Reflective Intro Outline

Scratch what I said in my previous post, I'm going with "The Ocean State Spirit" as my theme.

-The entries are in order of how applicable they are to the theme and two entries that will be most improved upon will be listed last

SNS-Showed how I can adapt to the differences and preferences of other writers to create a piece that appears cohesive and has one distinct purpose.

Blog-Showed consistency as a writer, focused on my audience and what it would take to maintain a following from other bloggers.

Wikitravel-Showed my ability to write with user usefulness and utility in mind, focused on detail and formality to fit the guidelines of a particular ecology.

Website redesign- Showed creativity and familiarity with website aesthetics, focused on efficiency and accessibility for users and importance of symmetry within a site

Options for Portfolio Theme

I thought it was pretty difficult coming up with a theme that tied all my work together that I've done this semester, but I finally landed on something. The Ocean State Culture was a title and theme I found to be catchy and applicable. I haven't really been able to think of anything else that I can consider for my theme so I'm going to go with it. I think that the two projects I'm focusing on, my blog and my wikitravel site, do a good job giving insight into why certain things are the way they are in this state.

My Project Choices

I'm going to choose my enthusiast blog and my social networking site for projects to expand. I feel like I worked the hardest on these two projects and enjoyed them the most. My plans for both are as follows:

Enthusiast Blog
-work on catchier titles
- link blog posts together better
- tighten up grammatically

Social Networking Site
- improve the content of my blog post
- make the discussion board more interactive
-improve aesthetically

Kimball-Web Portfolios

Here are the major points that I took away from Kimball's piece, all of which are mentioned early on in the text and continue throughout.

1) Portfolios should be reflective in the sense that they should depict challenges you face, how you overcame them, and what you ultimately learned from each submission.

2) The standards of your work should somehow be explained and how you fulfilled those standards should be evident in your work.

3) You must present the portfolio in a way that will make sense and enables the audience to draw conclusions from it. You must create the portfolio with audience in mind.

Looking Back in my Cause Site Experience

I thought this was a great experience to be able to look back on. It was probably one of my favorite assignments in any writing class I've been apart of, but granted this is a very different kind of writing course. I was very pleased with our final product and am glad that it went as smoothly as it did. Group projects can sometimes be more daunting than beneficial, but I thought this was a project well suited for teamwork and input from other people. I thought that this project incorporated many different ways to be creative and to ultimately get the major points of the cause across through the tools Ning offers.

Using Feedback

I thought that our feedback was helpful at times and inaccurate at others. I think it's difficult to give feedback on something that you haven't really worked and are unfamiliar with, so the feedback group responding to us isn't at fault. I moved around a couple things on the page, cut down on the welcome note, and made a few adjustments to my personal page. As for the aesthetics, we pretty much got carved by the feedback group, but I see our layout as something that suits our page well, and my group mates agree. We will work on our blog to make it work better as a whole and I will try to find a way to make our mission statement a little more direct and specific, although I think where it is now is good because it is general enough to capture differences in focus of each member.

The Process of Creating a Cause Website

This is definitely my favorite project of the semester. I like how I can directly interact with my group mates through the site, as opposed to just working toward on it together like with the Website redesign. It seemed like a pretty overwhelming project, but when you put four heads together that contribute with an ample effort, it actually turns into a rewarding experience. It feel it combines your overall creativity and the ability to achieve a desired goal better than any project we've completed thus far. I initially wasn't too fond of the way Ning looked and operated, but as usual, I have grown accustomed to it and enjoyed many of the tools that they have to offer. I really like the layout once you have chosen which features you want to include. It makes editing and creating on the site easy and efficient.

3 Potential Forum Topics

1) The most notorious scams
2) The legal implications of scams
3) What you can do to spread awareness

3 Topics for Cause

After doing some research, I think topics of interest for scams are:

1) Academic scams-Online Degrees, scholarships
2) Job scams, quick cash scams
3) Foreclosure, financial bailout scams

Ning Reaction

The site is very different from anything I've ever used before. I like how it has the snapshot of the page which also serves as the link. Just to get a feel for it, I searched for current issues in general. I came across "Green Passports" which were supporters of environmental responsibility on an international level. I also saw a site on obesity which looked to require some involvement and a very persuasive page about a California politician. I can see how this pages can influence opinions and beliefs towards a certain issue. I think the site could have a better search system because I had a hard time finding specific issues.

Boyd vs. Bennett

I thought that both articles were interesting to read. They both were similar in regards to how they explained this new era of "self-actualization" and how it differs from typical involvement and citizenship. Bennett's article, however, makes it seem like the new school thought process is something that has to be accepted and can actually be an opportunity for society. Though Boyd comes off as a little extreme, I can see what he means when he says that SNS's are an egoists dream and ultimately hinder willingness to seek other social realms. I can see it when I use Facebook. So much of the same information is circulating amongst the same people that the group thinks it must be true. It's human nature. It's natural to gravitate toward something when you know group consensus will support it.

SNS Article

I thought it was kind of cool taking a look at the evolution of these social networking sites. A different way of looking at it is that you are developing relationships with people in your extended network rather than total strangers. I thought that the problems that Friendster encountered were great to learn from moving forward for SNS's. The issue and main concern that has been resolved is the privacy, security, and the trust the public has in these sites. Sites like MySpace and Facebook have done the job right by learning from past failures. What MySpace did correctly was respond to customer demand and create a free way for people to network. Why in the world would anyone pay for something when there is an almost identical product for free?

Five Issues That Really Concern Me

1) Scams-Insurance, Home foreclosure bailouts, etc.
2) Global Warming/Environment
3) Corruption in Government
4) Police Brutality
5) What's going into our food

Web Design in Retrospect

I really had a good time with this one and I think my group members did as well. I think it was very much they fact that the project was much more incremental and team oriented than the others, and if something like this wasn't, it wouldn't be nearly as effective. I liked the fact that we didn't have to be web masters to create this project and we got to use what we knew to be creative. It helped that Google sites was basic enough to the point where we weren't overwhelmed once we became accustomed to it. Sure, it wasn't the best template to use, but it helped us achieve the main goals of this assignment. I'd be interested to see what our new page would look like if we expanded the entire old site.

Applying the Finishing Touches

So last night I made some finishing touches to the aesthetic appeal of our website. I made certain text bold to make it stand out better and changed many of the fonts to give them a little more flare. I also corrected small symmetry issues on the main page while still maintaining the same alignment. Barring any changes that my group members deem necessary, I think the site is pretty much ready to go. I would just like to attribute some of the clashing of colors between our page background and link colors to the fact that Google Sites did not allow us to change the color of the link. Either that or the process is something we overlooked/not easily accessible.

My Web Design Experience

When I was first introduced to the idea of this assignment, I'll admit I was a little skeptical about how it would turn out. As the cohesiveness and communication with my group became stronger, the ease with which we completed the redesign became stronger as well. I also thought that the approach to this assignment was a little bit different when we first covered it. I thought we would be completely re-making a page and need a good deal of web design knowledge to complete it. I also thought that my group members and I would be doing almost identical things. The different roles that we all took in making this project a success proved my prediction wrong. Each part that we did was crucial to the project as a whole.

First Impression of Google Sites

It almost seems unimaginable to have a platform as easy to use and is still efficient and dynamic like Google Sites. Usually when different applications and accessories are added to the technological mix, people become intimidated and are unwilling to give these new concepts consideration. What I like about Google Sites in contrast Wikipedia or other sources of information is that you can maintain control of your domain while still allowing others to contribute. A concern of mine with Google Sites is that the sites will be too informal. I feel that Google Sites will have some of the characteristics of what we consider to be bad sites because of the clutter and the inability to get points across. The increasing number of distractions and the lacking drive to put together a professional site are other related problems I feel could occur with Google Sites, but we will certainly see as time goes on.

2 Examples of Web Pages

The following is a link to a website that has characteristics of a well-put together website.

http://www.riil.org/

This website belongs to the Rhode Island Interscholastic League, which regulates the sports teams of high schools in the state which have subjected themselves to the RIIL's governing. What makes this site especially useful are the internal links to other areas on the site. All of these areas are labeled appropriately so you'll find exactly what your looking for on that particular page. It gives directions to all of the high school sports venues and allows for any volunteers to participate in any number of organizational activities. Another important characteristic is that this site is consistent with how it presents the various pages within the site and doesn't allow any of the aesthetic appeal become a distraction from the actual information.

The following is a link to a site that I found to be lacking for a few different reasons.

http://www.worldbeardchampionships.com/ (Don't ask how I found it)

I thought this site lacked in how interactive it was. All we really get from it is a few pictures and a general idea of the creativity necessary to win. It doesn't really tell you how to get involved and really doesn't give much incentive or inspiration to become involved. I think some video clips would be helpful to capture the event. Also, we don't actually know much about the procedural aspect of this competition. Do you just stand there? Do you submit pictures? Are there any qualifications? These are just some of the questions that go unaddressed.

Response to Pamquist's Chapter 17

This article really helped me understand the concept of a hierarchical organizational pattern as it pertains to making a website. It is something that we don't usually think of as viewers of websites, but now as creators of websites, it can become an essential part of the structural decision making process. I also enjoyed reading the Web Page Guidelines section and agreed with most of what was is there. I feel I won't have too many issues with the consistency aspect of my page since I always consider consistency to be one of my strong points and something I implement often. I also like how he talks about keeping important information on the screen, which hadn't really dawned on me until reading this article. There have been many instances where I became impatient because I couldn't find what I wanted and left for another site. This is detrimental to us as web designers.

Wikitravel in Retrospect

I have just put the finishing touches on my entries for my wikitravel page. I really like the feedback I got from my peers and one group mate in particular. I wasn't sure if including external links was going to work for my page, but the feedback reassured me that all the great wikitravel pages have them. Whatever information I didn't provide could be better provided by the websites I linked to the page, and I think its great how they are supplements to each other. I looked over my entries and made sure the grammar and sentence structure was well pulled together. I felt that I kept a consistent tone and talked about things that showed I was knowledgeable about places, which should help the readers feel more confident in going there. I guess I could have talked about a few more places of interest, but I put a lot of thought into it, and these are the ones that deserved the most consideration and ended up making it on the page. I learned that the places that should be included don't need to be forced onto the page, and writing about them comes naturally if they are is great as people say they are.