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Kelli Plasket

Semester 2 - Spring 2009

5/4/10

4/27/10

  • Completed version 1 of iPhone app
  • Designed poster for Celebration of Student Achievement

4/20/10

  • Read through Fireworks tutorials on prototyping and interactivity with Adobe Fireworks CS4 from Adobe's Classroom in a Book
  • Laid out "More" section pages in mobile app
  • Added rollovers to prototype
  • Blog Post: Yesterday, I attended the New York Women in Communications Foundation Matrix Awards at the Waldorf=Astoria in New York. The Matrix Awards are the "Oscars" of the communications industry, when 8 women from various areas of communication win a Matrix Awards. I've attended the last three ceremonies, the first two as a NYWICI Foundation scholarship recipient. As a scholarship recipient, I was both years introduced on stage with the other recipients and Matrix Award winners in front of the New York communications industry's best--in one of those "pinch me, is this real?" moments. This year, I returned to the Matrix Awards as a volunteer. This year's Matrix Award recipients were Gayle King, Susan Chira, Ina Garten, Anne Keating, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Sheryl Crow, Tina Fey, and Marissa Mayer. Between these recipients, their award presenters, and the audience, there was a lot of star power at the event, but there was no one I was more excited to hear from than Google VP (and the company's first female engineer) Marissa Mayer. And her speech didn't disappoint. "I'm Marissa Mayer," she began. "I work at Google, and I have a confession to make: I'm a geek." She proceeded to describe her love of writing code, the excitement of lining up with fellow Googlers for an iPad, and other passions of being a woman in tech. "Geeks are people who love something so much, all the details are interesting," she said. It's great to see an organization like NYWICI to embrace digital media and technology, as they have done for several years. The first year I received a scholarship, I specifically got the "Women in New Media" award, which came from an organization of the same name that had recently folded into NYWICI. Digital media is a vital part of all areas of the communication industry, and NYWICI has embraced that fully. I've been able to get involved actively in the organization on the digital media level as editor, maintainer and designer of the student blog for two years.

4/13/10

  • Reading: Small-Screen Interfaces, Chapter 10 from HCI Beyond the GUI
  • Wrote mobile app documentation for poster proposal

4/8/10

  • Sick--missed meeting
  • Designed "resources" pages in mobile app

3/30/10

  • Read sections from Web Engineering: A Practitioner's Approach
  • Designed "Media" pages in mobile app

3/23/10

  • Researched rollovers/click downs in Fireworks for prototype
  • Researched WordPress and Drupal for write up on WordPress and Drupal for technical paper
  • Researched state charts and interaction diagrams

3/16/10

  • Researched methods for more interactivity for prototype
  • User tested CAFE updates
  • Designed Media and Resources section of mobile app
  • Wrote up mini report about mobile app for technical paper

3/9/10

  • Spring Break!

3/2/10

  • User tested CAFE updates
  • Designed Messages section of mobile App

2/23/10

  • User tested CAFE updates
  • Designed Articles section of mobile App

2/16/10

  • Out sick for Weekly meeting
  • Laid out/designed out more of mobile app in Fireworks
  • CAFE user testing

2/9/10

  • User testing CAFE- submitted several tickets/bug reports
  • Storyboarding Web app
  • Preliminary research on CMSs for kids

2/2/10

  • Began spring 2010 bug/testing reports & user testing
  • Researched Microformats
  • Outlined magazine site modules
  • Storyboarding Web app

1/26/10

  • XML Research - Setting up RSS feed
  • Posted proposal to Wiki for more feedback
  • Updated links on CREU site, maintained wiki meeting minutes

1/19/10

  • First Meeting of Semester
  • Discussed Project proposal, timeline for semester

Semester 1 - Fall 2009

12/3/09

  • Final Meeting of Semester
  • User Tested Proof of Concept Prototype for Mobile App
  • Completed project proposal for CAFE mobile application and mobile Web site
    • Abstract (see full proposal on internal wiki):

      For today’s journalists, it is almost crucial that they not only always be digitally connected but also be able to communicate well and easily while on the go.  While reporting on the field, the sooner a journalist can collect their findings and submit it to an editor, the more efficient a news organization editorial process can be run.  It ensures both that no detail is forgotten and then the news can be released in a timely matter.  Journalism students are taught to transcribe their interviews, type up their notes, etc. as soon as they return home from reporting while details are still fresh on their mind.  But what if they could do this before they even return to their home or office? And what if they could process and submit their media and content from their mobile device, rather than needing the bulkiness of a laptop?

      For the Mobile Journalism project, I will create a prototype for a mobile application for journalists.  It will be designed to act as a mobile-enhanced version of the content management system CAFÉ (Collaboration And Facilitation Environment), currently being used by middle school students in the National Science Foundation-sponsored Interactive Journalism Institute for Middle Schoolers program. The prototype will be designed with the look, feel and design standards of an iPhone application but can be adapted to multiple mobile platforms, including Android and BlackBerry.The mobile journalism application will have all the necessary features of CAFÉ, including:  enter and submit article/text, view and edit submitted articles (within the user’s permission level), proofread article entries, upload media, send and receive messages and alerts, and access resources such as the sourcebook, stylebook, calendar and dictionary.

      In conjunction with the mobile application prototype, I will also create a mobile Web site for CAFÉ, which will improve the usability of the CMS when logging in through any mobile browser.  This will ensure that even users without an iPhone, iPod Touch or other smart phone can still access CAFÉ as long as they can access the Web.

11/26/09

  • Thanksgiving break--no meeting

11/19/09

11/12/09

11/5/09

10/29/09

  • Proof of Concept #1 Execution
  • Response to required reading articles: Virus Blocker and 25 Most Dangerous Programming Errors
    • Without knowing much of the technicalities in how security works on the Web, the MIT solution makes sense to me--to follow and protect the data itself to protect it from security holes. I would hope that most Internet companies value security enough that they would be willing to try this software solution, even if it slightly affects run time. I'd be interested to know whether MIT's software has been put to the "25 Most Dangerous Programming Errors" test--does it make any of these errors?

      In my own research, I sought out information about security on mobile browsers for kids. This iPhone application, Mobicip, is a parental control app that parents can install on their kid's iPhone or iPod touch to limit what sites they can access in Safari. It is unclear whether there are any protections against hackers, entering secure information, etc. This sort of application is something I will consider as I develop my mobile journalism app for Cafe, since it will largely be used by kids.

10/22/09:

10/15/09:

  • User tested Cafe CMS
  • Researched where project is linked to online, updated public Web site with new links and information
  • Determined a project goal: develop prototype for a mobile journalism iPhone application to run with Cafe

10/08/09:

  • Wrote summary of project for publication on school Web site
  • My Research Blog 5 (CNN's new iPhone app with mobile reporting features)
  • My Research Blog 5 (on kids' use of consumer electronics)

10/01/09:

  • My Research Blog 3 (on "Going Mobile" survey from Audit Bureau of Statistics)
  • My Research Blog 4 (on Life magazine getting "Googlized")
  • Presented/guest lectured on research work done with interactive journalism institute to First Year Seminar "Living in a Virtual World"

9/24/09:

9/17/09: Web site set-up, Cafe user testing, research

9/10/09: Preliminary research

9/03/09: Preliminary research

8/27/09: Orientation, discuss timeline, project goals