Throughout this semester and this course, I learned a lot about how to create a website. I previously had never used a six account or had any practice creating anything interactive. I liked the requirement of using multiple different media channels within our website because it helped me strengthen my skills in all of those areas. It also gave me the chance to try out some things that I had never tried before. I lucked out with the group that I was placed in. We all got along pretty well and everyone contributed to the project at every step and to the overall project. In the future if I were to change anything about our project I would have more of a set schedule to follow and I would have each person in our group choose one specific aspect that they would be in charge of. We didn’t really assign any portions of the project and it might have made it less up in the air if we had done that. I’m happy with what we have achieved and I am proud of our final website. If I ever need to create a website for a future job or a portfolio, I’m confident that I would be able to create one using the skills that I have learned in this course as well as the other module courses previous to this one.

Overall, I am excited to be done with this class. I really want to present our website and show what we have been working on all semester. I definitely learned a lot about creating a website along with working with others. For the most part I enjoyed working with my group. There were some issues with being able to meet. It was also really hard being the only person in the group really familiar with photo and video. There was a lot of pressure on me to have all the b-roll and video done but at the same time I enjoyed it. I wish we could have all spent more time at Macie’s Place because while I was there, I learned a lot about her private life as well as her personality. I just wish the rest of my group was able to experience what I did when I would go and take video and photo. I am happy with how our project turned out and am excited to implement all that I have learned for other future projects. Interactive websites have become a huge part of journalism so having the experience of creating a website is helpful.

Last week we worked on getting our website really put together. We’re using six which has been very user friendly so far. We also put together all of our transcribed work from all the interviews that we did with her. I put together some infographics on poverty in Lincoln and Nebraska that we plan on using in our final project for our data portion. We thought it would be important to highlight the larger issue at hand that we have here in our home state which is what effects the people who go to Macie’s place. We’ve done a pretty good job at working together on finishing up the webpage. We also looked at the pictures taken and narrowed down what the use. One thing we struggled with was deciding what portions of the interview we want to use whether as audio, video, or copy. We also talked about what we want to do on individual pages of our site to have it better organized. One obstacle we had was trying to find a time for all of us to meet which is always something that happens with group projects but we found a way around it in order to get some more work done on our project.

This week, we are really pushing through final touches and putting together our website. I was not in town to meet with the group Monday afternoon, but we are meeting longer Wednesday to finish the website and editing. It’s becoming harder to find the time we all can meet now that finals are approaching, but we are all individually doing our part and meeting to put it all together. I am excited to present our project on Monday and hope we get a good grade because of my group’s effort. We are still deciding if we are going to include the 360 videos, I think that we should and since we already took the video I think it would be a good interactive feature to add to our website. Overall, the project is really coming along. I also believe on Friday Elise followed the owner around for a day in her life so that our audience can see what she does in her daily routine as a nonprofit organization owner.

As a group, we met Monday evening and planned out the rest of our interactive website and started to place content on the website. The disadvantage of this week is not being able to do a dry run of our presentation and get feedback but we plan on getting together to practice on Wednesday even with classes being canceled. We have made a lot of progress on the website and have gathered a lot of great content. Everyone has contributed great ideas and made this process flow smoothly. Suzy had been very cooperative in participating in interviews and letting us gather content. As a group, we need to discuss how we are going about presenting the website and who is going to present each thing. In our group, everyone seems to specialize in a specific topic pertaining to Macie’s Place. I think we are mostly concerned about the overall presentation and not getting feedback to help us see if we are going in the right direction.   The main goal of this website is to tell the story of the founders of Macie’s Place and the story of how this nonprofit makes a difference in the lives of those in need.

This week at the Iceberg Agency, we have been preparing and tying loose ends. On Friday morning, I went and finished up anything that had to do with videos, photos and other information. Unfortunately, one thing we were relying on for our project was old photos of the shop and of Suzy and Kristen and according to Suzy they do not have any photos together expect for the photos from the Lincoln Journal Star article done in 2012 when the shop first opened. We have set plans to work this weekend to ensure that we have something to present for our practice presentation on Wednesday. I am excited that we were able to find a time where we can meet to work on this especially with the current climate of my life and the other people in my group. We are all busy but I think that once we get everything organized and on the website it will be smooth sailing from there. I am exited to have this project completed and to be finished with these module classes. Overall, I have enjoyed the classes, I just am excited to spend my time working on other things and other classes.

As a group, we decided we would get together on Sunday and Monday to complete the interactive website. We have been having problems with the 360 video but we have plenty of media to accompany our website. We have been working on transcribing the interviews and pulling quotes that we think will make an impact on the website. We have gathered lots of media we just need to figure out what will make the biggest impact and tell the story of Macie’s Place. We have the organizational aspect of the website outlined we just have to go about building the physical website on Wix. After seeing the first two groups present I feel more confident in what we have accomplished. As a group, we also need to figure out who is dedicated to what topic during the presentation. When we meet this weekend and next week the goal is to finish the website and practice how we want the presentation to go. Suzy has been very helpful in gathering content and allowing us to interview her as well as letting us gather b roll in the store. I’m excited to see what the final product of our interactive website will look like.

This week at Iceberg Agency we met and discussed what our next steps will be to start finalizing our website. We still need to reshoot our 360 video for our interactive portion. We also need to get some pictures from Suzy to include in our website which we’ll be getting right after break. When we met I suggested that we all go through our transcribed portions of the interview and highlight the parts that we think should be included in our copy and which parts should be used for audio and video. We plan on doing that before break so that we can start putting it in the website. I’m also going to get started on making the infographics for the poverty levels in the US, Nebraska and Lincoln for our data visualization portion. I’m going to use canva to make two different infographics. The first will layout poverty, homelessness and unemployment rates across the US, Nebraska and Lincoln. The second will focus only on Lincoln and it’ll be more detailed with a focus on demographics and children. I think we’re at a good spot as long as we all start inputting information into the website. It’s hard because we have a great vision for the project but we have to figure out how we want to lay it all out.

This week as a group we came together and planned out how we want to go about formatting the website. We decided it would be smart to go through the interview we transcribed and pull quotes that are important or meaningful to use in the website. We also proceeded to figure out the layout of the infographics and how we want them to be displayed on the website. the information we have gathered for the infographics is broad so we are trying to narrow down what specific information we want to include. Individually I am trying to think of little details we can include that will help make our website stand out. The interactive website for Macie’s Place is hopefully going to have a simple but attractive look that will fit the aesthetic we hope to portray. As far as delegating and group work goes, we have been splitting up work evenly to help move the process along. The main difficulty right now is just getting the content we have collected to look cohesive and place it on the website. The only content left to collect is the 360 video and video of Suzy starting her day when she’s on her way to Macie’s Place.

This week we continued to script the interview with Suzanne. We used our workday to begin uploading and sharing through Box so that everyone had access to the audio, pictures, videos, etc. From there, we began editing and putting together photos, video, and audio for a video that will play when beginning the interactive tour. I’m very excited to see how our project turns out! We have all worked hard together and have a lot of creativity to pool together. We began looking at Wix for website designs and discussed ideas on how we can make it better for navigating through, a more accessible home page and tabs, unique format, and a theme to intrigue website viewers. I am making finishing touches on Suzanne’s biography and I believe Elsie has gone back to the store to shoot more 360 videos. If not, she will soon!