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Master At Last!

The journey to get to this last month of my master’s degree at Full Sail has been long, but fun. The final project was the culmination of months of research that was done throughout the degree program. I have learned an incredible amount during these 12 months and am appreciative of all the knowledge my professors have shared with me along the way.

During the first month of this program I had to set goals for each class. I think for this final month I did a great job on achieving the goals I set out for myself all those months ago. Goals 1 and 2 were achieved with the help of my classmates and the feedback with course materials provided by Dr. Carstens. Writing academic papers have not always been my strong suit but with everyone’s help, I believe that I delivered a great final project and thesis paper based on my capstone project. As for the third goal, watching the “Branding Foundations” video has helped me obtain a better understanding of crafting my brand. This allowed me to put together a plan to revise my branding. Some of what I learned I applied to my current business.

Many hours of hard work and dedication were put in to achieve the overall goal of this journey to mastery. Going to school online full time with a fulltime job is taxing. Time is precious and needs to be managed well to be able to succeed when going to school online. This was not my first time earning a degree online, but that did not make this any easier. Lastly, my wife supported me on this journey, and I have her to thank for helping me achieve my goals. Without her, achieving my education goal of earning a bachelor’s degree and then a masters could have not have happened.

#mastery

Mastery Journey Month 11

Coming into to month 11, I was expecting to start to fine tune all the skills I have gained through the New Media Journalism master’s degree program. That is exactly what happened. We took the tools we learned and applied them to this course. I was expecting to learn how to properly publish hand monetize content. This class did not fall short of the expectations that I have had since month 1 of this program.

I believe this course’s expectation of me was to be able to produce a compelling cornerstone project. The course also expected us to learn how to distribute my content in the most effective way. The course also expected us to be a professional at the journalistic level. At this point in the degree program, we are expected to be content making machines!

The distribution plan content was one of the most helpful parts of this course. I think all the tools and templates that were given to us are great ways to plan out distribution strategies. This is important because without proper distribution planning a story may not get the steam it deserves or needs. The story could end up falling flat and not reaching those it could benefit. Secondly learning about monetizing content was extremely helpful. I was not completely sure how to monetize my content and the lessons this month really gave me a good foundation to start on.

This course has prepared me for a career as a journalist by teaching me how to properly produce, publish and monetize my content and work. In the courses before I learned who to craft and perfect the ways in telling a story. This course took what I learned in the classes before and polished it, giving me the ultimate toolset to have a career as a journalist.

#masteryjourney

2 Months To Go

Ten months ago, I set three goals to accomplish while taking the Public Relations and Reputation Management course. During this past month, I achieved those goals. My first goal was to “realize responsibility as a journalist”. I achieved this when putting together my video for the “about” page on my website during week two of class. When writing the script in week one I had to define some the goals that I wish to accomplish with my site and that helped me realize my responsibility as a journalist in crypto. That responsibility includes reporting good and factful news stories regard cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. My second goal was “solidify online reputation”. This goal was completed posting credible stories and posting them on social media. Throughout most of my classes during I have taken during my mastery journey have required me to post such content. It is also imperative to engage with your readers and content supporters. My third and final goal was to “put value in my online reputation”. This is extremely important in journalism. It’s hard to be a successful journalist if you have a bad reputation. With information easily accessible around the world because of the internet, a journalist with a bad reputation will get ignored.

This class has taught me a lot. This class has shown me how to fine tune my site to get it looking professional. It has been quite a ride so far on my mastery journey. 10 months have gone by fast, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t learned. Taking these courses have been fun and insightful. I have learned so much so far and am excited to continue to learn more as I build my professional journalism portfolio. For now, it is on to the next class and the next set of goals I need to accomplish.

#mastery

Reflection of Social Media and Online Engagement

This course was indeed another necessary step to further my mastery journey here at Fullsail University. In the beginning, I was to lay out goals for every class I was going to take during my mastery journey. My first goal was to become present professionally on a few social media platforms. This goal I had completed in one of my previous classes. I already had a personal Twitter account so having one specifically for articles was a must. The second goal I set for myself this month was to watch “Social Media for Government” with Kristy Dalton on Lynda.com. I did watch the video and it was very informative. Even though I am not looking for a job in a government agency, some of the material hit on points anyone using social media should use. The third and final goal I had this month was to Interact with online communities. I accomplished this by joining a few cryptocurrency groups on Facebook, like Blockchain Chat.

One of the most important things I learn this month is character limits. I learned that every social media platform is different, especially when it comes to character limits. For example, Facebook does not set character limits, but posts that gain the most traction are short. The second thing I learned is that telling people to check out an article in a social media post is not a good thing to do. At first, I thought it was a good idea. I understand no why it is not. You want to have your readers want to click on their own. Using social media posting clients or using internal features within websites to automatically post content to your social pages is a bad idea. During this month’s learning, I learned that posting the same content including the post’s text is bad. It makes the reader think you are regurgitating content.

Overall this class taught me how to make my social media posts more effective, efficient, and increase online engagement.

#mastery

Reflection on Class 8: Multimedia Reporting

This month was an interesting one at that. Coming into this class I knew I was going to have to publish content just like the past few classes. This class had me focus on generating multimedia content. I have learned a lot this month especially with creating good media to tell a compelling story. My goals for I posted for this month of the Mastery Journal journey were met and my expectations were exactly what I expected. My first goal, I watched the video with Paul Taggart on Photojournalism. From the video, I really learned what it takes to tell a compelling story with photos. I still need to practice here. The second goal, I did not really achieve and that’s because there was no need for me to be in front of the camera. Over time though I have gotten more comfortable with talking to people in public when I an covering an event. The third goal I did achieve by creating content and stories during the first three weeks of this class. A vlog was not involved but I did do a story for my podcast.

Overall, I enjoyed this course even though this course was tough, but I really found my ground here. I found what content I am good at supplying like video, audio, and writing. I may not be the best at taking pictures, but I can film and recording audio well and those will help me deliver great media content with my stories.

Some of the other important things I learned this month was SEO, metadata and how they affect the performance of my site in searches. Taking the time to learn how to monetize content was crucial in being able to make money doing this. In the end, I truly believe that what I learned in Ms. Lee’s class will stick with me throughout my career as a journalist.

#mastery

Mastery Journal: Digital New Production

When first coming into this course I really feel I knew what I was going to be learning. Digital News Production is almost self-explanatory. I felt like I was going to create media while reporting. I did not know I was going to be recording video for every main assignment.

At first, I was nervous about going out and filming, especially live local events. Sometimes I would think to myself “do these people think I am weird carrying around this equipment.” Then I would have a moment of clarity as I would see a local news reporter doing the same exact thing, carrying their camera, tripod, and etc.

During week one we had to review some videos on camera tricks. Both of those videos were very useful. I used a few tricks while filming the first story about the York Fair and agriculture and on my second video from the fair about the Stillmeadow Crossing Modular Train Group. It made me realize that there are more things you could do with a tripod other than just mount and shoot. These tricks I will keep in my arsenal forever. Sometimes simple movements can make the difference from a good shot to a great shot.

The week 4 video Smartphone Journalism: Videos was a great video. I never really thought you could get that quality of video from your phone. Most of the time we have a phone on us not a handycam or DSLR camera. That video showed me tricks to use when I may not have access to a camera of that caliber.

I appreciate the feedback I have gotten from professor Sharon in this course. I have definitely learned a lot from the video feedback each week and I feel my videos and photos have improved because of it. Overall I will take what I learned this month with me and know I am a better videographer that I was when I began this course.

Journal Entry - Multimedia Development and Editing

At first glance, I was not sure of exactly what I was going to learn in my Multimedia and Development class. I did expect to mess around and gather media, I was just not sure what methods we were going to use to do so. Initially, I thought that there was going to be a heavy video influence on this course. I didn’t even consider photojournalism of podcasts even though I am aware of their uses in journalism.

I believe this course’s expectation of me was to be able to tell a story via multiple types of media. Included in that expectation was content gathering. This course expected me to go out and not only report and tell a story but go out and record a podcast to take my own photos to assist in telling a story.

The videos contained in this course were extremely helpful. Each week I was provided with videos that dealt directly with what I was learning that week. Choosing something specifically, the “Pete’s Quick Skills” videos really helped with the few Adobe CC programs I wasn’t as familiar with and helped refresh some things I already knew.

This course has definitely prepared for my career in journalism. Forcing us to go out and create our own content is a huge thing. Sometimes that could be the barrier some people have trouble overcoming when getting into journalism. With the way new reporting and media is going, in general, it is imperative we have the skills to create our own media from top to bottom. In my opinion, we are moving to a live video streaming boom. The American Marketing Association even had an article about the how the future resides in video content and as we know, a big part of being a successful media journalist is marketing and self-promotion.

#mastery

Mastery Journal Research and Investigation

During this month I have learned quite a bit. Research and Investigation Skills Development class was tough but very informative. First, I will go over the goals I had set for myself at the beginning of my mastery journey.

Goal #1 – Better research skills

Here I wanted to focus on better my research skills. This class has helped me achieve this for sure. I feel I have better tools now to fully research information on topics that I cover. Searching for public records was a huge thing to learn and is something that can really an effective research tool.

Goal #2 – Practice Investigating a topic

This class naturally helped me achieve this goal by having us produce a publication that required us to investigate a subject. The final two weeks of class we had to seek interviews form a standard source and an expert source. This goes hand in hand when investigating. Finding sources of information is important for investigating.

Goal #3 – Expand learning on research ethics

I did not necessarily complete this goal one hundred percent. Most of this I learned in the class before this one, Legal Aspects of Media. In this class, though I did learn how to avoid bias when writing. Avoiding bias is important as you want to be a neutral party that tries to get the reader to come up with their own conclusions based on fact.

This month I was tasked with producing publications. Those publications were treated like I was writing for a publishing company. After the draft we were sent back line edits and suggestions just like an editor would do in the real-world situation. The biggest take away from this is how many interview requests I need to send out, especially when it comes to expert interviews. Getting to an expert is no easy task. Even if you do solidify one for an interview you must always have a backup plan and then a backup plan to that backup plan. I learned you can never have too many interviews set up.

In the end, I truly believe I am gaining much knowledge on the journey to mastery. I am excited to continue this journey next month and start my new class.

Another Month Another Reflection

This month was a long one, but I must say it was full of learning, creative thinking, and storytelling. We had to set up interviews with people, do research and attend events just to get information on something newsworthy, our story. The Writing for Interactive Media course took what I learned in New Media Communications course and applied it to the assignments. Here is where writing in a newsworthy format came to play and learned concepts had to be applied. Reference the nut graph really helped me through this course. The nut graph made the flow of telling a story easy.

I ended up taking a bit of a right turn from my goals. Instead of watching the videos I mention in my goals I watched and completed Motion 5 Essential Training, After effects Guru: Character Animator, and After Effects Essential Training.

Inspiration is something I felt during this class and it has inspired me to create a YouTube cartoon web show about crypto news and updates. I started to create content. I have created the intro video for the show. The video consists of an original logo drawn by me, music written by me, as well as the animation and video editing. Some graphics in the animated video were drawn by me some were royalty free personal and commercial use graphics. Animated videos could be a powerful tool to get my stories across. Here is the link to the video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyw9gvR9oMg

Although I may not have stuck to my original goals, what I got out of this course was worth way more than I could have imagined. It also made me realize that just because I didn’t accomplish my original plan, I still made another one, created new goals and still achieved them. In the end, it is okay for plans to change. I mean who hasn’t heard the saying “nothing is ever set in stone”.

#reflection threedown ninetogo

NMC Reflection

Just like that another month has flown by. Month number two of Mastery Journey goal is just about complete. My goals for this class were 1-Learn how to effectively communicate online, 2-Become and effective story teller, and 3-Gain a more in depth understanding of storytelling through documentary. Goal #1 was achieved this month and is something I have been working on my entire time here at Full Sail. Part of the reason why I accomplished that goal is because of the weekly discussion posts which in a way force you to communicate and interact with your classmates. Goal # 2 was completed in a different sense. What I mean by that is although I didn’t not necessarily learn a whole lot about storytelling or creating stories in general other than learning the necessary step in finding what story or niche to tell. Not only did we learn how to narrow down our content niche we now know the back bones on finding a researching a story or article. The third goal I had for this month was achieved by watching the Lynda.com course on “Introduction to Documentary Video Storytelling”. I learned a good bit in that video and saw where the 5 w’s came into play. I can say this, I have definitely learned quite a bit this month. I did not think narrowing down a niche and a story would be easy, and it wasn’t. It took some time and good dedicated research to really find something, A goal that I did not plan to achieve during this class was finding my exact niche. Knowing this I can now go into my next class with confidence in what I am going to accomplish. Having a niche that interests me allows me to focus more. I have always been a sponge for new information and the fact that the subject of my niche is new and trending, more and more information is discovered about it every day which opens endless possibilities. I cannot wait to start the next part of my journey.

#reflection #twodown

Inspiration post: Julian Treasure TedTalk

reference:

Treasure, J. (n.d.). Retrieved March 26, 2018, from https://www.ted.com/talks/julian_treasure_how_to_speak_so_that_people_want_to_listen?referrer=playlist-the_most_popular_talks_of_all&utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare

#tedtalk inspiration

New Media Journalism Final Project

New Media Publishing and Distribution

Public Relations and Reputation Management

Social Media and Online Community Engagement

Multimedia Reporting

Digital News Production

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