Working KOMU.com March 31st and April 2nd

This week I got the delightful opportunity to work the dot com shift twice in a week. On March 31st, Amanda and I found ourselves with the unique chance to really focus with one reporter. Conroy Delouche was working on an "8 On Your Money" report about the economy by the lake. He asked us to help visualize his numbers. Although it may sound simple, we decided to use Microsoft Excel to creat bar graphs. Once the graphs were created, we made them into JPEGs and loaded them to the story (which can be seen here). One issue I found on looking at the two stories on Friday is that the graphs end up being far to small to see.

My next shift was to make up for the shift I missed while attending my cousin's wedding in Miami. I used to produce on Thursdays, so I was very familiar with the reporters. I decided to help Adrienne Pedersen make a bar graph discussing prices of Columbia hotels (which can be seen here). In all honesty, most of this shift was spent exploring e-portfolios and starting to set up my own. It is easy to see how well many of my classmates are doing.

In the end, I felt rather silly for struggling to use Excel which I'd learned in fourth grade. However, the main point is that I continued to work and figure out how to use the technology. My generation too often sees a wall and can't figure out how to break through it. My philosophy is that even if I can't break through, I should at least be able to walk around the wall.