New Car

We bought a brand new 2012 Nissan Rogue S Special Edition. We bought it from Don Davis Nissan in Arlington, TX. Our salesman, James Whitehouse, was GREAT to work with. He knew what he was doing and didn't try to play games. Overall we had a great experience and I would recommend them to anyone.

US Bank, however, is a TERRIBLE company to work with. US Bank held the lease for the Toyota Camry we traded in. We tried calling them to get a trade-in payoff amount, but they would not give us that info. Only a dealership could get that info. And US Bank would only allow a trade-in if we proved that we were buying a car fe that dealership. So we could not have traded in the Camry at CarMax and then bought a car at Don Davis. That scenario is not likely, but it should be an option. The first CSR we talked to at US Bank was rude and gave us wrong information. Luckily the second time we called we got a nice CSR that seemed to know what she was doing. All-in-all, I would NOT recommend leasing through US Bank. I will probably never do a lease again. I don't necessarily think leasing in general is bad, but I don't think it is appropriate for me.

Public Service Announcement (PSA) Reflections

The last assignment for EDLD 5363 Multimedia Video Tech was to work with a group and create a PSA.  The group comprised 5 people all in different parts of the state/country.  We had two weeks to create the PSA and were given some very simple guidelines.  The video needed to be 60 seconds and everybody had to participate in some way.

Our group started off a little rough, mainly because we didn't know each other and we are all working on different timelines.  I am a bit of a procrastinator, but one of our group members was leaving out of the country before the end of the class.  So he was pushing to get it done.  This motivated me and the other members to get in gear and create something.

We started slow on the ideas, but the Prof suggested AGAINST "Cyber-Bullying" so we went with "Texting."  I'm also a bit of a jokester and I figured if we had to make a PSA we should have some fun with it.  So we took the serious topic of excessive texting and went of the deep-end with it.  I think the result is hilarious.

My group pulled it together and got everything done.  It was a little scattered at times, but it worked.  In the future I think it would be beneficial to:
1) Know your group members before hand, or try to build in some "get-to-know-you" activities if the groups are randomly assigned
2) Set a timeline of events and meetings.  Try to coordinate with everyone's schedules
3) Web conference with people to be able to see their faces.  I was able to do this with one of the team members and it made it much easier to relate to him.

A special thanks goes out to Shawn P.  His video editing skills are what really put this assignment over the top.

Finished video

Web Conference - EDLD 5363 Wk5

These are the highlights of this weeks discussion (12/15/2011 8pm)
No final Exam Reflection Paper

Next Class is in January (Jan 12,15, or 18, there are conflicting reports)

Show Proof of collaboration

Everyone gets 100s for discussion board.

Everything we do goes in our e-portfolio (google site)

Everything we submit for this assignment needs to be submitted to TK20

Web Conference - EDLD 5363 Wk3

Brief Overview of the web conference:
Week 4 and 5 are ONE assignment, so I do not have to submit anything this week.
There was an error in the grading system for the Wk2 assignment, so we will all be getting a 100% :-)
Dr. A repeated several times that we should film a bunch of extra footage for our PSA, so that we have plenty of material to cut and "leave on the editing floor"  The opposite scenario would be terrible.