PSA Projects

A PSA is an acronym for a public service announcement. PSA's usually are made to present a message or to push for change within a community. Many people know of the Kayla McLachlan abused animal PSA's on TV and usually get sad whenever they see it. PSA's need to be effective when trying to present what they want to present. 

This week in class, we were tasked with making PSA's about being online and just about being a digital citizen. My group was tasked with making a PSA on online safety and thinking about what you post before you post. Our original idea was about a girl chatting with who she thought was a high schooler about homework but then leads into the exchange of some suggestive pictures which then leads to a lot of people getting a hold of the pictures. We pitched the idea to our teacher, but she felt like it was very ambitious. She had said that acting can sometimes turn comical and that if we want to present these to our school, then we would need to really be careful about what we were doing. 

We eventually came up with the idea to scrap that idea in exchange for a new one. Rather than relying on acting, we would focus on jelly beans. The idea was that a predator online is asking someone questions about their life and each answer they give, the pile of jelly beans, representing people that the target could possibly be, gets smaller until there is only one jelly bean left, signifying that the predator has found out who the person is. My group thought that this idea would be much easier and much more effective than our last idea. We got all of the jelly beans shots filmed in one day and editing should take that long. overall, this PSA project has been quite fun and has taught me a little bit about being safe online as well.

Kevin Beaty and Passion Projects

Our DigCit class is teaching us not only how to behave responsibly on the internet, it also teaches us how to use our passions to make change in the community or to get your message out there for people to see. We recently had Kevin Beaty, a freelance artist, photographer, and filmmaker, talk to us through a google hangout, a Skype-like video broadcasting website used to connect people from around the world, because he was in Colorado at the time. we talked about how he used his passion to create a career for him. we also talked about how you may go to college for one thing and end up doing something completely different. It was interesting to get a different perspective on college and how certain passions can lead to successful futures. 

I'm not sure I've talked about this yet, but just in case, I'll talk about it. On the week of November 5th, my class held a community showcase in which we displayed on poster board our projects so far and what we hope to do in the future with the project. Think of it like a science fair where people roam around and stumble upon different projects while the people behind the projects take about them. Just in this case instead of science it was our passion projects. My project went very well, but I have to say, it could have been a lot better. I have a problem with procrastination and I feel it could have been more professional. But, on the other hand, my public speaking skills were astounding. I've had people tell me that I speak comfortably and that I hold eye contact with the people I as talking to. Overall, everything we've talked about this week and last week have strengthened my drive toward what I'm really passionate about and I will continue this goal of mine until the day I die.

Kevin Beaty's Website: http://kevinjbeaty.com/cover/#start