Reflection and Self Evaluation

As I reflect back on my semester in J198, a reoccurring theme is how much I thought I knew going in. I am a very modern thinking/tech savvy person. I grew up in this age of extreme media along with the rest of my generation. We are currently living in a whirlwind of technologically advancement. I figured I knew a lot of what was going on, but I didn’t.

I was active on MySpace and now Facebook. I wake up and check the local and national news. My TV is usually set on ESPN. I have a good feel of how information spreads. I can honestly say that I learn a great deal of information in this course.

The class opened me up to a lot of social media tools, but also showed me how to go more in depth with some I was already familiar with. For example, I had dabbled in Twitter before I enrolled in the course but it was mainly just to comment on things and send snide remarks to my friends. The power of it can be displayed just recently with the death of Osama bin Laden. You know where the first place I heard the news? Yup. Twitter.

I gained skills in movie making and publishing. I had done some projects like this before, but one key gift I gained from the class was an eye for style. Now when I see video, especially news stories and commercials, I pay attention to the style. When you break it down and look at it, they all pretty much share many of the same concepts. I recorded pod casts and created slideshows. I learned how to shamelessly plug my work to create awareness.

I really appreciated using things I didn’t know about. Tools like Storify and Weebly, I had no experience with, but was really impressed with how user friendly they are.

In summary the class was truly did introduce to me some new ways of connecting with people and the ability to relay information through more mediums.

My group website LVfit turned out great. I had a great partner and a great community to work with. I was impressed with what the Lehigh Valley had to offer and how helpful the community was. It fined tuned my abilities to use the tools we had been using all year. Outside of this, i’ll even say it helped with my social skills. Connecting and contacting people for meetings, interviews, etc. can be difficult but I definitely gained some experience this semester getting the website started.

When evaluating myself, I think I did a good job with all of the projects and labs. There was not anything the whole year that I felt bad in that respect. I really enjoy the projects and labs that forced me to learn more about the area. I found that to be very beneficial. The one challenge I struggled with down the stretch was my blog. I started off strong and motivated, but by the end I lost touch. I can’t really pinpoint the problem because I would still say I am very interested in the topic.  I have dealt with blogs before and they are not really I have gotten into.  Besides this challenge, I think I handled the workload well.

I would like to give special thanks to my partner Christine and the rest of the class You could really tell they put a lot of time and effort into these projects and it showed. Also would like to thank Professor Littau. He truly is passionate and knowledgeable about the subject. He made the class interesting by using variety and diversity in  the tools and assignments.

                -Josh Fitch

End of Semester Evaluation

To be honest, at the beginning of this semester I was not overly excited about taking J198. As a Journalism/Science Writing major, I have a career path in mind, and I didn't really see the need for the skills I would acquire in this class. I hoped to learn about web design as so much communication is transitioning to online-based, but I didn't have any clearly defined goals coming into J198.

I had minimal experience coming in and was intimidated initially. Now that the semester is over, I could not be happier after taking this class. First I am hooked on Twitter and blogging. I find myself putting hours of time into my blog, and it is possible that Twitter takes up more of my time than Facebook these days. I always thought Twitter was a bunch of pointless status updates, but after really immersing myself, I realized it is a collection of conversations that actually matter. I just think it's so cool.

I am really proud of the LVfit website. I learned a great deal in this class - from filmimg, editing and uploading YouTube videos to being able to better utilize Google. I thought every group had an impressive website. I think the strength of our website came from the research and design. I tend to be over critical of my own work, but many of the other groups had stronger videos (shots, editing). Our website had rich content that can be a great resource for people in the local community.

I actually just found out that I will be interning with Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research and Development's communications department. I am so excited to have this great opportunity! During the interview, I was told that web design and Twitter were major areas that they wanted to learn about from interns this summer. I was happy to engage in conversations with the interviewers about my experiences with these two skills in J198. This summer I hope to be influencial in the re-design of their website and the success of their Twitter communication.

Despite the fact that I was not overly excited to take this class, I put a lot of effort into the assignments, ultimately sparking my interest in multimedia. I feel that my skills increased dramatically due to my persistence and serious work ethic in all that I do. Although J198 is over, I hope to continue using my skills in my internship this summer as well as for personal reasons. In the spare time that I have (which will be scarce), I plan to continue writing my blog. Because my blog is about a very specific topic, it was easy to find my tribe. I love the fact that I am making a name for myself in that tribe. @AndrewOverseas has taken an interest in me. He often retweets my stuff and has included me in at least 4-5 of his daily study abroad papers. This is so cool to me. I definitely plan to continue getting my stuff out there.

Thanks for such a great semester!

Equipment

Equipment, a photo by bluestar5100 on Flickr.

Traveling the trails of Saucon Park

Traveling the trails of Saucon Park, a photo by bluestar5100 on Flickr.

Waiting Area

Waiting Area, a photo by bluestar5100 on Flickr.

105_0379

105_0379, a photo by bluestar5100 on Flickr.

Yoga Mats

Yoga Mats, a photo by bluestar5100 on Flickr.

Story Ideas

AS Josh and I embark on our journey to create a website based on living healthy in the Lehigh Valley affordably, we have many great opportunities to explore.

For the written sidebar stories, we plan to talk to the Bethlehem YMCA, which has a membership program with a sliding income scale to make physical activity less expensive, and we plan to talk to the Yoga Loft of Bethlehem. The Yoga Loft offers activites from yoga to tai chi to zumba to bellydancing. They also offer free classes. We will probably also feature Bethlehem Yoga as one of our news videos. We want to focus on the free class aspect in the video and the benefits of yoga and the other programs/classes in the sidebar story. For the other news video, we will be talking to local runners about tips and where they like to run. Since running is almost a completely free activity, we think it would be fun and beneficial to figure out the best places to go from experts. Along with this, we will be making a Google map of the trails/parks that the runners suggest. A slideshow of the trails or scenery at these parks would also be nice.

For the last narrative story, we will be interviewing people involved in the Biggest Loser Lehigh Valley competition. This competition is promoting weight loss and healthy habits. Participants get reduced gym memberships, and the winning team receives free memberships, promoting the affordable option of continuing healthy habits.

We are also trying to talk to members of the Lehigh Valley Health Network about a free hiking/walking program, but they have been hesitant to allow us to learn about the program since registration is full and don't want the event to be advertised more. This is a possibility for a sidebar story or something extra.

As our focus has recently narrowed to healthy fitness, the groupings have not completely been worked out. Some logical groupings seem to be video stories, interactive elements, feature stories, and a resources section (with About Us, possible blogs/links).

Living a healthy lifestyle

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 Today I have published my first podcast, on the topic of healthy living. I have been passionately involved with the sport of wrestling since the age of four, and I wanted to share a few tips and strategies on how to live a more healthy lifestyle. I have been fortunate enough to be in close contact with athletic trainers, psychologists, and coaches. I also have an abundance of personal experience. This is not a bulletproof method of losing weight or anything of that manner. It is a collection of tips that have worked for me from experience. Enjoy.

Lehigh Students Discuss Healthy Changes

As Lehigh juniors begin to think about moving off campus, there are many health issues they must think about. One of the most important being food. After talking with some Lehigh students, I learned that grocery shopping for healthy snacks and meals is often a difficult task because there are limited options in the area. As students, we have a lot of potential to enact change. The students I talked to are passionate about having another super market enter the area to benefit the healthy eating habits of local children and families and the Lehigh students themselves.

Podcast Powered By Podbean

Sotto Santi Pizzeria: A great place to eat and socialize

I recently visited Sotto Santi Pizzeria and talked to its owner, Anthony Spagnola. The establishment has been a popular place to eat and socialize for Lehigh Students as well as Bethlehem residents. It prides itself on having the best pizza and atmosphere around.

Saucon Park (Bethlehem, Pa.) Provides Free Healthy Activities

Saucon Park in Bethlehem, Pa. Slideshow

Bethlehem Business Vegan Treats Offers Healthy Options

Although I consider myself pretty health conscious, I have such a sweet tooth. Vegan Treats, located on Linden Street in Bethlehem, Pa., is serving up vegan everything from cakes to donuts to ice cream. Vegan Treats is primarily concerned about promoting animal welfare by selecting ingredients that do not involve cruelty to animals. They replace the animal products while still creating tasty, attractive desserts. By replacing things such as eggs and milk, the desserts become lower in fat and cholesterol. For people like me, Vegan Treats satisfies my instinctive need for dessert following a meal, but it makes me feel good that I am providing my body with a healthier option and saving animals.

A map of movie theaters in the Lehigh Valley

View Movie Theaters In Lehigh Valley in a larger map

I made a Google map showcasing all of the movie theaters in the Lehigh Valley area. You can click on the pins to find information like street addresses and general location. I have also hyper-linked in the movie times for all of the theaters listed. You can click on the link and easily navigate to the list of show times for that theater for any upcoming days.

Local Business: Euro Yogurt

Recently we embarked on a journey to find a new local business in Bethlehem. We found ourselves at Euro Yogurt, a frozen yogurt and coffee shop that opened in 2009. Despite initial struggles and a cold winter, Euro Yogurt is finding continued success in the local community. Lehigh students are popular customers for this 3rd Street business.

Final Project

This morning Josh and I sat in Dave's Deli for 15 minutes brainstorming our final project idea. We came to the consensus that we have many shared broad topics - food and music being the most discussed. While these are good topics because they can be taken in many directions, we ultimately decided to choose a topic a little more focused: health.

The idea dawned on me after leaving Josh. As a wrestler, Josh works out A LOT. Before our 10:30 a.m. meeting, he had already been to the gym, and he was going back to the gym at 1:30 p.m. I had dressed in workout clothes to our meeting so I could go directly to the gym after my classes. I realized that Josh and I are both very health-conscious. For our final project, we want to explore topics related to health. This could range from the best gyms around, the healthiest restuarants, public health initiatives by St. Luke's or a multitude of other things.

Over the next week, we should probably further solidify what specifically we want to explore, whether that be workout plans, healthy eating, ways to avoid sickness or a combination of all those ideas! We will probably ask our local followers on Twitter what aspects of health most interest them, what they want to learn about or if they have any ideas/advice to give us.

The J198 Scavenger Hunt

At my last J198 class to my delight, we didn't sit in the class room the whole time. We went on a scavenger hunt, and this is my reflection. There were ten tasks involved.

1. For the first task, I spotted Justin Koren outside of Linderman library showing some school spirit by wearing some Lehigh gear to class.
2. The next task took me to my favorite eating spot off campus, Subway. I was able to find out what Lehigh student's favorite sub is...The chicken bacon ranch on Italian Herbs bread.
3. For the next task, I was lucky enough to run into the Journalism department's own Professor Jim Harper, and get his opinion on social media and its role in todays world.
4. I stopped Batjargal Batmunkh outside the University Center. and questioned him about where he gets his news.
5. For the next task, I stopped by the new STEPS building to check out some of the new labs, I came across a machine used for testing soil.
6. My favorite scene on campus is looking up the University Center walkway. It looks cool through the seasons.
7. We needed to find a little known fact about Lehigh for task number seven. I chose to tackle the rumor that Lehigh has some sort of underground tunnel system.
8. I spotted Scott Collins walking from Christmas Saucon building. I ask him what he thought of the basketball team.
9. For my favorite place on campus task, it was easy to pick the wrestling room in Taylor gym.
10. In order to represent a variety of clubs or organizations, I took a visit to the Rainbow Room for my last task. Kim Ketterer briefly summarized what it is there for.

Unfortunately, for the assignment I was not able to use my phone for tweet on the run. I just simply don't have a smartphone and wouldn't use the internet on it that much to justify paying for it.

I was fortunate to get some re-tweets and replies to my tweets. Apparently not all schools have an underground tunnel system.

As I scanned through other peoples posts, The one thing I learned is that there are still a lot of places on campus that I have not been, like the sculpture garden on the mountain. I also want to explore the STEPS building a little more since I'm never in there.

My perception of Twitter has not really changed that much. It definitely has some cool options that I didn't know about. Since we have been using twitter more often I have begun to realize what many twitter things are used for that I often see. I have seen a lot of tweets way before I started using twitter. So now that I'm using things like bit.ly and hashtags, I see can see how they are helpful and why they are used. Before I would just look at a tweet and ignore the stuff I didn't understand, now I know how most of it works.

Twitter Scavenger Hunt Reflection

Today in class we participated in a Twitter scavenger hunt. Here are the tasks we were given and my tweets about them!

1. This task was about school spirit. I talked to Kate Demaria who is so proud to be a Lehigh student that she dressed up as Clutch for a Class of 2012 activity!
2. My favorite off campus eating spot is Johnny's Bagels. I found Kate Oakes having lunch and raving about the great service at Johnny's.
3. We were supposed to find a professor on campus and ask what they think the role of social media plays in social change. I ran into Professor Eric Klein outside of Linderman and he told me that social media greatly enhances communication. The only downside is that users may not get the full story from citizen journalists.
4. With so many news outlets, we were interested in finding where students get their news and if they use social media to keep informed. Gwen Hauck told me that she uses The New York Times as her main source of news. She likes when people post stories on Facebook, but she rarely does that herself.
5. This scavenger hunt task was to find how Lehigh contributes to cutting edge research and/or learning. I went to STEPS and found a Biology lab in session. The TA, Joe Leese, told me about some brain and sound research happening at Iocacca that might help cure deafness.
6. For my favorite scenic spot on campus, I chose the view from the thrid floor of STEPS (a great place to study!).
7. Lehigh is so rich in history - some of which not everyone knows! Nick Gambino told me a little-known fact that the inventor of the escalator went to Lehigh, yet we don't have any on campus.
8. For this a student was asked about their predictions for the remainder of a sport team. Liz Piscitelli told me that the girl's tennis team will make it to the semi finals! How exciting!
9. For my favorite spot on campus, I picked Linderman Library.
10. Last we had to find a photo and quote that exemplified the huge variety of clubs available to students. I visited the Office of Multicultural Affairs and found that they celebrate diverse events every month.

While it would have been more exciting to live-tweet this scavenger hunt, my phone did not permit me to do so. I can access my feed and even post from my phone, but the incorporation of pictures made it too difficult for me to post from my phone. While it was awkward to approach random strangers on campus, it was fun. This activity really shows me that Twitter is so much bigger than I originally thought. Not only is it a form of social media that educates and connects, but it also is a learning tool, a way to bridge physical gaps and a tool that can be used to revolutionize the way people obtain information. It is so cool to me that we instantly connected to kids in all other parts of the nation. People in my own class retweeted what I had to say, which is always nice to know. What is even more cool is that people I don't even know reply to my tweets. Students from the #J4801 class engaged in conversations with me. This is a whole new way to expand my mind by engaging in conversations with people who are completely different than me.

For the past few weeks, I have felt slightly awkward on Twitter. I didn't think I had much to say. I thought it was weird when I would follow and retweet things by people I didn't know. Now I am seeing that this is the way Twitter was intended to work. By pushing myself beyond my comfort zone a little, I will start to have more and more to share and in turn learn. I was slightly disappointed that some of the groups hadn't done the scavenger hunt yet, but I guess this just gives me more to look forward to this week as I follow them.

As I continue to use Twitter, I think I need to expand my use of its functions. I am comfortable tweeting and retweeting. I need to push myself to make lists, use hashtags and post pictures. As I do these things, I hope to become more fully involved in Twitter as a social medium, not simply a class supplement.

Shot Variation Lab

Today my group bundled up and spent some time by Fairchild Library interview some students and staff about their thoughts on the upcoming NFL Super Bowl. The goal was to get a variety of different shots of the interviewees and compare the different shots. In the first three shots, the sun is at the side of the interviewee and a shadow is cast over half of the face. It is not so much distracting from the video itself, but it is noticeable. The next two shots have the sun behind the person and is distracting with the light shining at the camera. We put the sun behind our heads for the next two shots, and it provided a better shot when compared with the sun in the camera's lens. The best shots came when we interviewed people in the shade, in an office, and in a large room. Overall these three types on interviews had the best result.

Lehigh Students on the Superbowl

Today I braved the cold to hear what Lehigh students think about this weekend's Superbowl. In addition to learning what team Lehigh students care about, I learned about video quality. By trying different shots, I learned that close up shots were best for this type of interview. Because of the snow and wind, anything more than a close up was often too bright and not loud enough. Lighting posed a serious problem. Shadows were created if the interviewee was a certain way in the sun, but with the sun in my eyes, the picture was not ideal either. By having both of us stand in the shade, it was easier for me to shoot the film and for the subject to focus on my questions and not the glaring sun. I enjoyed shooting medium shots most because I really tried to think about the shot. I used the rule of thirds to place the subject and then found pretty scenery to fill in the rest of the frame. Medium shots work best when the setting is part of the story. Long shots serve a purpose to provide a wide view of the scene, but for personal interviews they are not very practical.

Interview with Jay at Pantry 1

Interview with Sorority Chef

J198 Johana Interview

Interview with Johana