Brennan Bordonaro #4-reflecting on the process

This course is unlike any course that I have taken before. The differences between this and the many others that I have taken throughout High School are numerous. Compared to courses that I have previously taken, this one presents its own unique twist on conventional learning and distinguishes itself from the others. The largest of these differences being the times that I put work into it. A typical class for me, is 88 minutes long and occurs every day over the course of a semester. Thinking for these classes typically does not extend very far past the finishing of assignments. But for this, I find that I put more effort into and extend my thinking more. Another large difference between this course and others, is the extended period of time that is made available for one project.  

Compared to my other classes, I think that this course has more benefits especially as a student. Some of the benefits are; More student/ teacher connection, working with a smaller but more motivated group of peers, and extended amount of time to delve into a subject. Following the benefits come some drawbacks. Because we don’t meet everyday and we don’t all go to school together, connecting with the rest of my group and the rest of the program is made more difficult than a traditional class. Overall, the advantages to this course vastly outweigh the drawbacks and make this course enjoyable and productive.

One of the things I have learned about during this course is how I learn best and what other ways to learn are available. Both styles of classes, traditional classes and a course such as this, have their advantages with neither being better than the other. What I have learned about myself as a learner is that I like the extended time frame to use for a project. Learning also comes best to me when I am working with people that are as motivated as myself.  I have also learned that I enjoy the difficult but rewarding aspects of a course such as this one.

Applying what I have now discovered about myself as a learner, to the remainder of the course, I feel that I can continue to enjoy this while moving forward and leaving my previous hesitations behind.

Succeeding in this course and succeeding in a traditional course have different meanings. Expanding my knowledge not just through my topic but through the many different things we have learned so far and will continue to learn, is succeeding. This is something that WTS has given to me that I would not have in any other course. Succeeding in a typical class is more grade oriented and less about the learning.

Shoshana Blog post #4

This course is a bit different than my classes at middle school. In middle school we have to do everything the teachers say and we have to work with what the teachers give us. In this course with What’s the story? we don’t get much help and we have a wider space to do more things. In school we have materials given to us to use. But What’s the story? just tells us what’s new and updates us and makes sure we are on the right track, but mostly we have the front wheel in what we are doing in our group. We are mostly independent in this course and we are driven with our own ideas.

The benefits in this type of learning is that we as kids can control what we are doing and learning. We can call, interview, and email people who seem good to our topic. We mostly take the front wheel in what we do and the teachers just help us when we are having difficulties. The challenge is that we have to have the interviews close to us because we are still young and we can’t drive yet. We also have to check in with the teachers to make sure we are on task and on track.

What I have learned about myself as a learner is that I am a person that likes to learn, but is a quiet person who doesn’t like to talk a lot with people that I do not know well. I like to help out any way possible but I like to follow the directions of my team. In small groups where I know the topic I like to take the leadership role. But when I am in a bigger group or in a group and I don’t know the topic I like to follow the lead of my team members.

I hope what I learned about myself will help me work hard to help my group in the rest of the course. What I learned about myself will hopefully help me in doing my best and help with our project to finish it and make it a really amazing project. What I hope to continue to do is help my team members in a way that our project is successful. For example: I will help with writing emails to people we will like to interview. And I will help in the interviewing in a way that I feel comfortable. What I will do differently is try to speak up a bit more in our meetings.

Emily Pecsok - #4: Reflect on the Process

I am an eighth grader at MUMS. While I love MUMS, middle school classes can be hard because of the limited freedom. Additionally, aside from art, design tech and sometimes English, I very rarely have the opportunity to be creative. It is uncommon for me to have to think outside the box so I am sometimes not challenged. All but one of the classes I take confine me to the classroom. The only one that is different is What’s the Story?.

What’s the Story? gives very few boundaries. We are forced to be creative, even when we don’t want to be; and the teachers are not hovering over our shoulder, but rather guiding us from a distance. We are not told to do a documentary that includes this, this, and this about this specific issue while we look at a list of websites that are “good resources”. Instead, we are are told to create a documentary about a social issue in Vermont. We are leading this project, not the teachers. If we ask for help, we get advice, but that’s it; this is our project.

Overall, the looser reins, demand for creativeness, and serious need to take control and do it ourselves is what makes this course so special and different.

The benefits of this unusual course are the fact that we have so much free rein. We can do so much more than we usually can in a classroom. This course also helps us think creatively and go out into the real world.

Despite the fact that this course has a lot of benefits, it also has some drawbacks. First off, all of the benefits could be drawbacks to some people because some people are not ready for the responsibility that this course requires. Additionally, this course is a lot of work. Some people don’t even do homework because they have so little that they can finish it in study halls. What’s the Story?, however, primarily consists of work done outside of the times we meet.

Overall, What’s the Story? requires a lot of responsibility and dedication, but if you can handle it, the course can be quite beneficial.

By taking this course, I have realized that I am more than capable of thinking in a more abstract way and being quite creative. Before What’s the Story? everything was much simpler: do this and you’ll be right/get a good grade. However, during the first What’s the Story?, I was thrown into this less clear cut way of doing things and I was very overwhelmed; I thought I wasn’t cut out to do this and I considered quitting. However, I now know that I am actually very good at this unconventional way of learning, and I really like it.

After learning what I have about myself, I plan on taking that knowledge and using it to really push myself, way past what I have ever done before in order to do the best work I can do.

For the remainder of the year, I plan to keep asking questions. I am a huge question-asker, and I always have been, that’s just who I am. If I am confused I like to ask questions, so I want to keep doing that.

However, instead of just asking simple questions, I really want to ask deep questions, and I want to keep digging to find answers by asking complicated and important questions with complicated and important answers, instead of simple questions with simple answers.

Emily Pecsok - #3: Filming Techniques & Aesthetics; Citing Evidence/Thesis

Part 1:

When reviewing the resources provided for the first part of this blog post, I looked at “10 Steps for Shooting Your First DIY Interview” Vimeo Video School, “Video 101: Shooting Basics” Vimeo Video School, and “How to Shoot B-Roll” Transom.org.

The ten steps from “10 Steps for Shooting Your First DIY Interview” involved three main parts: Before You Shoot, On the Set, and the Interview. Before You Shoot talked about how important it is to figure out who you are interviewing, find information on them, and plan questions. It is very important to come to an interview prepared with information on the person along with questions. On the Set was essentially preparing for the interview by doing things like making sure the light is right, and making sure the shot and your subject’s position are appropriate. Lastly, the Interview portion was about how you should seem very friendly, listen, and interrupt only when absolutely necessary.  

“Video 101: Shooting Basics” talked about the shooting part of the interview. It said to always be prepared with space on your memory card and plenty of battery left. The video also mentioned the importance of planning your shots ahead of time and to ensure that your subjects are facing the light source and that every shot should last at least five seconds. The rule of thirds to frame shots was also brought up. Keeping the camera steady was also said to be very important in the end.

“How to Shoot B-Roll” had a lot of different tips when it came to shooting B-Roll. Unlike the interview, you want your subject to ignore you, like you are not even there. The video also mentioned a lot of techniques for shots like zooming in and sliding to create a reveal shot. It also mentioned the importance of making each shot last at least fifteen seconds.

Overall, the steps/tips for interviewing, shooting the interview, and shooting B-Roll are all extremely important when it comes to an interview because the audio part of the documentary is only half of the final product, if it were all audio then we would be making a podcast. So, the visual aspects of the documentary being as high quality as possible is essential.

Part 2:

There has been a lot of talk about what the story is, but there’s one big problem: there is no story yet! What we are doing is completely new. Everyone in my group has said that no one has done this, there have been little videos or articles written on this, but nothing even close to the extent of the depth that we want. Currently our story is the effects of the dispatch cuts in Vermont. That is not going to be our end product, though. However, how are we supposed to know our end product while we are still in the process of getting interviews? One of the videos involving interviewing said to be prepared, to know ahead of time about the topic, but we only know the background. The background is the only information on the internet, the background is the only information anywhere.

There is no way the message of the documentary is something as simple as “There are (no) effects from the recent dispatch cuts in Vermont) because there is more of a story. However, that is all we have now, because we can’t dig any deeper without more information than we have. In order to go anywhere we must dig and dig, but the opportunities to do that have not presented themselves yet, so until then, the real message of the story is all just a blur, ready to come out and produce the amazing story we are so very hopeful for.

Works Cited

Boyechko, Slavik. "How To Shoot B-Roll." Transom. N.p., 29 Jan. 2014. Web. 13 Dec. 2015.

"10 Steps to Shooting Your First DIY Interview." Vimeo. Vimeo Video School, 2013. Web. 13 Dec. 2015.

"Video 101: Shooting Basics." Vimeo. Vimeo Video School, 2010. Web. 13 Dec. 2015.

Blog post: Filming techniques

Part 1

While looking at some of the sources I found several helpful ideas. From “10 Steps for Shooting Your First DIY Interview”, I learned that you need to have some background information before starting a interview. Next, you can explore the lighting to find a great place to do your interview. After that, use the rule of thirds to get the best shot of the person being interviewed. Make the person feel comfortable in front of the camera. And finally, ask the person if they would like to add anything. After all of these steps, you can edit the interview to make it more professional.

    Next I looked at “Video 101: Shooting Basics”. What I learned is that you always need a spare battery, have your subject face the light source, use different angles in your shots, and for a good angle use a tripod. These are tips that you can use to make it easier to videotape.

Lastly I looked at “How to Shoot B-Roll”. I learned  that you can use the camera to move around to watch the person you are filming walk in or out of an area. You need to have good backgrounds in some of your shots. If there are “never to do again” shots you might want to catch those before the opportunity is gone. This is important because some of the greatest ideas can come when you least expect it and you want to be sure to catch it on film.

After watching these videos, I learned how to conduct a great interview. I plan to use these tips in future interviews. These tips will help me to make a great interview.

Part 2

The story that my team is trying to uncover is dispatch cuts in Vermont. For the past few weeks we have used a lot of evidence in our work while trying to understand the reasons behind dispatching cuts here in Vermont. The evidence that we have used has come from blogs, newspapers, and people themselves. We have used the evidence that we found in our research. We use the evidence in our research to help us find the right people to interview. Without doing this research we would still be at step 1.

We used research to help us in our search to find the answers. The research that we do helps in answering the problem of dispatch cuts in Vermont. The research we have found came from people on both sides of the discussion.

Another important piece of evidence we have encountered are quotes. We have used many quotes in our project. Quotes are very important because without them we will not have direct references or first-hand comments.

Brennan Bordonaro- #3 Filming Techniques & Aesthetics; Citing Evidence/Thesis

The filming techniques shown in the videos are very informational and are a necessity of a skill to have while continuing to go on with this project. The first video I watched was how to shoot B-roll, One of the things that it really highlighted was the importance of this type of footage. Some of the techniques that I took away from this video are things like; considering background and what kind of effect that has on a specific shot, and keeping multiple layers in the frame. These are important aesthetically and make the video more appeasing to look at.

The Michael Moore article was the most helpful. This is because it points out things like the importance of making a movie and not a documentary. It stressed the importance of making a film about Dispatch Cuts and not just preaching the topic to the viewers. This article speaks less to the actual filming and more to content and storyline. The goal is to make a film that people want to see, but we also want it to adhere to our topic and show what we want to show. With the very little experience that I have with film making or any real video recording I think this will be tough but achievable. Presenting the final project so that it contains humor and gets people laughing is also something else that was touched on that will be important. “The politics is secondary. The art is first.” That statement really touches to the idea of the project for me and I can definitely relate to it.

The central and fundamental message to our project is one that has been interpreted by all of us in a few ways each of them with a slight degree of variation in the past few months. The message as I see it as of now is, Vermont recently lost two of the four dispatch centers and the effect on services has dropped posing a danger to the public. Paraphrasing from the interview I had with Daniel Sargent, The difference between one minute and ten is the difference between life and death. (Daniel interview) This really shows the stakes and contributes to the message in a powerful way. Another source that grounds this idea is from Patricia Bennet who is a state dispatcher, "It will affect safety because they are not going to have the numbers to answer the phone calls.” (wcax) A third source that solidifies what I said comes from an incident were a police chief from lyndonville, “couldn't reach dispatchers from the road and gave up trying after 10 minutes.” (sevendaysvt) These are a few of the reasons why the message that we are trying to show is an important one.

"How To Shoot B-Roll." Transom. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Dec. 2015.

"Michael Moore's 13 Rules for Making Documentary Films." Indiewire. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Dec. 2015.

"Dispatchers: Consolidating Vt. Call Centers Will Cost Money, Lives." Dispatchers: Consolidating Vt. Call Centers Will Cost Money, Liv. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Dec. 2015.

"Vermont's Budget Cuts Meet the Great Pushback." Seven Days. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Dec. 2015.

Brennan Bordonaro- #2: Interview & Storytelling; Goal Setting

The Craft of Storytelling by Brian Reed, highlights many important aspects of constructing a well thought out and interesting story. Out of all that he said, the fact that "the stakes really drive the story" really sticks as an important thing to keep in mind going forward through our story. He also talks about how important the stakes in a story are because of the lack of direction or importance without them. "There is some question that keeps you listening" This expands my thinking in ways that I haven't previously put much thought into, this being how we keep the story going and what is the best way to drive it forward. Another thing that he talked about was that action, reflection, and stakes are the three largest and most important aspects. Thinking about the story of Dispatch Cuts while keeping this in mind, I am confident in the fact that we should be able to include all three of them into the weaving of the story. The final thing that I took away from this video is that “Every story should speak to something larger than itself” The interview with Brandon Stanton posed many different concepts and ideas that stretch my initial thoughts about how to compose a story. One of the things that was brought up was to allow the person that you are talking to, to tell the story and not to draw any conclusions during the interview.

Going back and reading the rest of the groups first blog posts, I have noticed many good ideas and a few different and valid points that were raised. Emily raised the point that “No one has done what we want to do. In order to accomplish much of anything we need to do more than look on the easy-access internet.” This couldn’t be more true and as it stands, I think this will be one of if not the most difficult challenge over the course of this. I was thinking about it today in anticipation of mentioning it in this post, but it seems Brynna already raised the point that   “our next step will be to come together digitally and come up with a list of powerful questions to ask these people.” I am in the process of brainstorming questions for interviews. Because of the lack of readily available research, I think it could be difficult to have enough questions for the first interview to get a good amount of footage. I am hoping to collaborate with the rest of the group and see if we can come up with one default list of questions so to speak for interviews. The next step I think is to be continuing with contacting different people for interviews. I do have the Granville Fire Chief (Daniel) on board for an interview, so as soon as a good list of questions comes up I think an interview could take place at anytime.

http://videos.theconference.se/brian-reed-the-craft-of-storytelling
https://storycorps.me/interviews/brandon-stanton-and-dave-isay/
"Dispatch Cuts in VT." : Emily Pecsok. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2015.
"Dispatch Cuts in VT." : Blog Post 1: What More Am I Understanding About This Topic? N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2015.

Emily Pecsok- #2: Interview & Storytelling Techniques; Goal Setting

Part 1: Interview and Storytelling Techniques

When trying to understand the “Art of Storytelling” better, I watched a video from Brian Reed called “The Craft of Storytelling”. Reed mentioned the three main parts of storytelling: action, reflection, and stakes.

Action is just what it sounds like, action in the story. The story being pulled along by the motion in it. Reed pointed out that without action in the story, the story goes nowhere. So, in our story that we are telling we need to give the motion of the story, we need to explain where this story came from, where it is now, where it’s going, and the transition between each point; because without that motion, it’s just a bunch of words, that don’t really come together to mean anything.

Reed also mentions reflection, how at the end of the story, the teller should just say reflect about the story, so the audience can really understand what’s going on in the person’s mind. That won’t work as well in our case because we are trying to be unbiased and if we reflect with how we feel than we could start becoming completely biased. However, at the end or near the end of the documentary, we could ask a question that we are wondering. I am not sure exactly what that would sound like, but it could potentially be good for the story.

Stakes were also mentioned. They are essentially the “main question” that’s driving the story forward. In a book or a TV show the stakes could be, "Are these to people going to get together?", "Are they going to win the war?", "Are they going to save Artimé?". Without the stakes, what’s the point?

Lastly, at the end, Reed said, “Every story should speak to something larger than itself...[a story should] make a larger point about human experience, and about the world.” That really spoke to me. It made me realize what the we want this documentary, this story, to do. We don’t just want to tell the story, we want to make the story larger than what it seems. I am not currently sure what that exactly looks like in our story, but I know that it will create the story we are looking for.

Part 2: Goal Setting

After meeting with my group and reading their blogs, I am really understanding what they think about this project. First, in the first paragraph of Brennan's blog, he wrote, “What I would really like to continue with is going down as many different paths and keep the project from snowballing into something that becomes difficult to handle” (Bordonaro 1). I really agree with Brennan here because we all seem to be really ambitious people, and we have a great idea, but if we do too much, we’ll end up with something we can’t handle, and therefore end up with not the best we could do.

Additionally, multiple people have mentioned that it will be hard to be unbiased when doing our interview, but we really must. We all have a very strong opinion, but we must keep those opinions to ourselves while we are doing our interview because even though we are only in eighth and tenth grade, we are still going in as professionals.

Lastly, when we were meeting, we all agreed that it will probably be difficult to interview people, because they may not take us seriously. When we email someone very high up on the chain, they are much less likely to respond to us than WCAX, for example, because we are just kids. We really have to prove to them that we are not just kids, and we know what we are doing.

Over the next few weeks, I think we really want to email people to interview, plan and prep for interviews, and schedule interviews. We could possibly interview someone by then, but I highly doubt it, because we want to know what we are looking for before we interview anyone. We are meeting on Tuesday, and I assume then we can create a baseline email and then email everyone we want to interview. Then, we should plan the questions we want to ask. It is highly convenient that we are all in the ACSU school district because we are capable of meeting easily.

Emily Pecsok - #1: What and How am I Thinking about my Shared Topic?

The topic of Dispatch Cuts in Vermont is very new to me, but it is also very interesting. Within the past two weeks I have learned about more specifics on the topic and understood it better. On Friday the thirteenth, our group met and discussed our future plan.

Currently we know that there are two dispatch centers in Vermont in Rockingham and Williston after the ones in Rutland and Derby closed. We also know that about 48 people were fired/quit and only 10 new people were hired. That’s basically all we know.

During the meeting we discovered that the answers we are looking for are not simply on the internet. No one has done what we want to do. In order to accomplish much of anything we need to do more than look on the easy-access internet. The information we need is not there. The information we need is in the people who made this decision and the people who are affected by this decision. In order to go anywhere with this topic we must contact people, or else we will have little to no information.

While we were meeting on Friday, our team came up with a list of people to contact and hopefully interview. The list includes: Michael Desrochers--Division director for vermont department of public safety, Keith Flynn--Commissioner of public safety, Mark Higley--VT Republican Representative, Steve Howard--Executive Director of VT State Employee Association, April Burbank--Reporter for the Burlington Free Press, Ed Dumas--Rutland Town Police Chief, Ted Washburn--Rutland Town Police Captain, Peter Shumlin--Governor, Ben O’Brien--President of Professional Firefighters of VT, Daniel Sargeant--Granville Fire Chief has experienced serious delays with dispatch cuts, Nick Sheehan--dispatcher from Rutland, David Richard Jr.--Captain of Rutland Town Fire Department, Mike Donoghue--Burlington Free Press Reporter, and Erin Mansfield--VT Digger. These people are the people that are going to help us find the story and tell the story. Without these people, there is no story. All these people had something to do with the story, whether they made the decision, were immediately affected by the decision, or have shared the solution.

Our group has decided that we will meet again this Friday and discuss who exactly we are going to email and what we are going to say. The next step is then to actually schedule the interviews and figure out what we are going to do at the interviews, what we are going to say, etc.

Overall, the topic our group has chosen is new, so we are the ones who are going to figure out the story, not the internet. Because of that, I really like our topic, it affects all people and it’s not an easy one to do because it’s never been done before. which is good, because why bother to do it if it’s already been done?

Works Cited

Crawford, Logan. "1st Vt. 911 Dispatch Center to Close within 45 Days." - WCAX.COM. N.p., 18 Mar. 2015. Web. 10 Nov. 2015.

This article/video states which dispatch centers are closed and some people who made the decision.

O'Brien, Ben. "Firefighters Union Opposes Cuts to PSAP/Dispatch Centers | VTDigger." VTDigger. N.p., 09 Mar. 2015. Web. 13 Nov. 2015.

This article essentially sums up the predicted results of this decision.

"Office of Justice Programs." Vermont State Administering Agencies. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Nov. 2015.

This website has many people involved in the decision and their emails/phone numbers.

Shoshana Tieyah Group Blog #2: Interview & Storytelling; Goal Setting

Part 1

This blog will help me to make a better interview. From Brian Reed I learned that to make a good story you need to use action, reflection and stakes. What Brian Reed said that I really liked was: “… action, reflection and stakes. [If you] Put together, these become really powerful. But you also need to think about motion when telling a story, as this will pull people forward and make them actually listen.” These key ideas that Brian discusses help make a great story because they can make a story appealing to the audience and make them want to continue to listen. What I learned from Ira is that we can learn from a terrible start. “We think Ira’s failures will give you hope.” What Ira has taught me is that the best stories and talents start off rough but start to progress and get better over time. The last item I want to point out is from the Foley Center.  The Foley Center teaches us to make a future, people will like to learn about using information we know from the past.

Part 2

After looking at my group members’ blogs, I came up with the following ideas that might come in handy later on in our project.

Some ideas that I found and like from my group members’ blogs were:  “A lot of the sources that came up focused on Vermont State Police dispatchers. In a way this is good, because we're launching into an issue that hasn't even reached the public eye yet!” ( Brynna Kearns). When Brynna went to look up articles on dispatch cuts, she found that a lot of the articles were on Vermont State Police dispatchers. This could really give us a lead, because, then we know who the dispatch cuts really affect in this whole operation. Some other ideas that I liked from my group members’ blogs was that, even though we don’t know much about the dispatch cuts, we can still work towards finding an answer.

Some challenges that might stump us in our research are challenges that I found by reading some of my group’s blogs. Some challenges we might face are: “...we discovered that the answers we are looking for are not simply on the internet. No one has done what we want to do. In order to accomplish much of anything we need to do more than look on the easy-access internet. The information we need is not there. The information we need is in the people who made this decision and the people who are affected by this decision.” (Emily Pecsok). What I think Emily is saying is that it might be hard to find resources on the internet and it might be helpful to speak directly with the people affected.

Some other challenges we might face are “...to contact the people that might be helpful such as whether or not to stick to email or to email and call etc…” (Brennan Bordonaro). This might be a challenge because when interviewing we need to know when and where to meet the people. Without any idea if the people we want to interview are ready to speak to us, we need to figure out how to contact them.

Brennan Bordonaro- #1: Evolving Thoughts on Our Shared Topic

My thinking about this topic still intrigues me and I want to know more. The complexity of my ideas has changed because I am continuing to learn more and realizing the depth of my misunderstanding as well. What I would really like to continue with is going down as many different paths and keep the project from snowballing into something that becomes difficult to handle. I would like to spend time with the emergency service members who have such strong opinions and are most directly affected. Although I want to continue with this I feel like I also need to back up and go at it with less of a personal opinion. That could potentially influence who I talk to but I will continue trying to stay on even ground and not jump to any conclusions.

Many sources show different aspects of what is going on here such as the belief that service will not be affected. But despite what some have said about the benefits that could be obtained and lack of risk. others such as the VSEA claim that the risks are great and point to local knowledge of an area that proves to be invaluable at many times.

As a group we have discussed many different things, most of them being about what the next step should or could potentially be. Some of the things that we explored were people to talk to, for this we made a list. We also talked about how to contact the people that might be helpful such as whether or not to stick to email or to email and call etc… I sent a message to the Granville fire chief asking if he would at some point like to get on camera and maybe just highlight some of the issues and express his concern over it. Moving forward I am planning on continuing to contact people. Hopefully, getting replies from some of the people higher up on the decision making chain shouldn’t be too difficult.

Emily said it well when she said  “I think that it will be difficult to actually figure out exactly what to do, and exactly what the story is.” I really agree with what she said because it is the kind of topic that has many sides to it and the story of it hasn’t been documented enough to provide a clear path on where to go. As a group I think we have a really good grasp on what we are planning on doing and what types of things are left to investigate. By our next meeting I hope that we are able to have a few people respond to us and if we are lucky, prepare for interviews with some of these people.

"Proposed Dispatch System Would Cut Costs, Jobs." Burlington Free Press. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Nov. 2015.

"Help Save Vermont's 911 Emergency Dispatch Centers! | Vermont State Employees Association." Emergency Dispatch Centers! N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Nov. 2015.

After researching a little bit I am starting to have some ideas. After looking at some of the websites about dispatch cuts I am starting to understand this topic a bit more. What I have learned from some of these articles and that really interests me is the reason people are cutting jobs is to save about $1.7 million.  Another thing I found that was interesting was from the Burlington Free Press: “The November 2013 state police report said they were providing free dispatching to about 50 fire departments, 25 rescue squads, 29 municipal police departments and 25 towns that use constables to patrol their communities.”  One of the last things that really worried me was when the Burlington Free Press said that people were trying to connect someone on the radio when they were near a shooting.  Two men were trying to connect help but the radio system wouldn’t work so they couldn’t contact anyone. I think we should work on helping dispatchers here in our area.

Some things that are interesting to me at the moment is why the dispatcher company is cutting jobs. I think it is a bit mean to get rid of a person’s job. Another question that goes along with this, is why are these people getting rid of these jobs just so they can save $1.7 million. I just don't think it makes sense for people to get rid of paying jobs to save some money. These things are on my mind and I was thinking about what might happen if more jobs are cut. If we get rid of dispatchers don’t we also get rid of our only contact to the emergency system? What would happen if the whole dispatching cuts gets cut? Then we won’t have a connections to the emergency system.

What I would like to learn about this topic is why are dispatching jobs being cut. I hope to find the answer while researching more into this topic. I went to look at other blog posts my group posted, and I found a really interesting question that Emily asked: “Because of that, I really like our topic, it affects all people and it’s not an easy one to do because it’s never been done before. which is good, because why bother to do it if it’s already been done?” I liked this question because it really goes along the lines of this whole topic and this whole program. Why do something that already has been solved? If we work hard enough then we can find a solution to the dispatch cuts here in Vermont. If we work hard towards this goal then we can make a big difference in Vermont.

Blog Post 1: What More Am I Understanding About This Topic?

Two weeks ago I was very unfamiliar with this topic. I had a vague understanding of the importance of this issue after reading Brennan's blog, but other than that I was completely new to this. To be honest I still am getting familiar with this. I'd spent sometime online reading about what a dispatcher's job is and how their role can positively impact a community's wellness. I think it will be important to briefly explain to our audience what a dispatcher does and how their job is contributing to saving lives before jumping into the issue.When I was researching online I came across some articles, but not many. A lot of the sources that came up focused on Vermont State Police dispatchers. In a way this is good, because we're launching into an issue that hasn't even reached the public eye yet! We're going to be the ones to make this issue stand out! There was a WCAX article that create a good starting point for us. We were able to accumulate a list of people we could potential contact for future interviews, and Brennan was able to get in touch with the Granville fire chief, Daniel Sargeant who agreed to a future interview. I think our next step will be to come together digitally and come up with a list of powerful questions to ask these people. Each question should trigger a thoughtful response from the person we're interviewing. I'm interested in hearing the opposing side of this argument. I want to interview a handful of people who are in agreement with the decision to make the dispatcher cuts. I think listening to their ideas and opinions will be helpful to us because then we can look for way to counter their argument and make ours look stronger and more convincing in the documentary. In the future, would like to learn more about what the money saved in dispatcher cuts will be used for. For our audience. I want to analyze the pros and cons of this new thing that's being funded with whatever money was saved in the cuts, and hopefully that will push them to be in agreement with our stance on the dispatcher cuts (which is against them, obviously). I'm very interested in getting first hand accounts of the situation through various interviews, I think that this will be the most effective way to get accurate information on this issue. I'm very excited to be interviewing Mr. Sargeant, because he has experienced delays with the new dispatchers, and I think his opinions will be important to the project. I'm also interested in in reaching out to Steve Howard, the Executive Director of the Vermont Employee Association, because I think he will not only have an useful opinion of the topic of dispatcher cuts, but I think he will also most likely be able to get us in touch with some people who may have lost their job as a dispatcher as a result of the cuts. We have both phone numbers and emails for most of the people on our list, and so getting in touch with these people. Our plan was that we would send out emails first, and if we don't get a reply then we would resort to calling them. I look forward to continuing this project, I will continue working on potential interview questions, and trying to find more people for us to interview at some point in the near future.

What I have learned in the past 24 hours is the teamwork and structure that we need to focus on when working in our small groups. I have learned these things by being around other people who know what they are doing and to try to stay part of the group. This work has extended my thinking about this because since I am know doing Dispatch cuts instead of Native American tribes in Vermont, I have to learn about this topic, instead of the topic I was originally going to do. I think I will have fun doing this topic, but to me I still really want to do Native Americans tribes.

What I hope to do and, or accomplish (if possible) is to work on and interview many people on this topic. But before interviewing people I have to study up on what this is, and how this system works. At least in the next 2.5 months I hope to learn about the system of dispatching and to help in any way I can to do my part in my group. some things I think I will have think the thing that might really challenging is the interviews and how to get to those interviews. This might be challenging because I am not much of a speaker, but I might have to do it if no one else has time to do it. But I am not at all a speaker so this is probably a challenge I might have to overcome. Some things I might have to help with is speaking to someone in a interview. And also staying on task. Whenever I get really nervous I tend to get off topic and think of other things. I hope at the end of this 2.5 month time my team and I can get a lot done.

Brennan Bordonaro-Overnight Retreat: Initial Thoughts on Our Group Blog

Wow. This has been a really fun and productive 25 hours and I am so hyped up for what’s next. So much has been learned that I haven’t even realized how quickly the time has flown by. The connections made from one topic to another here are really quite eye opening. Some of the things I learned about further through the course of this include; how the program is designed to function and the large amount of similar ideas and subjects people have. I have also learned about how the equipment and actual video work is to be accomplished.

My thinking has expanded by quite a bit throughout the time here, enough so that I am coming up with questions about where to go and who to talk to, that I haven’t even begun to come up with an answer with. My thinking has also expanded about how to incorporate more people into my project. I was unsure on a few of the things that were talked about before, and whether or not we were going to be working in groups was definitely one of them.

The next two and a half months are, in my idea, going to be a very fun few months. Although I feel somewhat ahead in my topic because I came here with it and the rest of my group joined it. Because of this I plan on diving deeper into my topic and going through more research. While doing that I am going to be trying not to take such a drastic step forward that I become unsure of what else and how else to continue before the next meeting.

Although this is the topic that I brought to the table and came here somewhat knowledgeable about it, I still feel like there is so much to take in and so much to incorporate into a project, I see difficulty in that aspect of it. Another difficulty that I expect to see in the upcoming few months is that we really hammered down the idea of getting the whole group onto a much deeper understanding of the topic. We came up with that as a plan but we never came up with the plan of when we think a good mark to reach in terms of understanding is before filming. Filming was also an area I think was somewhat lacking in some regards. We didn’t focus that much on it, but it was introduced.

Overall I would consider this to have been a very helpful 24 hours that expanded my thinking and has allowed me to better understand my topic as well as the functioning of this course.