Working away

Richard T. Anderson posted on September 12, 2006 - 9:33pm 2 comments

Well it's day two and I thought I'd better get around to doing a blog before Danielle comes to Grand Rapids to kick my butt. :D

I've basically been on the job for two weeks already. The Grand Rapids Community Media Center hired me as a contract worker for two weeks so I could get a head start. Get some training in before the school year started so I wouldn't be jumping in cold with students.

I'm working mostly with an organization within the GRCMC called MoLLIE, short for Mobile Learning Lab for Information Education. One of the things we do is go into a few of the Grand Rapids Public Schools and teach students to make short videos based on something they are learning in class. Today we were at a special school here called Zoo School. It's for bright 6th graders and is a small school run at the John Ball Park Zoo.

Even though my ex-girlfriend of 4 years had three kids and I've been a substitute teacher for the past 2 years, I was still nervous about going into the class today. But I didn't need to be. I worked with a great group of kids. That won't always be the case, I imagine, but it was agood way to start.

So, altogether five of us went in to a class of 30 armed with video cameras, tripods, and microphones. We split into groups of six. Each group had three pairs that were working on a report for a particular animal. So all the students took turns behind and in front of the camera.

On Thursday we do the same with a second group at the school. Then on Thursday we bring in the iBooks with their footage on them and they edit. There won't be a lot of editing to do this time around. We kept it very simple as we only have two hours per session with them.

Another thing I did today was work on surveys. We want to find out what kind of services our Community is interested in. So we made three surveys. One to take to the schools, one for non profit organizations that work with kids, and one for the general community.

These surveys will hopefully give us an idea of what type of new programming I can help the GRCMC and MoLLIE develope. I'm very excited to get that going.

Well, I think I'm running a bit long. So, I'll stop here.

Peace,

Richard.

P.S. I love that I can indent my paragraphs.

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cheryl jerozal commented on September 13, 2006 - 8:17am

sounds like a good start!

Rebecca White commented on September 13, 2006 - 12:52pm

Good to hear your "first" few days are going well!

Richard T. Anderson's Recent Field Reports

Public Access Blues

Richard T. Anderson posted on April 26, 2007 - 4:44pm 3 comments

Well there was a lot of deliberation about me going to a conference around here. But finally it was decided that I would be going to the ACM 2007 International Conference & Trade Show. But things have changed. And it's all thanks to that lovely bit of legistlation that SBC/AT&T pushed down Michigan's throat a few months back. …read more

Mean what I say

Richard T. Anderson posted on February 20, 2007 - 6:24pm 5 comments

There is an issue that I have found interesting since I first discovered it in one of my communication classes at Grand Valley State University. It was a realization. And the beginning of one of my disagreements with the world. It has come up twice recently with different people. So it is on my mind again. The textbook was saying that in any communication that there is an Intended message from the person creating the message (by talking, writing, making a movie, etc) and there is a Perceived message that the listener/viewer receives. And the shattering moment for me, they aren't always the same. I know it seems pretty obvious now, but i was young, right? Psychologically, I think I have a strong desire to be understood, so this revelation was kind of sad to me. Both the text and my teacher seemed to be saying that the Perceived message of the receiver WAS the message. They said that was the important component. I disagreed. My argument was and is that the Indented message IS the REAL message, if the Perceived message differs from the Intended one then the perception is incorrect. That doesn't mean I blame the receiver of the message for getting it wrong. Many messages are poorly communicated. Or translated. During the Cold War Nikita Khrushchev was quoted in the west as saying, "We will bury you." What he was saying in the context of his culture and society was, "We will out last you." But in the west the implications of the word 'bury', made it seem like a threatening statement. No one can blame the already scared masses for the misunderstanding. Yet, the message that Mr. Khrushchev intended is still THE actual message in my book, even if the whole world misunderstood. …read more

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Richard T. Anderson posted on January 8, 2007 - 1:47pm 4 comments

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Richard T. Anderson posted on December 13, 2006 - 5:44pm 1 comment

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