The last of the last day

Today is the last day of the newspapers2 camp, and this is the last post. I had a good time at this camp, a better time than I expected. I learned several things about blogs and podcasts, and I met a good number of new people. In a way, I’m glad to be done with this because I’ll have more time to do my homework, but I still have a lot to learn. Here’s to newspaper camp, our adviser Jeff, my fellow camper Alvin, Sbarro’s pizza (which I had every day here), the people I met, and online websites. Cheers.

Podcasts

I like them. A lot. After all, it’s a lot easier to say more through the spoken word than through writing. It’s a quick and easy way to discuss topics that require a lot of thought. Again, I worked with Marisa, who was great as my “host.” While listening to myself speak on the topic of high school newspapers and how to improve them and increase readership, I realized how often I say the word “like” in my normal speech. I definitely need to wean myself from this habit. That aside, I like the idea of podcasts and I think I’ll try to integrate them in my school’s online, with insightful and talkative people as the hosts. This project is the last one of this class, though.

You can listen to the podcast here: http://www.newspapers2online.com/opinion/2011/08/11/the-mmjk-podcast-2/

 

Slideshows

Yesterday I went with Marisa to the Walter Pyramid, the bright blue pyramid located in the north Cal State Long Beach campus, to snap some photos of the building and interview someone who worked there. The pyramid was a beautiful building, made of blue-coated aluminum and supported by beechwood. Seeing it up close was rather amazing; I learned that it was one of three true pyramids in the United States, the other two being the Luxor in Las Vegas and some other one. Marisa and I interviewed Cameron Ungar, the event manager of the entire place. He spoke to us a little about the events he hosted, but in the middle of the interview our Flip camera died on us. We resorted to using my iPod, but the quality of the voice memo was just terrible. We managed, anyways. I was lucky to be working with Marisa, who’s friendly and efficient.

Here’s the slideshow on the pyramid:

http://www.multimediastories.org/newspapers2/Walter_Pyramid/soundslider.swf?size=1&format=xml

And here’s the slideshow on Cameron Ungar:

http://www.multimediastories.org/newspapers2/Cameron_Ungar/soundslider.swf?size=1&format=xml

Video and audio

Being in a video as a reporter/anchor is admittedly embarrassing. We spent a good few hours interviewing people with a Flip camera (it’s really easy to use) and putting the video itself together. I’m pleased with the finished product, thanks to Alvin’s amazing skills with iMovie, though.

It’s a good thing we had friends in the yearbook camp, or else we wouldn’t have had a story idea. It was also a good thing that those friends were willing to direct us to where they were learning, or else we wouldn’t have anyone to interview.

Thanks to Alvin for being so skilled with computers and programming and coding in general. The video is here:

The thrill of the ride

Despite my two years of writing and interviewing, I didn’t realize just how intricate people’s stories could be. That is, until I met this guy called Jack Hazan. Alvin and I first noticed him and his friend after they were performing tricks on the stairs while we were out looking for victims. They paused in their bike riding just long enough to talk to us, and so I finally met one of those infamous people who trick out cars and race them. He was young, younger than I expected, but he knew what he was talking about when we asked him about cars. You can read the article I wrote here: http://www.newspapers2online.com/features/2011/08/08/feeling-the-need-for-speed/. I’m probably gonna end up looking up cars all night, and motorcycles too. According to him, motorcycles are less versatile in the way of “tricking them out.” But motorcycles still have that thrill of the ride.

Newspapers at the beach

But we’re not really at the beach. Although I’m not really an online editor for my paper, I’ll have to admit this class is rather interesting, and I’m looking forward to seeing what I’m going to learn. The most interesting thing about this class right are the people sitting next to me. And the candy. But the people will be interesting to talk to for the next four days, and it’ll be a taste of other schools’ papers.