Digital Story Critique: The Importance of Roughhousing

Digital Critique:
The Importance of Roughhousing

My wife showed me this video and I had to share. It doesn't quite align with my focal them but it definitely hits home. As a father to two rambunctious young boys, I have enjoyed the time honored joy of roughhousing and hope to continue to do so. I roughhoused with my dad and I'm sure he roughhoused with his dad too. It seems as though many of my friends experienced the same thing growing up and, therefore, I assume everyone has roughhoused with their parents as kid. So if my assumptions are correct, why the need for a video promoting it?

"The Importance of Roughhousing" is a five minute video produced by the Youtube channel, The Art of Manliness. This particular channel contains a number of videos including topics such as How To Deal With A Patchy Beard, How To Develop A Manly Voice, and How To Smoke Brisket. It's a humorous video blog addressing...well...manly subjects. After seeing this video, I chose to critique it because 1) I thought it was well done and 2) because of the subject matter. The arguments made for roughhousing address several societal issues related to children today despite them being made in a humorous light-hearted video. The thing about comedy is that it sometimes permeates the truth.

I will evaluate the video on the following traits: research, media application, and originality - voice - creativity:

Research

This short video makes a compelling argument for how and why one should roughhouse with their kids. Although the video is generally humorous in nature, the points made by the presenter carry a more serious undertone. It's more than just a fun time for the kids; roughhousing contributes to the development of a child in multiple ways as laid out by the video presentation. As for research, however, I don't recall any specific citations for the studies referenced in the video. I hate to give this digital story low marks for research because of the lack of citation or sourcing because I find myself agreeing with many of the points made. It must be acknowledged though that much material on the internet comes without the proper research behind it - and this same material can mold people's opinions.

Media Application

The application of media to this digital story was completely appropriate and allowed the author to tell a story that was engaging and rich in content. What better way to illustrate roughhousing and all that goes with it than to compile video clips of examples and tutorials. The "how-to" instruction gave the video a professional feel and the editing allowed the story to be told seamlessly. Although, the video was professionally done, allowing the producer to incorporate both serious and humorous content.

Originality, Voice, Creativity

The Art of Manliness videos are fun to watch and touch a number of different types of topics. The star of each video is the same though he often takes on different personas. In this particular video, the voice is professional and instructive and takes a simple subject matter and makes it into something a little more serious. It's a fun and creative way discuss roughhousing in a manner that is not absurd yet not too uptight.

TDC: My Opening Line To My Latest Novel

Here is my contribution to today's Daily Create:

The only thing listening to my screams and my fists against the pine was the complete blackness that is found six feet below the earth's surface.

TDC: Pixar Story Spine

Here is a memoir for today's TDC using the famous Pixar Story Spine:

Once upon a time a mother had a two year old who had a lot of energy, a healthy curiosity, and a penchant for mischief.

Every day he ran, crawled, jumped, played and always looked for ways to get into things he shouldn't or find places he'd never been to before.

But, one day he learned how to climb...

Because of that he now had a desire to explore the world above him.

Because of that he searched for things to climb on in the house anywhere in the house from tables and chairs to sinks and countertops.

Because of that he discovered he could climb up the shelves in the pantry.

Until finally, he climbed up to the very top shelf of the pantry where he realized that he did not know how to climb down and was, therefore, stuck until someone could eventually come to his rescue.

And, ever since then he remembers to bring a chair or stool with him.

Digital Critique - Humorous Corporate Training Video

Digital Story:
Youtube - eLearningTV1 - Humorous Corporate Training Video
Link

Humorous Corporate Training Video is a brief animation of a corporate employee asking his boss for a raise. The animation is a bit low quality with over-exaggerated reactions, a robotic voice-over, and a laugh track / audio track. It looks a bit campy but those components contribute to the humor of the story. This video is one of a number of eLearning / training humorous icebreaker videos posted by eLearningtv - a channel on YouTube hosted by Cogentys. Cogentys appears to be a corporate training firm of some sort that is positioning itself as an industry expert through shared content and, of course, digital stories.

I came across this video in a search for corporate eLearning content. I began my instructional design masters with an eLearning emphasis with corporate training - specifically with the company I'm working for. Corporate eLearning is quickly becoming a major shareholder in the eLearning industry and I definitely see a need for it where I work. So corporate eLearning has been a theme of mine throughout this curriculum. Now I can examine it through the eyes of digital storytelling. For this icebreaker video I will evaluate the story, presentation and performance, and writing.

Story

 The title of the video is Humorous Corporate Training Video and humorous it was. At least I could tell that was the intent. The video was found on a Youtube channel as part of a collection of corporate training icebreaker videos. Mr. Employee is sitting across from his boss' desk, Ms. Boss, and is asking for a raise. Ms. Boss informs Mr. Employee of the company's recent billion dollars in losses. Mr. Employee makes the case for his raise by siting various accomplishments that were intented to be irrelevant and humorous. Yet in the end, he makes his case and the raise is granted.

The story is simple and easy to follow. The animation is lower quality and the interaction between the characters is over-exaggerated but that is what makes the story funny. It works well as an icebreaker, especially for a corporate training class because it elicits laughter and warms the crowd to the topic. It's the digital form of an opening joke in a speech!

Presentation and Performance

 I already mentioned the low quality of the animation, robotic voice overs, and exaggerated gestures. However, put altogether the presentation and performance was well executed. Some viewers could be put off by its campiness but that goes to personal preference. If exaggeration is part of the humor then exaggerated animation is what sells the joke. It is perhaps not the funniest material out there but altogether it does the job of telling a joke and breaking the ice for a training.

Writing

The video was an animated production and clearly involved a script. The producers used robotic-like characters to run the dialogue which was one way of delivering the content. Live actors could have followed the same script and probably produced similar or even better results. I believe that's how we know that the writing was done well. It was a simple dialogue and was aided laugh / sound tracks much like a tv sitcom. For an icebreaker joke, the writing did the job!

Digital Story Critique - Radio Lab - 150,000 ft Drop!

Digital Story:
Radio Lab - What It's Like To Drop 150,000 Feet Straight Down
Link

What It's Like To Drop 150,000 Feet Straight Down is an 8 minute video put together by NASA that takes the viewer on wild ride aboard rockets launching a space shuttle into outer space. I did another digital critique last week that also highlighted science in a creative way. I explained in that post that my father is a scientist, my brothers are engineers, and I am neither. Yet although I don't quite have the acumen for science and math, I definitely have a bit of fascination for the subjects - especially when those subjects are brought to my level.

This video caught my eye because my one older brother is an engineer for a company that puts rockets into space. In his line of work, year-long projects are meticulously planned with high level detail to send rockets into the great beyond...mostly to deploy satellites.  This particular brother works on the control systems that guide the rockets into pre-calculated paths. The behind the scenes is certainly over my head but the end result is awe-inspiring spectacle. This video is a front row seat to the action. For this critique, I examine the story, media application, and content understanding:

Story

The story is very simple. Strap some cameras onto rocket boosters and follow the launch of a space shuttle as it travels upward into the atmosphere at increasing speeds. The video takes you as far as the last booster releasing from the shuttle and plummeting back down to earth and into the ocean. As a front row spectator, you can text updates to various stages of the journey as well as access to the complete audio - from rockets firing, to metal groaning in outer space, to the sound of parachutes flapping and water splashing. Meanwhile, the view is updated on some statistics such as the time elapsed, speed, and description of what certain sounds are.

For NASA, preparing such a video tells the story of the incredible work that goes on in space exploration. In a way, it was a documentary because certain phases were narrated through text. However, the raw experience gives the viewer a realistic snapshot into how the project planning and meticulous math culminate into one awesome feat. Perhaps the story could have been enhanced slightly by incorporating a persona but really none was needed.

Media Application

The video contained actual footage with real audio that gave the story a vivid and realistic feel that otherwise could not have been accomplished. Although, one bounces back and forth to different angles as rockets boosters are released, it is easy to follow the events that are taking place..with the help of the captioning. The best part of the video is the audio and hearing what it is like to be 28 miles straight up where barely a sound is audible.

Content Understanding

As I mentioned previously, as a brief documentary, this video did not have a persona or live narrator so the view is left completely to the visual and captioning for understanding where they are in the journey and what is happening. I think more could have been done to help the viewer along and understand what is taking place and when but doing so may have taken away from the first hand experience - which I believe is the true message of the story.

DS106 Assignment Bank: Color Changer

Alien Landscape

For this week's DS106 Assignment Bank activity I chose to do a "Color Changer". In this assignment I had to select a picture and change the hue to make the picture look completely different. I call this "Alien Landscape". It looks like something right out of Star Trek or some other inter-planetary science fiction movie. The purple atmosphere and eerie blue glow make for a foreboding tale of intergalactic danger.

 

 

Since I live in Utah, I chose a picture of Delicate Arch, not far from Moab in the southern part of the state. Utah has some of the most beautiful and unique landscapes in the country. If ever you get a chance to travel through Utah be sure to check out the national parks in the southern half of the states. Some of the rock formations, formed over hundreds of thousands of years, seem to take on other shapes - including arches, towers, animals, and even goblins!

 

 

With today's technology, it's much easier to digitally enhance a background to make it look like something completely different. The entertainment industry is constantly seeking out locations that can double as some fairytale landscape. Here is another image of Utah:



 

 

 

This image is a scene from the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie. At this point in the film, Captain Jack Sparrow and his ship are caught in some other-worldly dimension. In reality, the production company digitally place a pirate ship on the Bonneville Salt Flats - a large expanse of flat salt deposits in Utah.

 

The thing about story telling is whether the story is told digitally or not, the key ingredient is always imagination.

 



 

 

 

 

 

 





Reading Response: Lankshear and Knobel Chapter 2

Clearly, challenging the definition of literacy began decades, long before Lankshear and Knobel started exploring the concept of new literacies. However, prior to now, I was completely unaware of this study. For my undergraduate degree, I studied International Relations. I chose the major because I thought I wanted to work for an international organization or even just learn “how the world turned.” So I had a number of classes in geography and political science which searched for ways to measure peoples and states. Of course, literacy rate was a common variable included in research studies, national profiles, and other published works. I’m glad to see that, by exploring the definition of literacy and its position within Social Theory, more value is placed within cultures and/ or societies.

Chapter 2 of the text does a great job of breaking down “new” literacy further and illustrating the concept of literacy being viewed as multiple (Lankshear and Knobel, p.49). As I understand it, literacy manifests itself through practices. This excerpt from the text helps me wrap my mind around this:

Humans, then, are bearers or carriers of practices, through which they do and be and understand. As carriers of practices, through participation in practices, individuals ‘perform” their bodies and their minds, their desires and ends, their emotions and values, in particular ways. They thereby achieve identity and membership, roles and relationships, understandings and accountabilities. In doing so, their ‘performances’ carry the social order. They ‘bear’ social structure and the ongoing maintenance of social order. Social structure – the social order – is located in social practices. (Lankshear and Knobel, p. 34)

I would like to personally thank the authors for using football as an analogy as that helped turn on he light bulb in my head. It makes perfect sense to me that football literacy is composed of many different parts, as described, including mental, physical, and emotional aspects. It does bring up a few questions, however. Going back to my undergraduate degree in International Relations, I mentioned that political scientists like to develop theories by measuring and modelling. My question then is, by redefining literacy, do we take away the ability to measure it or model it because it is too complex or contains too many variables? Does the new definition also eliminate the word “illiterate”? Take the facebook example at the end of the chapter: can a person demonstrate high literacy with facebook by being more active in the application and utilizing the features? Again with football, hundreds of statistics are kept in order to measure players and their particular values to a team. I wonder if this falls along the same lines.

I’m not really sure these are important questions. Perhaps it doesn’t really matter. This is just where my thoughts went as I read through the chapter. As for digital storytelling, obtaining a better understanding of literacy, especially with its place in social theory, help me to see that it is more than just blogs and videos. By redefining literacy and acknowledging that digital storytelling is, in itself, a literacy, I can break it down into its smallest pieces and really examine the concept more fully. Perhaps  in my upcoming digital stories, I will pay more attention to the literacy events and social practices.