Week Three: Complete! This week I even got an early start so I will NOT be handing this in 10 minutes before midnight! For me I started out with my definition of what storytelling is. I go into more depth about this in my post “First, What is Storytelling“, but I really feel like this was a great way to not only kick off this weeks assignments but also a great way to kick off the semester. As an English major with a bit of a creative side, storytelling is nothing new to me, and I think that if anything it will be I applying previous storytelling skills to this class, and learning what it means to be a digital storyteller.

The next part of this weeks assignment was involving one of my favorite modern classic authors Kurt Vonnegut. I have always loved his sense of humor and I really felt his cynisisim coming out in the clip “Kurt Vonnegut on the Shape of Stories“. In my post about “The shape of stories” I decided to use one of my favorite movies “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”. This story tells the adventure of young Charlie and his escape from impoverishment through his genuine personality. For those of you who do not know the classic story Charlie wins a golden ticket, along with five other children to go inside the famous Wonka Chocolate Factory, which no living person has ever seen the inside of. At the end Charlie is the last child in the tour and is given the Factory to call his own.

For me Vonnegut’s arc was very sensible and was almost eerie in how applicable it is to almost every beloved story.

After this portion of this weeks assignments I had to review a post from the In[spire] site and one from the previous semesters “Best Work“. This was really interesting to me in that I really got to see not only what this class has in store for me the rest of the semester but also in how Digital Storytelling can be interpreted. In my post about my definition of what storytelling is I touch upon what I believe digital storytelling to be but I really had a new understanding after looking at previous assignments, and other students responses.

Another fun activity that was given this week was telling a story in photos. This was an awesome assignment, and I chose to do the Five Frame Story. My story of course involved my beloved dog Jones, and was entitled “The Dog that Learned to Fly“. I have embedded it below too! I really loved this activity not only because I got to play with my dog can say its homework but also because I really felt like I could flex my creativity through my interpretation od digital storytelling

When it came to looking at my fellow DS106 group member blog I was really impressed! I think I really got some interesting ideas from Kaitlyn. I can tell she is not new to this blogging thing, and I think I will really be able to get a lot of helpful tips from her going forward. I felt that the way she had her site set up as far as aesthetics go was really helpful. I found that everyone in my group had really cool and interesting interpretations of the various assignments which I found very exciting. As far as differences go between mine and the other members of the group, I think I am starting to get the hang of how to organize my site, but I’d really like to start being able to show more individuality, maybe by downloading some more themes to try out? I also really like how Leah was able to get that tiny icon on her tab bar when I was on her site. I have seen it on a couple other websites and I’d really love to get one. I believe most people are obtaining there’s through their themes but hopefully I can figure out how to personalize mine. I didn’t receive any constructive criticism from my group members and Kaitlyn is the only one so far who has left me any comments, but it was very flattering and good to hear from other members of the class!

Daily Creates
Of course my favorite part of every week, daily creates! I chose the following:

1. Finishing the sentence “My Biggest fear is…”

My Biggest Fear
My biggest fear is the forrest. While most people, especially in this state are able to find solace in the woods I am horrified by them. The main reason being that I am from new york, and as you can probably imagine the woods are scares there. But outside the fact that I have had very little interaction with the wilderness, I am also afraid of the woods because to me weird and horrific crimes always happen there. Typically in the city people are shot, carjacked, robbed, ect. And while unfortunate and scary as those crimes are they typically don’t compare to the weird, sick crimes that happen in the woods. Well this fear of mine was eventually overcome when I moved to virginia, and more specifically into a heavily wooded area. So after living here for the past months I have come to see that there is a way to find peace in the silence of the forrest. And though you won’t see me hiking up a mountain or trying to find flowers to preserve anytime soon, I must admit I am much less fearful then I was.

2. Take/make a photo that represents math at work in the world

I actually learned how to do this prehistoric texting in high school and this is how we would pass notes in class without getting caught!

3.Make a picture of something broken. Literally or figuratively.

So as this week winds down, I feel like I am finally all caught up and in a really comfortable niche. I know there is still a lot I need to learn and I can also be making some improvements on my blog going forward. I think what I need to work on is keeping in touch with my classmates and not being afraid or hesitant to ask for help about things they have on their blog, that I would like to see on mine (especially the little tab icon, I WILL LEARN THAT). But I played around with widgets some more this week and I have my blog set up nicely as far as categories go and formatting! I really want to aim on making my site a little more fun and individual but I know this will come with time and a little more effort! That being said I think I’ve made some good progress and I am so much more comfortable with everything I am doing now! I think that this week was a little less intense than the last two (probably why we called it bootcamp, though)and even though there was just as much work if not more, it seemed more approchable this week. I am having so much fun, learning more and more every week and I feel like I have a good footing where I am.

Until next week,

Chelsea