Live Blogging Border Beat World Headquarters

Wednesday, 27 January 2010 19:42

 

4:27 Class is over. Thanks, bye!

4:25 We're already going to try live-Tweeting instead of blogging...

4:24 Allana is going to a  gallery called "The History of Mexican Food" tomorrow.

4:20 Laurann and Lauren got together to start a story on Maya Palace, how it got started and the influence of border culture and fashion. it'll be a written story and a video.

4:15 Donations from Tucson going to Haiti that will include a slideshow and a story on the digital divide in the Sunny Side School District. 

4:13 There will also be stories on health, Hispanic businesses and exchange students. 

4:10 We're sharing our stories, the editors are getting information on deadlines, how to add to our stories... 

4:09 Some sneak-previews... Passport information, schools, a video story. Editors will be looking at them on Sunday.

4:04 Rochlin jumped in after one minute. We're giving ourselves deadlines, too. 

4:03 Rochlin is wanting to back off, even though it's not his nature. So now Christina and Whitney are taking over the class and we're sharing topics for upcoming stories.

4:01 Load story in draft, let Jeremy know, and he'll let Whitney or Christina know, who in turn will tell Rochlin. Then it'll be good to go :) But, keep videos from our YouTube account in private mode before embedding in your page until Rochlin gives it the okay. 

3:59 Rochlin encourages us to get something done in the next couple of days. Fairly short, some links, photos, just to get stuff going. Christina and Whitney (co-editors-in-chief) are going to lead us. 

3:57 Reviewing how to keep ourselves organizing on the story log so we can keep track of where stories are in the editing process and to keep things moving along for regular updates. 

3:54 Now we're looking at stories for the class blog, right here. We have a couple up so far, but it's still the beginning of the semester, it'll get better. 

3:51 Whitney's is good too, with a lot of good text and links. The rest of class' blogs are linked on her page, too. 

3:49 She added photos, good info... but it could have used some links. Eventually she'll add video, or a slideshow. A video/slideshow itself counts as a blog entry (with a little intro)

3:48 Onto Blogs with Rochlin. Everyone has posted their first blog entries. We're checking out Matty's for a good first example. 

3:45 Last thing from Mike: Don't hit backspace when editing a story. Hit save or close. No backspace. 

3:43 A lot of information again... upload stories, soundslides, photos... Rochlin says this should be pretty straight forward. Sure. 

3:42 In the back-end, you can highlight the image, click on insert, to resize if your image needs to be resized. By clicking the advanced tab, you can also edit the caption. 

3:40 For sizing, resize it 72 pixels per inch and 700 for the width. You don't want huge images because it takes up a lot of space, and it will slow down readers, says Mike. "People with slow Internet connection will curse your name."

3:38 When saving photos in your folder, don't add punctuation or other weird things, just word. Also, after you've selected the image, align to the left and if you're adding a caption, click the caption box before typing it in. 

3:35 When you article is open in the article manager, click image, then Spring 2010, and then your folder to upload photos into your post. 

3:34 Okay. Now.  When uploading anything, enter information in the "metadata" section. People last year didn't, but we will. Maybe. 

3:29 Marcy asked if we can do it at home and leave the "demo" part on. Rochlin says "okay" but fix it later... Mike didn't like the sound of that, but said "I'm not the one grading..." 

3:28 Now we're checking out Rochlin's page to see a step by step of Soundslides. We can do a project at home and bring it in to class (that'll get rid of the "demo" part from the home-version). 

3:25 With the final product almost ready to go, save it as 500x500 for a nice appearance on the main page. 

3:23 I hope readers don't think the last couple of posts are stupid. Sounslides might be user-friendly, but there are a lot of steps to uploading the finished product. Our grades depend on doing this correctly!

3:21 Uploading without a .zip file only let's you upload one file at a time, but the .zip file let's you upload everything at once. But after you unzip it, delete it to prevent clutter.

3:19 Put your Soundslides into a .zip file then go to media manager then go to stories folder then go to videos folder then go slideshows folder AND then upload .zip file. Mike knows a lot. 

3:16 Whitney asks how many pictures should go on a slideshow. Mike says about six images and to keep the show about two minutes or less.

3:15 Soundslides. When you first create a slideshow remember to size pictures correctly. Rochlin says 450x450, Mike says 500x400. I think we decided 500x400

3:12 When we post to borderbeat.net, Mike recommends checking paragraph spacing, playing with different ways to format our posts (like on Word or in the back-end of this site). Overall experimenting to make more aesthetically pleasing blog posts.

3:07 Mike came back to class today because according to Rochlin, we're all glazed over from learning so much technology the first couple of classes...

3:05 Class is just starting

At about 3:15 Mountain Standard Time, staff member Amanda Portillo will blog live from Border Beat's world headquarters on the third floor of the Marshall Building at the University of Arizona in Tucson.  Click back in and get inside the action.  It will be right here, in this spot.

Written by Amanda Portillo You are reading Live Blogging Border Beat World Headquarters articles