Final Blogfolio

I have always made ‘blog’ and ‘casual’ synonyms in my mind, but now I have learned that is not always the case. This blog is way more formal than my other blog that I use daily. Maybe it’s because this blog is technically a homework assignment, or maybe it’s because I know that no one professional will ever read my other blog (and I definitely don’t want them to). Either way, this blog really tested my ability to write casually but with a formal tone which is not something I do everyday. I think I managed to do this well enough in my blog postings. I mean, capitalize and punctuate where I’m supposed to, and I’m half way there.

The internet is fantastic. There are so many different ways to use it. For example, I have two separate windows open right now. One of them, the one I’m currently on now, has fourteen tabs open and all of them have to do with homework (for this class to be more specific). The other window only has six tabs, but it is the one I spend the most time on per day because it has my other blog, facebook, youtube, etc. open constantly so that I have a link to the outside world without going outside. Which is also kind of the downfall and benefit of living in a digital world. But back to the tabs thing. I have fourteen tabs open right now to help me write a paper. That sounds like a lot and it is, but just think, if I had fourteen books open in front of me, I’d get no where. Plus I’d probably be buried under those books instead of having them just a click away.

I included the blog postings that most convey my personality best through words. The ones that are opinionated and down-to-earth. I really enjoyed this blogging experience, and I can honestly say it did live up to my expectations of it. It showed me that there are blogs that aren’t just diaries for people to vent in, but there are academic blogs, sports blogs, scientific blogs, activist blogs, and so many more. This experience was definitely an eye opener, and I think it will greatly help me over the course of the future. And who knows, I may decide to do an assignment like this in my classroom one day too. Including this blog posting, I have blogged a total of 4486 words.

My Favorite Comment:

• http://wordsbyem.wordpress.com/2013/01/28/balancing-act/#comments

This is my favorite comment because it’s advice. I really enjoy giving advice to people who ask for it. Now I’m not saying that I’m the best advice giver ever, but sometimes it’s nice to think that I’m sharing wisdom with someone younger than me and that it possibly helped them a lot.

A Blog Posting That Inspired Me:

• http://allthebeesknees.wordpress.com/2013/01/27/farming-a-friendly-fire/

I think the reason this blog posting inspired me the most is because it’s really simple. I enjoy simplicity and building a fire, to me at least, is exactly that. 

My Blog Postings:

• The Strongest:

https://withatenderheart.wordpress.com/2013/03/01/art-is-art-is-art/

I think that this is one of my strongest blog postings because I really went in depth with it. I made myself explore questions and come up with answers that I probably wouldn’t have before.

https://withatenderheart.wordpress.com/2013/01/23/faith-trust-pixie-dust/

This posting is also a strong one because I had to talk about something personal to me; my fear of heights. 

• Where I Stretched Myself the Most:

https://withatenderheart.wordpress.com/2013/01/30/in-relation-to-farming-a-friendly-fire/

The original post did inspire me, but in terms of relating it back to the different literacies, it was pretty difficult for me. Mainly because at the time, I didn’t fully understand what each of them were.

• The Most Analytical and Best Use of Hyperlinks:

https://withatenderheart.wordpress.com/2013/02/05/in-relation-to-the-article-damnit-jim-im-a-writer/

I just really enjoyed reading the original article and then writing about it. I think I did a really good job of hyperlinking without being obnoxious about it. 

• The Best Use of A Visual Image:

https://withatenderheart.wordpress.com/2013/02/20/on-geocaching-and-wiki-pages/

I made sure to talk about what geocaching is and to add to it, I put a video of the first geocache so that it’s not just me blabbering on about it.

Tab For A Cause

I found an article on The Huffington Post that talks about Tab For A Cause. I already feel better about my project just because of this one source. I know if The Huffington Post has talked about it, then I’m sure to find more sources. It is also giving me some great stats like:

So far, 3,000 people have used the app, and Tab For a Cause has donated about $4,000 to charities, according to the paper.

Then that link sends me to the Los Angeles Times. I’m pretty excited to work on this project. The author seems to be someone who is always busy, and he/she appeals to that audience as well. Like college students, business people, writers, etc. This web text is about what Tab For A Cause is. It is background information and describes how it works. I think that this article achieves its goal, to inform an audience about this cool alternative to donating and raising awareness. 

You gained 50 XP! Level up!

I messed around with Tagxedo and made a wordcloud out of my Where I’m From poem. It didn’t turn out quite the way I wanted it to; for some reason I couldn’t fix the size of the word ‘cheese,’ and that really bugged me. The result was this:

• https://withatenderheart.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/where-im-from-via-wordle/

A new media for me was The Wilderness Downtown. It really creates a story for you based on an address that you give it. Unfortunetly I cannot link to the story I created, but I used OCU’s address, 2501 N. Blackwelder Ave., OKC, OK 73106. So just click the hyperlink above and input the address to see it.

I also created a Wiki page on Geocaching. This was a new experience, because I’ve never created a page that people could possibly view and use as a reference for something. It was a little stressful, because I didn’t want to get any information wrong. I also felt like I could add so much more information.

• http://digitaltextuality.wikispaces.com/Geocaching

I also created a snapshot digital story that talked about a concert I went to and just growing up. I can’t link to this either because iMovie says that some audio files are missing, and it’s still a rough draft anyway. This was a really fun project to work on though, and I definitely wouldn’t mind making another one or even using it as a teaching tool in the future.

Another digital project that was new for me was this blog. Like I said in my first blog posting, this type of blogging is completely new to me. I’ve never really been familiar with blogging outside of diary-type blogs. This was a great experience for me because it made me go out of my comfort zone and write about things that I normally wouldn’t bother with. I’m really glad I got to do something like this.

Practice Blogfolio

I included the blog postings that most convey my personality best through words. The ones that are opinionated and down-to-earth. I really enjoyed this blogging experience, and I can honestly say it did live up to my expectations of it. It showed me that there are blogs that aren’t just diaries for people to vent in, but there are academic blogs, sports blogs, scientific blogs, activist blogs, and so many more. This experience was definitely an eye opener, and I think it will greatly help me over the course of the future. And who knows, I may decide to do an assignment like this in my classroom one day too. Including this blog posting, I have blogged a total of 3316 words.

My Favorite Comment:

• http://wordsbyem.wordpress.com/2013/01/28/balancing-act/#comments

A Blog Posting That Inspired Me:

• http://allthebeesknees.wordpress.com/2013/01/27/farming-a-friendly-fire/

My Blog Postings:

• The Strongest:

https://withatenderheart.wordpress.com/2013/03/01/art-is-art-is-art/

https://withatenderheart.wordpress.com/2013/01/23/faith-trust-pixie-dust/

• Where I Stretched Myself the Most:

https://withatenderheart.wordpress.com/2013/01/30/in-relation-to-farming-a-friendly-fire/

• The Most Analytical and Best Use of Hyperlinks:

https://withatenderheart.wordpress.com/2013/02/05/in-relation-to-the-article-damnit-jim-im-a-writer/

• The Best Use of A Visual Image:

https://withatenderheart.wordpress.com/2013/02/20/on-geocaching-and-wiki-pages/

On the ICC Workshop

I went to the ICC workshops on Wednesday and Friday from 12:30-2 both days. Let me start off by saying that I really enjoy working with children, and getting the chance to help them develop creatively was just amazing. I was able to spend a few moments with several different third grade children and help them with Kerpoof. There was one student that I helped with the end project of her story. At first she just wanted me to watch and listen to her story, which I did happily. At one point she couldn’t figure out why one of her text boxes weren’t working. I’ll be honest, I didn’t quite know how to fix it, but I was able to quickly figure it out and fix it with her. Then she didn’t know what to name it. We brainstormed for a few moments, and I asked her what if she named it after the lyrics she had just put into her story minutes ago. She immediately brightened up and quickly typed out the words and saved her story. 

It was great being able to help someone finish a story and see them be proud of their work like that. It’s something that I hope to do when I finally have my own classroom full of students. Granted they’ll high school students and not third graders, but I’m sure some of them will still have the maturity of a third grader.

“Digital literacy…has the potential to give birth to new forms of readings that, while reminiscent of earlier practices, are also likely to produce new forms of creativity at the expense of some of the older ones. The book as an object is not likely to disappear anytime soon, but it is also clear that it is no longer the sole or even the primary object for the production of knowledge and its exchange and transmission.”

Milad Doueihi, Digital Cultures

To This Day Project

by Shane Koyczan

Kavindu “Kavi” Ade performing IT

Art is Art is Art

“Does a work of [digital] art require the presence of an audience to exist as art?”

All of my artwork hangs in my room and does not leave. I typically do not share my artwork unless I am feeling particularly good about it, and even then I usually decide not to. Therefore does my art not exist as art? Even though I can clearly see it on the wall above my bed? I believe that art exists no matter what. It does not matter the audience or even lack there of. Even digital art will exist. After all isn’t it said that once you put something on the internet it stays there forever?

“Are published words [even on blogs or wikis] unreliable sources of the truth, seeing as we can’t speak face to face with the author to clarify questions or to confirm his/her authority on the subject?”

Well if you want to go this route, anything can be seen as untrue; it doesn’t matter what or who the source is. It has always been difficult to look at something and then interpret that something and then get shot down by someone else who interpreted something else about that something. The most obvious and common example of this is in any English class ever. You’ll read a book and then the teacher will tell you exactly what the author meant and how they meant it even though they’ve never come face to face with the author to actually ask them “Did you make your name your main character Anne because of the Faschist movement in the mid-twentieth century in Europe?” There is no way of actually knowing what someone meant unless you sit down with the author and directly ask them. This is something I’m going to have to deal with when I teach English. I have no doubt that my students will question my every explanation.

On Tagxedo and Teaching

My group talked about how we could use Wordle or Tagxedo as a creative tool and teaching method. We came up with a basic plan of asking the students to write a meaningful poem. Then they would upload it to one of the word cloud generators above and switch around the fonts, colors, and shape. After they finished their word clouds, they would pick three or four of the biggest words in their clouds and write about why they were the biggest words. Hopefully this would challenge the children to really think and start to reflect on themselves and who they are.