At the beginning of the course, I was an avid Wordpress user, in fact I was an exclusive Wordpress user for all of my blogging needs. This stemmed from my introduction to blogging in the summer from Professor Teston. This is when I started my personal blog which has catapulted me into a world of motherhood that I never imagined existed. So, when Professor Mangini assigned us the task of creating our own website through Weebly I was enthusiastic to say the least, and I was thrilled that it was a “drag and drop” site design with no html code (or so I thought.)
Weebly fulfilled the promise of being a drag and drop site, which I appreciated considering I paid a wonderful web designer to design my personal blog. But, Weebly also came with several bugs and updating issues throughout. There was a time in the semester I even lost a whole page of my blog. Yes, me-the tech-savvy one! I did struggle with Weebly and its wobbly ways, yet All in all, it provided me the creative license to make my own design choices when I wanted to make them. It also allowed me the freedom to try things out and see if they worked for me, without having to email someone half-way across the country and wait eagerly for their response.
I feel very fortunate to have worked with Professor Mangini. I feel that through the assignments I was consistently challenged and pushed to work outside of my comfort zone, without compromising the quality of the work I produced.
Weebly fulfilled the promise of being a drag and drop site, which I appreciated considering I paid a wonderful web designer to design my personal blog. But, Weebly also came with several bugs and updating issues throughout. There was a time in the semester I even lost a whole page of my blog. Yes, me-the tech-savvy one! I did struggle with Weebly and its wobbly ways, yet All in all, it provided me the creative license to make my own design choices when I wanted to make them. It also allowed me the freedom to try things out and see if they worked for me, without having to email someone half-way across the country and wait eagerly for their response.
I feel very fortunate to have worked with Professor Mangini. I feel that through the assignments I was consistently challenged and pushed to work outside of my comfort zone, without compromising the quality of the work I produced.
Twitter acted as a way to expedite my thoughts in the process of writing my Twitterive. The instant gratification of having my ideas already on a site facilitated my writing process. It was significantly easier to cut and paste my tweets, which acted as my notes, to a Word document, rather than trying to organize and re-arrange hand written notes. For a technology junkie like me, the tweeting process directly affected my writing.
I am not much for pencil and paper note-taking or writing for that matter. There is nothing more appealing to me than to be able to click away on a laptop or shoot a message from the keyboard of my Blackberry. For me it sends the true or real thought I am thinking at that moment. I was never concerned with spelling or if I was making any sense because it is a fast, raw note. I think too much when I write with a pen or pencil.
Using Weebly to convey my Twitterive seriously impacted my final product. I knew that everyone, including my followers of my mommy blog, would be reading my Twitterive. This was partly due to the curious nature of my readers. They frequently saw the hash tag #twitterive and wondered what it was all about. I was also more concerned about the audience of my professor and other classmates and how they would portray me, because I took many literary risks (at least in my eyes I did). Weebly also impacted the layout of my piece. It was more like a blog post with no indentations throughout the paragraphs.
As a whole I feel my final product was affected by both Weebly and Twitter in different ways. In the long run, I think that it has impacted my final product all for the better. Technology is the key to my personal success with writing. It is what drives me to continue writing and sharing it with others.
I am not much for pencil and paper note-taking or writing for that matter. There is nothing more appealing to me than to be able to click away on a laptop or shoot a message from the keyboard of my Blackberry. For me it sends the true or real thought I am thinking at that moment. I was never concerned with spelling or if I was making any sense because it is a fast, raw note. I think too much when I write with a pen or pencil.
Using Weebly to convey my Twitterive seriously impacted my final product. I knew that everyone, including my followers of my mommy blog, would be reading my Twitterive. This was partly due to the curious nature of my readers. They frequently saw the hash tag #twitterive and wondered what it was all about. I was also more concerned about the audience of my professor and other classmates and how they would portray me, because I took many literary risks (at least in my eyes I did). Weebly also impacted the layout of my piece. It was more like a blog post with no indentations throughout the paragraphs.
As a whole I feel my final product was affected by both Weebly and Twitter in different ways. In the long run, I think that it has impacted my final product all for the better. Technology is the key to my personal success with writing. It is what drives me to continue writing and sharing it with others.
Specialist Gillis on leave in Sinai, Egypt. The only enjoyment soldiers experienced during their horrific deployment.
When I was originally thinking about someone who I could interview with some amazing story about the Holocaust or a tragic event, I realized I had a real hero right under my own roof. He not only served in the military and went overseas, but he was the shyest person in the world! My role as an interviewer as well as a wife and my husband’s best friend benefited me in many ways during the interview process. I am pretty much the only soul that my husband will talk about the war with. I mean he will if you ask him, but his stories are usually vague and lack important or funny details. So, this was a huge advantage in my interview process. But, he also is my husband. My best friend. I have to see him every day (well, sometimes!) and this hindered me in a way during the interviews. I wanted to press him for more information concerning the various tasks and battles he encountered overseas, but knowing him the way I do, I couldn’t do it. I saw the pain in his eyes, the uncomfortable body language, and the change is voice. It struck a chord with me. The things he did overseas, the bad things, I think he is almost ashamed of, and this was a hard thing to take in as a wife and as an interviewer. All in all, it was a beneficial experience for my family. We will now have record of his time in the army and can share it for years to come. I don’t think the Late Show will be calling me anytime soon, but I think I held my own when it came down to content and coercing him to talk about issues he tried to avoid in earlier interviews.
I have to admit that after completing the oral history project I got the itch for more movie editing and slideshow composing. What the hell was I thinking?! Below describes my love/hate relationship with the collaborative research masterpiece…Mystery Meat.
Since the beginning of the semester, I have dreaded the collaborative research project. It’s not that I do not enjoy collaborating with my fellow classmates, but time constraints and schedule conflicts can cause some havoc during a collaborative project. But, when I found out that we were allowed to choose our group my mind was set at ease. I had the pleasure to collaborate with Amanda and Alison, who I’ve worked with in the past, and our schedules and work ethic seem to sync perfectly. We found out that we would have two options for this project either a traditional research paper or a documentary. After completing my oral history project, where I used video technology, I knew instantly that I wanted to divulge into the wonderful world of a documentary. I knew it would be time consuming, but I also knew I was up for the challenge. So, with a lot of coercing, I persuaded my fellow group members to take on the documentary challenge. This was not an easy task, in fact, me and Amanda got into our first argument! It was quickly resolved and we began our collaboration almost immediately after the assignment was given.
We met at various Starbucks and brainstormed our ideas for this monumental challenge. We originally split up the work into three sections; Amanda was in charge of the script, Alison began the research, and I started to toy with the video editing software and researched various music clips and music editing software to figure out the best plan for our attack. Throughout the process, our jobs often overlapped. I helped Amanda with photos for the script and Alison assisted in the writing process as well with drafting the abstract and annotated bibliography. Originally, we had all recorded an equal amount of the narration, but due to technical difficulties with the level and tone of our voices, I had to re-record all of the narration in my voice alone. My group members stood by me with support as I rearranged the final product which was quite the tedious task, as the final product emerged.
A few nights before our project was due, I assumed that our finished product, Mystery Meat, was a masterpiece! I was very confident that all of our effort and hard work would be easily identified in our documentary. But, due to program bugs in Adobe Premiere Elements, I was not able to preview the product without downloading it to a file. Normally, this process took a few minutes and it was a simple task to perform. But, of course on this particular night my computer was running slower than dirt and I was unable to upload the video to youtube due to the length of the video. After all of the final kinks were out (37 hours of labor later) Alison, Amanda, and I were very pleased with the finished product. We are all perfectionists, so of course there were several elements of the video that, if given more time, we would have been able to perfect.
We would have loved to integrate other video clips in our documentary, but to technological and time restraints we were unable to do so. This video from Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution was first on my list.In the video he shows a group of students how the chicken nuggets that they eat in school lunches are made. I would have also liked to include interviews with administrators from school districts, parents, and most importantly students who are involved with the school lunch process. Another aspect I would have liked to maneuver was the timing of the slides with the narration. There wasn't much "empty space" in the documentary, due to time constraints of internet uploading sites. This restricted the amount of content we could convey, and made the amount that we did convey come off as abrupt and “in your face” so to speak, and restricted viewers processing time. All in all, with a very limited time for the assignment and some amazing collaboration by our group, I am pleased with the final product.
Since the beginning of the semester, I have dreaded the collaborative research project. It’s not that I do not enjoy collaborating with my fellow classmates, but time constraints and schedule conflicts can cause some havoc during a collaborative project. But, when I found out that we were allowed to choose our group my mind was set at ease. I had the pleasure to collaborate with Amanda and Alison, who I’ve worked with in the past, and our schedules and work ethic seem to sync perfectly. We found out that we would have two options for this project either a traditional research paper or a documentary. After completing my oral history project, where I used video technology, I knew instantly that I wanted to divulge into the wonderful world of a documentary. I knew it would be time consuming, but I also knew I was up for the challenge. So, with a lot of coercing, I persuaded my fellow group members to take on the documentary challenge. This was not an easy task, in fact, me and Amanda got into our first argument! It was quickly resolved and we began our collaboration almost immediately after the assignment was given.
We met at various Starbucks and brainstormed our ideas for this monumental challenge. We originally split up the work into three sections; Amanda was in charge of the script, Alison began the research, and I started to toy with the video editing software and researched various music clips and music editing software to figure out the best plan for our attack. Throughout the process, our jobs often overlapped. I helped Amanda with photos for the script and Alison assisted in the writing process as well with drafting the abstract and annotated bibliography. Originally, we had all recorded an equal amount of the narration, but due to technical difficulties with the level and tone of our voices, I had to re-record all of the narration in my voice alone. My group members stood by me with support as I rearranged the final product which was quite the tedious task, as the final product emerged.
A few nights before our project was due, I assumed that our finished product, Mystery Meat, was a masterpiece! I was very confident that all of our effort and hard work would be easily identified in our documentary. But, due to program bugs in Adobe Premiere Elements, I was not able to preview the product without downloading it to a file. Normally, this process took a few minutes and it was a simple task to perform. But, of course on this particular night my computer was running slower than dirt and I was unable to upload the video to youtube due to the length of the video. After all of the final kinks were out (37 hours of labor later) Alison, Amanda, and I were very pleased with the finished product. We are all perfectionists, so of course there were several elements of the video that, if given more time, we would have been able to perfect.
We would have loved to integrate other video clips in our documentary, but to technological and time restraints we were unable to do so. This video from Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution was first on my list.In the video he shows a group of students how the chicken nuggets that they eat in school lunches are made. I would have also liked to include interviews with administrators from school districts, parents, and most importantly students who are involved with the school lunch process. Another aspect I would have liked to maneuver was the timing of the slides with the narration. There wasn't much "empty space" in the documentary, due to time constraints of internet uploading sites. This restricted the amount of content we could convey, and made the amount that we did convey come off as abrupt and “in your face” so to speak, and restricted viewers processing time. All in all, with a very limited time for the assignment and some amazing collaboration by our group, I am pleased with the final product.
