Beyond promoting my page through social media, it is important to spread the word as you go throughout your local classes. Veterans are present in most of your classes, not many of them will be vocal about their veteran pasts. It is important to respect that, some veterans do not want to be identified as veterans, but if you come across a veteran, it would be appreciated to send them to my blog so that we can share and express our views for the veteran community in the student community environment. The word of mouth is a powerful tool in networking, regardless of your status as a student, or a veteran, you can still provide a valuable asset to the community by incorporating veterans into your clubs, culture, and environments.
Me Verses Them
My Blog, in contrary to other student veteran websites and pages is vastly different because it offers the convenience of including a comment and interactive segment. No veteran’s advance in school is vastly different from another veteran’s experience, just like our military careers. Because of this difference in experience, my blog is beneficial because I can share and compare different experience from different veteran through either the comment section or by obtaining different stories and sharing them within my posts. This is very important because not many websites produce content this way. Most of the student veteran websites only provide the generic cookie-cutter information that can be found within any generic veteran’s affairs website. My blog provides the opportunity to network and connects unique stories based around the individuals.
I think, since my page is also through a third party, it allows for the creative ability to express my personal feelings about the student veteran community. Since I am not bound by any professional organization, I can relay information from different sources and various methods of information. It is really important that there is a website for veterans to visit that can produce information in a manner that can relate to our issues, from our own.
Peanutize Yourself
This particular assignment was fun because it allowed the assignment to take a light hearted and fun turn. One of my biggest challenges for this assignment was in promoting a light hearted and fun environment that could be used to show the light hearted side of the veteran community.
Producing this product was relatively easy because the software didn’t offer many options. The options were designed to be user-friendly and fun for all ages. Making avatars are a fun and relatively new concept outside the gaming world. I don’t usually produce avatars, but have been slowly integrating them into platforms like Xbox and Snapchat. The Peanutize me Website reminds me of the Bitmoji concept on Snapchat. I just started using the Bitmoji when the Snapchat maps feature launched. It is a fun way to incorporate and connect with friends when the geographical boundaries exist. I think the expansion of bitmojis and avatars are reinventing how we interact with each other on a digital basis. Building avatars can help reflect the way people feel and interact on a digital basis; some people may make an avatar that directly reflects the way we look, like I feel I did with mine, or we can make an avatar that is out of this world, which might reflect our online presence.
Peanutize yourself here
Student Veteran Families
I think it is very important for others to know that student veterans can also have families that support the veteran as he or she goes through the transition from military to student life. The transition to student life is not easy for any veteran, but it can be especially hard when families and children are involved. The extra role of raising a family while attending school can reflect on the grades and workload of the veteran.
This picture was found using the Creative Commons Search Engine which offers connections to other web sites with content that abide by the fair use checklist. This particular picture is not protected by any copyright protections and is listed for public domain. Because the picture is not listed under any copyright, it is free from restrictions under copyright law and can be used by any user to modify, distribute, and use for any commercial use.
The picture was found on Flickr using the Creative Commons Search Engine
Meme Me
I have always enjoyed this meme because it exemplifies the comical side behind using the GI Bill. I think it is important for veterans to understand that we are attending college at a much older age than our new counterparts. This meme helps show that veterans have experienced a different background than most of the others in the classroom and can bring a different point of view to the class discussions.
I especially find this meme comical because one time I walked into a classroom on the first day of class and noticed the students all sat up and looked at me as if I was the professor.
I chose to upload another meme for this assignment because it over dramatizes the fact that many veterans have been out of school for several years and might have to review and relearn many aspects of school that our new college peers might already be successful in. Although this is an over dramatic and generalization of student veterans that is completely false, it still has the underlying message that student veterans may have extra struggles in class. This is especially true for veterans studying STEM fields. The mathematics classes are statistically proven to cause higher issues for transitioning student veterans. Related to this, the current passing of the #ForeverGIBill allocates extra funding for student veterans studying STEM fields to use after their GI benefits run out.
Please note: I did not use Know Your Meme to find these two memes. Because of the student veteran community is such a small niche, it was harder to find memes that accurately fit the mission of the blog.
Credit:
Social Media Exposure
Social media is a powerful, and common tool in media and can be used to promote and share content throughout various channels. Although the term ‘social media’ is generalized and covers all the various forms of networked media, each source of social media varies per the usage. The ideal platform to share content on depends on the audience and style of content. Obviously, a posted picture might do better on Instagram instead of Twitter or Snapchat whereas a website might get more traffic if it is posted and shared on Facebook. The desired target audience and the style of content should dictate which social media platform is best for maximum reach and exposure.
Due to the nature of my blog, since it is more about content and less about digital imagery, the preferred method to promote the page is on Facebook. Sharing the page on Facebook opens the possibility for users to better comment on the shared post enabling other users to see the shared post and comment in the newsfeed. The way Facebook exposes a shared post that is trending within a user’s newsfeed allows the user’s friends to better see the thread as it develops. By the nature of the blog, it is mostly targeted towards veterans and veterans seeking/attending higher education, this being said, the Facebook platform allows others to share the post within other related pages making the post open to different demographics past just the original user. It helps make the original post reach its potential targeted audience.
Screencasting
My screencast can be found here
Utilizing screencasting software can be an enormously powerful tool by interactively showing the audience a message or segment of a website. In my screencast, I decided not to show a blog, but rather the Student Veterans of America website. I did this because of all the content that was relatable to my blog. I felt that the website would better portray the mission of my blog and would give the class, and the audience a better understanding of veteran resources.
The hardest part of this program was incorporating the software with my computer. Every time I went to record, the software would crash and then my laptop would be forced to restart. This happened several times and was resolved by luck. I was able to record and save the document before the system crashed again. The software wanted to default my computers built-in microphone instead of my snowball microphone as well which didn’t give me the desired audio, after fixing that problem, I was able to use my microphone and record with better audio.
Overall, the software is a valuable asset for professionals and students alike to broadcast and educate the audience on a topic or method. As a geography major, this could have been a valuable asset for the cartography department to use when teaching the entry level skills of Adobe Illustrator. The only backlash from the program is the five-minute time limit, each segment would have to be brief and short. The time limit was one of the hardest factors to consider when going through the presentation and forced me to shorten and alter my plan of approach. Going forward with the project, I would consider finding another program that allows for a longer recording time, and I would consider using audio editing tools to have quiet music playing in the background for a more enjoyable audience experience.
The recording program used was Jing
The website tutorial is courtesy of The Student Veterans of America. A national veteran based non-profit.
Empowering Student Veterans Introduction
Click here to listen to my commercial
The audio editing production was far more enjoyable than the photo editing portion of the project. I think I enjoyed this portion better because of the software that I used. I used Audacity because it was a program that I was already familiar with. Although Audacity is not the most user-friendly software, it is adequate in editing audio on a basic level. I had to use Microsoft voice recorder to record myself talking because I used a Blue snowball microphone. I wanted to use this microphone because I use the same one while recording a Disgruntled Discussion, a podcast for veterans, and the microphone makes it easier to edit voice recordings.
One of the biggest obstacles of this project, on top of the familiarization process of using Audacity, was finding exactly where to splice the two music pieces together. I wanted the first cadence to headline the introduction to outline a veteran’s military career while also tying into the empowerment of veterans. The cadence Hard Work is a cadence most every veteran has sung throughout training for motivation. The second song that was used as an ending was Come Out And Play (Instrumental) by The Offspring. I chose the instrumental version to keep from distracting from my message as the song fades in. Another obstacle that I encountered was with converting audio files to fit the designated formats for Audacity. I ended up using a free converting software online.
My biggest criticism of the piece would be the drawn out beginning of the introduction, I would have liked to shorten the cadence. Generally speaking, Hard Work is my favorite cadence so I think I got caught up in the music and did not want it to end. Other than the introduction cadence, I am happy with the introduction but would like to learn more on adjusting the levels of my voice and the music to flow better.
Designing a Header
Since this is a website about veteran empowerment, I decided that I would match the saying of “The pen is mightier than the sword,” and the U.S. Militaries most celebrated machine gun of all time, the Browning M2 50 Cal Machine gun. I felt this would be a powerful transition between the two lifestyles that veterans live; the proud celebration of our military careers, and the ‘next level’ of our lives, and moving on into the civilian sector. This is represented by keeping the next round of ammunition as the original 50 caliber round, and the sub sequential rounds are of the future endeavors represented as the belt-fed fountain pens.
This particular assignment tested my abilities to use software that I was not familiar with. I had previously used Adobe Illustrator in a cartography class as a requirement for my geography major, which made utilizing Pixler as a photo editing platform difficult. I found Pixler to be generally user-friendly for those with some degree of editing backgrounds because of the universal symbols used for the tools. For me, the hardest part of using the software is trying to find a way to convey my ideas digitally instead of on paper. The skill of photo editing software is perishable, which I learned after getting proficient with Adobe Illustrator and not continuing my practices.
Follow the link for photo credit:
Continuing Success.
As a veteran going through college, I had many struggles transitioning from a combat zone into a latte-slurping, Natty-Ice chugging, research institution that wasn’t shooting rockets at me throughout the day, but rather introducing me into a segment of life I had missed out on four years prior. The worst part about it, I was going to college virtually alone.
Photo: Rutgers Veteran Department
The transition from military life to civilian life is not easy and is a big culture shock. This blog is designed to inform, educate, and empower veterans to succeed while informing our civilian counterparts on veteran culture in a professional college atmosphere. This blog is important to me because of the struggles I’ve endured, and continue to endure. This blog is not singularly catered to veterans attending schools, but also the civilian students; this is very important because of a comment a student council representative once made to me. The Student representative shockingly stated that they had no clue that there were veterans that attended college at Rutgers University.
Photo: Joseph Tepfenhart, FOB Shank, 2013.
Empowering Student Veterans 