Spring 2018 Course

A COPLAC Digital Distance Learning Course

Tag: Digital Tools

Week 14: Defense of Contract

April 30, 2018 / / 0 Comments
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Kill_a_Mockingbird#/media/File:To_Kill_a_Mockingbird.JPG
Wikimedia Commons

We are presenting our project on Wednesday and I am so ready. Karina and I found a really interesting case that we investigated and we have worked really hard to create this site this past semester. As in terms of our contract, I believe that we followed through on almost all of the goals we lined up in our contract back in March.

We have all the main pages that we wanted on our site with a few tweaks here and there. The main thing that we did not do was talk about the case from the late 1960s in Hanover County, Virginia. We decided that it would be easier and more conducive to talk about more recent cases because the reasons why it is banned/challenged have changed so much. From that idea we created the page, “Other Recent Challenges” with the StoryMap labeling the other challenges in recent years.

The Timeline and StoryMap is set up just like we wanted them to be. I think that the Timeline looks great on the first page and it ties the whole site together. We found some great images from Wikimedia Commons and tried to have at least one on each page. Our theme worked out really well and with a lot of tweaking, we created a clean looking, but colorful site. For a ton of little things, like how to adjust the font color on the top menu bar, I went to our Digital Knowledge Center for help. With their expertise, I was about to create the beautiful site we have now.

We used a ton of digital tools. I myself used both JS Timeline, iMovie, GarageBand, Canva, and Youtube to display our media. I also found images on Wikimedia Commons. I wish that we had been able to take images from the Accomack County site or some more materials that were primary resources, but I think it ended up working out well with the images that were created using Canva and the ones I found on Wikimedia Commons.

As for our timeline in which we wanted to get certain work done by, we met all of our time goals. Sometimes we even got them done sooner. We also added some information after we created the contract, like the interview with Dr. Gary Richards, so I had to fit that in. There were a couple pieces of materials that we were not able to get. We thought we were going to get a response from Charles Knitter when we sent him out interview questions, but never did. That was going to be a part of the protest page, but because we did not hear back from him we combined the two pages we initially created “Petition” and “Protest,” into one page. Because we did hear back from Sadye Saunders and she was a part of the protest anyways, we thought that it was fitting that the pages be meshed together. That was the very last thing that we revised on our site. The other thing that I tried for a couple weeks to get was the complaint form, but was unfortunately shut down by someone at the School Board office they could never give it to us because it displays personal information and told that they don’t even know where the document went.

Overall, we did really well meeting our goals that we laid out in this contract. The interview with Charles Knitter and the not being able to get the complaint form was out of our control. I am really proud of this site and excited to get the chance to present it on Wednesday for everyone.

Thank you for such an awesome course Dr. Dierking and Dr. Hajo! It was a wonderful experience.

Week 8: Progress Report 3

March 18, 2018 / / 0 Comments

This has been a crazy week, getting back into the groove after spring break. I think that Karina and I managed to get a ton done despite it being a wonky week. It was at least a weird one for me.

We sent out interview questions to Charles Knitter and I am hoping he responds with his answers soon. We couldn’t figure out a way to schedule and record a phone interview with him so we asked for him to respond to our questions via email. Also, early this past week we heard from the student who created the petition at her school, trying to get To Kill a Mockingbird back on the shelves. She sounds willing to help, but we are still waiting on another response from her. We are making sure if she is not 18 yet that we get the parental permission from her too. I do think that she is according to her Facebook profile (where I contacted her through), but I just want to make sure.

I also called and bugged the school a ton this week. I was transferred around a lot on Wednesday and was finally put into contact with someone who could at least give me some answers. The woman I talked to, Clara Chandler, the director of Accomack County School’s Human Resources and she said they couldn’t and wouldn’t give us a copy of the learning resource complaint because it has confidential information regarding a student’s parent. We were disappointed at this answer, but not completely shocked. I think I tried my best, but am open to suggestions.

Harper Lee's signature. Reads Nelle Lee.
Harper Lee’s Signature. I found this on Wikimedia Commons and added it to the biography page I created this week.

This past week was creating and putting a lot of content on our project site. I just finished working on the Harper Lee Biography page and the background page to the novel. I am getting ready to work on the complaint page. I have to admit that I got somewhat behind this week because of pressing personal things that came up and other class work. I have decided to schedule out time this coming week to continue the work we have planned over the next couple weeks. This week has been a lesson in figuring out how to work on a big project like this in small chucks throughout the week.

This coming week, the main thing is getting the Timeline pulled together. We changed the homepage so it is only the timeline and people can work their way through it. The timeline might be the most time consuming thing of the site content, but I think it will probably be the most used part of our site. There are already a couple things on it, but I really want to add a lot of interactive elements to it. I found the movie trailer for the adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird, which I think would be really interesting for users to watch if they would like. Or things like adding a Google map of the town Harper Lee grew up in, Monroeville, Alabama. So this week will be a lot of experimenting with Timeline, but hopefully by the end of it we’ll have a more robust timeline.

Week 7: Progress Report

March 12, 2018 / / 0 Comments

I can’t believe we are already halfway done with the class! And I have a feeling the rest of the semester is going to go by faster than the first half did.

We have emailed questions to Charles Knitter this week and will hopefully get his response soon. As of last night, I have been in contact with the student who created the petition at the school. She is interested in providing us with a statement on what happened and gave me some further contact information beyond Facebook. We are going to be sending her more information today and requesting a formal interview that we can use in our site. I find it really awesome that we were able to reach people through Facebook and excited to see what information comes of these two interviews.

I called the school last week asking about the materials we would like to see about the parent’s learning resource complaint, but they insisted that I send a written request in. We emailed them, but have yet to get a response. I think I am going to call again today or tomorrow and see if I can talk to the Accomack County School Board member in charge of those types of complaints. We are hoping they will be willing to give us information about the complaint, but I am afraid we probably won’t. From all the information we have gathered so far I think that this was really bad press for the school system. I would love to go bug the school board in person, but unfortunately Accomack is almost four hours away, so it would have to be an entire day trip which my schedule doesn’t provide.

We pretty much have the skeleton for our site completed. This week is the week where we really start adding content to the pages. I am researching Harper Lee and creating the page where users can find out about the author and why she wrote the book. I am interested to see what I find. I know I have just skimmed the surface so far.

Besides emailing people and creating the skeleton for our site, we did not manage to do very much because we were on spring break. It was definitely one of our slower weeks. This week will be really busy with research and content creating.

So because we don’t have any new content yet, here is pictures from my Spring Break in New Orleans. I went and checked out the Carousel Bar and Lounge where a bunch of famous authors who’ve had challenges and complaints about their novels and plays hung out. I hope everyone else also has a great break in the next few weeks!

picture of Carousel bar and lounge
Carousel Bar and Lounge, where Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, and Tennessee Williams used to hang out.

 

picture of art in the French Quarter Streets.
Art in the French Quarter Streets.
picture of bagels
Breakfast at St. Roch Market

Week 3: Survey of Technology

February 11, 2018 / / 0 Comments

As a digital studies minor, I have learned about a ton of tools I can use to create digital content. I think many of them can be used to create content for Karina and I’s website.

At the University of Mary Washington, we are lucky to have so many digital resources at our fingertips. In the last few years, they built a big Convergence Center that provides a lot of digital tools for students to check out, assistance with those tools, and spaces to work. It is almost like a library but a little more digital projects focused. Between this center and the library on campus we have plenty of help for our project.

One of the main digital tools I think we should use for our project is Timeline JS because I

Image of the cover for To Kill a Mockingbird
From Wikipedia

enjoy the way it looks and I think that it will be useful to present the information we find about challenges for To Kill a Mockingbird in our area. We have found two bigger cases involving this title, one from the late 60s and the other just a little over a year ago, so I think by going through a timeline a user of our website will be able to understand the story we find easily. We could also set up a StoryMap to talk about where the book has been banned and what is the thread that ties all of the cases all over the place together.

I have had a lot of experience with WordPress and I want our site to be really easy for people to navigate. I agree with the high contrast colors, like black and white make it easy for people to use. We will probably use pages rather than posts because I think post would be hard for users to dig/scroll through. The theme we have set up right now is Ryu, which has those contrasting colors, so I think it could work well. We might switch it up after we add a little bit of content.

There are so many plugins available through WordPress that I think it will be easy to find ways to embed content such as, audio recordings, images, and other things like Timeline JS. Even if we can’t figure it out on our own, we can go visit the Digital Knowledge Center, here at UMW. The DKC is like a tutoring center for digital tools and all the tutor are knowledgeable in WordPress. I have friends who work there and myself have gone there many times before to get help with digital projects for other classes. This is technology resource I think can be really helpful for any related questions we may come across.

For audio recording I plan to just use my the recorder on my phone and save the file on my computer. The Convergence Center has a nice Vocal Booth and audio/video editing set up downstairs. They have things like Photoshop, Audacity, and other editing software you can use in there. I know that I can also edit video on my Macbook with iMovie and some Audio with Garageband.

Our library has a nice, simple high resolution scanner where I can email scans I make to myself. They also have a whole collection of microfiche and microfilm newspapers that we can also send the snips of we think we could use to our emails. In the Convergence Center there is a Digital Archiving Lab, so if we find something that we really would need a super high resolution picture of we can request to have it digitized. If we find an awesome photo or chart we could create a StoryMap of it with the high resolution image.

These are the tools that I know of so far. As the project progresses, I am excited to look through more plugins and other digital tools we might possibly be able to use. This site is going to be a lot of fun to put together. Now to get back to work!

 

 

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