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While I knew a lot about computers and different web tools coming into this course, taking it has exposed me to more technology and helped me look at new media in a new way. At the beginning of the course I thought of digital writing mostly as blogs, and maybe things like Wikipedia or internet forums. By the end, though, that definition expanded to include games, photography, and even text messages—just about anything that’s created or presented in a digital space. Throughout the course, we worked on a number of course outcomes—the social skills presented in the article we read at the beginning of the semester:

Play —the capacity to experiment with one’s surroundings as a form of problem-solving. We developed this skill in just about every assignment we were given, because each one involved using technology that at least some of us hadn’t used before. Being exposed to something new meant we had to play around with it, to see what everything did before we could do the work we needed to.

Performance — the ability to adopt alternative identities for the purpose of improvisation and discovery. To some extent, this happened when we read scholarly articles about digital writing. We each had to take on the role of scholar and analyze just what each article was saying. For me, at least, it was also developed when writing in authoritative terms about digital writing, especially about the articles but also in the wiki for Project 1.

Simulation — the ability to interpret and construct dynamic models of real-world processes. This was mostly developed in Project 3, where we created multiple different resumes and a LinkedIn profile to get us thinking about how to approach our online professional identities. By doing a little homework, we learned about how our chosen fields of interest work.

Appropriation — the ability to meaningfully sample and remix media content. We developed this skill in just about every project, but most of Project 2 was devoted to appropriation. For that project, we learned about Creative Commons licenses and used Creative Commons images to create our own image for the audio postcard.

Multitasking — the ability to scan one’s environment and shift focus as needed to salient details. For me, this was whenever I wasn’t recording some audio. Even as I write this, I have five tabs open in my web browser, switching between them to check on something or skip to a different song as necessary.

Distributed Cognition — the ability to interact meaningfully with tools that expand mental capacities. As I was learning to use new software like the wiki program for Project 1 or GIMP for Project 2, I was looking things up on the internet or taking some notes in a plain-text document to refer to later. The ability to use powerful tools like search engines and databases increases a person’s productivity immensely—without them, I would have had to take all my own photographs for Project 2, for example.

Collective Intelligence — the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes with others toward a common goal. We saw this primarily with Project 1, where we all worked on the same class wiki. From the very beginning, we approached it with different bodies of knowledge to contribute and built it from the ground up.

Judgment — the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information sources. I think the best example of this for the class is the Diigo bookmarking assignment, where we had to find different web pages relevant to the topic at hand and decide whether they were worth sharing with the class.

Transmedia Navigation — the ability to follow the flow of stories and information across multiple modalities. We did this throughout the course as a whole, keeping track of these course outcomes and the way that digital writing is used and discussed as we were exposed to more and more of it.

Networking — the ability to search for, synthesize, and disseminate information. This sort of relates to distributed cognition and judgment above; between Project 1 and the bookmarking assignment we had to collect a great deal of information and share it with our classmates.

Negotiation — the ability to travel across diverse communities, discerning and respecting multiple perspectives, and grasping and following alternative norms. Our group meeting for Project 1 was an exercise in negotiation, as we were all approaching it from different angles and we had to figure each other out in order to get anything done.

The outcomes I engaged with most were play and distributed cognition. I played with just about everything we did in this course. The key concept in play is experimentation in a low-stress environment; by playing with something new, you can make as many mistakes as you want without any real consequences and still learn. I played with WordPress to create this blog, the wiki software for Project 1, and GIMP and iMovie in Project 2. Throughout the whole course, I found myself using search engines and other digital tools not only to find things on the internet, but also to put them together in a coherent fashion. My posts would look awful without WordPress’ tools for inserting images and formatting text, for example.

In the future I’d like to learn more about simulation. I want to go into the video game industry, and every game has some degree of simulation in it somewhere, but I only know some general information about simulations. Physics engines, for example, are complex programs that keep track of many different objects in a simulation and direct their behavior based on Newtonian physics in the real world. I’d also like to learn some more about collective intelligence, especially relating to wiki software. I know how our class’ wiki project went, but I want to know how it works for other people and how it works for bigger projects like Wikipedia.

At the beginning of this course, I really thought of “digital writing” and “multimedia” as different things; digital writing was confined to text and multimedia might include text, audio, video, and still images. To some extent, the two are different—something can use multiple forms of media and stay entirely out of the digital realm—but there is a great deal of overlap between them today. In a sense, anything that is digital can be considered a form of writing, from user-level down to the binary data read and written by the computer. Thinking about things that way, connecting them at every level and relating them to one another, has made me more ‘educated’ in that it encourages me to think more than I normally would about a given subject. Looking for connections between things, especially things that seem unrelated at first, can often help you see them in completely different ways and understand them more thoroughly.

web presence analysis

I used bold Calibri in my headings and Cambria for body text for readability. I included rule lines under each heading to try and keep it more balanced and to clearly divide each section. The URLs in Appendix I were supposed to be normal hyperlinks like this, but for some reason Word 2008 has problems converting hyperlinks to PDF format, so I did the next best thing.

traditional resume

For this resume I used bold Arial for headings and Cambria for body text. The serif body/sans heading combination was suggested in Graham and it’s a simple practice to stick to. I bolded the headings and subheadings for emphasis to make it easy to tell things apart. Each individual item for education, experience, and training is divided into the heading and description, with the heading in three columns denoting time, activity, and location. The heading is divided this way to avoid putting that information in a list of its own for each item—on one line it would be too long to scan quickly, and on separate lines it would take up too much space. I also indented the left margin for the descriptions of each item so that the text wouldn’t look like the beginning of a new item, making it easier to read.

scannable resume

For the scannable resume I used essentially the same information as the traditional one, but removed almost all of the formatting. Everything is left-justified, no italics, no bolding, all Times New Roman 12pt font in order to make it easy for a computer to scan. In order to distinguish sections, I had to use headings, but formatting was out to make it scannable. So I used ALL CAPS instead. This way it’s easier for a computer to read, but a human can still differentiate sections without too much difficulty.

LinkedIn

There isn’t much to say about format choices in LinkedIn because the site does just about everything for you. I included skills, projects, and languages primarily because I didn’t have much else to include without any job history. My listed skills aren’t very impressive, but technical writing is important for design documentation. I included the PR project I did this semester because it’s an example of collaborative work, which is important for any game developer. My “limited working proficiency” in Spanish isn’t really relevant; LinkedIn suggested I add it, so I did. Maybe there’s an easier way of linking to my resume without using the upload feature, but I ended up adding it as a project because I didn’t see anywhere else that allowed the insertion of a hyperlink.

Video Resume

I didn’t like doing the video resume because it takes me a long time to get a good audio recording and I don’t like listening to my voice—especially saying the same thing over and over again. I picked the story I did because it highlights the fact that I’ve used a game engine to create a game before—something that game designers need to know about. It’s not very high quality work, though, and certainly nothing I’d include in an actual portfolio. I need to use some better software and better assets to create a better demo if I want to impress any potential employers. To create the video, I basically recorded the audio and then went in to the old Unity project file to take some screenshots to add in.

timeline

I wish I had two or three more things I could have included in my timeline, because I think GameCamp! and high school are very weak items to use. It’s also sort of irritating that I could only find one image that was both relevant and not copyrighted. There weren’t many decisions to make with the software I used, except to set the zoom limits and attribute the image. I set the zoom at a fixed position because there are few enough elements that it’s not crowded, and zooming would just make things confusing. I attributed the image by including the photographer’s Flickr name and the URL, and by hotlinking to the image.

Description

The idea behind this project is to introduce digital writing to someone who doesn’t know what it is. Since most people who would care to know about digital writing already have access to some form of technology, explaining it doesn’t require a primer on computers and the like, so the video uses familiar activities as examples of digital writing.

I put this picture together by combining several different pictures, mostly photos. I used GIMP to remove each element from its background, then arranged them on the wood texture background by treating each as a separate layer before I exported the image. I cited these images by listing the creators and linking to each image in the video description, because a random person seeing the video on YouTube would look there if they wanted to find that information.

The audio is brief enough that a viewer/listener would not get bored, so they listen to the whole message. By listing a number of common things people do that counts as digital writing, it conveys that it’s not some scary, complicated concept because they probably do it every day. It’s also easy to understand—the audio isn’t muffled, distorted, or drowned out by music—which makes it easier to absorb than a written version might be.

The image is centered around the final line of the video: “If you used one of these, it probably qualifies.” They’re devices that most people use or have used, possibly without realizing that what they were doing was digital writing. Most of them are easily recognizable, with the possible exception of the Mac computer tower, so the viewer quickly makes the connection between these devices and digital writing, helping them understand that they do digital writing all the time. Placing them all together also helps convey the idea that there are many ways of being a digital writer, and that they are easily available to the viewer.

Reflective Letter

I suppose it’s a minor detail, but I’m sort of proud of the way I cropped the images because it was my first time doing something like that. The camera and the computer tower, especially, because they had some details that aren’t even noticeable when they’re scaled down so much, and I was pretty precise in cropping around them.

If I had more time to think about it, I could probably have included some more digital writing activities to include in the script to fill some of the pauses, but I think the pauses do help emphasize each one I did list. I would also like to have gotten someone else to record the audio, too, because I don’t like my voice, but at least I didn’t have to sing my message. That would have been terrible.

Aside from the internet I used GIMP, Audacity, iMovie, and YouTube to create this project. The elements of an audio postcard are an image and some audio, so GIMP and Audacity, being image and audio editing programs respectively, make perfect sense. I really just used iMovie because it’s the video editing software that came with my computer, but it also makes editing simple: you just drag and drop the images and audio you want into the project. YouTube was an ideal choice because it makes uploading a video quick and easy.

The only place I really got stuck on this project was in my own head—in that I let a bunch of work pile up and got started on the project late. There’s not much to do for that except to stay up late getting work done, and that’s what I did.

I learned little about myself as a digital writer, because I’ve always been a procrastinator, and I’ve usually been able to pick up and learn new software with relative ease—at least, learn how to do what I specifically need to do with it. I knew these things about myself already, and the project didn’t really break any new ground for me in that sense.

The course outcomes I worked toward were play, performance, and appropriation. I used play in order to learn GIMP and a little bit in getting the video to upload properly to YouTube, but much more the former. I edited the images while listening to music, and it was by far the least stressful part of my day. I’d try one thing to see if it worked, and if it didn’t, I started over. Once I got the cropping and layering down for one image, the rest were easy. Recording the audio involved a bit of performance—I suppose I didn’t adopt another identity per se, but I don’t normally do voice-overs and I tried to speak more clearly and breathe more carefully than I normally do. The appropriation is obvious—I found a bunch of images that I could legally alter, and remixed them into the audio postcard.

The Clint Eastwood: A video resume allows potential employers to get a better idea of your personality and demeanor right off the bat, which they normally don’t get until an interview. The fact that video resumes are unusual means that they also grab the employer’s attention so you stand out in their mind.

The Lee Van Cleef: At least, you’ll stand out if they bother to watch it. The fact that video resumes aren’t a common thing is a double-edged sword—many people won’t bother with them and will just dive into the hefty stack of traditional paper resumes sitting on their desk instead. It’s presumably worked well enough for them so far, so why should they bother with this new thing they’re not used to? They might sort through several traditional resumes in the time it takes to watch your video resume, so unless you’re a very damned impressive candidate, they’re likely to find it a waste of their time.

The Eli Wallach: Besides, how practical is it to send in just a video resume? The resume is an important part of the interview (assuming you manage to land one with your video resume), and both you and the interviewer will need to refer back to it during the interview. Nobody’s going to spend the interview trying to find that bit of the video where you said something they wanted to ask you about, so at the interview you’re going to end up having either a transcript of the video or a paper resume with you, both of which would sort of defeat the point of spending time making the video in the first place. Just send them a paper resume like a civilized human being. Otherwise it’s just going to be a mess.

I’ve always been a big fan of just using whatever default font your word processor uses, because that’s what works for almost everybody in almost everything they write. So I don’t vary my font choices much; personal or professional, 99% of the time I get by with Times New Roman, 12pt font. No complaints so far. If I really have a mind to change things up, I’ll follow the book’s advice and just use a sans serif font for the headlines, and a serif font (usually Times New Roman) for the body copy. Beyond that, I really never need to change up the font, because most of what I write just needs to be easy to read—no bells and whistles necessary. Unless you’re designing a flier or pamphlet or something, nobody should notice your choice of fonts. The font isn’t supposed to matter. The important part is what the damn thing says.

Some say that 12pt Times New Roman is boring. I suspect that those people just don’t like reading and are making excuses.

An in-universe ad for Sunset Sarsaparilla from Fallout: New Vegas. Left is the original poster, and right is the faded, 200-year-old remnant.

This is an ad for a fictional brand that appears in Fallout: New Vegas. Its purpose in the video game is for atmosphere—to create a sense of what the world was like before the Great War of 2077. That purpose has little to do with the concept of flow, however, so instead I will focus on the poster’s in-universe purpose: to sell sarsaparilla. The poster flows in a sort of Z shape, starting with the bodybuilder and moving to the upper right corner, then down to the left and across the brand name at the bottom.

The focal point of the image is the bodybuilder, but the barbell and the right arm point up and to the right, leading the eye up toward the bottle he’s holding. The stripes on his shirt reinforce this, as does the bodybuilder’s orientation. Once the eye is on the bottle, the words “Build Mass with SASS!” are very close, making them the next thing the reader looks at. From the words, the bodybuilder’s head and neckline point down and to the left, toward the brand name at the bottom. The ad starts with the recognizable bottle, continues with a slogan and picture that entice the reader to buy the product, and ends with the brand name, ensuring that the name Sunset Sarsaparilla sticks in the reader’s mind, making them more likely to buy the drink.

I have accounts with Facebook, Reddit, Google, Skype, and Youtube. Of these, only Facebook, Skype and Google are associated with any part of my name. Partly because of privacy concerns, but mostly because I don’t use the others socially and therefore don’t have any reason to have my name put on them.

Google didn’t find me within 10 pages, but Bing and Yahoo both got my Facebook on page 1. Other than that I didn’t get anything at all, which is exactly what I expected. If someone were Facebook friends with me, they could conceivably find the username I use for most of my other accounts (which is pretty unique and finds those accounts immediately), but other than that I would appear to be relatively anonymous. This pleases me—I don’t like the idea of anyone and everyone being able to find out everything I do online, even if it is all boring crap that no one cares about. I don’t have anything to hide, per se, but I very much like having the option to hide it. And if anyone were to go to enough trouble that they could find me, they’re probably knowledgeable enough that I couldn’t do anything to stop them anyway, short of completely leaving the internet and moving to a new city.

When I grow up, I want to be a game designer. Even if I can’t do it professionally, it’s something I’d like to do in my spare time. I’ve always loved playing video games, and as I got older I got interested in what makes them work, how they’re put together, and what makes them fun. It started out with the naïve idea that video game testing would be the best job in the whole world, but eventually moved to an interest in the development and design aspects. I particularly remember playing Pokémon Yellow Version for the first time and just losing myself in it for hours and hours at a time, and I want to create that kind of experience for other people.

Several years ago now, my dad signed me up for a week-long summer program for kids wherein we were divided into groups to create a coherent idea for a video game, and pitched our idea to some industry professionals at the end of the week. The collaborative process was enlightening and fascinating, and we came up with a pretty good idea in the end. I later learned that one of the most important skills for a game designer is writing, and fortunately I turned out to be pretty good at that. I’ve developed my writing skills in most of my classes over the years, and particularly in college courses. I even wrote a full game design document for a project one semester. Recently, I’ve been working on developing some programming skills so that I can work more intimately with game engines and create my own games more easily.

The tag skill selection menu, part of character creation in Fallout: New Vegas

This image, a menu, is part of the user interface (UI) for a video game, so it has to do a few things. First, it must make its purpose clear; this menu is for choosing “tag skills,” which in this game provide starting bonuses to those skills. Because these choices are permanent once confirmed, the menu must also make it clear what each skill does so the player knows what they are choosing. Most importantly, this menu must be easy to read and understand, because many gamers may be put off by confusing menu screens and end up not playing the game.

To accomplish this, the designers used alignment to create a grid, onto which almost all of the elements fall perfectly. The top and bottom, including the border, inform the player what the menu is for: selecting three skills to tag. It’s not pictured here, but once a skill is selected, it gets highlighted and the number next to it is boosted by 15 points, which lets the player easily keep track of which skills they’ve selected and shows the effect of tagging a skill. On the left we have a left-justified list of skills in one column, and a right-justified list of values associated with the skills. This column is also aligned with the “SKILLS: 0/3 Selected” text, which creates a visual break between the skills list on the left and the description on the right. The description is further broken into two elements, separated by the line: on the top is a picture related to the skill (Survival involves cooking at campfires, so the picture reflects this), and below is a brief description of its effect on the game to help the player decide whether or not they want to tag it. The only element that isn’t strictly in alignment is the text on the far right, “Reset R)” and “Done A)”. Placing them outside the menu’s grid draws attention to them, which is useful because they tell the player how to perform two common functions and because the “Done” option is the only way to progress past the menu. The menu looks organized, and separates into distinct, informative elements that make it easy for the player to read it and understand what they’re doing.

The movie poster for Jurassic Park

Being a movie poster, the obvious purpose of this image is to get people to see Jurassic Park. It’s intended for everybody old enough to see the film, but the poster is particularly aimed at those who have seen the trailer, either on TV or in the theater before some other movie. Since Jurassic Park is based on a book, it also reaches those people who read the book but weren’t aware that there was a movie coming out. So the goal of the poster is really to remind people that they want to see Jurassic Park, rather than entice people who haven’t heard of it. To that end, it focuses on creating a memorable icon—the easier it is to remember, the more likely people are to go see the film.

The poster uses a lot of contrast to create this memorable icon, both in the Jurassic Park logo and overall in the poster. The overall contrast is obvious: the white text and the yellow border stand out against the black background. The yellow also contrasts with the white text, and this along with the fact that the logo is the biggest element on the page makes this the clear focal point. There is also some font contrast here: all the credits are in the same thin, slightly darker font, which makes them easily ignored compared to the rest of the text. This is good because the credits are the least important part of the image. The title and subtitle also have different fonts. The title font looks exotic, hinting at adventure, while the subtitle font looks comparatively normal.

The distinct shape and coloring of the logo make it recognizable even at a distance, making it memorable. Within the logo, the red, yellow, white, and black all contrast with one another, creating distinct elements. The red inside the white lettering keeps the font looking interesting, and makes it the focus of the logo. This ensures that the single most memorable thing about the entire poster is the title of the film. The T-Rex silhouette will also be familiar to fans of the book, and placing it against a red background makes it stand out more than it does on the book cover. This familiar element in an otherwise new logo may help them connect the book to the film and make them more likely to see the film. The logo is also shown at the end of the theatrical trailer, so it brings the trailer to mind for those who have seen it, thus making them more likely to see the film, which is, after all, the point of the poster.