Finals done. Break begins. JOUR155o ends.

This semester exposed me to new technologies. It allowed me to expand my journalism through Twitter, LinkedIn, Storify, this digital portfolio and my beat coverage of The Boston Globe.

I learned how to live-tweet according to AP Style and effectively use hashtags to engage my followers.

I will continue to update this website as I continue in my journalistic endeavors.

For now it is time to eat, drink and be merry.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

As my digital journalism course winds down, my partner, Allison Kruschke, and I finished our second package for the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service.

We profiled Jason Mishelow, a senior attorney and CFO of Centro Legal, a nonprofit that provides bilingual legal services on Milwaukee's south side.

For this project, we used the programs Audacity and Final Cut Pro. Throughout this semester, I have become much more familiar with audio and slideshow editing. This package shows the strength of my abilities.

It is a competition of casinos.

Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino said he wants the casino in Suffolk Downs because it is near the airport and convention center.

Robert Kraft, New England Patriots owner, and casino businessman Steve Wynn "pitched a $1 billion casino resort" across the street from Gillette Stadium, The Boston Globe reports.

Kraft and Wynn argued that the casino would create more jobs in this location. The Boston Globe covered their announcement yesterday.

This story has stayed a hot topic in Boston and coverage will most likely continue as officials butt heads over location.

I created my second Storify, documenting the Rev. Scott Pilarz, Marquette's new president, student forum, facilitated by MUSG.

I live-tweeted the event, took photos and wrote an A-1 news story on deadline for The Marquette Tribune.

Using the hashtag #muprez and my digital journalism class hashtag #JOUR1550, I covered the forum and its major topics.

As a one-man-band, the event wasn't an easy story, but it provided invaluable experience as I learned how to handle multiple journalistic jobs at once.

Featured under hot topics, a teaser titled "Cardinal Law" caught my eye.

The backlash from clergy sex abuse that broke news nearly a decade ago still impacts the Catholic Church and its members.

Cardinal Bernard Law left his job at a Roman basilica and made waves with his departure.

Boston.com featured an AP brief, an editorial, a spotlight investigation piece from 2003 on clergy sex abuse in Boston and a link to all recent news related to the topic of Boston clergy sex abuse.

Today, my #JOUR1550 partner-in-crime Allison Kruschke and I will proudly present our first package to Sharon McGowan and the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service.

We profiled Heather Ramirez, executive director of Centro Legal.

Centro Legal is a nonprofit center that provides free legal services on Milwaukee's south side. Ramirez gave us great insight into the organization and described her personal experience and role at Centro Legal.

Kruschke and I did a great job of delegating tasks and evenly dividing the work. We did the interview together and split up tasks such as monitoring audio (my job) and asking questions (Kruschke's job). We both took pictures and notes.

Since I am more experienced with Mac computers, I took on most of the editing work in Final Cut. Kruschke wrote the first draft of the story. Then we collaborated.

I think this was a great learning experience that will hopefully provide us with published multimedia work.

Boston.com, a largely consumerism based news source, has geared up for the impending holiday shopping.

The featured story pertains to to new laws restrict shopping times on Black Friday. Beneath it, links to stories on unique gifts and a slideshow of the must-have toys of past holiday seasons appear.

This news is headlined above a feature on Saskia Epstein, sister of former Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein. The story focuses on her troubled adolescence and the work she does now with her nonprofit Room to Grow.

The home page also features a story on the top 50 scariest movies. This holiday special seems ill-timed and it is hard to find cohesion on the homepage. What holiday is it? The mast features pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving, the stories are on holiday shopping and scary movies are still at the top of the page.

I don't know what they want me to read.

The Boston Globe's sports heavy site featured a lead story on Albert Haynesworth, the defensive lineman waived by the team.

Sports dominated over news stories on today's homepage. Some national, political and entertainment news, such as a story on the Duggers – a family expecting their 20th child who have their own TLC show– made appearances on the site, but the Patriot's were clearly the main focus.

All in all, it was a slow news day. I found nothing very interesting or valuable to read. I could have easily found the national news elsewhere.

The Boston Globe featured a photo slideshow on celebrity marriages, a section titled "Celebrity Buzz" and an AP story completely devoted to Kim Kardahian's split from Kris Humphries on today's homepage.

I don't think anyone will need help "Keeping up with the Kardashians" this week. Kim set off to Australia after filing for divorce after 72 days, but her name appeared in headlines and Twitter hashtags all over the world. One hashtag #ThingsLongerThanKimsMarriage blew up.

Kardahsian and Humphries's wedding caused a whirlwind of publicity for Kardashian who is famous... well for being famous. Her father, Robert Kardashian, was the attorney for O.J. Simpson.

The couple's wedding special premiered only a few weeks ago. The couple put on a united front after it aired, but sitings of the newlyweds post-nuptials were rare to say the least.

In other news – The Boston Globe covered the not-guilty plea on assault charges of Julian Edelman, a New England Patriot's wide receiver.

The Globe featured a video and photos from this event. Edel

I had only heard of the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service (MNNS) from my digital journalism professor Herbert Lowe's blog and twitter (@herbertlowe). He seemed to be a fan of the organization, but I had never took the time to study the MNNS site.

Marissa Evans, a junior journalism major in the Diederich College of Communication, recently covered the October Occupy Milwaukee rally for MNNS. She tweeted (@marissaaevans) during the event, and when my class was assigned to blog about this news service I searched for her work.

Evans did not get the byline, but her photo showed up on this professional website. I was excited to do work for them once I saw that she was published.

I found one story from September on a march to end gun violence completely covered by Evans. She took photos and wrote the story. She did the full package.

The site is easy to navigate and up to date. Different communities and neighborhoods such as Clarke Square are featured on a sidebar for added interaction. It is very user-friendly.

I was pleasantly surprised by what I found, but confused as to why I did not know more about this news service before this blog.