This has been a very interesting semester. With the recent pandemic of COVID-19, students have been forced to finish their coursework online. With that being said, this is the only class in which everything was announced ON TIME. I understand that professors are dealing with their own things at home, but a professor emailed me at 3 in the morning to tell the class that class will be at 12pm that same day.

Anyways.. enough of my rant. This course has brought me a lot of pleasure that I did not think would bring me joy. One of the most memorable parts of this class was being able to express myself in the form of a podcast and embedding that podcast in a website. There are a lot of topics that I could have chose from, but being allowed to express myself in the content that I preferred was a great concept. This was indeed a “take-away” because of the technology used to make podcasts and how entertaining it was to create my own content. That is something that I will continue to take from this class and maybe continue making podcasts.

Another important thing that I learned from this class is how important digital media is in today’s society. Some people think that creating content and presenting it to the world is simple. Yes, there are some viral videos out there that just become an instant hit. In a more traditional sense, there is a lot of hard work put into making a podcast and other digital related media. The way that certain information is presented to our audiences can either make or break our desired outcomes. For example, for the longest time I do not think I have been happy with my website. I do not think there is a format that I had in mind that WordPress could give me. Therefore, I know in the future I would want to explore other website creating platforms.

Overall, I did as much as I could during this difficult time. I hope everyone has enjoyed the progression of my website. I did not get to share as much as I would have liked. If anyone actually reads this and is interesting in more, please let me know. If I do continue, I am making a different website with an improved design and layout. This was a great course in teaching the rudimentary steps necessary to kick start the necessary projects like a website design, podcast, and etc. I have happy to have taken this class.

I hope everyone is staying safe at home during these troubling times. I have published my first public service announcement! This is an exciting time as this will allow me to fully engage and use my time with a purpose. I want to spread my message and hopefully everyone gets to see this. Stay safe everyone.

Why am I starting a YouTube channel? It’s simple. People in today’s society need a form of entertainment that will last a short amount of time. As a content creator, I need to directly display the message I am outputting to my consumers. Again, the purpose of this website is to introduce my website and show users that there is a place where all of there Marine Corps related questions can be answered. This website is intended for anyone interested in joining the United States Marine Corps.

I expect users to find my video through Google’s search engine. I know that my YouTube channel is not reputable, but I think the key words that I used in the video’s title and description will allow people to find my content. Is it worth watching? Not yet. I think that the start of any channel is hard to grasp. Therefore, people will start to consistently watch my channel once I begin to upload more content.

The most relevant example from the Wolf article that explains the way that users find and evaluate videos is the “speaking for itself method”. Wolf states, “Another participant expressed a similar sentiment, holding up first-person perspective and demonstration in the videos as an indicator of their credibility: “. No one will watch my content if I was not speaking from first hand experience. I think that is the most genuine form of content that people are willing to see. This will be useful to them because there is a sense of credibility to the creator of the video.

There is a lot weird about my header page that most people won’t realize. This post is a very famous military recruiting poster that has been used throughout decades. Throughout history, the Marine Corps likes to uphold the culture and traditions of past and present Marines. Therefore, I thought this header image was a perfect example of what people would want to know about. This header image was made to draw people in. What do they want to know? If they are finding this recruiting poster intriguing, they must have some sort of military interest. It shows the shadow of a present Marine, they are mirroring a past Marine.

I found my source images on Creative Common’s website. There is a website dedicated for photos that are allowed to be edited and used for consumers. I had to look through over thousands of photos to find the best looking photos. We know that we are allowed to use these photos because Creative Commons is an active non-profit organization that provides free licenses for creators to use this specific content.

Lev Manovich provides a lot of great insight in his article, Inside Photoshop. The most important step that allowed me to make my recruiting poster was the layers that Manovich describes in his article. He writes, “Layers change how a designer or an illustrator thinks about images. Instead of working on a single design, with each change immediately affecting this image.”

Davison describes a single-layer bitmap image that is nothing similar to what Photoshop is capable of now. There needs to be a concept of spacial awareness and other artistic strategies to make a picture realistic. Meanwhile, when someone is using Photoshop, you can work on different layers independently and allows users an easier access to each layer. The different layer of tools allows one to customize different layers to cohesively build one image.