do it each week, it's automatically done for you. The other podcast I choose was from the New York Times, a weekly news update, this one was about women's shelters in Afghanistan. I thought this was a useful podcast because again, it's hard to catch news at home, and I definitely don't have time to read a newspaper very often. I thought this, or a daily news podcast would be particularly useful if you had a commute from work and could download to an ipod and have something to listen to each day for the ride home. I found it somewhat hard to tell at a glance how often anygiven podcast was published, but I'm sure it wouldn't really be hard to figure out. Overall I was thoroughly intrigued by podcasts and intend to try to keep enjoying them.