Following on from my recent meeting with Sian, I need to give more thought to how I use hyperlinks. I might use them in the following ways:

1. In the Lit Review, where I describe examples of work, printing, press history etc, I could link to specific places on the web (text or image).
2. In the Methodology I would link to the two different essays that participants were invited to comment on.
3. In the Lit Review, where I mention SL, web essays, hypertext essays and different digital spaces I would link to examples, either my own or from the course gallery. 
4. In Discussion of the data, where tutors refer to particular EDC/MSc pieces of work (that are on the web) I will link to them.
5. In the Dissemination rationale I will link to particular pages of my this blog to demonstrate points being made in the text. This has Sian's approval.

I think this makes for an appropriate and, with linking to my own blog and to the essays, interesting use of Hyperlinks.

[From written notes] My Macbook was overheating therefore I've switched to manual. I wanted to write down a few notes before going to sleep. A couple of semi-ideas (and, I think, semi-interesting ones) have come into my head over the weekend. Maybe it's the freedom from worrying about trying to submit during August (as per agreement with Sian)?!

Here goes:

Video! I hadn't really planned to use this medium. Too time consuming to prepare. But perhaps it can feature, albeit in a small supporting role. Perhaps I would include - where relevant, obviously - a couple of short video-photo montages. This might work for the Architecture crit? Or maybe to show the different types of existing multimodal study within the academy (as proposed in the Lit Review)? 

Hang on! Here's an idea...

In the Lit Review, where I take the reader on a walk through the university's corridor, why don't I accompany this with a video that goes into more detail. The 'viewer' could be led/make their way down a corridor of rooms (or a series of corridors in the university), dropping into different rooms where multimodal activity is taking place. Basically, a photographic/filmic representation of what's in the text, but so much richer.

Here are some quick thoughts on how this might work:

• I'll use still images rather than video recording as it easier, as an amateur, to achieve high quality with stills rather than moving image. I can use the Ken Burns effect where appropriate - i.e. in the corridor - to give the effect of movement.
  
• The audio/soundtrack though will be 'in motion' rather than static. The soundtrack could include a heavy door opening at the university's entrance, the sound of footsteps in the different corridors (and any other ambient noise), a musician practising, students presenting and so on.
  
• I could collect images from across the UoE campus to reflect relevant disciplines. It might begin with the door to the university (perhaps the same as the signifier image for the Lit Review of which this would be a component part). I could use a series of corridors to reflect different parts of the campus/subject disciplines.
  
• The video would need to start and end in a relevant and interesting way. This is so that it works as a stand-alone artefact, as well as part of an assemblage within the Lit Review. Perhaps there's something from the student presentation that would be relevant in drawing the presentation to a close? 
• This 'campus exploration' - hmm, nice use of the constellation metaphor [maybe within Information on front page of website I decribe how there are a number of video explorations of some key themes that particularly lend themselves to a multimodal approach - for another day] - would be embedded within the text (but if its in Vimeo, also hosted on a new or my existing channel).  The title of the video should match words that I use within the accompanying text.

Why should my discussion of the data be purely text-based (as I've had in my head). It should be multimodal. And this goes beyond a the use of enlarged type and so on as purely aesthetic visual effects. It should by critical. Here's an idea, then:

While this has been a useful bit of quick thinking-and-jotting-down, I suspect that I should probably focus on the data and see what types of visual approaches lend themselves to emerging themes, rather than thinking of visual approaches and then trying to find data to match.

Following on from my previous post (about McEwan Hall entrance) here's a picture I took of an (old) University crest attached to a wall on Bristo Square. I'm not sure where this will come into my dissertation (if at all) however I'm adding it here as a reminder, and also because I like the photo. Actually, the ideal place for this would be within the Literature review when I'm talking about Ray Land's reflections on university crests. Perhaps I include the static image alongside the text. Or perhaps I develop it in some animated way. Or both.

Yesterday morning I wandered over to McEwan Hall where the University graduations were taking place. I took some photos partly to test my camera, but also as a reminder of what I'm missing out on through my lack of recent activity on the dissertation. This was self-punishment for my slow progress. 

I wonder however whether an image similar to those above might be useful in a different way? My current thinking for the 'cover photo' for my dissemination website is that the content of the computer screen in the centre of the picture will represent the opening to my work. Clicking on the screen will open the Introduction/Abstract/Background section. Although I had given much though to the final detail of what would be 'showing' on the computer screen, however I loosely imagined that it would clearly signifiy the content that would follow, for instance it could be the abstract or similar on screen text.

An alternative approach is that I could use a photograph of a university entrance way as the entrance to my work. The door/entrance visual metaphor is far from original on websites, however I could offer added meaning by having the image content as specific to my own work: Edinburgh University's entrance as the opening to my ideas about multimodal assessment in the same institution. Further, the image on screen could be in the process of edited so that it goes beyond a static image to a photograph that is alive and an active part of the depicted scene. Could I make the image itself multimodal - perhaps the editing involves adding some text over the image within Photoshop?

Maybe this is a bit cliched. It's more interesting than simply text on screen. Yes, what is on screen should be multimodal - to do otherwise would partly contradict my work and the rest of the image of which the computer screen is a part. I'll revisit this at a later date and see if it still stands up.

[Glossing over the fact that it's more than a month since my last entry]

Here's a image I put together tonight as to how I might compose the image for the front of my dissemination website. My plan is to take a draft photo tomorrow, build the shell of the site and then e-mail the link to Sian in order to get feedback on my structure. No point spending too much time just now on either the image or the site as both will be influenced by Sian's comments. Here's the pic:

Actually, that looks quite good, although I don't suppose proper designers/photographers do night before mock-ups in PowerPoint. It's multimodal. Maybe I'll include this somehow - whether as image of via hyperlink - within my Dissemination rationale.