Category Archives: ds106

Revisiting Goals

M. Marshall 2.23

Let’s go back to a time that was a little simpler, week one. It was much less clear as to what any courses for this semester would be about and taking seventeen credits didn’t seem like such a bad idea at the time. I have had some highs and lows in this course, getting to experiment with video editing and creating my own website has been both fun and challenging.

I gave myself a bunch of small goals, so let’s see how I’m doing.

→It is true that I have become (slightly) more digitally adept. Perhaps not significantly, but I have a way better handle on the WordPress aspect of this. I was even taught how to embed links into a screenshot so that the daily creates wouldn’t look so ugly!

Before:

After:

As ridiculously small as this seems, this was a big win for me. I value sleekness in a website and so I was very frustrated by the way it looked. Now, it’s beautiful!

→ “Ideally, by the time this is finished I will have a whole blog that looks like nothing I could have ever imagined being able to create before starting this class, maybe that I can show off to friends.” Honestly, I think I am well on my way there right now. I like to show my girlfriend the website sometimes, so I think that counts! Obviously this is still a work in progress, so I don’t feel that it’s anything to write home about just yet. But, I think it will be.

If I was going to show anyone any post, it would probably be this one:

Mostly because it’s hilarious (to me).

→”Maybe a goal would be to have the little widgets leading to a real link/page that isn’t just my main page?” Honestly, not quite there yet. I think I’d need another stop by the DKC before I could say I can do this. But, that’s okay! We are not even halfway through the semester, not everything has to be ready.

→”I can feel a reflection on this post coming at the end of the semester” Try just a few weeks from now!

→”Maybe to be able to somehow incorporate my cat, Daisy into this blog?” I checked and I’ve only mentioned her 2-3 times, the goals post being one of them. To my credit: I based my character off of her, so there is a few more posts than just that related to her. Let’s fix that with this post!

Here she is enjoying the outdoor air a little while ago. I don’t take her outside anymore because the avian flu is becoming more problematic for house cats and I am overprotective.

Something else I’m proud of, one of my favorite daily creates:

My next (short-term-ish) goal is to have some new features on the website the next time goals are being re-evaluated!

Week Six ds106 top picks

We had seventeen posts picked for the best of week six, and they’re all winners. I especially like the variety of tools and approaches to video that people used. I hope everyone looks them over, because you can get a lot of ideas about what you can accomplish from reading about what other people did.

All those non-voters though…

Krissy Meets Dr. Oblivion
This post was incredible! The amount of time and work put into it to tell the story through Sims must’ve been a lot
Krissy Meets Dr. Oblivion
Using the sims is so smart and it was funny, but you could still appreciate the work they put into it.
Krissy Meets Dr. Oblivion
I thought it was very well made and it was so creative that she used the Sims in order to bring her character to life.
Lyric Snippet
I thought the logic behind the certain design choices was well conceived and the final product was very indicative of what it was set out to represent.
Lyric Snippet
I really like the song
Midnight in February
The writeup was so captivating and really allowed me to feel the same vibes from the video!
Midnight in February
Very grounding post
Zer0 Capcut Edit
I thought the edit was very well made, and it was cool they did a photoshoot with the character!
Tips for your character
The use of Ai in this post is so cool. The character made is so detailed
Tips for your characters
This AI Avatar of Finn Callaway is so cool!! I also liked learning more about the character as well.
Become a Pinterest Plant Parent
This was so cute! It makes me want to start getting some plants to take care of them!
Become a Pinterest Plant Parent
This post was very detailed and interesting to watch as someone who also owns a lot of plants!
How to cosplay tuna star awesome
Tiktok video assignment Cute puppers
I am Me very cool post
Wake Up!
The idea of talking to your past self is sweet. They did a good job with this assignment.
Back to 2021
I loved this post because it felt raw, real, and vulnerable. Recording yourself and posting it for everyone to see can be scary for some but I feel like he knocked it out the park. I haven’t been brave enough yet to record myself and post it but I aspire to be brave like him one day and do this! Also – I loved hearing what he’d say to himself at 16. A lot of those things I would say to myself too.
I Love TikTok
She has a very cute dog and I like her reasons for loving tiktok. Her explanation sounded educated and it made me giggle, a double-edged sword.
See top 10 movies
feels like a warm conversation
Where Would Sapphiria Go?
Video editing skills are looking great!
Revisiting My Goals
I liked reading about their goals and how they accomplished them. Also, from reading this post it made me think about other goals that I’d maybe like to accomplish in this class that I didn’t think about originally. By reading this post I can definitely see that they’ve done a great job so far this semester šŸ™‚
Do the Walk of Life
Fits VERY well and sounds great
Video Assignments
I just loved the creativity of the interpretation for the 16 year old me assignment! I loved the vibes as well šŸ™‚

 

 

How I made the news

Since Jim came up with the news assignment idea, I thought I’d try to mimic a newscast. I Googled “free news background animation” and “free news background music” to find suitable content. Then I recorded myself with a green screen (blue also works in iMovie. Some other programs give more options).
For the graphics, I needed PNG files with transparent backgrounds. I used Dafont for the type and took screenshots, then opened them in Photopea and made a white copy of the text in a new layer and hid the background layer to get the transparency, then exported as PNG. I probably shroud have made a chyron for the bottom of the screen. I’m not sure if iMovie will let me do that many layers, but I could take my exported video and bring it back into iMovie for the overlay.

 

Hated in the nation, loved in the class

It’s not really surprising that so many video essays made the Best Of list, given the week’s assignment load. Even so, they are great efforts, demonstrating the fun that can be had through the close reading of media. You can see all the essays here. It’s worth the time.

Bees

Phenomenal job on this video essay! I aspire to do this well with an assignment like this one day! The analysis was beautifully captured in the video.

Good job Martina!

I thought that this video essay was a good example of what the other information videos and readings had gone over. She did a good job of explaining different angles and shots

Looking into Cyberpunk Edgerunners

looks super cool

Very nice, informative, and organized post

Calling Myself a Clip Champ This Week

Captivating title and a great vibe and writing style

they tried their best

Liv Kern #tdc4779

Seeing Mount Rushmore underwater, made me laugh. I think it’s such a creative and silly idea. Something about it just makes me smile.

I thought this daily create was very creative and loved the idea

Daily Creates

I think the original poem turned out really good. I have a hard time with that kind of stuff so I thought it was pretty cool to see someone be able to come up with that

I love poetry

Weekly Summary #6: Sixth Time is the Charm?

Good to see someone moving forward and learning to do new things.

Daily Create

I loved how for the Daily Create banana story she made her’s with a Kim Possible show reference!

Daily Create: January 13, 2025

I thought that this daily create was really good and it made me chuckle

Audio story

It was simple but all the sounds affects helped to easily understand the what was going on

Hated in the Nation Video Essay

I enjoyed this watching this video essay! Very well executed and great analysis.

Holding a ā€œBlack Mirrorā€ to the World

I always look forward to this person’s post, I thin their posts are always good and this video essay was no exception!

Video Essay

I think that this was a really good start and I enjoyed watching it

Radio Bumper

This was really well made, but my favorite part was the use of radio static sounds in it

Daily Create 2/9

What a fun daily create! I will now consider this one of my latest musical discoveries! šŸ™‚ Thanks for sharing!

Daily Create: 2/13/25

I thought the idea of impractical jokes was really funny and was a good explanation for the curious bananas

 

Weekly Summary #6: Sixth Time is the Charm?

M. Marshall 2.14

Happy Valentine’s day everyone! I am looking forward to my Valentine’s day plans with my girlfriend, I hope you all are getting to enjoy your Valentine’s day with your partner, friends, and/or family.

One thing I love (but am not good at) is video editing. In high school, there were a few days where I filmed “vlogs” and sent them to my friends. It was pretty ridiculous but I enjoyed it and everyone was entertained, so I was excited to get back into iMovie.

This is my video essay, definitely not the highest quality but I did my best!

If you’d like to read what I wrote about it, visit the blog post for it!

Here are my daily creates for the week!

Day 1:

The prompt was this:

I emailed Professor Bond and he showed me how to make the embedding a little less ugly, so hopefully if you click on the picture(s) it will lead you to the post(s)!

Day 2:

Hopefully anyone that has seen Kim Possible will find my response entertaining.

That’s it for the week! I hope everyone has enjoyed their week, I felt much less overwhelmed this time around. Again, have a happy Valentine’s Day!

Bees Video Essay

M. Marshall 2.14

As everyone else has, I watched something and created a video essay on a scene from it. I watched “Hated in the Nation” from Black Mirror.

Of course, this is not a reflection on the full episode, but it definitely freaked me out a lot.

After I watched the episode I considered what scene to analyze, and I chose the one where Karin and Blue talk to the woman who sent the cake to Jo Powers. I really appreciated the level of foreshadowing that this scene gave. It was interesting to see them talk about the “death to” hashtag. Looking back and knowing she was one of the people responsible for her death, yet she was so defensive and frustrated. It was a strong reminder of the cognitive dissonance people experience between real life and their online actions.

I am hoping that as we experiment more with video assignments I will get better at this. I hope one day I will look back on this and cringe at my lack of video editing skills. I had hoped to screen record the video, but Netflix is very sneaky with blacking out the screen, so I ultimately recorded it on my phone. If I did another video essay in the future I would probably try to invest more time in figuring that out.

This one was pretty simple, I recorded the video on my phone and recorded a voice over on my laptop. I was somewhat nervous to do this so I had to do a couple takes with a general script. I still stumbled on my words some but nobody is perfect so I hope anyone reading this or watching the video essay enjoys it well enough. Here it is:

Bees Video Essay

M. Marshall 2.14

As everyone else has, I watched something and created a video essay on a scene from it. I watched “Hated in the Nation” from Black Mirror.

Of course, this is not a reflection on the full episode, but it definitely freaked me out a lot.

After I watched the episode I considered what scene to analyze, and I chose the one where Karin and Blue talk to the woman who sent the cake to Jo Powers. I really appreciated the level of foreshadowing that this scene gave. It was interesting to see them talk about the “death to” hashtag. Looking back and knowing she was one of the people responsible for her death, yet she was so defensive and frustrated. It was a strong reminder of the cognitive dissonance people experience between real life and their online actions.

I am hoping that as we experiment more with video assignments I will get better at this. I hope one day I will look back on this and cringe at my lack of video editing skills. I had hoped to screen record the video, but Netflix is very sneaky with blacking out the screen, so I ultimately recorded it on my phone. If I did another video essay in the future I would probably try to invest more time in figuring that out.

This one was pretty simple, I recorded the video on my phone and recorded a voice over on my laptop. I was somewhat nervous to do this so I had to do a couple takes with a general script. I still stumbled on my words some but nobody is perfect so I hope anyone reading this or watching the video essay enjoys it well enough. Here it is:

Super sounds of cyberpunk

Only eight people voted. They are awesome and for doing so, but really, we’re doomed. Do you want a tech noir dystopia? Because this is how you get a tech noir dystopia.

But once again we have a wide variety of selections, all great work. There’s a lotta love for bumpers and sound effect stories, as there should be. Go through the list and give them a listen.

I’m DS106 and You’re Watching Radio Bumper It was so cool to see Coni replicate the Disney Channel jingle as it was a big part of my childhood. It sounds like you would actually hear it on the radio!
I’m DS106 and You’re Watching Radio Bumper This was a really fun idea! Doing her radio bumper based on how Disney channel announced their shows was cool to hear
ds106 radio bumper I thought they did a great job making this bumper. It was fun and cute. Also they were the first one to do this assignment, and I think that can be a scary thing, especially for an audio assignment.
ds106 Radio Bumer They did a great job on their radio bumper
Another day at the office… I thought they nailed the assignment. The sounds were so real, it felt like I was there!
Another day at the office… I thought the idea was very original and creative. The sound effects and the context of the story made it funny!
Sound effect Story firstly i want to start off with i love the layout and name of this blog. The organization is great! I liked this post specifically because I thought it was simple yet creative. We were told to not do something basic and I feel as though some people may take this and really think out of the box but this story was simple yet creative.
Sound Effect Story The idea was simple but done very well. The sound effects with the coughing make it a lot more dramatic and concerning to listen to and you can easily understand the story!
mission impossible
It’s Britney, B1tch! …Or is it? Very creative and fun. I had never heard the Dead On A Sunday – “…Baby One More Time” cover of this song. I fricken love it!!! Overall, a very awesome and engaging post.
What If “Dear Evan Hansen” Didn’t Go To Plan? The thought process and detail behind this was incredible! I love musicals but haven’t really checked into Dear Evan Hansen, so now I think I want to check it out!
The Power of Sound I wanted to comment specifically on the room sounds. This person did a great job in muffling the music in the room, plus is a great song. I really liked the addition of the cat purr, it took me by surprise but I instantly said “awww”. This was a really well done assignment!
Moon Graffiti Although this wasn’t one of the assignments with audio and it was just a review, I enjoyed what they had to say and the description of how they understood the audio in this clip
whistle while you think I like a good whistle
POV: You’re Charlie Brown – Sound Effect Story This was one of my favorite sound effect story that i have listened to. I love the nostalgia and how it really sounds like you are in the classroom! This was absolutely great!
There’s a Huh in the What? – Guess My Favorite Song I thought this post was fun, creative, and interactive. I had to go check out the end of her blog for the answer because I really couldn’t think of the name of that song!
Going to the Beach It was really peaceful to listen to like ASMR. I love how she added the distant sound effect of kids playing on the beach too to help portray space
Soundtrack to Veronica’s Life I like the idea of creating a playlist for your character. It not only helps you but helps other define their personality better. You can also tell how much detail into this, all the way down to the cover art. My only critique is that Veronica is way too cool to be using Apple Music.
Radio Show Ideas I had some of the same similar ideas for the radio show; To do something humorous like a lifestyle talk show where we have people that call in and then the characters give them their unsolicited advice. I like the late-night talk radio show idea and the murder mystery. I had to favorite this post for this week because great minds think alike!
Sapphira mae favorites I think I got to know the person a little better
Sound Effect Story They also did a great job at the sound effects, its totally different from everyone elses
Daily Create (this is about the T-Rex drawing) I wanted to do this daily create but didn’t have enough time that day to get it done so I really liked getting to see other people’s versions of it. Not for nothing but this one turned out really good
After Dinner This was really well done. I love the vibe of the story. I also loved that this person stuck to the time limit without overwhelming the story. They talked about how they wanted to include more and wished the assignment was longer, instead of just shortening the pace of the story. The pacing is really great!
My First Radio Bumper It really feels like its a radio bumper, I can imagine it being used for a radio show

 

Weekly Summery #4: Audio!

M. Marshall 2.7

I have definitely enjoyed getting to learn about and experiment with audio. I had never done anything like this before so it was very cool to learn about. I particularly liked Audacity, it seemed like a great place for people trying things out and I look forward to continuing to try it. Here’s what the week looked like!

I started with the daily creates for this week.

Post #1
Post #2
Post #3

Honestly, I hate how the posts look embedded into the page, I may need to go to the DKC again just to figure this out. It is so ugly it makes me unreasonably frustrated and I’ve tried everything I can figure out. This is just a learning curve, but still frustrating.

I tuned into the DS106 radio on Tuesday which I enjoyed a lot!

I created a radio bumper, which was cool, but I am interested in how I can do better.

I considered ideas for a radio show with my character.

I listened to Moon Graffiti by the Truth Podcast. A line that was super eerie to me was, “How many people do you think they’ll bury by the time they’re through?”

Then I worked on the audio assignments!

I did assignment 2820 from the audio assignment bank. A news report on the Nigerian prince email scam.

Then assignment 2724, where I created a short song (really a blip).

My sound effects story was of a racer running across the finish line.

I’ve really been enjoying this class. I’ve definitely struggled to connect my posts to the TechNoir theme of the class and my character, but I think as time goes on I will get better at it.

Moon Graffiti

M. Marshall 2.7

Listening to Moon Graffiti was a very cool experience. It is interesting to think about a timeline where the mission to land on the Moon failed and to contemplate how worthwhile it is to go to the Moon. Last semester I took Writing About the Moon with Dr. Scanlon, and we talked a lot about the history of the Moon landing. Pretty much as soon as Apollo 11 landed back on Earth, pink slips of paper to fire employees were being handed out because the project was over and they could no longer expend the resources necessary to fund NASA. I wonder if Apollo 11 had failed if they would have continued to push for it, or if they would have just given up. The radio-sound of the podcast makes it feel like a real historical audio of something that happened.