First, I want you to focus on your multimedia projects.

1. Get in groups, but before you view each other’s projects, I want you to draft at least three questions that you have about your project.
• For example: if you aren’t sure if a particular editing choice you have made in a video is working, you could ask your group members about that. If you are wondering if a piece of background audio for a podcast is appropriate, you could ask about it.
• This is your opportunity to get directed feedback on the parts of your project that you aren’t sure about or think could be improved but don’t know how to improve them, so put some thought into the questions that you create.
2. Then, you should listen to or view your partner(s)’s project and respond in writing—by hand, or electronically—to their questions about that project.

Next, I would like you to focus on reviewing the descriptions of the collection on our websites (1-2:15 site, 4-5:15 site). By this point, titles, links, and descriptions for all projects should be posted to these sites.

1. Read the descriptions for both the multi-modal and multimedia projects of your group members.
• I know this will be organizationally messy because individuals worked in different configurations for each project. However, you should read the descriptions for each project for each member of the group. This should ensure that all projects get reviewed.
2. After reading these descriptions, provide written (hand-written or electronic) notes for your partner(s) responding to the following questions:
• Effectiveness: Would this description encourage someone to read/view the project? If not, how can the author improve the description so as to make it more engaging?
• Readability: Is the description free of minor errors and other problems that would distract readers from its content?
3. After completing steps 1 & 2, skim through all of the descriptions on the site and then group them together by topic. You can do this individually or with your group; however, you should have a list—again, either hand-written or electronic—of all the titles grouped together with topic headings, and you should be prepared to share your groupings with the class next week.
• You are free to group as you please, but keep the following ground rules in mind: You should have more than one grouping, and your groupings should have more than one entry in them.
4. Before the start of class on Thursday, 4/26, revise your description(s) in response to the feedback you received during steps 1 & 2.

Let me know if you have any questions.

As a student who has spent the majority of her undergraduate years taking science based courses, I’m not really sure what made me decide to pick up a Professional Writing and Editing minor without ever having taken an actual English course at WVU.  Furthermore, I’m not entirely sure what made me decide to start with English 303: Multimedia Writing.  Maybe it was that I picked it at random, maybe it was that I thought it would be interesting, or maybe it was that it was the only thing that fit into my schedule, but now that the class is almost over, I can honestly say it’s not what I thought it would be.

When I hear the phrase “English class,” I think about lots of reading, lots of writing, and lots of reviewing.  And while we did our share of that in this class, I was surprised to see how much time we spent discussing, collaborating, researching, and creating, as well.  The interactivity was probably my favorite aspect of this course.  From discussions, I got to learn something from every member of the class, and from collaboration, I got to learn something about every person I was working with.

Before picking up the minor, I was looking into some information about PWE and found this description of the Multimedia Writing course online:

English 303 Multimedia Writing. Study of communication and design issues in multimedia composition focuses on communication, creative expression, persuasion, interactivity, and rhetorical principles. Practice in composing multimedia documents such as online publications, interactive literary works and tutorials.

At the time, it didn’t mean much to me—not that I really understood what it meant anyway.  But reading it again now, I think the class has accomplished all of these things.  I can look at each part of this description and think back to a time during the semester when we practiced it.  Whether tweeting or blogging, reading or discussing, bits of information managed to make their way inside my head.  They made me think.  Just as multimedia writing combines the use of several different content forms, I thought that this class combined the use of several different teaching methods.  And what do you know?  I may have actually learned something.

The first project was an eye opening experience for me. I have never received such a low grade on a first draft in my life. Mini panic sessions set in and I thought there was no way in the world that I could pass this class. But once some edits and rewrites were done, I figured out that everything was going to be okay. It was very interesting combining two people’s thought processes and interests together to create a cohesive project.

The second project allowed me to learn new programs to create a presentation. Learning to use new programs can be very frustrating, but once you are able to master the basic functions there is no better feeling in the world. Right now I’m trying to figure out how to put a voice recording with a PowerPoint presentation. It’s not going so well so now I’m branching out and trying some other alternative programs. In the end I may even be able to say that I am competent with new software so not all is lost!

It’s hard to believe these past couple of months have passed by so quickly! It doesn’t seem real. I’m excited to take what I’ve learned while doing these last two projects.

Prezi is almost like giving a poster presentation along with a power point presentation. It allows a person to take a single word and make it move. In class, we talked about how text moves. Several examples were given were the author made the text move like the object they were talking about. One story was about an elevator and the author positioned the words to move up and down like an elevator. Prezi allows the author to make the words move and come to life. For example, in our project we talked about how the color scheme can be loud in certain social media websites. We took the word “loud” and made it bigger and gave it a bold color and zoomed in quickly in and out to portray the meaning of the word.

Another great thing about Prezi is that an individual can work on different elements of a project and then link it all together. This is an amazing feature because when a person initially starts a project, his or her ideas can be scattered and is probably still in the brainstorming stage. Prezi allows the person to put down all their random thoughts and then link ideas together, which will then help, create the main thesis.

Growing up I had to do several poster projects, and if I messed up or envisioned an idea, I could not really just play around with ideas without starting over. In Prezi, I can change the color scheme, play with different fonts, link parts together and then unlink them if it did not worked. It is a great tool when presenting to an audience because it keeps their attention and it enriches your presentation and allows the audience to come to a clear understanding of the topic than say a regular poster board.

Image Credit

The use of Prezi was something I took away from this class that was very useful. Using it in my blog response as well as the multimodal project really opened my eyes to the concept of moving text and made it apparent how much better it is then a regular PowerPoint. I had never used it before and now it is something I will look into incorporating in future classes. More than just applications, however, Multimedia writing helped me to realize how the Internet can be used to tie a class together outside of the classroom. It was very interesting to see all of our assignments pooled together, like our blogs or our upcoming collection. With the World Wide Web, all projects were made more convenient and accessible.

I can honestly say that I learned things in English 303 that I will use in the future. This course gets the recommendation from me.