3 Weeks of School Left...

I cannot believe there are only three weeks of school left.  As I'm sitting at my third to last dot com shift, I'm actually in disbelief.  The past four years have gone by so quickly.  This semester alone feels like it just began last week.  I remember day one of the internet apps class, hearing about the 16 dot com shifts we would complete, thinking that was so many!  Now I only have three left, I cannot believe it.

I've gone from using saved images for stories to actually using the media card and photo shop for higher-quality images.  I've also learned to check the AP Style book for everything!  If I'm unsure about how to format something, I turn to the book because I see how ridiculous things end up looking when they are done incorrectly.  

VEGAS!!!

I had the time of my life at the RTNDA conference in Las Vegas.  I was so lucky to meet various news directors, although many of them were not hiring.  I still loved that I was granted the opportunity to network and gained the experience of talking face-to-face with these people.  Another part of the conference I enjoyed was having my website critiqued, as I learned many suggestions for improving my montage.

The main suggestion was to pick one hair-style and stick with it!  I was surprised this would be the most interesting and useful suggestion.  I was thrilled that the news director I met with liked what I showed him, saying my work looked very professional in comparison to other work he had seen.  I definitely talked up KOMU, stressing the fact that we are a commercial station.  He loved hearing about it.  

I would go back to the conference in a heart beat, just for the opportunity to network again.  Although it was disappointing that most if not all of the news directors were not hiring, it was still a great opportunity to get to meet and chat with them.  I had a fun time getting to know my peers better as well.  The trip was a hit!

Easter Shift

Happy Easter to all!  I expected the newsroom to be really slow tonight but to my surprise, it was pretty busy.  This week there was even more than one story for me to post, so that was really exciting!  I tried working on my e-portfolio and ran into some issues but made plans to work on it all night tomorrow here at the station.  I can't wait to have it up and running for RTNDA in Vegas!  I was able to use photoshop tonight to create my business card and I'm quite relieved that at least the card is ready to be printed!

I can't wait to be in Las Vegas with my peers.  I am so excited to learn job-finding strategies and network with news directors.  I'm hoping the convention is full of prospective jobs, as I am sure it will be!  Only 5 days and counting... Woo!!!

Week of 4/5

I wasn't able to come in to KOMU for my dot com shift on Sunday because unfortunately, my car broke down.  I went to Kentucky for the weekend to visit my little sister and drove all the way there, then all the way back and it started giving me problems in St. Louis... so close to Columbia!!  I was so lucky though because I pulled off the road right as it died and my friend's house was only five minutes away... We eventually got to her house to wait for the tow truck and then we were on our way in another friend's extra car.  Thank goodness because I don't know what I would have done with having to get to KOMU all week!

I was hoping to work on my e-portfolio/montage for it at my shift on Sunday but I was set back due to the car issues I had... Therefore, I'm working on it this week and weekend when I'm at home for Easter.  I hope to have it done by mid-week next week so I can allow Jen to "pimp

me out" in Vegas, as she calls it!  So excited to leave for that RTNDA trip!!! 

Spring Break 09

I went to Atlanta for Spring Break this year and had a blast.  It was so weird not being at KOMU for an entire week!! Kind of scary that after only a week it felt weird- can't imagine after Graduation in May.  My best friend came to Atlanta with me and we had a blast.  The weather was nice for the first half of break and we were able to lay by the pool.  The second half was pretty rainy but during these days we had plenty of fun shopping at the cute downtown shops we found.

I got right back into the swing of things with my Monday live shot shift once I returned from my vacation.  The 5 pm went great but the 6 pm wasn't so hot.  I thought my producer told me to go before he actually did so I ended up talking at the same time as Angie.  I was pretty upset with myself afterward but now I realize that you live and learn.  I'm sure that mistake will never happen again!  Kind of embarrassing but I'm over it now!  Leaving for Kentucky this weekend to see my little sister so I'm getting excited about that.  The drive is long but it will be worth it, I never get to visit her at school!  Looking forward to this week's nightside reporting shift tomorrow... Hopefully there is some interesting news for me to cover! 

3/15 Shift

This week went well for me.  My story on Wednesday was great in my opinion and I am really happy with it.  It was about the Nintendo Wii sexual predator.  It was really hard to find the game that he used but after visiting about 10 video game stores I finally found one!  I had to beg the manager to let me borrow it for 30 minutes while I did my standup.  Thankfully he trusted me to bring it back.  

My dot com shift went well tonight also.  Lisa was done with her story pretty early so I was able to get all of the web stuff done for it early on in the night.  I learned how to format live shot scripts from Cate because I start mine tomorrow on the 5 and 6 pm newscasts... I'm pretty nervous about my first one but hopefully it goes smoothly! 

Sunday Funday

Tonight's shift went well except for the fact that I arrived late due to bad weather in Chicago... giving me a long flight delay. Once I got here I worked on a reporter's web story and actually had to edit quite a bit of the writing to make it easier to understand so that entertained me for about an hour! I like that it gave me something more to do other than just copying and pasting. I also wrote the Your Health web story and found it interesting because it discussed a place that offers free healthcare... pretty cool.

I met with my iTouch group tonight when I first arrived because it was the only time that worked for everyone all week. We got a lot accomplished and planned three meeting days for this week! I'm excited to move further along with the project. Our biggest concern is not knowing what to do with all of the information we compile, but I think we are going to find that answer tomorrow morning... Exciting! It was another successful and fun shift for me. :)

Another Shift!

Tonight I found out how much better web images look when you take them from the memory card rather than off Avid!  I couldn't believe the difference and I never realized until Kat, the dot commer of the night showed me.  I also worked with Stephanie to put Honor Flight web extras on Komu.com which was a great but long learning experience.  It took us quite a while to figure out how to get the pdf flyers on the web as links.  I'm glad we worked together on it because I would have been lost if I had to do it on my own.

So far I've learned that most things I learn during my dot com shifts come from the help of other dot commers and come even more so from actually figuring out how to do each thing on my own.  In making mistakes and working to figure out the proper way to post things, I learn much more than watching someone else do it.  I still haven't come up with something to create on Flash so that is definitely my goal for the future!

Shift 5

Tonight's shift went well once again. The "Your Health" segment was already posted to the web when I got in so I didn't have to do that. I did edit and post the nightside reporter's story and again was able to do it without asking for help! I'm glad I am now getting the hang of my dot com shifts. The system was down that allows me to post video so I unfortunately was not able to learn how to do this. The paid dot commer was going to teach me this week but he couldn't due to technical difficulties.

I also signed up through google docs for my portion of the iTouch project. I'm really looking forward to getting started on it because I think it is such a cool idea. I'm also glad that I'm able to work with other students on the video portion because I was a little bit timid about having to handle that on my own... I wouldn't want to screw something so cool up! We hope to get started on our videos sometime this week. That's all for tonight!

Shift Four

This week at dot com I was actually able to do everything on my own without help!  I'm glad I can finally stop bugging the paid dot commer for his help... After learning Flash during our class time I am hoping to do something cool with that during my shift next week.  I should have plenty of time to do so because there is only one reporter on Sundays which means I only have one story to post.  I thought Flash seemed really cool but I'm a little bit nervous about trying to figure it out on my own... maybe that's something I can now bug the paid dot commer about!!  I am hoping to figure out at least one interactive graphic for the web for one of my reporting shifts and one for someone else during my dot com shift.  I think the interactive maps look really cool and show that the student who creates them has unique skills.  I definitely think knowing how to work Flash is a great asset to a resume.

I don't have my next dot com shift until Sunday and I'm hoping I can learn a lot more about making the most out of my shift.  This week one of the paid students is going to show me cool things I can do with dot com.

I enjoyed meeting with my group about our semester project because I found out how cool it is going to be.  We are working to come up with applications that incoming freshmen can use on the iTouches that they will each have.  We came up with ideas such as maps of campus, athletic schedules and a phone directory with important numbers.  I'm so so so excited about this project because I would love to be a part of something so new and unique to MU.  Our entire group wasn't able to get together due to class conflicts so I'm excited to finally all meet next week.  I feel like the more people we have discussing the project, the better and more creative our ideas will be.

Beginning of the end...

I can't believe this is my last semester of college!  So scary but exciting at the same time.  After completing two dot com shifts, I am very excited that I know how to work with the web even slightly!  I thought it was going to be difficult for me to learn because I'm not great with computers or working with the internet but it turned out to be way simpler than I thought.  

I like that as a B3 reporter I post my own stories online because this has helped me become more comfortable with dot com.  Today in class we learned about creating a slide show and I found that to be very interesting.  I think slide shows are really cool ways to present more visual information to our viewers.  It may take some getting used to but once I get the hang of it I'm going to make it my goal to create one more often than not.

We also learned about "Media Giraffes," which I found to be such a cool concept.  I'm a little worried about having trouble contacting sources so I am planning on working on this as soon as possible.  We also talked about the e-portfolios we will make and I'm a little bit timid about beginning mine because I know so little about them.  I plan on researching the examples on our class website which will hopefully give me a better idea of what a good e-portfolio looks like.