Rahel Solomon's Blog

I LOVE the Quick and Dirty Tips podcasts  and I enjoyed Grammar Girl’s presentation today. We’ve been studying grammar a lot lately and I really need the grammar lessons. But I’m not sure how much better my writing is getting. I think I’ll probably need to revisit some of my past writings and “figure out my gremlins.” In the meantime I hope my writing is getting at least a little better ( maybe just through osmosis.)

Roy Clark’s book seems like it’d be a great asset. Maybe it’s about time I purchase it.

hope that through osmosis

What a day. We spent the first half of the day learning the basics of Photoshop and spent the second half creating an audio slideshow with Audacity and Soundslides Plus.

Photoshop seems pretty intuitive but I could definitely use more experience learning the relationship between Photo Mechanic and Photoshop. I’m still not exactly sure of the difference between the two programs.

Audacity and Soundslides was a real treat today. I created a short audio slideshow using my own photos and my own narration. I then uploaded my narration into Audacity and once it was edited properly I uploaded the file in Soundslides. I added my photos, created some captions, and voila … I had an audio slideshow. We were given about 2 hours from start to finish. The 2 hours were stressful but I enjoyed the assignment.

Check out my audio slideshow, Rahel in Reno, below. Feedback is welcome

Today we created an audio track (.mp3) in Audacity. I have some experience with Audacity but still learned some important tricks.

We spent a great deal of time learning how to use Google analytics as well as other sites for gathering data about who’s reading our site. With one click I find out the age, race, gender, education level, and a wealth of other information. What surprised  me most about data analytics is just how easy it is to gather the information.

We also learned all about live blogging. I have to admit I didn’t exactly know much about live blogging prior to today’s session and I definitely didn’t understand its value to news organizations. We first learned about how the use of live blogging  and then… WE LIVE BLOGGED. We used the COVER IT LIVE site.

For our assignment we weren’t told what we’d be doing. All we knew is that we’d be covering a story and would only have electronic access to the rest of our news team. Seems pretty simple, right ? Wrong. Within 15 minutes my group faced technical issues, communication failures, posted unverified information, and allowed graphic commentary from readers. In retrospect, we learned a great deal… A lot from Henry Lopez. And I do mean a lot! But also from the mistakes we made.

Yahoo’s Trystan Bass spoke with our class primarily about search engine optimization but we also learned just how much web news differs from print news. Small changes in a print piece that’s being placed online could make a major difference in site traffic and reader usability. Some of the things we learned included:

• It’s important to change headlines when running a print story on the web. We’re reaching different audiences when we write for the web and must tailor our writing to their needs and also the platform on which the news is being read.
• Front load most important information and let the details follow.
• A link in the body of your work is fine but use those links for citing sources, facts, etc.

Continue reading →

I’ve never been a fan of blogging. I didn’t  understand its appeal and chose not to join the masses in creating a blog. I didn’t think I had much to say. Sure, I had an opinion but did I want to broadcast that opinion to the world? Well, I guess I do because I’m now starting my first blog. And this is my first posting.

This blog is my attempt to document my five week fellowship at Maynard Institute’s Multimedia Editing Program. The program is taking place at the University of Nevada in Reno, NV.

I’ll explain what I learn, what obstacles I face, and my multimedia aspirations.

During the month of June, I will be learning basic HTML, audio, video, social media tactics, and much more so stay tuned

I have some experience with multimedia; in fact, check out a recent video project of mine here…

I wrote, shot and edited this piece as a final project for Poynter Institute’s Fellowship for College Journalists in St Petersberg, FL.