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Digital & Media Lit COM 250

Students at the University of Rhode Island, working under the supervision of Renee Hobbs, examine some inquiry questions to advance their digital and media literacy competencies.

Bill Nye Analysis

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Throughout the course of making this video, I had a combination of several struggles, but I was also pleasantly surprised by the ease of some parts of the process. I knew immediately that I wanted to discuss Bill Nye’s appearance on Last Week Tonight. I found the process of researching and analyzing to be the least intensive or stressful portion as it is something I have done many times in the past. I wrote the provided critical thinking questions out like a worksheet that would be provided in a class and answered them as such. Then I used those answers as an outline for my presentation while creating the PowerPoint and determining the order in which I wanted to present ideas. This experience was the first time that I have voiced over a video. I have edited videos for a music tech class in the past, but not with my own voice and not to any degree where I felt that I have a strong background in video creation. I tweaked the script slightly each time I rehearsed my video, and in the end, the script had evolved to be significantly different from the original I had started with.

I find it important to note also that at one point in the video I refer to Bill Nye as a scientist. This statement, in my opinion, is true because he holds a Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering, which falls under the umbrella of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). Also, the concepts involved in this discipline are not simply based on math and science but are inherently mathematical and scientific. As a biology major, there is a lot of crossover with engineering, and I find many engineering majors in the same core classes I attend. In addition, engineers will run tests and experiments to improve their work and innovate solutions to their problems. I find that this gives him the ethos to be a scientist and scientific educator, but there are many people who would and could validly criticize this point as he himself is not a scientific researcher.

I struggled the most with the production of the video and estimate that I shot this video 15–20 times. Though I truly did not need to film it this many times, I wanted to get it just right, especially because this is my first time creating a project like this. I chose to focus on symbolism as my concept related to the text because Bill Nye is known for his demonstrations, and I felt that the globe fit perfectly into the theme of symbolism. I chose to use software on my phone — an app called ‘Go Record’ — as I was having issues with my laptop not fully recording my audio, so the first three attempts on my video were incomplete. In addition, I live in a dorm which has a considerable amount of background noise at all times. I began working on this project early in the week but had a hard time locating a quiet spot. I am currently staying at my partner’s house this weekend and filmed the video here as the background noise from people is quieter, but I had to film in gaps between the train schedule as he lives close to a track, a complication which I had failed to remember. Even though there were many hurdles, I do not want to create the impression that I did not enjoy this project. I had a lot of fun with it and even found recording to be relaxing as it was nice to sit in a quiet place and just work.

#com250 #BillNye #Leapproject #Analysis #ClimateChange #carbontax #LastWeekTonight

Citations

Bill Nye — Age, Education & TV Shows, www.biography.com/personality/bill-nye. Accessed 10 Feb. 2024.

Bill Nye — Age, Education & TV Shows, www.biography.com/personality/bill-nye. Accessed 10 Feb. 2024.

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“Green New Deal: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO).” YouTube, YouTube, 13 May 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDcro7dPqpA.

Hobbs, Renee. Media Literacy in Action: Questioning the Media. Rowman & Littlefield, 2021.

“OpenAI-ChatGPT.” OpenAI, chat.openai.com/c/98eb1840-e415–4748-a0d1-d7ded3766e57. Accessed 10 Feb. 2024.

Notes: I used this only for the generation of synonyms while drafting this piece about my creative process. For example ‘give me synonyms for easy’ and to edit my grammar. I gave it the command to please correct spelling and grammar, but not anything else. I can also provide before and after for what went into the technology and what came out if preferred. I had done the majority of the editing beforehand, but wanted to check for things like comma rules that I myself may not see. Very minimal changes were done by the technology.

Staff, EasyBib. “EasyBib®: Free Bibliography Generator — MLA, APA, Chicago Citation Styles.” EasyBib, Chegg, 1 Jan. 2024, www.easybib.com/.

Reed, Ryan. “John Oliver, Bill Nye Explain Climate Change: ‘The Planet’s on F-Cking Fire.’” Rolling Stone, Rolling Stone, 13 May 2019, www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/john-oliver-bill-nye-climate-change-green-new-deal-834582/.

Note: I did not pull any information from this article, but sourced an image from it

“you Idiots … the Planet’s on F — Ing Fire!” Bill Nye’s Message …, nationalpost.com/news/world/you-idiots-the-planets-on-f-ing-fire-bill-nyes-message-to-leaders-stalling-on-climate-change. Accessed 10 Feb. 2024.

Note: I did not pull any information from this article, but sourced an image from it

screenshot from Last Week Tonight taken from Nationalpost.com

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Digital & Media Lit COM 250
Digital & Media Lit COM 250

Published in Digital & Media Lit COM 250

Students at the University of Rhode Island, working under the supervision of Renee Hobbs, examine some inquiry questions to advance their digital and media literacy competencies.