“Da…duh…da…duh…da…duh…da…duh…da…duh…da…du…da…duh…” The sound of dramatic and melancholy music sets the tone for an intense story of survival horror. A striking piano chord suddenly cuts through the rhythmic melody followed up by the words, “WE’RE ALIVE!” There are no visuals – no pictures, no illustrations, nothing but the sound. “We’re Alive,” is a classic style radio […]

In 2010 I created my very first Flickr account with the intent of becoming a refined photographer. How exactly was I going to accomplish this? By challenging myself to post one picture every day for 365 days. The idea was that I would get better at seeing the world in new ways with every snap […]

Digital Critique 2: Full STEAM ahead

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) is one of the major buzzwords floating around education at the moment. Many schools are being developed that have a strong STEM focus, while other schools are developing specific STEM programs within their schools. This is in response to the need to fulfill STEM jobs in the future and to develop students into critical thinkers. This year I made the…

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In my opinion, Tyrion Lannister is one of the smartest written characters in the history of book and television characters. In the event that you don’t know who I’m talking about, Tyrion is one of the main characters from the novel, made television show, “Game of Thrones.” Tyrion is at first a character that is […]

Visual Assignment 1: Gotta Catch Em’

I am a huge pokemon fan! So much so that I love to play the video game on my free time and recently, my husband and I have gotten into Pokemon Go! In order to honor my love of Pokemon and Game of Thrones, I decided to make a house sigil for Ash Ketchum, who is the main character in the Pokemon show. I decided to make the symbol for Ash’s house a Pokeball. The house words are Gotta Catch Em’ All…

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Visual Networks – Learning and photosharing by Guy Merchant (DIY Media, Chap. 4, 2009) is a comprehensive  introduction to photosharing as a social network, and in particular, the photosharing service flickr.  Merchant introduces us to the idea of flickr as a “folksonomy…a body of knowledge can be built democratically through participant-users without recourse to the … Continue reading Visual Networks – Learning and photosharing

  I was immediately struck by how openminded Guy Merchant was concerning graffiti in his neighborhood. I, like many, have often viewed graffiti as a form of art, and yet art that is defacing the property of others. Although I strive to be openminded I am quite sure that I would not have approached neighborhood ... [Read more...]

“A picture is worth a thousand words!” According to Wikipedia this expression appears in a 1911 newspaper article.  Almost a century later the value of images takes different dimensions. Guy Merchant in Visual networks: Learning and photosharing, introduces to the readers the photosharing tool Flickr.  In his introduction the author discusses his interest in Graffiti as […]

Visual networks: Learning and Photosharing   This chapter was an intriguing insight to social tagging and sharing.  How does social tagging bring diverse people together?  Through written words, we can add tags to images and group these in collections that are shared and noticed with the tags.  Flickr creates this environment for us, allowing people … Continue reading Chapter 4- Visual Networks

The digital story I chose for this week’s digital critique is Maysoon Zayid’s TED talk “I got 99 problems … palsy is just one”.  Maysoon Zayid is an Arab American comedian who talks about her life’s achievements and challenges, as she views them through the lens of an actress, stand-up comic, philanthropist and advocate for […]

  My focal theme has to do with entrepreneurship. Therefore for this week I was looking for a digital story that presents a success story.  Among all the options that came up in my research for a topic, I chose to work with  “the story of Greg Mortenson, a man who got lost during a climb… Continue reading Digital story critique →

Behind the GIF… There is no telling what was going through this man’s mind when this giant panda throws the patient’s TV on the ground! The random smiling face balloon in the background just proves how odd and random this situation is!  I made the comic reflect the man’s feelings about the outcome of his … Continue reading Visual Assignment-DS 106

This week’s reflection is over Guy Merchant’s chapter Visual networks: Learning and photosharing The main aspect of this chapter was centered around the photosharing site Flickr. Flickr was once the photosharing site of the internet with it’s original idea of a social site devoted to photosharing. In it’s heyday, Flickr ruled the photosharing business with … Continue reading Visual Networks

This week’s reading was intriguing. As the author begins speaking about graffiti and the social group associated with it, I thought about my own experiences attempting to understand graffiti growing up. The graffiti artists were labeled delinquents and often associated with gangs. Most of the time charged with defacing private property. While I don’t agree&ellipsis;Read the full post »

My personal theme for this semester is photography. I received a camera as a gift and am excited to learn how to technically take a good photo, and am hopeful that I will develop my skill enough to tell a story with my photographs. With this focus, I am exploring digital stories that will support … Continue reading "Behind the Lens: Analysis of a Digital Story"

My Response to the Digital Story “My Iligan” While searching for a digital story to critique for this week’s assignment I, fortunately, stumbled upon the prize-winning story “My Iligan” produced by Arkay Timonera of the Philippines. Timonera was awarded first prize in the 2009 My Iligan digital storytelling contest held in Mindanao, Philippines. From the ... [Read more...]

A LETTER TO KAYLYNNFirst, the background:In her moving account of her life as a Special Education student (published via Storycorps), Kaylynn details the shame she felt as she progressed through grammar, middle, and high schools. For her, having an Individualized Education Plan (IEP), was a traumatic experience that seems to have brought her more sorrow than help.For those new to the world of Special Education, an IEP is a lengthy document detailing a student's learning disability, along with t ...

I was searching for digital stories and I came across one that was quite endearing and human. As I clicked through the story, I couldn’t help being overcome with an overwhelming sensation. The story is about a small town in Canada’s Northwest Territory called Pine Point. Pine Point is interesting because it was a mining&ellipsis;Read the full post »

DS 106 Visual Assignment: With drawing software, create a picture using only:4 lines5 dotsand 1 curve.MY SUBMISSION ...

I have not used Flickr before .  I am used to other social media applications such as Facebook, Viber, WhatsApp, and Imo. When I first heard about Flickr I was a little hesitant to open an account because Facebook made me afraid to share certain information online because of privacy concerns. Reading this chapter of… Continue reading Reflection on Visual networks: Learning and photosharing →

Shane Koyczan in 2013 put up a spoken word poem titled To This Day on Youtube that was animated by over 40 individuals drawing attention to the rampant bullying in schools and how it has long lasting effects on its victims. The short 7 minute video tells the story of three individuals who suffered from bullying in … Continue reading Bullying and Verbal Violence in Schools: A Digital Story Critique

I was drawn to this story as the 15th anniversary of 9/11 is coming up this weekend. I remember exactly where I was when I first heard about what was happening in New York, and how helpless I felt not being able to do anything, and wanting to help in some way. I imagine 9/11 … Continue reading Digital Story Critique #2: Food for Firefighters

This week I decided to critique a story from a Moth Radio Hour segment (Episode:1618, Sept. 6, 2016, starting at 33:52) titled LA Confidential:Data Hacking for a Date which is a story by Chris McKinley. At the time of his story, Chris was a doctoral student working on a PhD in Applied Mathematics at UCLA.  … Continue reading Digital Critique – Data Hacking for a Date

From the DS106 Assignment Bank (visual) – Make a set of ten photos which take something familiar to you–a town, building, object, etc.–and defamiliarize it, make it seem foreign. Use a mix of extreme closeups, weird lighting, foreground/background focusing and odd angles and other effects to make something that you know very well seem like … Continue reading Assignment Bank (visual) – Defamiliarize

The chapter Visual networks: Learning and photosharing by Guy Merchant (2010) is one of those articles where you have a quiet but significant thought pop into your head like, Oh,...

For the Daily Create this week I chose to do the Assignment Bank item  Visual Assignment 1892: Can You See What I See.  I picked a picture of my wife’s eye together with this powerful message from Winston Churchill and a picture of the Nazi leader Hitler. I chose this assignment because to me it was… Continue reading Meissa Samba →

My wife and I recently moved into this cozy little two bedroom apartment in Uijongbu-Shi, ROK. We arrived two weeks before the Fall 2016 semester commenced, so we furnished the space quickly. The computer and its monitor traveled with me as checked baggage. The day after our arrival we purchased the bookcase, desk, and filing ... [Read more...]

Where do I begin? There are so many items on my bucket list that I had to pause and really consider a few that would not only be fun to accomplish, but also fun to share. I composed this visual using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. I would really enjoy traveling to Iceland to camp underneath&ellipsis;Read the full post »

This week’s reflection is over Guy Merchant’s ‘Visual Networks and Photosharing’ chapter. Something I took away from the chapter is that it attracted me that he wrote up the whole twenty or so pages all focused on Flickr, using an enormous amount of examples and even taught you how to use the photosharing site step … Continue reading Reflection on Visual Networks: Flickr and Photosharing (chp 4)