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The video is a remediation of Advance Australia Fair made for my BA in Internet Communications. The remediation uses the anthem to critique Australian society. 

Once again its been a long time between posts. Two months at least. My BA in Internet Communications is really eating up my time. I am now in the third period doing my fifth and sixth subjects. One of those subjects is an introductory subject to studying at Uni that everyone who studies at Curtin, at least everyone who does a humanities degree, has to do. It focuses on how to write essays, reflective or critical thinking, working in groups, and we have to give an oral presentation. I am having a bit of trouble figuring out how to do reflective writing, although my tutor said my second practice attempt was excellent. I have always hated working in groups - hey, that is one reason why the independent life of writing appealed. I don't like giving speeches either. So the subject is going to have its challenges. The other subject is about new media, with a focus on participatory culture and remediations. A remediation is changing one media object into another, ie, turning a book into ...

Just noticed it is about six weeks since I posted anything on my blog. I have been extremely busy with my degree in web design. I am currently building a new website for one of the subjects, and it has interactive elements, ie, things that move on it, like a slide- show of pictures, and hotspots that when rolled over reveal further information. It involves using JQuery and Javascript, both of them I had not used before the course, so it is a steep learning curve.  This is a photoshop mock-up of  what I am trying to do: And that is just the homepage. If you are curious how I am going, the website is under construction at grahamclementsauthor.com.   It needs to be complete in four weeks time.Those little arrows on the side of the slideshow took hours to figure out.  I have done alright in the course so far, I scrapped in a high distinction for the previous web design subject and a distinction for the other communications subject. Nice to get high marks, but...

I have just updated the look of my blog. I am trying to create a consistent web presence online by ensuring that my blog, website and social media look the same and are connected.  This desire for a consistent web presence is a result of what I have learnt in my studies for a Bachelor or Arts (Internet Communications). I have just completed the first two subjects. One of the subjects, Web Communications, had us creating a new web presence, so I created a new blog on Wix, a new Facebook page, a new Twitter account, and joined Wattpad for the first time. As part of the assignment we were supposed to consistently style all the sites. The central node is here . The other subject was an Introduction to Internet Design. In that subject we had to create, from html and CSS code, a website. I choose to do one for author Graham Clements. For that website, I pretended that I had published four novels that are in reality only unpublished, and in need of redrafting, manuscripts. I am quite ...

I've been extremely busy with my course since I started it. I reckon I am averaging 50 hours a week on it. And I have developed a nasty habit of persisting on a problem until I have solved it, eg, staying up to 2am, or waking up in the middle of the night with a possible solution to a problem, and turning on the computer to try them out - eg at 12pm one night and I kept at it to 4am,  I am learning a great deal. One subject has me creating a website from scratch using html and css code. The other is more theory about social media, but the final assignment is all about creating a web presence, in my case I am creating a blog on Wix with connecting Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Wattpad accounts. All these connecting social media have to be new and not existing accounts and all have to be viewable by someone who is not a member of those applications, and all have to have a similar appearance,  ie the header photo and title, and all have to based on the one theme.  I was...

I am now a full-time student, studying a Bachelor of Arts (internet communications) through Open Universities Australia. Most of my course is conducted online through Curtin University in WA. Only last Sunday did I find out that my Austudy had been approved – eight weeks after I applied. Surprised the hell out of me. I had had conflicting reports from Centrelink about whether I would be approved. One document said yes, another no, one call centre person said yes, another no. One Centrelink CSO at the local office said yes. One Centrelink manager on Facebook said yes. It was just as well I persisted with my application.  I could only afford to study full-time if receiving Austudy. The course so far - six weeks in, and two assignments done, one for each subject – has been a real challenge. Especially the second year subject Intro to Website Design. I knew nothing about photoshop, which I had to quickly learn to make mock-ups of the website I have to build for the subject. Huge...

January was a very moody month for me. I had a great break in Melbourne for a few days. I stayed in St Kilda and played tourist. I went to the cricket too, a one day match. I thought Australia was going to lose, but Glen Maxwell hit 94 runs and Australia beat the Indians. I had my birthday, and got a couple of books I wanted. But on that same day, a letter was being signed, informing me that the writer’s program at Divine was being scrapped. I rang the editor, she confirmed that the website is changing to more of an information site, so few, if any, articles will be published on it. I was nearly in tears. After 52 articles over five and a half years I am no longer paid to write for Divine. Although I had a few ups and downs while writing for the site, overall it was a great site to write for. I got to write on many different subjects and in many different styles. I interviewed writers and actors with disabilities, and a professor who had programmed robots to aide people with d...