Brainstorming my Reflective Intro

THESIS: Electronic Writing environments are a good fit for my writing style.

- I stray often from standard writing format. Writing in electronic enviroments affords me some leeway in that regard.
- Electronic writing allows more freedom in editing. Other writing environments are more concrete. I like to write in a place that I know is flexible. I like to able to change things when needed.

Potential Portfolio Themes

Here are some ideas for my theme:

1. "Finding my place in a team"
- An exploration of how I adapt my writing to function in a team setting. Drawing from specific examples in the Website Re-Design and Causes projects.

2. "Me vs. Proper Format"
- An exploration of my struggles against proof reading and proper formatting. The Wikitravel project will be the best lens through which to view this theme.

3. "Keeping Time and Quality"
- A chronicle of my attempts complete assignments on time without sacrificing my writing style. In other words exploring how I manage deadlines. The enthusiast blog is best example of this. Each post I did was a review and has such required some research. Managing that research in respect to the deadlines gave me a healthy challenge.

My 2 Portfolio Revisions

I will revise my enthusiast blog and my wikitravel article.

The bulk of my revisions will be spelling and grammar related. For the blog I will add more hyperlinks and media content. For the wikitravel I will further flesh out the sections I started.

Kimball Response

As the Kimball article shows, there are many things to keep in mind when developing a portfolio. Arguably the most important is audience. Knowing who you are writing to and for what purpose will directly shape the portfolios construction. After the audience is established then pay careful attention to the textual rhetoric. Word choices are extremely important. Generally speaking, the goal is to be professional sounding, use proper language and stay concise.

Animal Rights Cause Response 3

On the whole this was a fun project. If nothing else it was nice to explore ning, get a feel for it. Perhaps one day I will use the service again. Maybe I will find another cause that begs for social awareness.

Animal Rights Cause Response 2

I found it rather easy to compose my blog post. Much of the post is my voice, though I do make use of stats. I didn't go overly crazy with research as I felt it was unnecessary. Why? Because the importance of spaying and neutering is common knowledge stuff. The problem isn't that people don't know it's that they don't care or want to. I see my post as gentle nudge, a play to reason. In that respect I think it works.

Animal Rights Cause Response 1

I am glad I was able to get into a group about Animal Rights. I am a pet owner and all around lover of animals, so this topic is close to my heart. I know many animal rights organizations exist. But the way I look at it, the more the better.

Potential Discussion Topics

1. Finding the right breed for you (family size, location)
2. Understanding pet body language.
3. The importance of walking your dog.

Animal Rights Blog Post Ideas

1. The Importance of Spay and Neutering
2. The Importance of Heart Worm Medication
3. Choosing a dog that best fits with your family (i.e. location, family size)

I am really leaning towards the first one.

Boyd and Bennett Response

Both these articles touch upon misconcepatoins with social networks sites. SNS are a big part of modern culture but as tools they are underutilized. Boyd's article dispels the myth that social networks directly open the door brave new worlds. In truth social network users do not seek out new things but rather gravitate towards their friends. The internet interaction is a straight substitute for hanging out in public.

Bennett's article highlights the rift between generations in terms of citizenship. Generally speaking, parents and grandparents put faith in the government. They get news from mainstream outlets and place a high emphasis on voting. The youth on the other hand doubt the mainstream. They seek news from alternative outlets and turn to friends for approval in political matters. The youth does not blindly follow a political party; instead they seek out specific causes to invest in.

Both artilces were good reads. In particular though the Bennett article gets me thinking. I totally agree with his assertion that the old school and new school must meet in the middle. The future of citizenship lay in the middle. When the respect and experience of the old world smashes together with the technology and ambition of the new world the result will be nothing short of spectacular.

Social Networks: Definition, History, and Scholarship Response

This article was a nice read.

I was surprised to learn that social networks date back to 1997. I associate the birth of social networks with the launch of myspace. For me it wasn't till I entered high school that I first head the term "social network" being tossed around.

I feel bad about what happened to sixdegrees.com. I can see where the founder is going by saying it was ahead of it's time. All to often somebody gets and idea but the magic moment hasn't arrived. It's funny how innovation works that way.

The Launch Dates graphic is a nice visual complement to the info dump of site names and dates featured in the paragraphs.

On a rather random note, I found it cute that dogs and cats have their own social networking services.

Causes That Intrest Me

Causes I Care About

1. Animal Rights
2. Domestic Abuse
3. Child Welfare
4. Bullying
5. Internet Stalking

Of the lot I'm leaning the most towards animal rights.

Website Design Reflection #3

The limitations of Google sites surprised me somewhat. Though it is free, so barring that in mind this is a good program. I'm sure with more time investment I could gather a stronger mastery of the program. For the sake of this project is did the job well enough and I must commend it for user friendliness.

Website Design Reflection #2

I enjoyed the teamwork aspect of this project. I feel like from day one we all jived nicely. We stayed on the same page through-out and everybody brought some snazzy suggestions to the table.

I think our bond was easy considering the sad state of the site. Anybody could tell that the site needed a massive overhaul. So we didn't get stuck on picking out what aspect to focus on. So much needed work that we knew any place was a good place to start.

Website Design Reflection #1

When I first had the first misfortune of laying my eyes on the aesthetic mess that is the Creation Museum website I had a smidge of an epiphany. I got to thinking about just how many sites of this kind exist. How many crude, seemingly long forgotten websites stain the a tapestry of the internet. There must be thousands of pages crafted from crude tools and now ignored entirely. It's somewhat sad really, they are like disowned black sheep.

A Site That Works and A Site That NEEDS Work

http://www.spoonyexperiment.com/
This site works well. The navigation bar at the top allows for easy access to all the areas of the page. This site uses a blog style format in that each new entry has tags. The tags help to further link everything together. The bulk of this site is comprised of videos, all of which are hosted off site through services such as blip.tv.

http://captain-america.us/
I like this site and I think in many respects it works. However I do see areas of potenial improvement. All the links work, but the general lay-out could possibly benefit from an overhaul. There are a lot of ads on the page, which isn't in it's self a bad thing. The issue is that with the current lay-out the information can get lost in the ads. Tweaks to the aesthetic could make this site have more of an impact and by proxy make the information more accessible.

Palmquist Reading Response

This was a nice straight forward read. It covered a lot of familar terminology but provided some insight I had not previous known about the terms. One thing I really took away from it was an understanding of how the 3 organizational structures. More importantly a realization that sites rarely stick strictly to one one structure. More often then not elements from all 3 bleed together. But still it's important to understand the basics of all 3 before beginning to play around with mixing them.

The Offical Goddard Park page helped me a lot

When putting together the brandy new Wikitravel page for good old Goddard Park, I found a valuable tool in the official website. While the page is extremely basic and looks as thought it hasn't been updated in years it still provided to be a great place for stats. Information such as dedication year and phone numbera where things I could never have gleaned exclusively form my personal experience. Using the site was a good way to go, thought I realize I could have gone one step better. I could have taken it upon myself to visit the park again. Maybe even ask the rangers some questions. In that way the page would have been filled out more. But even without another visit, I am confident that the page came out strong. There is a ALOT of room for addition. But I take pride I knowing I got page started in the right direction.

The Challenge of Writing About Goddard Park

I found this Wikitravel assignment to overall enjoyable. I choose Goddard Park because I thought I would be able to fill the page very easily. The Park has been a big piece of my life. Yes as I assembled the page I found it difficult to filter myself. I had a lot of personal stories about the park, but not such much pratical information. I tested me creatively to take a matter of fact look at the park, as I had never before looked at it through that lens.

3 Potential Entries For My Place

With a state park there are many areas to look at. Here are some ideas I have:

1. The Beach: It is such a big part of the park that it would be irresponsible of me to not to discuss it.
2. The "Big Rock" In The Field: This landmark is often the first image I concur up when thinking about the park.
3. Picnic Tables: I may want to discuss how park visitors go about renting them.