Class blog – Page 46 – Online Reporting, Research & Writing

Zeega is a tool I would like to try

The ten tools to learn article was very interesting to me, they talked about literally ten tools that I have not learned about. While I was exploring through the tools one of them stood out to me and I found it very interesting. Zeega its a website where you can make videos such as documentaries on whatever you would like.

With these videos that you make you could make cool sounds, videos, and pictures. You could also add text to go along with them. It’s an easy way to interact with other people’s stories as well as sharing your own.

When you first go on the website you could automatically look at the different videos that people share and the different videos they talk about. Zeega makes putting together and sharing it with people from all over the world very easy, and is great for teachers to use this site for their own classroom, I might just make one myself. Its definitely a site worth using.

Peachy skincare

peach and lily

The blog that I chose to write about is a blog called “Peach & Lily”. Lately, I have been trying to keep my skin clear and acne free. The way I do that is through a skin care routine. I always feel less confident about myself when my face has a pimple or if it has acne scars.

The thing that I like about “Peach & Lily” is that the author struggled with the same exact thing I have, dry, itchy, and acne-prone skin. “Peach & Lily” promotes skincare products that can be used for all types of skin concerns, such as dryness, oiliness, redness, and sensitive skin. The blog is a great resource to use to suggest products for someone with troubling skin.

Amara, captioning videos for free

While reading “Ten tools to learn, more to explore”, there were many tools that I liked, such as Timeline.js and Title Mill/Map Box. But, the tool that I found interesting was Amara. Amara is a site where anyone can caption, subtitle, and translate videos.

I played around with it by using a video that I made in a previous course by adding captions to my voiceover. It was rather easy to use. First, you type what you hear in a text box. Then, you would sync the captions with the voiceover. Lastly, you review the video to make sure that all captions are synced on time.

The syncing of the captions did take some time, but overall I liked this tool because anyone can translate my video into a different language. Amara’s mission is “Working to Build a More Open, Collaborative World”. I like the message that they are trying to send. Through videos, we can all connect with each other no matter what language one speaks.

Here is the link to my subtitled video.

Ten tools fixing up our blogs

“Ten tools to learn, more to explore,” gave me insight on what innovations the Journalism Industry has been using and producing. It’s funny to see that all these programs like Map Box and Amara are ones we come across very often in multiple new stories and videos, yet never acknowledge that there’s actually a technique to it all behind the scenes.

Searchlights and Sunglasses’ article on the tools to learn.

I decided to take up a challenge and actually try one of these tools myself, however it wasn’t much of a challenge because it’s really easy to use. The tool Timeline.js is essential to any news story in my opinion. It organizes information in a chronological order and keeps everything visually appealing and easy to follow. Especially with news, you wouldn’t want to confuse your audience, so interactive stories and techniques that increase their understanding are favorable.

This is the homepage of the Timeline.js website.

Check out the timeline I made for a couple new updates this month, new stories used from Fox 2 Detroit News!

Handy Dandy Tools

When you hear the word “tools” you start thinking of “masculine” heavy machinery that well does not sound like fun. But there is a light at the end of this tunnel. And that light is, tools made for the age of digitalism.

Believe it or not the first tools of journalism was a good old fashioned piece of paper and pen. That evolved into a typewriter all within the years of 1870-1970 according to Searchlight and Sunglasses .

Now in today’s era we have many tools at our disposal that allows our inner creativity to run wild.

One I will be exploring is Amara. We should also refer to this program as the accessibility Queen. In this YouTube video we get a small glimpse and a chance to Meet Amara .

With Amara, users get a chance to make their content more relatable to multiple users. Take my family, on my personal blog Zahara’s Blog I have product reviews that are sold internationally yet the language I am using is English. I write poetry that is again in English. If I was able to incorporate Amara in my blogging, I think it would make a huge difference.

This is where Amara becomes the accessibility Queen. With this program I can have subtitles from all languages with collaboration from other users to assist with translating. Now my audience has went from English American to Tanzanian!