Experiencing J198: Start to Finish

At the end of the semester, I was amazed at just how far I had come. Reading blog posts from January remind of just how intimidated I was sitting behind a computer--something that I had been doing since elementary school! I was worried that I would never master Movie Maker or never fully understand what the @ or # signs meant on Twitter, but I can now sit here in May and tell you that I am fully confident in my abilities as a multimedia journalist.

A product of the first class of "multimedia reporters" to go through Coppee, I can truly say that I am proud of all that J198 has achieved. It all hit me when Professor Jirik sat in on our final presentations and commented that this class should be proud of all that we have accomplished because we (all of us!) are paving the way for great things to be done in this department. Not only did I receive an excellent education in journalism through this class, but our class helped to foster a small change that could have an even bigger impact in the future.

Thank you for this experience! I am sure that I will carry all of these skills with me into the future. And to the next class of J198ers: Gear up! The semester can be gruelling at times, but the education that you will receive is well worth it!

Course Materials

Overall, I was pleased with the quality of the Kodak Zi8 cameras that we used. I thought that the additional microphones and tripods were helpful while shooting the variety of videos that we made throughout the semester. Quite honestly, I did not use the book, and I would not recommended suggesting one for purchase next year. The handouts that were given to us during class were thorough and helpful enough that no textbook was necessary! I think that the education here is in the hands-on experience, not in the suggested readings!

Other programs, such as Adobe Premiere Pro or Apple Final Cut Express, may be interesting programs to learn as students get further into the semester. I completely agree that Windows Movie Maker is a good way to begin learning the process of editing your own video, but I do believe that Premiere and Final Cut offer a few more bells and whistles that could enhance the final project. I know that the Digital Media Studio has a lab filled with Macs that have the Final Cut capability...maybe class could be moved down there for the second half of the semester? Overall, I do think that Movie Maker was a great way for me to jump start into learning the overall process of creating movies, but familiarity with other programs could be helpful in the future for students who plan to make a career out of multimedia journalism.

Multimedia Reporting: Self Reflection

Working in J198 this semester has taught me an incredible amount about the power of social media. I have always understood that, thanks to the Internet, we literally have the world at our fingertips. Through using blogs, Twitter and Facebook, I can now see the power that social media has to spread ideas and function as an advertising device to mass amounts of people. This course met every goal and expectation that I had entering the class in January. I expected to learn and master Windows Movie Maker and to become accustomed to Twitter and blogging. Multimedia Reporting has allowed me to become comfortable with social media in a way that I know will be very helpful to me in the future.

Thanks to J198, I was able to get a job working with CBS College Sports during March Madness. Had I not had the experience cutting and editing video and using Twitter and blog accounts, I would not have gotten the internship since it was geared toward marketing majors. I can attribute my success with the job to the skills that I acquired through this class. If I did not take Multimedia Reporting, I would not have even been a viable candidate for the job!