I will gladly post the audio of the interviews, but I think the lessons are more important:
I spoke with Kat McConnell. not once, but by chance twice. The one thing she would have changed was getting the “Martian Death Plague,” which caused her to have to do all the vocals over in November. I learned that there is always something that can be accounted for. Plan for the unforeseen. Her advice for me was 1. Do something I was passionate about, and 2. Plan how much everything will take then add time-and-a-half to the estimate. I should have started this three semesters ago apparently.
One of the most important lessons I think she learned is when to say the project is done and leave it alone. She said that if she had an extra month, she would sleep because this project is done.
The other people I talked to help me to refine the presentation part of the Capstone. I spoke with Antonio M. K. Singleton. His presentation was very smooth, and he was easy to talk to. He said that our group was the most interesting conversation he had so far. Nice.
I give Antonio credit because he has his own video business and is trying to create videos for the community. He has branding down pat. He started by telling us what programs he used. Lesson: Talk about the project, but don’t start with the tools. Evaluation: The titles in his video were impressive, but the videos themselves were less than impressive.
I’m impressed with the web projects: (Rachel Edwards, Joseph Fugate, and Lawrence Moore.) Webpages are where I think the technology is the forefront of the project, but even then, it isn’t. The layouts are beautiful, but the story of why and how it was done is the true experience. I especially enjoyed Lawrence Moore, who saw a need at Tibbs drive-through. It is a well-crafted project. One of the things he would have changed is he wanted to add a content management system so the theater could easily keep the site up to date.
I could go on there were many great projects. I was impressed with Joel Stein’s Surgery Center of Indianapolis video about plastic surgery and Garin Grist’s video Choices. I’m sad that I wasn’t able to see it in it’s entirety. Erica Gilbert’s Moving Art would fit right in with the photo restoration I’m doing. Her presentation was a tri-fold poster board. Too much information, but I think an interesting concept. She said that each of the images took her eight to ten hours. I can understand that. I think the lesson here is that there has to be a longer reaching purpose. Garin said that he would like to take his completed video to the prision at the beginning and maybe that would have allowed him more access in the prision.
I spoke at length with Tim Andrick. I think the process he went through creating a graphic novel and online material mirrors the process I’ll be going through in the near future. I haven’t had a chance to look over the material, but I do have some thoughts on his materials.
First, he was telling two stories to his Capstone audience. He was selling the concept that this was the beginning of a multiple-story arc he was creating with his illustrator friend. On the other hand he was also saying that he already had a job, so I got the impression that was just a story. I also look briefly at the website. Most of the creation materials were locked behind a membership request. I wanted to understand more about the process and that stopped me.
Long story short: I was there for two hours and didn’t see everything I needed to. I’m really not sure how anyone can do it with 30+ people presenting next semester.
---- Class Evaluation
Greg Stahlhut
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Capstone Prep- Capstone Night Blog
I will gladly post the audio of the interviews, but I think the lessons are more important:
I spoke with Kat McConnell. not once, but by chance twice. The one thing she would have changed was getting the “Martian Death Plague,” which caused her to have to do all the vocals over in November. I learned that there is always something that can be accounted for. Plan for the unforeseen. Her advice for me was 1. Do something I was passionate about, and 2. Plan how much everything will take then add time-and-a-half to the estimate. I should have started this three semesters ago apparently.
One of the most important lessons I think she learned is when to say the project is done and leave it alone. She said that if she had an extra month, she would sleep because this project is done.
The other people I talked to help me to refine the presentation part of the Capstone. I spoke with Antonio M. K. Singleton. His presentation was very smooth, and he was easy to talk to. He said that our group was the most interesting conversation he had so far. Nice.
I give Antonio credit because he has his own video business and is trying to create videos for the community. He has branding down pat. He started by telling us what programs he used. Lesson: Talk about the project, but don’t start with the tools. Evaluation: The titles in his video were impressive, but the videos themselves were less than impressive.
I’m impressed with the web projects: (Rachel Edwards, Joseph Fugate, and Lawrence Moore.) Webpages are where I think the technology is the forefront of the project, but even then, it isn’t. The layouts are beautiful, but the story of why and how it was done is the true experience. I especially enjoyed Lawrence Moore, who saw a need at Tibbs drive-through. It is a well-crafted project. One of the things he would have changed is he wanted to add a content management system so the theater could easily keep the site up to date.
I could go on there were many great projects. I was impressed with Joel Stein’s Surgery Center of Indianapolis video about plastic surgery and Garin Grist’s video Choices. I’m sad that I wasn’t able to see it in it’s entirety. Erica Gilbert’s Moving Art would fit right in with the photo restoration I’m doing. Her presentation was a tri-fold poster board. Too much information, but I think an interesting concept. She said that each of the images took her eight to ten hours. I can understand that. I think the lesson here is that there has to be a longer reaching purpose. Garin said that he would like to take his completed video to the prision at the beginning and maybe that would have allowed him more access in the prision.
I spoke at length with Tim Andrick. I think the process he went through creating a graphic novel and online material mirrors the process I’ll be going through in the near future. I haven’t had a chance to look over the material, but I do have some thoughts on his materials.
First, he was telling two stories to his Capstone audience. He was selling the concept that this was the beginning of a multiple-story arc he was creating with his illustrator friend. On the other hand he was also saying that he already had a job, so I got the impression that was just a story. I also look briefly at the website. Most of the creation materials were locked behind a membership request. I wanted to understand more about the process and that stopped me.
Long story short: I was there for two hours and didn’t see everything I needed to. I’m really not sure how anyone can do it with 30+ people presenting next semester.
1. Address the efficacy of the approach we took in this class.
I think the approach in the class was quite helpful. I was able to give suggestions to a few classmates and I appreciated the support of knowing that everyone was going through the same stressful process.
2. Discuss whether or not the breakdown of the project development was advantageous.
I appreciated the project development process. I felt I could participate in the discussions. The hands-on with my own project during class was non-existant. “Who else would like to timeline out their project. My Capstone at the time was not developed enough to exhibit for the class.
3. Discuss the advantages and/or disadvantages of the student guest speakers for forming your own approach to capstone.
Using student speakers was a double-edged sword. One the one hand, they were able to offer in depth the type of feedback on the process we experienced on Capstone Night. Here is what I did, and here is what I learned. That was helpful
The part that was hard was the time-table they suggested (I worked on this for two years,) did not apply to us, and in some cases just added to the fear of the unknown. I think the greatest thing they taught me was that this class needs to be offered in the Fall so the students had the Summer to develop a larger project. The class discussed an earlier course that would get students exposed to Capstone concepts earlier. I think student speakers would be great there to show the broad possible experiences of Capstones.
4. Were there any assignments that you thought were particularly helpful? Please elaborate.
The last half of the semester was very helpful for me to develop the project. I thought the blog was also helpful because I need something to get these ideas out of my head. It is a great “diary” of the project. I’m sure I couldn’t remember all of these details a semester from now.
5. Were there any assignments that you thought were particularly useless? Please elaborate.
The assignment that I was of little use to me was the mentor interviews. I knew who my mentor was. That was a great relief to me. I would have struggled to find a mentor because I would have had a half-formed project idea at the time.
