Reflective Writing: Assessing the Project

I enjoyed the project a lot. The outcome was perfect and some things took a little longer than expected but it was just about everything we had planned. I learned how to use wordpress and got to see all the different stuff it can do.

I feel that we did well on the project. We had video, sound, pictures, information, and our personal opinions. We covered all the things we needed and did more, so I think we did a good job on the project.

My favorite part of the project is the visuals, the pictures and videos. I got to share a lot of photos I had and the videos we made from our previous project and then a new video I made as well as a old video I had. Another part I like is the opinions, we were able to share our thoughts along with misc. blogs and sites.

My least favorite I think is the front page, it doesn't seem as exciting and maybe a little boring. Yes, it has a few photos, yet it doesn't show everything the site has to offer. Maybe next time I would spend more time on this part.

I would recommend this project for other students because it is a great way to put everything we learned throughout the semester into one project. From visual to design, the project covers it all. It is a great learning experience.

Weekly Post

This will be my last "Weekly Post," with today being our last day of class. I checked out Twitter to see what all the fuss was about. My thoughts so far.....ehhh it's okay. I'm not really sure what the whole point is. Just writing where I am at the moment or how I am feeling....and that's about it; at least to my impression. I won't give up on it yet, I will cruise around to see if I can find some people I know that use it.

I tend to check my Facebook more often and add more applications to it when I can. Before I just checked it about once a month. As for Myspace, I usually check it a few times a day. Today I wanted to see what different social networks were out there that I haven't heard of yet, and there were tons. I searched social networking and got the wikipedia source and a long list of different sites and the countries which they are popular in. I checked a couple of them out and still seem to enjoy the one's I am currently in, it could be because it is easier to not change. But times change and fads change. It should be interesting to see what sites become more popular or if they will fail because Myspace and Facebook have taken over.

Reflective Writing: Checking In

Time is ticking and the semester is almost over! Only 2 more class times left. The semester flew by and I learned a lot of great and handy things. So far my project has been going pretty good. I thought I might be doing a little more each day , but with the semester coming to an end I find my self not finding the time. I have a week left to buckle down and get it done. I don't think I am off track or am lagging behind on the project, I just think I would've had more time to do some stuff.

I have learned a couple things this far into the project. I have learned that I am still getting use to Wordpress and what it can and can't do. It took us a little longer to get our pictures and sound up, but we looked around on the website I figured it out. The only problem is taking the time to look around and see all the abilities it offers.

Generally, I think the project is turning out how we pictured it. Yes, of course we imagined maybe it had a bit more "pizazz!" but overall yes, it is turning out to what we expected. We have pictures, sound clips, interviews, and more.

As for the amount of time it will take us to finish the project, I think it will be done by this Tuesday. With the weekend approaching, a lot of it will get finished up then. I'm looking forward to the finished product!

Weekly Post

The cyclone that hit Myanmar a couple days ago is becoming more devastating as time continues and the death toll increases. I first read this story yesterday morning and it was said that 4,000 people were killed, 3,000 were missing, and 10,000 were estimated to have been killed. Yet, only 24 hours later the death toll has increased to 22,000 with an estimate of 41,000 to have been killed. These are drastically different than numbers within just 24 hours. I asked myself how can we get such different numbers within such a short amount of time? Our media and intelligence is so great yet we are unable to make a correct hypothesis of such a devestating storm? It still boggles my mind; are we in denial? do we want to rush the story and sart saying numbers which are completely wrong?

This isn't the first time which the numbers are totally off from the beginning. When the tsunami hit in 2004, we heard devastating numbers yet it continued to increase day after day. No one was prepared for hundreds of thousands to have been killed.

So I am still left with the question, how can we be so wrong and impatient to release numbers that are nothing close to what the outcome is? How is our intelligence so far off?

Lastly, I have not heard yet about this cyclone on whether or not the people of Myanmar were warned. Being that it is a cyclone, which is very similar to a hurricane, they must have known a storm was coming. Like Katrina, I could understand how people would stay thinking they could outlast the weather, yet for 41,000 people estimated to be killed, did they have warning? This is a topic that I have not read in articles, and hope for the media to touch on.

This was a horrible storm that mother nature has put on the people of Myanmar and hopefully the rest of the world will continue to come to their aid. And I hope the numbers stop increasing and I will keep the people of Myanmar in my heart.

Weekly Post

Social media is becoming the "it" thing for our generation. Almost everyone you know has a MySpace or Facebook. I myself have both, I got a MySpace my senior year of high school and a Facebook my freshman year of college. I have come into contact with so many people I haven't seen in a long time, from elementary school to people who were on sports teams with me. I find it a great way to connect with people, those I know and those I have never met. I personally enjoy MySpace much better. Facebook seems to have a lot more pointless items, such as all of the poke, superpokes, and items to buy. My friend told me how it is perfectly when she first signed up, "why do I want to pay a dollar for a picture of a bunny?" Yes, this seems absolutely pointless, and I didn't get it either. Plus everyone is always sending notifications, "join and be a pirate" or "join and see what type of Barbie you are." I always find myself "ignoring" it all. So, my personal opinion is MySpace, it's easier and your page can be simple or if you want you can spice it up. As for other social places I heard of the website Virb and checked it out. I didn't seem to like it and notice very few people have them. Those who did have them didn't have very many friends and they didn't seem to work on their site very much, as if they made it to see what it's about, yet never returned. So I think I will stick to Facebook and MySpace. I also may check out Twitter and see what that has to offer. I haven't really heard of it until these past few weeks, so I plan to check that out at least.

Reflective Writing: Getting Started

Our final projects for class are getting started and I will being doing mine with another girl in my class, Tanja. Our final project includes many different types of media like videos, sound, pictures, blog, podcast, etc. We chose to do ours on the San Jose Sharks. We chose this because we are both hockey fans and have done our previous videos about the Sharks. We got started this past week and have decided to do our website through word press because it will be easier to work on out of class and we can do it from home.

I expect to accomplish a good amount from this project. It will ultimately show if everything we have learned from class has been sketched into our brains and we are able to get good results. I think it is different from other projects in class because we will have more time on our free time, yet we won't have the ability to ask questions right away, we will have to work harder for answers. This can be a good thing, because when exploring the the site and figuring things out, you are also able to see things you might not have seen before and get more information. It also helps that I will be doing this a group. We will both be able to work off of each other and use each other's knowledge. We plan to divvy up the work load with different pages. We also plan to both work on misc parts online when at home. I personally am able to attend all of the Sharks playoff games and am able to gather pieces for our site, from sound to video and pictures. I expect our project to turn out very well and looking forward to it.

Weekly Post

Do bloggers belong in the locker room? That is the question I was given for this weeks post. (www.mcom63.wordpress.com) At first before I even read the article given, I thought, no way! There are a couple ways I look at it. Bloggers can be seen as either fans or average people that just want to share their opinion. The other way bloggers can be seen is a journalists. The average blogger is just an average joe wanting to talk about what they think. So I don't believe bloggers should be let into the locker room. If they are professional journalists that blog on the side, then yes, they should be able to be in the locker room or be on the field. After reading the article, I still feel that bloggers should be left out and watch from the view of an outsider. This view is also the view that will get them popular, if they do so. People like to read about what they see as well and be able to relate with the blogger. Having bloggers in with the media in sports I believe will be like fans and misc. people being in with the players and that will distract the team. As it said in the article, they might as well let fans, kids, tours, etc. in with the media. If bloggers were let in it would make it more difficult to hold people from being let in. Everyone might see themselves as bloggers after they write one entry and there would be more tension. Overall, I believe bloggers should stay out of the locke room and give their perspective from the outside, and grab the attention of their readers with the ability to relate with them.