Tutorials:SSR Assessment

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In working through the following sections, you may want to refer to the tutorials and other pages on this website. Feel free to use any other website as a reference.

Contents 1 Assessment Details 1.1 Deadline 1.2 Submitting Your Assessment 1.3 Assessment Criteria 1.4 Contact 2 Setting Up Your Blog 3 Adding Images 4 Registering For Ourmedia 5 Connecting Your Websites 6 Uploading Music to Ourmedia 7 Promoting Your Music 8 Register on MySpace.com 9 Using RSS to Feed One Blog to Another 10 Questions & Answers

Assessment Details

Deadline

The deadline for finishing the assessment is 2 weeks from the final class. That is, before the end of June 27th, 2006.

Submitting Your Assessment

It is essential that you perform step 3 under the heading 'Setting Up Your Blog', below - otherwise your blog will not be found and cannot be assessed. Once you have performed that step, you do not have to do anything else to submit your work - a copy will be made of all pages on your blog website, to make a record of your work. After the assessment, feel free to carry on using your blog as you like - it will not affect the assessment.

Assessment Criteria

A full list of assessment criteria is available on the SSR Course Criteria page.

Contact

If anyone has any difficulties or questions, please do not hesitate to ask. Contact Premasagar on:

Setting Up Your Blog

1. Create a blog on WordPress.com:
   
2. Click on the 'Presentation' tab on your blog's dashboard and change the theme of your blog. Choose a theme to reflect the mood of your own blog.
3. Make a comment to this blog post (which is on Premasagar's blog), including a hyperlink to your blog.
4. Create an 'About' page on your blog. Give an overview of yourself or your blog - whatever you want people to know.

Adding Images

1. Include at least one image in your 'About' page that you have the legal right to publish (see License).
2. If the image is from another website, create a hyperlink around the image, linking back to the page it came from.

Registering For Ourmedia

1. Register on the Internet Archive.
2. Register on Ourmedia.org, giving your Archive password.
3. Once logged in, go to 'My Page' on your Ourmedia account.
4. Click on the 'Edit' tab at the top of the main section, then click on "Personal Profile".
5. Copy the contents of your blog's 'About' page and paste it into the "Biography" section of your Ourmedia profile.
6. Modify the content if necessary.
7. Join the School of Sound Recording group on Ourmedia:
   

Connecting Your Websites

1. Include a link to your blog from your Ourmedia page.
2. Include a link to your Ourmedia page from your blog's About page.
3. Include any other relevant links about you or your work.

Uploading Music to Ourmedia

1. Find a music track to upload. It may be something that you've created, or a band you've recorded. Otherwise, it could be any music track that you have the legal right to upload.
2. Using whatever software you deem necessary, export the track as an MP3, with a bitrate of 128kbps and joint stereo (or stereo interleaved) channels.
3. Click on 'Publish My Media' and then 'Audio' to start uploading your MP3:
   
4. Fill in all the relevant details about the track - you will not need all of them.
5. Tick the box at the bottom of the page that says 'School of Sound Recording group' to add the track to that group.
6. Upload the track.
7. If you receive any problems, try to upload the track again, though be sure to check your account page later to see if any partial uploads took place, in which case delete them.
8. On the media page for your uploaded track, you will see all the details that you entered. There is also a link that says 'This Media File's URL', which is a direct link to the file you uploaded. You will need these two addresses (the media page and the direct link) later:
   
9. You may want make another upload, of a higher bitrate version of the track, if you want people to be able to download a high-quality version.

Promoting Your Music

1. Create a new post on your WordPress blog.
2. Give the post a title, such as 'My Music'.
3. In the text of the post, say something about the track that you uploaded to Ourmedia. Give details of your involvement in creating the track. Mention which software you used to export the track as an mp3.
4. Include in your blog post a direct link to the mp3 file AND a link to the track's media page on Ourmedia.
5. If you uploaded a high-bitrate version of the track, then include links to that too.
6. Now assign your post to a category called 'music', adding a new category if you don't have one already.
7. Publish the post to your blog.

Register on MySpace.com

1. Create a profile on MySpace.com
2. Take note of your web address on MySpace. Add a link to it from your blog's 'About' page and your Ourmedia page.
3. Use the blog feature of MySpace to write a couple of posts.
4. Find the RSS link from your MySpace blog, in the top right-hand corner of the page:
   
5. Right click on the link that says 'RSS' and copy the link address. We will need that next...

Using RSS to Feed One Blog to Another

1. Back on your WordPress blog, go to the 'Presentation' tab.
2. Click on 'Sidebar Widgets':
   
3. If you do not see an option for 'Sidebar Widgets', then your chosen theme does not allow them. Choose another theme that does.
4. In the left-hand column, there are different types of widgets available. The right-hand column shows the widgets that are currently displaying in your blog's sidebar. Find one that says 'RSS':
   
5. Drag the RSS widget from the left-hand column to the right-hand column to add it to the sidebar:
   
6. Click on the icon on the right of the RSS widget to enter information about the RSS feed.
7. Paste the RSS link address from your MySpace blog, give the widget a name, such as 'MySpace Blog' and choose how many posts from your MySpace blog that you want to display in your WordPress blog sidebar:
   
8. Save the settings and view your WordPress blog site:
   
9. The titles of your MySpace blog posts should now be visible in the sidebar of your WordPress blog.

Questions & Answers

1. Make a new post on your WordPress blog.
2. Give the post a title: 'New Media Assssment'.
3. Click on the 'HTML' button to enable the entering of HTML code:
   
   
4. Copy and paste ALL of the following HTML code into the HTML box on your blog post.
5. Click 'Update' to insert the code into your blog post.
6. Change the text 'BLOG POST INTRO', at the top of your post, to something explaining that the following text is an assessment for your course. This is for other users who come across the post and wonder what it is.
7. Place the cursor underneath the introductory text that you wrote and before the rest of the text. Click the 'More' button, to break the two sections apart:
   
8. Go through each of the questions within that code, replacing 'YOUR ANSWER' with your actual answer to the question.

<div id="assessment">
<p>BLOG POST INTRO</p>

<h2>Searching & Finding</h2>
<ol>
<li>
	<p>Name a search engine that is appropriate for searching blogs. Turn the text of your answer into a link to the search engine's web address.</p>
	<p>YOUR ANSWER</p>
</li>
	
<li>
	<p>Perform a search on that search engine for anything that interests you. What did you perform a search for?</p>
	<p>YOUR ANSWER</p>
</li>
	
<li>
	<p>Find an interesting blog post from the list of search results and make a comment on the post. Provide a link to that blog post here.</p>
	<p>YOUR ANSWER</p>
</li>
</ol>



<h2>File Formats</h2>
<ol>
<li>
	<p>Name <strong>one</strong> file format for images that is suitable for using in websites.</p>
	<p>YOUR ANSWER</p>
</li>
	
<li>
	<p>What type of image would you use that particular file format for?</p>
	<p>YOUR ANSWER</p>
</li>
	
<li>
	<p>Name <strong>one</strong> file format for audio that is suitable for publishing on the Web.</p>
	<p>YOUR ANSWER</p>
</li>
	
<li>
	<p>Give <strong>three</strong> reasons why that audio file format is suitable.</p>
	<p>YOUR ANSWER</p>
</li>
	
<li>
	<p>Name <strong>two</strong> common video formats that are suitable for publishing on the Web.</p>
	<p>YOUR ANSWER</p>
</li>
</ol>



<h2>Web Hosting</h2>
<ol>	
<li>
	<p>Name <strong>one</strong> UK-based company who provides web hosting for individual websites.</p>
	<p>YOUR ANSWER</p>
</li>
	
<li>
	<p>What is their current, cheapest price for hosting a .com domain name for a year?</p>
	<p>YOUR ANSWER</p>
</li>
</ol>



<h2>Collaboration</h2>
<ol>	
<li>
	<p>Give <strong>one</strong> example of collaboration with others over the Internet.</p>
	<p>YOUR ANSWER</p>
</li>
	
<li>
	<p>What methods of communication would help such collaboration be successful?</p>
	<p>YOUR ANSWER</p>
</li>
</ol>



<h2>Distributing Media on the Web</h2>
<ol>
<li>
	<p>Name <strong>one</strong> website where users can upload video files for free. Give your answer as a link to that site.</p>
	<p>YOUR ANSWER</p>
</li>		
		
<li>
	<p>Name <strong>one</strong> website that allows users to listen to free, streamed music radio and to upload their own tracks for others to hear. Give your answer as a link to that site.</p>
	<p>YOUR ANSWER</p>
</li>
	
<li>
	<p>Give <strong>three</strong> advantages and <strong>three</strong> disadvantages to distributing music on the Web, as compared to other methods of distribution.</p>
	<p>YOUR ANSWER</p>
</li>
</ol>

<p>
	<a href="http://dharmasphere.org/wiki">Dharmasphere Wiki</a>
</p>

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