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Devon Baxter

Devon Baxter – Final Project Role

My role for the final project is to work as the web developer for the salmon creek journal. I will be applying the knowledge I have gained in the previous project being developer and applying it to this project making the experience faster and executable in a more streamlined fashion. Since the content for the Journal has already been created I am expecting a faster result compared to the previous project. CSS will not be a focus as others have roles in the CSS of the site. I am planning on getting the structure of the site worked out first before we get to focusing on making the site look great. Even though making the site look good is our priority we need to make sure the structure is down first before we proceed. I will also be getting an assistant to help me with the code so that I am not just doing the code on my own like the previous project. We also have a lot of multimedia designers that will help make the site look good. So if I make something in the code that violates design principles they will be able to catch it before I do. I expect this to be a fun final project but if the last project taught us anything, This project will have some work associated with it to make it difficult to pull through to show what we have learned and gained from the class. I don’t know what obstacles will appear when working on this project but it is all apart of the fun of working on a project of this magnitude.

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Devon Baxter – Multimodal Project Design Implementation

 

I would like to make the website as usable as possible this would include the implementation of the F-shaped reading pattern and the use of visual hierarchy to help the site look great, but it is not enough for the site to look great as the site needs to be usable to minimize frustration to the user. I can accomplish this using CSS which is a style that is applied within HTML. I can use typography for readability as the right font will help, as the typographic quality is determined by the way the text looks. Make sure the text looks good, then worry about the rest of the text later. We need to make sure the point size is 15-25 point on the web. The line spacing would also need to be readable at 120%-145% to be readable, which should be double spaced. Line length should be 45-90 characters per line as we don’t want huge lines of text. Font choice should reflect the best readable experience. The reading says to not use free fonts, however, In the CMDC program we are taught the opposite as the only fonts I have used are free fonts. From Google Fonts and possibly system fonts that can be downloaded from the internet. However, the reading told us to ignore system fonts and I agree with that statement only because fonts like Helvetica are hard to find on Windows PC and Google Fonts. Someone in my group suggested this font but since this is a system font on Apple Devices, it makes it hard to collaborate on designs for the web.

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Devon Baxter – Favorite Podcast

 

Favorite Daily Podcast:

Favorite Weekly Podcast:

My favorite podcast is Morning Wire. I came across them when I saw the news industry imposing negative news to gain interest and some of the news are not things that are the things that I need or want to know. This podcast gives me the news that I need to know, and they do an exceptionally excellent job at it. They are amazingly effective as they give me the news that I need to know. The subjects that they talk about are normal news topics like money, politics, and accusations. Sometimes I have trouble keeping up with all the things that are going on in the world we live in. so a podcast like this is informative. They are highly effective with the work and the podcast comes out daily. Publishing audio works is highly effective because it means less reading and more learning, especially for someone who learns in audio form preferably. Podcasts are great and give my eyes a break from staring at a screen and allow me to just listen and learn. Sometimes podcasts like this one may assist someone in their career for example someone that utilizes social media as a career could use these podcasts to keep up with the trends and investigate it more for research. I also like the NSLS weekly podcast for motivational Mondays because leaders get to highlight their experiences and give experience on a variety of topics to motivate others during the week which also is a benefit for podcasts. I do not see a downside other than podcasts that do not interest you or if you are deaf, you will not have access other than that it is positive and benefiting. 

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Devon Baxter – what is a book is/one quote

The design of the multimedia will be a group effort and each of us are going to have a different perspective on how we would want to design the salmon creek journal. In my IT job SHS needs to design flyers and books to get traffic to help repair the devices. The most common issue with our publishing that I have seen has mainly been the structure of the flyer or book. As looking at the book, I can make feedback that can help the book do better from a design and usability perspective. ” In the old art, just as the author’s intention is ultimately unfathomable and the sense of his words indefinable, so the understanding of the reader is unquantifiable. In the new art, the reading itself proves that the reader understands.” The quote that I have chosen is very important, as it involves the structure of the book and how others may perceive the book. We don’t know if a reader will understand our book, so structuring the book in a way that most can understand is going to be very crucial to the success of the salmon creek journal. Because there is the uncertainty that they can understand the book, we may need to do some tests to make sure they understand it through someone that is not directly involved with the project. If other people can understand our book without having to explain what our book is about, they, we may have success on our hands, but we cannot get the perspective of others if we have a genuine understanding of what has been written or not.

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Devon Baxter – Hayles essay on Hyper and Deep attention

Screen reading to me is reading on a screen as opposed to a physical book. Not every single textual element on a screen fits within this definition. Screen reading software is not screen reading. But can fit within this definition where the speech can read the text and say the word out loud.

The media elements are very essential to the web-based articles and blogs that we see today. The elements allow us to learn more about the topic that we are reading. Links allow us to expand on the topic using an external source.

Depending on the perspective that is someone views, this it can be a distraction, and it is not a distraction at the same time. The essay says “The researchers measured the effect of video games on what psychologists call “executive attention,” the ability to tune out distractions and pay attention only to relevant information “a person could tune out unnecessary information but if the book is not relevant or interesting, it could pose a problem. A book does not have these elements, so it immersed the reader in just the text that they see in front of them with no supplemental information. All the information should be in the book. In an electronic format, the elements such as hyperlinks act as supplemental information to the reading, whether the information is present. Screen readers do not exist in the physical books, but they get distracted by page numbers and images when they are present, so I would think the screen reader itself could get more distracted than the actual reader in that case. Some people could get lost with the hyperlinks if the supplemental information is too large. So, the reader might want to read the supplemental information, especially if the supplemental information has hyperlinks that continue to supplement the information that they are seeing taking away from the experience of the original work they were reading. So yes, they can if you get too immersed in the content.

My reading habits have changed drastically, as most of my reading is electronic, as I did a little reading in the physical realm. I went from reading the physical text but since the constraints as a university student or a student distract me from actually reading and taking in the content because I am focused on just getting through the reading and not reading the content. I have learned some things that have helped me in reading both mediums as I was not actually engaging with the content fully, whether it was because I did not like the content or because the medium was distracting. After reading a variety of texts, some I needed to work around in order to even read. I learned how to be a better reader. This article was interesting as well because I could relate it to everyday life. The essay says that the study of 8-18-year-old’s “shows that the average time young people spend with media per day is a whopping 6.5 hours—every day of the week, including school days.” I would say that the information is accurate, especially as a college student who looks at screens for 8 hours a day doing readings and typing papers, it is accurate. Not to mention other forms of media consumption per day.

Specific ideas that I have are a brief paragraph supplemental information and not just links to articles, as that should stop the node-based distractions that come from the articles with supplemental information. Audio features allow us to read the book like a podcast. Books that come with notes on the information in note form we don’t need to read the entire book to get the supplemental information, so experts make book notes so that the important information is there.

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Devon Baxter – Project Gutenberg Summaries

RING ONCE
FOR DEATH
BY ROBERT ARTHUR

The first story is about something that happened 20 years ago involving the characters father. The character did not mention how the father died but all that was mentioned is that the father died 5 years ago. There was mention that a bell and clapper was separated by the father. death cannot be defeated. another victim was used to take his place. When a chief dies a servant would be handy for death to take next.

Pillar of Fire
By RAY BRADBURY

The next story is about someone who couldn’t do anything but breath. He couldn’t walk, he couldn’t jump he couldn’t move his arms. He could breath but not fully. He can cry but no tears. He can shout. We was dead. He died and was born again not knowing what year it was until it was the year 2349.

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Devon Baxter – The Future of the Book Mini-Essay


Books have been thought of as texts that have texts that don’t change as fast or as quickly. In the book this is referenced as the text being there the next day as it was yesterday because in that volume or edition of the book the text will stay the same from day to day without change. It is hard to change the text on analog books once the book has been published and copies have begun to be released. The only way to change the ideas of the book is to release an updated version of the book with vol.2 other variations that say that this is a sequel with fresh ideas.

An exception to this would be newspapers as newspapers can come in daily so it can be published daily and the text will not be changed on the newspaper that is on possession. A new newspaper can come in the next day with different text. Right now, newspapers are electronic and can be updated as new information is released instead of writing multiple articles for newspapers we can keep it to just one article that is updated whenever information is released. Digital Newspapers can also be read by anyone anywhere in the world which is an advantage over physical newspapers. No shipment time is going to be required as the web is fast and quick.

Books are in a state where they can exist without being physical. Books can be electronic, and ideas can be preserved through the web if the web stays intact and the media that the book exists on doesn’t go extinct like the flash related books that only existed on flash player that has been discontinued on December 31, 2020. Otherwise, books do not have a chance of being obsolete in this manner as the books that have been lost through the discontinuation of flash are being restored by people wishing to archive these types of books. Each book is being archived with the medium being preserved or the books having new mediums. In Borsuk “The book will not become obsolete with new reading platforms but rather will change and develop new incarnations and readerships; it will continue to serve certain kinds of literary needs and desires”(Borsuk, 221) As new mediums come in more books will come in about that medium whether in the traditional formats or the less traditional formats. Any other formats that come out would be seen as less traditional formats of the book and would be seen as something new and exciting.

In the Book by Borsuk we have seen the book talk about how the book is supposed to be an intimate experience between the reader and the book itself in physical form. It used to be that there would be book talks among peers after reading the book but in the future, we will start to see a shift in the opposite direction. Books will become more social as that gives an advantage to Digital Publishing and that kind of experience cannot be replicated in traditional print books. With the program Perusall we are seeing how this type of medium for Books would function, but it is not perfect and it could be better as the system utilizes AI to generate the annotations and comments that others have made. The developer of the reader can decide to limit and let the AI filter the number of annotations that appear onscreen so that the reader does not become overwhelmed and frustrated with the experience. How social can a book get and what is the perfect balance between what works and what doesn’t? The best way to deal with this is to let the AI filter the number of annotations being seen and include a search box for annotations and web-based content. For example, when a word is highlighted, someone can touch or right click on the word and then they can get the word auto filled in the search box which searches up the word. Other options include annotations containing that word will also pop up in the box which allows the reader to discuss with other people about what they are reading in that moment. Other options in this eBook would include the ability to turn annotations on or off and filter the number of annotations being seen. Social media connectivity will also be a connection in this book as the book is becoming more social there will be more features related to social media being involved within the reader itself as having it within the search function and highlighting functions will be too overwhelming.

Other social functions involving the book will exist outside the experience itself. Such as how books get recommended as books have different mediums that come out the categories that books exist within changes. Because, it is an entirely different experience. The way books are recommended will change based on the popularity and demand of each book experience. Including books that I am not going to be mentioning like Brain Chip Mind Warping Technology. All the experiences will have the ability to be recommended since there will be more experiences to choose from there will be more choice. With more choice means more flexibility and user control. If they want books in a VR experience they can have it.

The changes in the medium also fluctuate based on consumer demand. In Borsuk, “from scroll to bound folio, books have indeed evolved. And like all things subject to evolution they can face extinction.” (Borsuk, 183). A medium can be created but then disappear due to low consumer demand. For example, with video games that form of medium for games fluctuated based on consumer demand and ended up being off the market for a few years following the video game crash of 1983. Other things such as funding and expenses make it hard to maintain the medium. Demand is going to be very crucial with how the book develops because businesses are hoping to make money off of any new mediums that come out with the book. When the physical books were created they were created at a time were demand needed to be there in order to invent something. Funding was not going to be that big of an issue if books can be developed for years to make It successful. A digital book medium will not take as long and it will use the success of the book as a checkpoint to create something from there which was the eBook. These formats were able to adapt to consumer demand and have remained stable mediums throughout time. Especially with the eBook being a fairly new medium but not as new as other mediums that may not be as stable and would only exist for a short period of time.

Game based books may start coming out. Like I mentioned earlier there was a video game crash that made it so that consumers could not buy video games as they were low in demand and no one wanted to buy any anyway. However, video games have made a comeback and the demand for video games is greater than ever as books can have their own video game like we are seeing but they could have more details and experiences that are not currently found book-based video games today. Sometimes books become movies then become games. However, we lose a lot of detail in the story and the video games do not seem as good as the book especially if the video game is based off the movie and not the book. There may be a future where as gaming evolves so does books. Same with how video evolves so will the book. Videos could have a choose your own adventure style that could easily be implemented into eBooks but not with physical print books as it is not possible to choose your own adventure in those books. Books have the ability to evolve if other forms of media evolve to create a different kind of experience.

Books will not exclude print but we have advantages and disadvantages to consider when we are reading using eBooks as they are able to add features change the experience and create new mediums digitally. The people who will be publishing the social and gaming related books will be the authors themselves as they take pride in publishing their own books, other publishers who are already established and new up and coming publishers. Google may want to take over the publishing market as a whole to monopolize the marketplace like it is doing now with Google Books. The readers of the books will vary in attention spans and are willing to read things that spark interest. The attention spans of the readers are more likely to be shorter than current reader attention spans. The experience of the social and gaming books will be as familiar and usable to the reader as possible. The experience of course will vary depending on the book format. The VR books will function like VR. The social based books will be a new experience with some familiar features to help the reader guide through the reading. Gaming books will function like a video game. Most people do not like change so when changing a medium it needs to be familiar and the new things need to mesh well with what is new. What will be coming in the future is not decided by me but the future will be decided by many people and it is coming whether we like it or not so what the book will be in the future can change at anytime by anyone but one thing is for certain the analog will not go away. . “what is beyond the book is still a book”(Borsuk, 256)

work cited:

Borsuk, Amaranth. The Book. The MIT Press, 2018.

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Devon Baxter – A book as a system

The author lists some ideas throughout the article. The first idea that mod brings up is the book as a system. Books are seen as systems as they have processes that make them into a system. With the book they have a variety of systems just like there are different types of books. The pre-artifact system, The system of the artifact, post-artifact system. The pre-artifact system is where the book is made. It has been a system of isolation and the author, editor and publisher are involved in the system. The product of this system is the book. System of the artifact Is also a book. Post-artifact is also like a book talk approach where people talk about what they have read. Digital changes the way these systems are approached. Digital takes the book away from these systems because of the increase in connectivity. The book changes drastically such as the book not being the same as it was yesterday, and you will see something else tomorrow because the book can be changed easily while a print book cannot be changed easily. Engagement with other readers is easy and continuous. The commentary can even be archived for future readers to look back on and reference if they come across the public record for commentary. The artifact systems in this case no longer make sense as because the publishing system for digital books has been changed from print books. When I was growing up and finding information on the web it was easy and accessible while other times it was not as easy because sometimes the content, I was looking for would be behind a paywall but the things I did end up finding I could utilize for research. Most things that I found on the web can be updated easily and sometimes search terms can even be updated. It is easy to find information digitally as you don’t need to go to the library to sort through physical books that may not be up to date. The information on the web will tell you if it is up to date which is another reason why digital is the way to go.

 

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Devon Baxter – The Future of the Book

<Everything in the world exists in order to end up as a book> This tells me that anything that we publish on the web could end up as a book. It just needs to exist. Publishing digitally is a book in some form but is a medium that is different than the book. When we publish digitally our content could eventually become a book but the medium for which we write could change in order for it to become a book. Someone could also change the way our content is written in order to make that happen like a book being a movie which also has a chance of happening. As more things change and continue to come out the more books will be released. Books can be of many mediums and as things change and come out so do books. Some books are based in things that are not real of have never existed so even if nothing changed books would still continue to be released.

 

<The book will not become obsolete with new reading platforms, but rather it will change and develop new incarnations and readerships; it will continue to serve certain kinds of literacy needs and literacy desires-specifically those related to its book bound physicality and potentiality.> with each new reading platform the book will change and grow new books will be release on the new platforms because the platform is new. Since people need to learn how to be proficient in the new platform a book will be released on how the platform is used and utilized. The new reading platform could have its own unique ability to host books and enable books to have an experience like no other. But, that would change the medium that the book is using. Also, while other technologies come out books will come out on those technologies however if the book cannot be written fast enough to adapt with the everchanging landscape of technology then it does not become useful to release the book because the window of usefulness has expired. So it makes more sense to blog in this case because blogging will be able to adapt and release with the changes seen in technology.  All books also have the ability to be digital along with their physical releases so digital and physical books will not be phased out.

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Devon Baxter – Favorite Book

My favorite book is Roots, Reality and Rhyme. This book is made of the same material as most books that we see in a modern library today. This book was not handmade and was produced by a collection of different companies. The book is a paperback that includes lightweight paper in between. The ink that was used was most likely printed. Various fonts were used and experimented with.  

This book is special to me because it is linked to an event that I have been to, and I got it to remember the event. However, the book is more special than that because this book is different than other books that I have in my collection. This book is a poetry book, and I do not usually read poetry but after the event I knew I needed to have the book because the poems were read aloud to me, and the author signed this book right in front of me. The content of the book opens a perspective that I have not experienced while at the same time I could resonate as I read because I would be thinking about the book and immersed in the book to the point where reality does not exist while reading. The book is of course alive through the events that have been seen but the poems are different, and the poems are the things that spark my imagination. The design of the book was also designed nicely, and you know you are about to go to a different section when you see a picture. The event also allowed me to get the authors voice but after a while you get your own voice as the event happened 3 years ago.  

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Introduction-My favorite type of Digital Publishing

Hello, My name is Devon Baxter, Currently I am a DTC Major in their senior year and plans to graduate at the end of spring semester. During my coursework I minored in communication and obtained the social media certificate. I also plan on getting the game studies and design certificate upon graduation. in the future I don’t plan to be in any particular field or position as I am trying to be realistic with the ever-growing landscape of change and how jobs that currently exist could be eliminated while new jobs start existing. For example I started looking into some of my gifts and one of them is dates and scheduling. I looked online and it seems that scheduling is starting to become a career as some people don’t remember the times of events or they are busy with other things to really put a schedule together. The reason behind this is because project management could be split up into different positions and careers to streamline multiple projects at once for one company.

A day in the life of a scheduler:(I Thought it was funny)

My favorite type of publishing is blogging because the user can have control over their own site or the content that they put on their own site Some sites are however limited with this as they could be controlled by someone else. More likely than not it is owned by the person blogging on the site. SEO plays a great role as it helps in promotion of the site on search engines. Blogs can also be promoted on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in the form of links. This would also be a good way to measure  whether an audience is being reached. people can make money off of blogging an can be seen as a career path that can open doors to other career paths. portfolios can be made from blogs and companies are requiring that people know how to write in order to be successful in the role that they are signing up for.

Blogging is powerful:

 

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