Senior Capstone Project

We did it!!!!!  Ma ka hana ka ʻike, Learning is in the doing! I share my experience during this project journey and hope it helps others.  Mahalo to all my advisors, classmates, counselors, family members, and every one the supported me on my educational pathway. Mahalo, mahalo, mahalo!

Click on the link to view video-  

Tumblr week 13 & 14 I will say these past two weeks were very educational and full of A…ha moments.  Now that my podcast informational webpage was complete, I started building my official podcast RSS website and running a promotional campaign on social media. Building the website was pretty smooth cause I already had the majority of the content info on the webpage, so I copied and pasted most of that content into the podcast RSS site.  However, the promotional campaign seems to become itʻs own animal.  It took me much more time to create the ads than I actually thought.  I would first start by writing a short script for each episode, then produce an audio recording of that script, then create the graphics for the ad online, then merge the audio with the graphics, and lastly, post the advertisement to multiple social media accounts and lastly check the analytic of that posting. This process was done for each episode, so that was a lot of work.

These past two weeks have been very busy and very exciting.  During week 11, I was able to record my final interview episode and complete the final reflection bonus episode.  Editing for those episodes was minor and creating the graphics to post to go along with the recorded files was fun.  Iʻm excited that this capstone is coming to an end and Iʻm pretty satisfied with the outcome.  

In week 12, I signed up with rss.com as my podcast host service with a student account, which gave me my first month free with a very low monthly rate discount. Hereʻs the price list: https://rss.com/pricing/  Once I added the final two episodes, graphics, and content to my senior capstone webpage I was able to connect my RSS Feed link and release the privacy password from this completed webpage for this deliverable.

Webpage:  www.hawaiiabroad.com

RSS Feed:  https://rss.com/podcasts/haap/

Returning to school work this week after Spring break was extra challenging for me because I’ve been sick 😷 and lost my voice for 2 weeks. Therefore, I had to suspend all my recordings but thankfully I already did most of my interviews & I’m in editing phase. However, there was narrations that needed to be recorded to complete several episodes, all I could do was write up the scripts & wait for my voice to improve.

Also been working on the mobile mode of the podcast page. Although the mobile mode is transpose from the desktop mode that I design in sometimes the alignment is off & need to be adjusted.

I know this post is late but I have been working on a lot with this project and just lost track of time.  Plus midterms for my other courses were very time-consuming.  With that said, lots of interview recording and editing for the podcast were done during weeks 8 & 9.  Iʻm truly enjoying the conversations and see much value in sharing the podcast once the series is completed.  The layout for the podcast website is coming out good.  Using Canva to create my graphics and believe itʻs looking good.  I shared the link and password with my classmate peers to my podcast website to review and get feedback.  I am so thankful to our professor Sharla Hanaoka and my peers for the very informative feedback.  Very, very helpful!  

The biggest challenges I faced was the recording technical difficulties on my intervieweeʻs side.  Because the interviews was held online due to the interviewees living aboard and in several sessions they use the computer built-in microphone which had bad pick-ups, so it was a lot more work for me in the editing phase with the Adobe Audition app.  Therefore, as I move forward I would need to discuss the tech issues with them ahead of time and see how we can support their tech issue ahead of time.

Been making lots of progress this past couple of weeks.  The layout for the webpage that will be housing my podcast is almost complete. Had my one-on-one meeting with our professor who gave me great advice on webpage adjustments, was able to add lots of content and graphics too, and seemed to be on track with this process. 

During my last posting entry, I spoke about using the app Cleanfeed for my podcast recording, however, I was able to successfully use it only once then several technical difficulties started to happen.  After attempting to use Cleanfeed several times to unsuccessfully record the podcast I decided to disregard that app and use Zoom instead-but added another app to reduce background noise.  That app is Krisp.  This app is an AI-powered app that removes background noise and echoes from meetings leaving only human voices.  Both Zoom and Krisp supported me to finally have a successful recording.  The editing time for that latest recording was also successful.  Editing with Adobe Audition took a little more than an hour compared to six-plus hours for the other recording files.  

The upcoming task is to complete two more interviews and to work on the audio files from the earlier recordings.  It is nice to be halfway through the semester and see things on this project really coming together.  Still got a lot to do before completing this project but it is also nice to see there are lights at the end of the tunnel.

Busy couple weeks working on interview schedules, recording, editing, caption graphics, mailing gifts, learning new software and much more.  I recorded my full update report on a new audio app for recording.  

Working good so far. Use the following link below to listen:  

Aloha everyone, CLICK THE LINK  for a quick update on my project process for weeks 3 & 4.  Tried to share my accomplishments and challenges from those weeks.  The next step is to follow up with the task on my timeline and make sure those interviews sessions are confirmed.  

Aloha mai kakou, I’m Maxine.  I created this short introduction video to give you an overview of my senior capstone project.  Basically, I will be sharing my project process on this blog.  

During last fall semester 2021, I did some research on my project topic, “Why are native Hawaiians leaving their homeland to reside elsewhere?” and found fascinating data evidence sharing that thereʻs a current migration of Hawaii residents relocating outside the Hawaiian islands, especially the native people of Hawaii also known as the kānaka maoli.  Hawaii is losing more and more native Hawaiian residents each year for several different reasons, but we find the top common reason is due to the high cost of living in Hawaii’s economy.

Therefore, I am using this project as a platform to bring awareness to this topic and support the native Hawaiian communities both in the island and abroad by offering a venue to share their stories and voices.  Ultimately, I hope to reveal the bigger story in the shift of the native Hawaiian population in different locations.

After graduation, I hope to obtain a career as a digital creator working solely online, so I can continue to work while traveling and connecting with family and friend abroad.