Weekly Summary-Week 14-Goodbye, DS106!
Wow, I can’t believe is the final week of DS106!
So, for this final week of DS106, it follows the easy-hard pattern. The last two weeks were a bit harder than this week, only because I didn’t have to do as much this week!
Like last week, I didn’t want to make separate blog posts for each of the assignments, so they are all here! For the reflection and such, just go to the bottom of the page!
Saturday and Sunday
I didn’t do much over the weekend. I went home to march in a Christmas parade with my mom and corgi. It was cold and wet, but fun! It made me feel all Christmassy, which went away pretty much as soon as I went back to school!
However, I did take the screen snippings for the Romania assignment (see down below under “Monday”).
Monday
On Monday, I did my first assignment of the week, based off of http://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/whats-in-your-bag/. I wanted to do something for when Maria went to Maine, but I couldn’t think of anything. Then, I was looking over the assignments, and I remembered that one of the main things I did in Maine was go to the L.L.Bean flagship store in Freeport. As Maria is an outdoorsy person, and I had this assignment, I decided to do a “what’s in your bag”, as in, what’s in your shopping bag! So, I decided to look at the sale items on the L.L.Bean website. That, there’s much less to sort through, and Maria’s not a spendthrift! After I decided on all of the items, I uploaded their pictures into the Microsoft Photos app and made them into videos. I also made, using the plain black pictures, pictures/slides of text, and inserted pictures from my own trip. I then added captions to each picture, having Maria explain what each item is and why she bought it.
I then downloaded a video from YouTube that had the state song of Maine using 4K Video Downloader. I used https://www.onlinevideoconverter.com/convert-mp4-to-mp3 to convert it to MP3 and then used Audacity to cut it down a bit.
I then did the citations for the pictures and uploaded it to YouTube.
Citations:
All non-L.L.Bean pictures (i.e. the nature pictures) are pictures that I personally took when I was in Maine
Song:
The Maine Song
“State of Maine”-Roger Vinton Snow
Dot and the HasBeens
CrannyEntertainment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RN183PdfTYg
Pictures:
freeport maine llbean
https://www.flickr.com/photos/kmf164/226702773
Wildcat Boots, Pro
Signature Leather Crossbody
West Branch Wading Boots
Women’s Emerger Fishing Vest
Shrink-Free Knit Shirt, Stripe
Signature Skinny Ankle Jeans
Summer Knit Dress, Short-Sleeve Dot Floral
Summer Knit Dress, Short-Sleeve Dot
UST SlothSak Chair
Snake Eyes Kubb
https://www.llbean.com/llb/shop/120632?page=snake-eyes-kubb&bc=32-509104&feat=509104-GN1&csp=s
UV Buff® Headwear with Insect Shield
L.L.Bean Deluxe Book Pack
Moonbeam 5-Day LED Flashlight
Ultrasoft Comfort Flannel Sheet, Flat Stripe
On Monday I also did the video for Romania. It’s the second part of the Kringa, Croatia video that I last week, although Romania actually comes before Croatia in the StoryMap! Basically, I decided that I wanted to do two videos, one for each, because one is the location of an old vampire legend, and the other one is the location of a modern one. Like for the Croatia video, I took screen snippings, using the Snipping Tool, of Google Maps Street View. It was easier this time around, as I already had practice on how to get all of the pictures to be the same size, so that way they’d look like they were from the same camera. I then uploaded these to the Photos app. Using the plain black picture as the background for the text, I used Wikipedia and independent.co.uk to put in the information on the vampiric story. I then copy-pasted the text that I used for the Croatia video about Google copyright/ownership. This way, the videos seem more connected. However, I did change some of the text to match with the different Wikipedia articles used.
I then needed to add music. I decided to use the Romanian National Anthem, as I had used the Croatian National Anthem. As with before, I used the CIA World Factbook to find and download the anthem.
I then trimmed the audio so less silence would be there. I had to add some more of my Maine pictures to get the video to match up with the audio. I then did the citations and uploaded it to YouTube.
Citations:
All pictures are partial screen clippings of Google Maps Street View. The Street View was recorded August 2012 and the snippings were done December 3rd.
Song:
National Anthem of Romania
“Desteapta-te romane!” (Wake up, Romanian!)
Andrei MURESIANU/Anton PANN
Via the CIA World Factbook
https://www.cia.gov/librarY/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ro.html
Information came from:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strigoi
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-real-vampire-slayers-397874.html
Tuesday
On Tuesday, I looked through my slides on StoryMap and looked at which places I wanted to make assignments for. I wanted there to be an assignment everything 2-3 slides. Here’s the list of places I was thinking of making assignments for. It wasn’t written in stone, but was just a way for me to more easily decide on locations to match with assignments.
On Tuesday, I did my third assignment of the week, based off of http://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/destination-post-card/. I really wanted to use my pictures that I took in Québec City for the Québec City slide. The postcard assignment let me do that. It was relatively simple. I used Canva.com, which I had used before to make a postcard. I looked through my folder of pictures, picked the ones that I wanted (my specifications were that they had to look like they they could be on a postcard and that they couldn’t have my family in them), and then uploaded them to Canva. I then arranged them to my liking. The wording I chose was “Je me souviens”, the official motto of Quebec. I means “I remember” and it seemed like it fit! I used https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Je_me_souviens to make sure that I got the spelling right! I chose a font that seemed old-timey, like the city.
I then had to pick out colors for the background. I messed around with the pre-made backgrounds but didn’t find one I liked. I then decided to use the Quebec flag, which didn’t fit with the uneven layout of the pictures. I then decided to use the colors of the flag of Québec City. I used this picture-https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_Quebec_City.svg-and this website-https://html-color-codes.info/colors-from-image/-to find the colors. I used the blue as the background, the white for the motto, and the gold for the city.
After that, I was done! I downloaded the postcard and inserted the picture into StoryMap!
I also did my fourth assignment of the week, based off of http://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/create-a-place/. I was stuck on what I decided to do with either of the Scotland slides, and then I decided to do an audio assignment, as I had only done one audio assignment for this project. on Freesound.org, I searched for sounds from Loch Ness, as that is where this audio, story-wise, supposed to take place. I also searched for hiking sounds, as Maria is supposed to be walking around in this audio, as well as camera sounds, as she is supposed to be taking pictures. Finally, I used the writing and paper sounds that I used in a previous assignment, http://ds106.francescamaisano.com/ds106/a-quiet-office-on-a-rainy-day/, as she is also taking notes on what she sees and hears. With all of these, I cut them to fit the length I wanted them to, as well as cut and moved them to where I wanted them to fit in the audio. I had to increase the hiking and writing sounds to hear them, while the water sound I had to lower. I used https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?t=25667 to help me make the tracks mono (two tracks for one sound) to mono (one track per sound) to be able to move them onto one track, which makes it easier for me to put the sounds at the time I want.
Here’s the final Audacity project for it. I had to use https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/view_menu_track_size.html to figure out how to get all of the tracks to show at once.
After that, I did my citations and then uploaded it to SoundCloud. With the information I had to look up for Audacity, this assignment definitely helped to increase my knowledge and skill!
Citations:
https://freesound.org/people/LolitaPerdurabo/sounds/213938/
Loch-Ness-At-night.wav
https://freesound.org/people/LolitaPerdurabo/sounds/188701/
Fort Augustus » Borlum-Bay.wav
https://freesound.org/people/Yoyodaman234/sounds/349077/
footsteps » Hiking on Soft Ground 1 – Through Mud
No Attribution Required
https://freesound.org/people/davidbain/sounds/136780/
SFX » Digital Camera On
No Attribution Required
https://freesound.org/people/Caitlin_100/sounds/365615/
Camera beep & flash.mp3
No Attribution Required
https://freesound.org/people/rivernile7/sounds/234016/
Writing On Paper.wav
No Attribution Required
https://freesound.org/people/El_Wilk/sounds/220828/
Turning Pages and Flipping through Pages
No Attribution Required
Wednesday
On Wednesday, I did my fifth assignment of the week, based off of http://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/places-of-peace/. I decided to do Vienna, VA, as it was one of the places on my list, and as I had lived there for 19.5 years, just moving this summer, I had places already in mind. Instead of places where I felt relaxed or at peace, I decided to change this assignment a bit to places I had good memories of. I also went with places that Maria would be interested in. I first googled images that were “Labeled to use” and then used Flickr to further search. This was harder than I expected! There’s not that many pictures of Vienna, VA, and Vienna, Austria, the more famous Vienna, kept coming up! I ended up finding pictures, though some places, like my old parish St. Mark Catholic Church, I couldn’t find any non-copywritten pictures for. While Tysons isn’t technically in Vienna, that was, and still is, my mall, where I go to hang out with my friends. Our “thing” is going to the movies, especially at that AMC, so that picture is very much related to me, even it doesn’t make as much sense for Maria to go there! I have found memories of the Freeman Store and of the Original Vienna Library, AKA the Little Library, and as someone interested in folklore and history, Maria would appreciate it, especially since she spends so much time in libraries. I also have fond memories of the Vienna Green and of the Caboose, so they are there too! After I uploaded them all into https://www.befunky.com/create/collage/, I arranged the pictures, putting Tysons at the bottom as it least applies to Maria. I then added the text, using the font Century Schoolbook, as according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_type_family#Century_Schoolbook, it was used i textbooks, and I went to school in Vienna from 2nd grade through 12th grade (I lived there all of my life, but I went to school somewhere else because of my minor hearing loss for a few years). I made the text white to better stand out and moved text 1 to a different place that looked better to me.
I then saved it and uploaded it to StoryMap.
Citations:
Vienna Town Green Vienna, Va 01
https://www.flickr.com/photos/christen_d/8129651230
English: IN 1859 ABRAM LAYDECKER OF NEW JERSEY OPENED A STORE AND RESIDENCE HERE IN VIENNA. DURING THE CIVIL WAR THERE WERE NUMEROUS SKIRMISHES AROUND THE STORE AND IT WAS USED FOR VARIOUS PURPOSES. AFTER THE WAR LAYDECKER’S SON-IN LAW, ANDERSON FREEMAN, RAN THE STORE UNTIL 1929. EVENTUALLY THE TOWN OF VIENNA PURCHASED THE STORE AND OPERATES IT AS A RURAL GENERAL STORE AND MUSEUM
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FREEMAN_STORE.jpg
Original Vienna Library Vienna, Va 01
https://www.flickr.com/photos/christen_d/8095250630/in/album-72157631787388676/
Washington and Old Dominion RR Caboose Vienna, Va 03
https://www.flickr.com/photos/christen_d/8129651918/in/photostream/
Tysons Corner Center (12-04-14) – 4
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tysons_Corner_Center_(12-04-14)_-_4.jpeg
I also did my sixth assignment of the week, based off of http://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/lfie-as-an-animal/. I was stuck, because I didn’t want to do Kraków, since I already used it, and the Wawel Dragon, for this assignment. Then, I decided to do the Lariosauro, as it was another creature and it was in a new location, Lake Como, that I am using for this assignment, but I didn’t use in any other assignment (Italy was used in an assignment about where I wanted to go, and while I would love to go to Lake Como, that assignment was more about my family’s history and history in general). I then googled images that were “Labeled to use” and went from there. This was harder than I thought it would be! The theme of today was having trouble finding pictures! Many of the pictures were general shots of the villages-very postcard-worthy shots. However, that was not what I was going for. Looking at the Wikipedia pages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lariosauro and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lariosaurus, I decided on a basic life of the creature. I then pictures that could represent that. I used http://www.lakecomofishing.com/species/ to figure out species of fish this creature could eat, in order to find pictures to use. I used https://www.fws.gov/injuriouswildlife/pdf_files/Perca_fluviatilis_WEB_9-15-14.pdf and http://www.ukmatchangler.com/predator/articles/features/markbarrett/zander.php to figure out if they were nocturnal or diurnal, to tie into the diurnal/nocturnal sections of the video. In addition, I used https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocodile#Vision and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eel#Description to figure out if the creatures the Lariosauro is mentioned to look like are nocturnal or diurnal to mention in the video.
After, I had to look for music. I looked on the YouTube Audio Library for “italian” and “italy”. I listened to several of the options, and “Mama’s sounded, to me, more ominous and scary, which I thought matched this video.
I downloaded it, put it in Audacity, then cut it to fit the length of the video. I then made the end “Fade out” so that it wouldn’t sound chopped off. I then exported the video, did the citations, and uploaded it to YouTube.
Citations:
Song:
Mamas
Via the YouTube Audio Library
Map of Lake Como (Lago di Como), Italy
Original work by Markus Bernet, background map courtesy of www.demis.nl.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lago_di_Como.png
Public Domain
lake como – sala comacina – sunrise isola comacina – 04
https://www.flickr.com/photos/gianlucaponti/9613895723
Lake Como Nature Water
https://pixabay.com/en/lake-como-nature-water-como-978468/
No attribution required
Lake Como view from Wood’s Cabin
Forest Service Northern Region
https://www.flickr.com/photos/fsnorthernregion/5985689032
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Barsche_im_See_(Jungfische).jpg
English: A view of Lake Como from a beach in Varrena.
Mxbndr
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_Beach_of_Lake_Como_in_Varrena.jpg
Sunset Bellagio docks, Lake Como Italy
https://www.flickr.com/photos/26424952@N00/31347857336/
English: Lake Como at night
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lake_Como_at_night.jpg
Zander, fish, underwater, foto, stizostedion, vitreum
Engbretson Eric, USFWS
https://pixnio.com/de/tiere/fische/zander-fische-unterwasser-foto-stizostedion-vitreum
lake como – bellagio – 01
https://www.flickr.com/photos/gianlucaponti/9617141960
On Wednesday, I also started to make this post and the final project post, since I knew they would take a while to write.
Thursday
On Thursday, I completed my seventh assignment of the week, based off of http://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/create-a-warning-poster/. I chose to do this for Brisbane, Australia, as that is one if the slides I had put on my list to do (see Tuesday). I specifically chose Brisbane because that has to do with the yowie, and I previously made a warning poster for the bunyip, the other Australian cryptid that I talked about, and figured that I might as well do the yowie too.
So, it was relatively simple to do. I used the Wikipedia page for information about the yowie and this picture that I previously used in this assignment-http://ds106.francescamaisano.com/ds106/a-cryptozoologists-postcard/. I liked that with this picture I could tie in one of the assignments that I made that inspired this one with this assignment. I then uploaded the picture and put in the text. I chose font that looked scary, the Microsoft Word fill effects texture “stationary” to give it more interest, and a border that I thought was bold enough to fit the font and words. The wording I had a bit of trouble with. I chose to go generic, as the characters, in the StoryMap, haven’t yet gone and looked for the yowie. It’s also more casual and less scientific, because story-wise it was made for fun because a character was bored. The picture below is not the finished product, since I didn’t leave the wording as “The Yowie!”
After I finished this, I took a screen snipping (using the Snipping Tool) and uploaded it to the StoryMap.
Citations:
English: Yowie Statue, Yowie Park, Kilcoy, Queensland. Photo taken on 21 April 2013
Somersetpedia.paul
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Yowie_Statue,_Yowie_Park,_Kilcoy,_Queensland.JPG
I also completed my eighth assignment of the week. I wanted to have something on the last slide, and I decided that a word cloud, based off of http://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/character-word-cloud/. So, I went through each slide, pulling out names, places, and other important terms and putting them into a Word document.
I then uploaded to list into https://www.wordclouds.com/. I searched through the various shape options and decided on the plane shape, as a key idea of this story is that Maria did a lot of traveling. The shape looked a bit funny…
I added some more words, which helped, but not completely.
I then added more words, but it still wasn’t great.
I was stuck and couldn’t think of more words, and when I adjusted the sizing of the words, it didn’t help much either. I did adjust the words so that the most important words-names and places-stood out, which was good. I decided to work on finishing up the slide text in StoryMap, so that way that was done and I could pull out more words and terms.
So, I went through each slide and added and/or adjusted the text. I wanted to make it sound chronological, so I used words like “then” and “after”. I also wanted to tie in any media I created for that slide, so it makes it sound like Maria made it, and that it’s not just a random video stuck on. This was really frustrating, because for some reason StoryMap got really slow and laggy, so it was near impossible to type. I had to either wait while it did things extremely slowly, or keep logging off and on whenever it slowed. It took me 2-3 times longer than it should have because of that, but I finally finished it!
After that, I went back and worked on my word cloud. I added more words, and it was better. However, I noticed that a lot of the words weren’t drawn. So, I, following the prompt seen below, shrunk the word cloud until all of them fit. I actually did this twice, as I then added a few more words. So, that is one the StoryMap is the second shrunken word cloud.
Besides the Wikipedia page, I don’t have any citations for this!
I also worked on my 9th assignment of the week, also a word cloud for http://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/character-word-cloud/ using https://www.wordclouds.com/. I wanted something to put for the Sydney slide, as I was trying to get an assignment everything 2-3 slides and it was in the middle between two other slides that didn’t have anything. I couldn’t think of anything else, so I decided to make another word cloud. It made sense to me, as it could be her research that she was doing before the trio headed off to find the bunyip.
I went through the Wikipedia page and put any describing words, names, places, and dates into the generator. I chose the shape of Australia, as Maria made it while heading to Australia to find the bunyip that lives there. Here’s a picture of the first round of words that I put in.
I had to add more words and adjust the size numerous times, but eventually I got to a point where the shape looked enough like Australia that I was happy (with this generator, I don’t think it would be entirely possible to get an exact, perfect shape). The only word I made bigger was bunyip, as that was the creature she was researching. I then downloaded it and uploaded it to the StoryMap.
Also on Thursday, I continued to work on this post and the final exam post.
Friday
On Friday, I tried to see if I wanted to have pictures on the slides that I didn’t have other media for. However, I decided against it. I didn’t want to have media (pictures) that weren’t my own for this final project if I didn’t at least do something with them. Also, I liked how having some slides have something and other slides not added some variation and didn’t overload the story.
On Friday, I also finished this post and the final project post and turned them in!
As I said at the beginning of this post, I can’t believe that this semester, and this class, is over! I did enjoy this class, though it was frustrating and stressful sometimes (just like the final project!). Although, this week wasn’t quite as stressful, as I was more sure that I’d get everything done! I also didn’t have too much to do in my other classes. I’ll miss making media for my character Maria. Maybe I’ll have to see if I can include her in any stories I make for classes or for fun. I feel like I did learn a lot in this class, from learning new tech and how to use it to learning about design and filmmaking. It also got me to finally get social media, which I had been dragging my feet about doing! I don’t think I’ll keep making YouTube videos or audio for SoundCloud, but maybe I’ll start using Instagram (which, ironically, is the platform I used least in this class!). I also discovered that I like to blog, so maybe I’ll start another, personal blog (of my very uninteresting life!) This class definitely encouraged me to be more creative, which I’ll carry with me as I continue to go through college and later in life!
This is the last post for this subdomain/blog. I’m still going to keep it up for all of the memories and work I did. I need to look into how I can save all of this if I don’t buy and keep the domain after I graduate. While this subdomain may be over, I might use it or other classes, or I might not. We’ll have to see!
About The Author
_-_4.jpeg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
