Digital Literacy Narratives x5 !!!

1.       Multimodal Literacy Narrative (Scannell) — I like that this narrative has “interviews” with her parents, even thought the wording and sound was off due to Skype probably. However, the length of this piece was pretty long. I thought the flow and organization was well done, but by the end it seemed somewhat repetitive (yes we understand she’s an awesome writer… since she’s been four). I think what was said in class was pretty accurate; it would have been more fun to have her say what she is doing now (large gap between third grade and college).

2.       Digital Literacy Narrative (Andfull) — Honestly I did not really like this narrative. It was odd that she had a film background for a topic on children books. Also, she really could have made simple improvements, which would have really helped her narrative (like finding larger pictures of the books, I could even do that super easily & rerecording the speaking portions and finding something more creative to say about them). Easy topic and could have done A LOT more with it.

3.       Words, Magic (Truaman) — Even though this did not have video editing or digital supplements, this was my favorite narrative we watched in class. The guy was personable and was able to connect with audiences through his story about the girl, Elise. I liked how raw this narrative was. Sometimes I am far more trusting of something that seems raw and unedited just for that reason; nothing is being edited out or staged. I understand that is not the point to our narrative, but I still like this style, even though I will not be able to use it.

4.       Digital Literacy Narrative (Peyton) — This narrative was alright. Clever idea to use his cell phone and texting to show examples, but kind of defeated the purpose because it was blurring (even though he used captions, it did not deliver the same impact). He had a moral to his narrative; however, throughout the whole thing I was wondering…Dude, does your computer not have Spell Check?

5.       Literacy Narrative (Wooten) — As far as a more DIGITAL narrative goes, this one was my favorite. There was just background music for auditory engagement (I think he could have picked a better choice for the pictures). I really liked how simple this clip was; the pictures tell a story with brief, humorous captions. It was simple and funny :  ) my kind of narrative. I would like to do something similar, but I’m not good at delivering humor.

CRITERIA: I’m not entirely sure on how to evaluate these texts (lucky thing about me not being the teacher! :  ) haha!) Umm I think for the sake of our class we need to grade on two major components: content (message, target audience, purpose, etc.) and deliverance (editing, digital emphasis/usage, overall visual appeal). That’s really all I can think up.

Cool Websites, Man

Chris Hoertel

Another really cool website! I would like to know how these people are creating these! I liked how the links were organized, it might be even better if they were aligned differently on the page. Just cause they are circular buttons and could go anywhere, but I'm not sure if the text has a sequence which is why you would want to keep that format. Couldn't find the text, but I think the examples would have a lot of rhetoric elements to them.

Sara E Johnston

Sara's website is AWESOME! Everything is really well connected and it looks very professional! :  ) Hope I can figure out Dreamweaver to do something like this!!!! Really cool! The videos were great multimedia devices and are packed with rhetoric devices. I just couldn't get to the text, which was the only problem, because with such a great website and examples I would have liked to read her commentary. LOVE THE WEBSITE! and great examples! (Good topic!)

Nate Lindahl

As soon as I get to his project 2 page I can tell he knows how to produce a functional website and that it has content that I can easily access. It is really well organized and covers so much information in depth! I love how I don't have to scroll down and can just click links. What might have been a better idea is to have the five sites being examined open up into a new page or tab, just from me clicking on them that's what I would have liked, but it is easy for a user to create that option themselves.

The content in a chart format is really smart. I know what I did and I have sort bulk paragraphs, but this method encourages readers to actually read all of it and he is getting his point across. He is expecting his audience to be knowledgeable (to some degree) about what he is talking about. What I learned about his content is that you really can come up with something for every rhetoric device and mode, even if that just means mentioning how it was not used. Sometimes the lack of something is just as important as something else being there. He did a brilliant job with organization and sequence! Overall a really great project. A+++++

Conclusion:

There are much better ways to organize my content, to make it more user friendly and not so..."oh great block text" ...boring! Nate did a great job showing a different way to convey text.

I really want to learn how these three used Dreamweaver! I've spent days on it, messing around and playing with different things. The only reason I got as far as I did was because of English 300 and I still ended up stumped and resorted to using a Photoshop image. I understand how it works, but need some major guidance...maybe videos or something. These websites are great and very appealing!!!