Podcast

I recorded a podcast for my DCN website a few weeks ago using Audacity. I interviewed Dr. Springer and Dr. Diffily on why a project such as DCN is important to a community like South Dallas. Overall I was very pleased with the quality and I enjoyed the editing process. It was very easy to edit out the "ums" and a few times both Dr. Springer and Dr. Diffily would ask during the recording for certain parts of an answer to be deleted. This not only served as a reminder for me to make edits and cuts where appropriate, but it gave all of those involved a sense of ease, knowing that answers could be improved with the click of a mouse. Even after I published the first version of the podcast, just like my website, I found areas that need improvement. I still need to add graphics or pictures and music, however I also found that my introduction and ending need to be a bit more informal and casual. Given that this is the first time I have published a podcast, I think the product is solid.

Website

For my comprehensive multimedia assignment, I created a website for a research project. The research project is titled Dallas Children's Network (DCN) and is a project that intends to help non-profit organizations expand services to better the educational opportunity for poor children in South Dallas. The project relies on partnerships with neighboring non-profit organizations and foundations for grant funding. Therefore the audience for this website is the two aforementioned. To show the needs of the community of South Dallas and how DCN hopes to meet these needs, a multimedia website was born. I used an animation to describe the vision of DCN, audio for a general overview, video to help others unfamiliar with South Dallas learn more about this community, and a podcast to discuss how researchers involved in DCN hope to contribute to educational research.

I started creating a website using the free downloadable software Nvu. Generally speaking the software was user friendly and I created a respectable website. Even with these various multimedia components embedded, the website was still very basic, with few design elements. Fortunately with the purchase of a domain name and server space, I was able to create another website using a software provided by the hosting company. This program provided me with the design aspect of websites that are normally created by graphic designers. This program came with free templates and was tremendously helpful. After this website was published, I was beginning to feel better about my product. However, as I reflect and make changes on an almost daily basis, I realized that the DCN website will always need improvement. I will always find a way to make it better, more eye appealing, more user friendly, better organized, or faster. Although I have completed the tasks required for the assignment for my multimedia class, this website will always need to be updated. It is a work in progress that might never be completed.