Confessions Part 1

I believe Boyz II Men said it best: It's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday.


Yesterday actually came a couple of weeks ago, when we presented our final projects in the very last #J198 class. (I've gotten so used to labeling the class with a hash tag that you should probably just go ahead and rename it that for next semester, Jeremy.) It was a great recap of the semester, showing all of our hard work to each other and to interested LU faculty, while live-tweeting the whole thing. It was also the last class of my Lehigh career. I'd say it went out with a bang.


Here I am blogging on May 9, well after when I should have gotten these done, but that's beside the point, right? After all, my pledge to consistently blog sort of went out the window weeks ago. You know what happened: Senior things, job things, life decisions, the whole deal. Point is: Thou shall be neglected no more, good old friend. Let's go out in style.


What's on tap for the end? How about some good old fashioned evaluations? That's right. I'm talking about ME, I'm talking about #J198 and I'm talking about #J198 COURSE MATERIALS, Y'ALL. Check it:


THREE-PART SERIES FINALE!


Okay, let's do this thing.


I'll start off by saying that this class, for me, was maybe the best one I've had the privilege of taking during four years at Lehigh. Hyperbole? Maybe. My enthusiasm can't be dampened, though. #J198 was a game changer. But enough about the class itself -- that's coming with my next post. This one should be all about me. "Goals and expectations vs. what I learned." Gotcha.


Going into the class, my goal was to become a better journalist. I sorta feel like I had a mastery -- or at the very least, a great understanding -- of traditional journalism in the scope that Lehigh presented it to me, and I had already toyed with multimedia and social media for the purposes of entertainment and curiosity, but rarely for telling a story. So that was my biggest goal prior to starting #J198: Use these new, strange tools around me, couple them with what's already in my arsenal, and spread some good old fashioned information around.


Did I do that? Yes. We all did. But again, I'm talking about me, so who cares about everyone else? (Just joshin' ... the class was full of straight up all-stars.) I learned how to take cool, little things I wouldn't have thought twice about before, like Gowalla, and use them to enhance an existing story. Want to see that in action? Check out our Web site, read up and then go take the walking tour. The full package, right?


How did I change personally? I learned how to not be a selfish pig, for starters. I love being creative, and I love doing things my way, so it was tough letting other people be privy to my creative process, and tough taking some of my hands off of editorial decisions. But working with a group was huge. It let me see how other people - I'm looking at you, Lauren and Opi - get creative and attack problems, and gave me inspiration for how to apply some of their choices to my own decisions. In the end, even if our group didn't always agree on what to do, we all learned from each other and delivered one hell of a final product, methinks.


I learned how to become more technically proficient, I learned how to look great on camera and ape Jack Nicholson, I learned how to ride my bike around the South Side and get college credit for it, and most of all, I learned how to appreciate the art of storytelling.


I'd say I learned a lot.


Coming up in Confessions, Part II, Andrew totally trashes #J198 the class. Just terrible.

You Might As Well Call Us Three Ken Burnses

Well, maybe we're not there yet, but here's our documentary on a recent exhibit at The Banana Factory. Props to Opi for filming the whole thing and interviewing several artists, and props to all three of us for editing the whole thing together for the first time this semester! As for the actual documentary, it was tough to piece together some sort of narrative in the clip without actually narrating it, but I think we did a good job letting the artists speak for themselves.

Fun with Podcasts

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Look at us, total pros!

We made a podcast for the first time ever, using only the audio from a Zi8 video where Lauren, Opi and I sat around and talked about the semester so far. Obviously we had a great discussion. We put the audio into MovieMaker, and voila! Podcast created. Only, not really. We had to use the fancy converting service YouConvertIt to change the .avi to an .mp3, and then brought it in to PodBean, a free Web site that allows anyone to upload podcasts. Pretty cool.

If you make it through the full 8:45, you get a prize! 

Fun with Photos

For the first of today's two blog posts coinciding with the latest J198 lab, I present you with a Flickr slideshow of our group's recent trip to Zoellner Arts Center's Art Gallery. I trekked the half-block to Zoellner this morning in sweltering heat with my trusty Canon PowerShot SX10 IS in hand, which has barely been used since I got it two Christmases ago (aside from these sweet photos I took at last year's Sundaze).

I've been at Lehigh for four years - and in Bethlehem for 18 more - yet was a virgin to the Art Gallery until this morning. Shame on me. Even if it's just on a break between classes next time you're in the vicinity of Zoellner, stop in the gallery! There are a lot of great paintings and sculptures on display from local and international artists, plus the woman who works at reception has a pretty fantastic German accent. What's not to like? Gander at my photos to get a little preview of what you're missing.

B-A-N-A-N-A-S

This post is brought to you by a forgotten hit from the days of yore, "Hollaback Girl."

Like the beat that Gwen Stefani was totally in strong agreement with, our most recent trip to the Banana Factory was bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S.  If you aren't hip to the Factory, it's basically South Bethlehem's best kept secret. If you have heard of it, then you probably love it. It's an arts and cultural center on Third Street that 28 resident artists, ranging from painters to sculptors to glass blowers, call home. It's got galleries and studios, classes offered for children and adults, and is basically the perfect for our semester-long final project. (Reminder: We're focusing on the revitalization of the arts in South Bethlehem.)

We got to meet some great folks over at the Factory, including artists Doug Wiltraut and Priscilla Rosenberger, who were kind enough to show us their art and explain their creative process to us. We also talked at length with Mark Demko of Arts Quest, the organization in SoBeth that's responsible for duh, the arts, in the Lehigh Valley. He gave us a personal tour of the Factory and will be a vital resource for us going forward.

As for our video, I think it turned out pretty well. Lauren and I worked diligently on writing a script for the piece and editing it over the course of a couple hours in Coppee, and I'm happy that we were on the same page for much, if not all, of the process. I enjoyed bouncing off ideas with her as to where the video should go. We had so much B-roll to use that paring it all down to 1:30 was almost like putting together a puzzle. If I have any criticisms, I think we still have to figure out how to properly record voice overs and interviews. (We didn't use the lapel mic this time around and stuck with just using audio from the Zi8.) But you be the judge: Tell us how it sounds.

Anyway, here's our video. Stay tuned for more details on the final project, and where we take it from here.

Creep City, Literally

For the second map in today's lab, the entire class collaborated on a big map locating all of the registered sex offenders (per Megan's Law) in the Lehigh Valley. The whole collaboration/crowd sourcing thing is really cool, but I think we all would have preferred to map something else out rather than a list of creeps who live a few doors down from us.

As Jeremy noted, we put together a map of all the sex offenders in the Lehigh Valley in something like 15 minutes. Crowd sourcing is a pretty powerful thing. What other kinds of possibilities can you guys see for using something like this?

The map:

View Megan's Law: Registered offenders in Bethlehem, PA in a larger map

Mapping It Out

Today in J198, we're learning how to effectively use Google Maps to tell a story. Our assignment is simple: We need to create two custom maps. The first one, which I've included below, is a map of nearby places for Lehigh students to go when they're bored or want to get away from the usual bar scene in South Bethlehem. (Not that there's anything wrong with that, but still, it can get a little monotonous sometimes.) As a Lehigh Valley resident all my life, I've explored every nook and cranny the area has to offer, so making this map was a piece of cake. Here are 10 interesting places ranging from baseball stadiums (Go Pigs!) to drive-in movie theaters to check out.

View Hey Lehigh students: What's going on in the LV? in a larger map