You would have to be thankful to a higher power if your child was kidnapped and was later released because he irritated the kidnapper.

Yesterday morning I was on my way to work and got stuck in a huge DC traffic jam. I started flipping radio stations and I came …

As I mentioned in my post earlier this week, we’re playing with sound this week in DS106.  For this assignment, I needed to come up with a story and tell it using just sounds.  I’m not sure exactly how I was inspired but I decided that farm noises would …

Perhaps you have wondered what has gone wrong

It seems that in this class I have not been strong

But after reading the blog about bloggers block

I realize it is because during the day I am on the clock

Yes indeed what some my say is way to long…

After setting up a SoundCloud account, browsing the site, then getting acquainted with some of the features and capabilities the site has to offer, I went ahead and recorded my first SoundCloud audio file! I kept with the theme our professor recommended: A silly news story. For some reason the …

DS106 has kicked off some adventures in audio this week.  I don’t have a lot of experience with audio editing so this should be interesting.  I’ve got my SoundCloud account set-up  and I’m starting my first assignment on Tuesday evening so I’m already feeling like I can’t lose.  I’ve …

I successfully created a new account on SoundCloud today. I also personalized my settings, using the same username (chronicwnderlst) and avatar that I have on this WordPress blog, so that they are connected. Prior to this DS106 class, I had not heard of SoundCloud. The only previous experience I had …

This week I had one goal on my mind and that was to be successful at creating a blog. My determination to get a handle on this was because, for the first few weeks of class I felt clumsy and did not really understand what this was all about. Although …

As I’ve mentioned, stories have taken over my life, in a good way. I think as a consultant I always want to look for new approaches or streamlined ways of doing things, and storifying has officially been added to my tool belt!

This week I went hunting for designs …

I was glad I looked early in the week for what was required for assignments because I knew I had a trip to see my family in NC so I needed to be smart about what I could do now and when I was in NC. The photo assignments made …

Due to this reoccurring assignment, I find myself thinking about stories all the time now and in every interaction I have. Perhaps that’s the point? :) There is no doubt that there are needs for stories all around us. This week my inspiration comes from a friend of mine …

For my second Design Assignment of the week, I decided to tackle Word. I love using color and images as symbols, so I knew this would be a challenge for me. I tried creating something around the word “Sunshine” in the spring time theme of my blog, but …

Write another blog post summarizing what you found that might or might not work for something that could use a story approach to make it more effective. Explain why you chose it. Even if you are not sure if it will work, keep the ideas going.

I was thinking about …

For this week you should complete two ds106 design assignments, each should be posted to your blog, appropriately tagged and categorized.

For my second design assignment I decided to do the Six word memoir idea and really thought long and hard on how I would tell my life’s story …

I did some interesting work this week with pictures. One of my favorite things to do is to take a picture and modify it in some hilarious way in Photoshop. That said, I have actually run into trouble doing this. I didn’t ever intentionally do anything harmful, but I had …

Keeping in line with the guitar/rock n’ roll theme of the week, I had another thought for something that could use some storifying. Some of you may have seen this before, but a lot of electric guitar players use a series of effects pedals to modify the sound of their …

For this week you should complete two ds106 design assignments, each should be posted to your blog, appropriately tagged and categorized.

For my first design assignment I decided to do the Motivational Poster with one of my old photos I had from my trip Africa. I remember how …

The first design assignment I tried was the person’s face on an animal’s body. This one started off innocently, but as I was browsing through Facebook pictures, I found a truly terrifying picture of a buddy of mine from high school. It didn’t take much creative thinking to realize that …

Write a blog post that embeds at least three photos of different design elements you were able to identify. Include a summary of the elements and what makes them effective, or what may have made them better. Sometimes we can learn just as much from badly designs as we can …

When the announcement came out for this week’s content, I was pretty jazzed. I got a digital SLR camera for Christmas this year and I love playing with it and trying to learn how to make great photos.  in fact, I struggled with some of the assignments because my “startup …

Life has been a little crazy! My project is launching at the beginning of June, my sister is getting married, I’m getting a new roommate and I’m finishing up with school…all within the same two week period. So, in reviewing the Design Safari blog posts from fellow DS106 participants, I …

Here’s another idea of something that would benefit from a little storification; information about running trails in Arlington.  My husband and I are big runners and when we first moved to the area we had trouble finding a single resource for trail information or one good map.   There are a …

This week had me taking photos of beer at Costco and scouring 90′s movie posters for just the right one with Bruce Willis. Life is good!

First up: Design Safari.   I used wallpaper, beer, a coffee mug (of a famous WWII poster) and photos of an airport to discuss rhythm, …

I really enjoyed this assignment, to color splash a photo.  It was super simple in execution, so it made me think a little harder about the message I wanted to share through the use of the technique.  I used a website called Fotor to edit my image.  Before selecting …

I felt really intimidated by this assignment at first.  I’m not so good at photo or video editing software so while I was glad to get a little practice I was worried this assignment would take me a long time.  I used the Pixlr editor and after a few YouTube …

Ok, we have all been through it; the dreaded IKEA instructions. I purchased a bed frame from IKEA not too long ago and although it took only about an hour to construct, I had to examine, interpret, decipher and whatever else you want to call it in order to understand …

I think I found a few really good examples for my design safari this week. Ok, to be honest, I kind of cheated on one–it was a picture I took when I was in Phoenix last summer. To be fair, though, I took it because of the balance/symmetry and how …

This week we wrapped up our week on visual story telling by looking at visual design, paying close attention to various design elements, cataloging instances of these elements in our daily life, throughout the past week.  We looked to explore the meaning of designs through a design safari and design …

This week, for one of my design assignments, I opted to do the One Story/Four Icons assignment. I wanted to attempt to reduce a movie to four symbols. Although I am not a huge movie-goer, I realized that after completing the Five Card Flickr activity last week, I needed practice …

Well here we are another week…and no white light, divine inspiration moments this week (so far- there are five hours left!).   Something that has been on my mind a lot this week though is decisions.  I’m making a lot of them lately and whether it’s where to grab dinner (always …

I had to chuckle when I watched the John Stossel on Graphic Design video that ends with “never use Comic Sans”. It reminded me of an email that came out a few years back. As context, Dan Gilbert, a highly successful businessman from the Detroit area and owner of the …