This is due by Friday, April 8 by 6:00 pm otherwise you will be considered absent and your work late. Guidelines: well...you know what to do. ;-)
Sunday, April 3, 2011
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
To complete your "work week" please provide a detailed update of your portfolio dealings...that includes what is going well, what isn't, what needs to be done, what you like, what you don't like, how the revision process is going, feelings towards creating a space which showcases your work as a composer, etc. Basically, I'm looking for the good, the bad, and the ugly. 
This is due by Friday, April 8 by 6:00 pm otherwise you will be considered absent and your work late.
Guidelines: well...you know what to do. ;-)
This is due by Friday, April 8 by 6:00 pm otherwise you will be considered absent and your work late. Guidelines: well...you know what to do. ;-)
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So far my work week has been more successful than I had thought that it would be. I have completed my fracture fairytale and completely switched it around. Originally, I had misunderstood the assignment and I thought that we had to make up our own fairytale. While I found my original piece was rather creative, I didn’t fully comprehend the directions and wished I had understood to begin with. What I did, was picked a fairytale to go off of. I picked the story line of The Little Mermaid, and made my own twist to it. I kind of just ended it out of nowhere, so I have gone back several times this week to keep improving it and making it better.
ReplyDeleteThe other mini assignment that I have been working on is the American Gangster assignment that we did in class. While I thought that Alexis, Stacey, and myself did a pretty good job of throwing it together, that’s what I felt like the final piece kind of looked like in the end: thrown together. I decided to sit down and find all new images for the mini magazine article that we originally created. I have also revised the written content that Stacey had originally done, just to see if I could change anything differently. I decided that I wanted to change the colors as well, so I have changed the entire layout. Both of my mini assignments I had completed and remediated by Wednesday, April 6th.
As of today, I started my one out of the two major assignments that I am going to be fixing. For those, I chose my remediation project, and the editing project. The remediation project is the one that I have started working on. While my remediation project was probably the best assignment and project that I have completed this semester, there are still most definitely things that I could fix about it. The colors are definitely not professional, so I today I picked new colors out. They were bright, highlighter like prior to me fixing them but now they are much more appealing and proficient. I am working on fixing up each page tonight, and tomorrow I plan on actually starting up the program Wix to begin the layout of what I want my digital portfolio to look like. As far as the editing project, I have not received a final grade yet to know what I need to fix; so I am waiting to start that when I have it in my final possession.
What has not really been going well, is the final decision I have to make of how to put it all together. I want to make sure that everything is as perfected as I can make it out to be. I am not sure how I want to make my ‘about me’ page and I am also not sure of how exactly I want to lay everything out. Tomorrow morning, I plan on going to the digital studio to begin the layout plan, and I am going to finish up remediating my remediation project. I am a little stressed about how everything is going to pan out. I really want this to be something that I could use for future references: whether it be jobs, internships, or anything else of the sorts. I am very pleased however, with my progress this week and I will continue to strive for one last final A in WEPO this spring semester.
The upside to this week is that I have successfully finished revising all of the mini assignments I want to use for my final digital portfolio. The MAJOR downside: my laptop decided to overheat the other day, and now won’t stay on for longer than ten minutes without “overheating” again. So currently, I am sitting in Strozier at four a.m. It’s okay though; the computers here are much faster. Earlier in the week, I completed three of my mini assignments including the book poster, the fractured fairy tale, and the genre activity. With the book poster, I made the image look like a lot more was going on. I created more creative names, and used effects to make it look a little bit reflective. I also used the type of pictures that have been popular, where there’s an image and then underneath is one word or phrase and underneath that is a kind of smart-alic definition for it. For my fractured fairy tale, I added a little more detail and dragged it out longer to flow better. I really liked this because I tied two fairy tales together. For my genre assignment, instead of just revising it, I decided to add a portion to it. I added responses from each person I had messaged, and the page on the website is going to be matching the responses with the messages. Today, I revised my Prezi for mini assignment number two. I changed the color scheme and fonts. Also, I changed some of the wording and the title. I also found out how to add a path so it would flow smoother and added pictures to each little part of writing to kind of illustrate and make the Prezi more appealing. I also edited my “Take a Breather” blog. The only major change I did to this is change the video. I changed it to a Ke$ha music video. I k now at first, this seems like it’s still aimed toward the other audience. However, the video is very creative and unique, so even if people don’t necessarily like her music, they could possibly like her video, or at least be affected by it.
ReplyDeleteI think I might be having a slight problem with the audience switch. It seems like basically all the work I have created so far could apply to the same audience. However, the only assignment I haven’t majorly found anything to change is the blog we posted. I was really happy with that assignment, but for everything else, I changed quite a bit. Otherwise, I feel like I’m going to do a pretty good job on this digital portfolio. I actually look forward to working on it, and get frustrated when I don’t have time sometimes because I want to make it the best it can be. I think that this portfolio is really going to help reveal my style of composing and my strengths and weaknesses.
After posting this, I still have time to work on the portfolio. The only thing I can work on presently is the newsletter, which needs lots of work. I’m going to try to find a good template to use and go from there; I think it will turn out better in Microsoft Word than Indesign.
I’m excited for how this is going. I plan on finishing everything this week so I can start on putting it all together on my website. I hope this will turn into something successful that I can use as a sort of resume for potentially future careers.
On Monday, I had a very ambitious agenda for my “work week.” I wanted to….
ReplyDelete1.Monday Night- Blog post 1 (Keywords, revised)
2. Tuesday- Blog post- Blogging revolution (revise)
3. Wednesday- Set up Wix page
4. Thursday- Continue setting up Wix page
5. Friday- Main Assignment #1- Newsletter revised & Blog post- due by 6:00pm.
I did revise my other two mini assignments and set up the artistic feel and groundwork for my Wix page. I did not get to my main assignment one. This was mainly because I thought I had more time then I actually did during this week.
I feel my revision process is going well. When I revised the blog post about keywords essential to rhetoric, I added on to what I have learned since then. My initial keywords were basic, just the word quotes. When I revised, I made the tone a bit more professional. I still let my voice be heard though. I also revised the blog post on the “blogging revolution.” I noticed a lot of grammatical errors in this piece. I also, like the first, tried to make it have a more professional tone. Only using “I” when necessary. My revision process is halfway done and so far is going well. I am enjoying editing my old pieces and noting the improvement from then to now. I didn’t get to revise my main assignment- the newsletter. For one it’s because I didn’t have enough time, but also I kept thinking in the back of my mind this week that I wanted to wait until I saw what editing marks Alex had for my piece—so this is perhaps why I pushed it off.
Creating the Wix is a very free format, we can do anything. I have never used Wix before, and it is a bit challenging. The design of it reflects my creative space as a composer, but there are a few technical things, such as creating tabs that will like one to the next page, that I need to figure out. Overall I enjoy being able to create this space which reflects my style.
I still have quite a to do list for this portfolio. The ground work is set, but there still is much to do before the deadline. I need to do my main assignments (Newsletter and Edited Letter), and finish setting up the Wix page. The reflection and my made up assignment will come last after everything else is complete. I think I have a reasonable enough amount of time to do this, without it being rushed. This weekend I plan on completely mastering Wix and having the entire layout set up ready for assignments-main/mini- to be uploaded.
The good is that I have completed all of my mini assignments/blogs. The bad is that I didn’t get to my main assignment #1 this week. The ugly is my navigation on the Wix site, but I plan on remedying this this weekend.
Fortunately, this work week contained more of the good than the bad and ugly for me, as it turned out to be pretty productive. What I had hoped to accomplish was revising both of my main assignments and possibly starting my original project as well. So if I were to begin with the good, I would say that it is that I reached the goal of revising the main assignments.
ReplyDeleteI revised the prezi remediation of my newsletter first. I wanted to lighten up the color of it and the presentation style just to better suit my own tastes as the designer, and I also added in another video to take further advantage of the way Prezi allows text, pictures, and videos.
As for the Newsletter, I revised it to fit the more serious audience intended in the editing project. I thought it was a good shift to make because it's a good opportunity to practice making an audience shift effectively. The last bit of good was that I began playing with wix and starting to figure out how it works so that when I am ready to start putting it together seriously I know what I'm doing.
As far as the bad, I didn't get a chance to begin my original project this week. I attempted to come up with an idea for it once, but I just couldn't settle on an idea. I am still somewhat torn on what I'm going to do so I know over the weekend I need to make a decision and get to work on it.
Truthfully, not much about this week was ugly other than when I first started playing with the wix editor this week to begin checking out the different styles of templates and options wix provides. I started to get the hang of it after a little practice though. And overall I am feeling pretty good about where I am with the portfolio right now. I've got just about all of my revisions done, and am ready to start focusing on putting the wix together and doing my original project. I think if I keep this pace up I should be able to get everything done pretty comfortably.
I have came up with my website. The only. Thing. That is messnf me up is the fact that I really can't manipulate weebly the way I want to. So I'm thinking about jus going ahead and using wix website format how I can use that. I've used wix before so I'm more fond of it but weebly is more up to date and has a little more features than wix does. But I hav. Come to th realization that a website is a website no matter what it is. The content is the most important part in the entie part. I've been working on remediating my remediation of my newsletter. Trying to make a video to go with it so that there may he a visual aid to help on the telling of the story that I am telling. Ivakbwaitng to see what our last assignment is to see if I really want to incorprate that into the website. I feel that I will do a spoken word for my reflection on the website, just trying to see if I should make it something that will he really intense and deep or somethig funny that really says who I am as a person. I am also working on making my Lebron James post a website wihin the website that I am makig for class. My thouhts are still jumbled a little about the rhetoric sources I will use to say that they relate to my style of composing the most. This project is a little more difficult than I first thought it would be but hey I'm makingthe best out it for it's allowing me to incorprate me into this project 100%.
ReplyDeleteOk so most on Wednesday I went ahead and downloaded paint for mac to be able to make slides for my Friends slideshow/movie. I downloaded it and got to work. To make these slides I would download a picture off the internet that I wanted to use, then open it in paint. I would then cut the image onto a blank paint document and add colors to make it look like a slide. The text tool on paint is pretty pathetic so I then would save the image and open it up in Picasa. Once in Picasa I would add the text that I wanted on the slide. I made about four slides and it took me an hour and a half. Sounds ridiculous, I know. Up to that point I had pretty much taken the information from the blog and made them into fun slides. I need to find some new information with my new angle of how it has really impacted pop culture and society. Today, however, took me on a rollercoaster ride. After working all day Wednesday on the Friends project, I looked at it with fresh eyes and saw that it actually looked terrible. I started to think of ways that I would make it not look so cheap and as if a fifth grade did it and decided to just scrap the idea. It was a lot of work but I would rather figure out that it is really bad now as opposed to when I get my grade back from you. I looked through our blog and found one on how we don’t learn conventionally anymore and I remember really enjoying that blog. I don’t know what exactly I am going to do with it but my brain told me to take a rest and come back. So instead I started working on the layout of the actual website and revising my first project. I started by making the colors on my newsletter more transparent so as not to take away from the words. There were also certain colors that did not really go with the rest of the project so I changed those. I added numbers to the photos and numbers in the photo explanation because, as Blake pointed out, it looks like I have a random photo of Matthew Mcconaughey. For the layout, I decided on black and white, artsy, plain and simple. I made the page for my main projects and made links to both of the projects. It is still hard to figure out how to work the website maker and such but I am getting there.
ReplyDeleteI’ll start with the good. On Wednesday I started with finishing up my Vuvox presentation for mini assignment 1. I added my poem to the collage in severed phrases. As of now, the presentation is finished and has been added to my wix page in a tentative format. I’m actually pretty happy with it. Fastforward to today, and trying to upload and arrange everything into clean sections on wix has been fairly easy since I went into the Digital Studio to get some tips on navigating the website.
ReplyDeleteNext, I worked on my revisions for the Blog on Blogging. I wanted to keep the tone conversational since it was originally a blog, yet cater to a more professional audience that I did not know. Therefore, I had to change every instance I talked about our class as if I were speaking to people who knew what I was talking about to a more informative tone. I also worked on making the piece more cohesive by adding more transitions, and explaining more about the life of a blog project and the theorist I cited, Jenkins. I moved my thoughts on having a blog to the first section, since it flowed better that way. When I read over it, I was content, but thought that there was way too much text. So, to break it up I plan on taking a picture of my life of a blog poster and uploading it to give something else to look at and further explain my project. It took a decent amount of time to revise, and overall is a good showcase of my ideas as a composer on the life and importance of a blog. Everything else hasn’t been as smooth.
After that I dealt with the fractured fairytale. At first, I honestly didn’t know what to revise on Goldie Locks, since I was pretty happy with the original. I ended up doing some surface revisions and adding a section of dialogue. I added some pictures, changed the setting to Tallahassee to make it more relatable to my life, and to me, its done—I didn’t want to overdo it by making the revisions too extensive. That’s the same problem I ran into today, when working with my newsletter. I was really happy with it at first, so it was hard to revise. I ended up adding more text to the end of the second page, changing a title to clarify, and re-working surface level details. Also, with my newsletter I for some reason experienced some difficulty transforming the .doc into a .pdf so it could be uploaded, but no worries, its been handled.
After getting extremely frustrated, I thought I’d take a breather and start on something easy, so I did my about me section. I included general information about my myself as a student, a resume, and a few interests I have outside of school. To make it complete, I added an artsy picture of myself.
As of right now, I have a general template on wix. I have not yet completely abandoned the idea of a magazine layout with my homepage being the front cover, but considering the time constraints and lack of familiarity I have with the program, I am debating whether or not it would be more beneficial to me to just stick with one of the templates. The one I chose still shows my style as modern and clean, and I have been able to customize it with pictures and format choice but I am still struggling with this issue. I had something in my head, and want to bring it to life. If I get all my other revisions done and photos taken in time to manipulate it, I would be thrilled to make it happen.
Sorry for adding another post…
ReplyDeleteIn the next weeks, I am looking to finalize each project by re-visitng it, finalize a “new” project with the concept of Born Digital and also revise my editing project. It seems like I got less done in the work week than I had originally planned on, even though I worked the same amount of time I’d originally planned for—which makes me nervous but also lets me know I need to plan ahead and work harder, more frequently. I am saving the reflection for last, because I don’t think it could be a true reflection without completely finishing my process of composing first. Hopefully, I will be able to incorporate everything I’ve learned from my experiences in composing through writing, revising, and reflecting. After all is said and done, and I have a complete piece that showcases my work and voice as a composer, I think I’ll be pleased with all the work I put into this project.
This week has been very beneficial and I have gotten a lot done. I really feel comfortable that I am on the right track to completing this portfolio and am on a good pace, as long as I continue to keep working on it these next two weeks. My first task this week was to edit my newsletter and remediation. For the newsletter, I revised it to tailor to a more diverse audience and not just freshmen. However, in order to complete the revisions, I’d really like to look at the feedback I got from the editing project and how the “editor” suggests I go about doing the revisions. For my remediation, I made some minor edits to the titles and transitions. I really felt there wasn’t much I needed to revise, and I really tried hard to go through it frame by frame with an objective eye. I created a youtube account and uploaded it to youtube, which took a while, since I had never done it before. So, I have made progress on my two main assignments. Then, I worked some more on my fractured fairytale, just editing it and making it more clear about the plot of the story. The same thing with my poem for the mini assignment, I’m done revising that. Then, to get some tips on actually creating a website, I went to the digital studio. It was really helpful, but I realized I have a lot of work to do. I’m in between 3 different themes for the website. I really want to capture my personality as a composer, but still maintain a professional feel, which I can carry on after this class. I need to continue to look on websites for different pictures I want to include in the portfolio as well. I feel like that has been the most time consuming part. It’s difficult because a lot of the pictures I like are not big enough and so when I want to put it in my portfolio they are all blurry. So it’s just a process. I plan on going to the digital studio again next week. I drafted an introduction for my portfolio. I’m just trying not to forget anything I need in it. I also revised my resume, which I will be including in it as well.
ReplyDeleteThe good: I finished revising my two mini assignments, spent time on wix by going to the studio and finished my remediation. The bad, I still have to revise my newsletter once I get the editing project back, I need to get more pictures for the portfolio, and I need to draft my reflection. And the ugly, I’ve been so focused on the other projects that I haven’t thought much of what I want my original project to be!
Where I need to go from here: I need to seriously spend some time on wix just playing around with it some more and getting my portfolio to represent me. This includes gathering pictures and going to the studio for more help. I also need to keep adding to my reflection. I started revising the mini assignment user’s manual, but need to still create a diagram of the composing process and explain the process more in detail. I also did not get to draft my composing process. I need to be working on that so I can really get to the bottom of what I believe it is. And, the part that I still need to be working on is my new project. However, I’m not too worried about this because I have mostly all my other projects done or in the process of being done so if I just have to focus on that, the reflection, the blog post that will be my other mini, and my wix portfolio, I should be on the right path to finishing this portfolio.
The week has gone really well for me. I was able to finish my mini assignments and 1 major assignment. I also began designing my Wix page. There is not much to it yet, but I plan to work on that within the next week. I also got started on my reflection-in-presentation.
ReplyDeleteI started with my Wix design. I chose a template that I thought suit me well. It has a lot of orange tones which is actually the color in my bedroom. It shows my personality as well as being clean and professional, which is exactly what I was going for. I was able to add the tabs I wanted: Home/About, Main Assignments, Mini Assignments, Reflection and Contact. I only uploaded my fractured fairy tale because that is the only mini assignment I had finished when I started the Wix page. I still want to work on my genre switching blog. I changed the story and the wording around, but I want to visually enhance it. I want to add all of the black and red colors and different fonts that I had in the blog. I also need to add the pictures.
Today, I went to the digital studio to work on my favorite ad from the Born Digital magazine: the Verizon ad. I couldn’t do it at home because I was not able to do much with Word. I went to the digital studio so that I could work with InDesign. I had never worked with InDesign before so it was a little tricky at first but the tutor, Sheila, helped me out a lot. I also worked with photoshop to change the pictures. I was able to manipulate the images just the way I wanted them. I stretched out the images so they covered the whole page, and didn’t just look like a few Google images thrown on a paper. I changed the fonts and the picture of the Iphone 5. Everything fits a lot better on the page now and it looks more professional. I plan to upload this to the Wix later this weekend.
Earlier in the week, I worked on my reflection-in-presentation. I decided to sort of take what the Little Mermaid guy did and change the words in a song to fit my theory of composing. The difference is I chose Lady Gaga song, and just to tweak it a little more, I am playing it on my guitar. The song I am working with is “Just Dance”, but I am changing it to something like “Just Write” or “Just Reflect”. So far, it sucks. It’s hard to fit the lyrics in just right. But I did incorporate Yancey into it. And I’m thinking of adding another theorist as well, just haven’t decided who. The song is probably going to end up being really simple because it’s a little difficult to fit something complex into a pop song. But I think that goes a long with my whole theme this semester, with the newsletter and the board game, of making the writing process fun. I want a catchy tune that people can remember when they’re having trouble with their writing. But it also has to get my theory across. I only have a few lines in the first verse and somewhat of a chorus, but I will work on it more within the next few weeks. I plan to record a video of it and embed it in the website. I’m excited to see how it turns out.
I also took some cheesy board game pictures of my friends playing the Reflection game. I glued them on the back of the board with some fun directions and a quote from Yancey. The board looks a lot more like a real board game now. I plan to take pictures of it and just upload the pictures and the directions onto the website. I will work on the actual website this week now that I have most of the assignments done.
Throughout the week I have been working on completely redoing a lot of the assignments that I am including on my website. I started by finishing up my broken fairytale which I am really happy with. Then I started editing the poem that I made about the composing process. It still needs some work because when I work on it for a little while I am happy with it and think I am really witty and funny but then I will let it sit for a while, go back to it, and then think I am a complete idiot. So, there is still work that needs to be done on that one. I have already selected the blogs that I want to include but because I am trying to make my website look like an art studio/gallery I am trying to post them on what looks like a canvas which is giving me a hard time. I have not made it into the digital studio yet because I am trying to maneuver Wix by myself first to get a feel for it and I really want to have my ideas down before I go in and talk to someone else. My plan is to get all the assignments that I am including, edited and redone before I really pick up my pace on creating the website. I figure these individual assignments are a lot of work so I should get them done first before I tackle the beast…the website. Although, I have already fiddled around with it to make sure that I will be able to make my idea a reality. It is not going to be easy because none of the premade WebPages really have what I am looking for, so I am pretty much starting from scratch. I have already compiled a number of images that will represent the other assignments and I am thinking about using them as “art pieces” that you will be able to click on and it will bring you to a page where the works will be displayed. Like I said before, these are great ideas but I am finding it quite challenging to actually make them a reality. It seems like my page is not going to turn out exactly the way I had in mind but I am really happy with the way everything is turning out so far. Right after I finish writing this blog I am going to tackle my newsletter. The content does not need to be changed all that much, I just need to add some more information here and there. The work is going to be when I revamp the visual aspect of the newsletter. I am eliminating all the images I originally used and inserting ones that are more closely connected to the theme of the website. As I said before, everything is constantly moving and up in the air at this point when it comes to the website, but my other works are coming along nicely.
ReplyDeleteAt the beginning of this work week I decided that I wanted to finish the revision of my mini assignments, plan the revision of my main assignments, and start designing my web page.
ReplyDeleteOn our last revision class day I worked on my book cover and the remediation blog post. This week, I looked over my revisions. I finalized the book cover and the Glee Prezi presentation. I struggled with the slogan for the book cover, but finally settled on, "I want to break the orderly boundaries of rhetoric and revolutionize with chaotic creativity." After looking over my book cover, I moved on to my Glee Prezi. I am really excited about the Glee prezi. I think it is visual very striking and I am working on some neat audio. I am not familiar with mash ups, but I have been researching how to go about making one. If I can figure it out, I am going to create a mashup of different acapella groups over the course of time (especially FSU’s All Night Yahtzee and the Acabelles). I think it will be interesting to show the remediation of a traditional acapella club to Glee. This week I also worked on one more mini assignments. Although I did not complete my blog map when it was due, I am going to submit one and include it in my digital portfolio. The concept of my blog map was a blog as a highway, leading you to different places. I thought that a Glogster was the best way to create this visual map. Using glogster, I created an abstract interpretation of a highway leading us to different places. I had some trouble deciding how to portray the places that blogs lead us to on the map, but I eventually decided on various images that represent the where a blog can lead you. This finalization of my mini assignments took more time than I initially anticipated, so I did not get to revise my main assignments as much as I would have liked.
I decided to use my newsletter on Genre and my remediation for the two main projects. I think that I definitely need to include more scholarly information in my newsletter. So the next hurdle I need to overcome is finding modern scholarly information, which Kara noted was missing. I tweaked the layout a little bit, to try and simplify it for the reader. When I first looked at my comic strip I was not sure how I was going to revise it. Obviously I realize it is not perfect, but it does not have many aspects so I was not sure what I could change. I decided that I am going to make the dialogue funnier. I am no comedian, but I think it could be a little less corny and genuinely comical. I am excited to put all of this together on the web page. I started fiddling with Wix. I want to finish creating the web page this weekend that way I can spend the rest of my time on my main assignments and new project. I also decided that I am going to compile a resume for the web page. I started doing that this morning. I hope this gives you a good idea of what I accomplished this week!
This week was actually very helpful for the progress of my digital portfolio. I began my editing my mini assignments. The book promotion poster, which was done in class, needed to be fixed in terms of colors and the actual word content. Next I edited the genre switch activity. I took each "letter" and made it longer and more detailed. I used this activity because it shows my versatility as a writer and my understanding of different genres. I had already finished editing my Valentines Day media project so I worked on making sure the links and titles worked for that page. I added captions and descriptions of each assignment as well.
ReplyDeleteNext, I worked on my reflection/theory of composing. Originally I was going to do a montage of movie clips as my individual project but decided it was more creative to use that idea for my theory of composing. I began by writing down what my theory of composing is, and things I would want to say about it in an outline. Then I went on youtube and began search and viewing movie clips. This took a very long time, but ended up coming out pretty nicely. I havent finished with it yet, but I know what direction I'm going in so thats good.
Ultimately, I got a lot fo work done for my digital portfolio in this online work week. I still need to visit the digital studio and have them help me with the In Design problem with the "Born Digital" assignment. I also need to write my introduction and edit a little bit of my main assignments. All of that will be done over the weekend and through next week.
An ugly or bad part of this week is that my revision process is going slow at best. I’m having trouble improving on my composition poem, maybe because poetry has never been my strong suite. I’m just having trouble figuring out how I can change it and still keep the overall idea that I want to project, that this is me as a composer but from the perspective of another person or an object. A good part of this is week is that the fairytale is doing well. I do far better work on storylines than I do on concepts in poems. The bad of this week was the fact that I had a setback this week and wasn’t able to make it to the digital studio. I’m going through what Wix has to offer in terms of design and I’m looking for ways to make things from scratch such as code. I know a little of html but not much so I’m not sure as of yet whether I’m going to include anything made form code in this portfolio. My only other problem is that I haven’t decided on what kind of new project I am going to include in the portfolio. Another sort of graphic like my remediation is where I’m leaning right now but it’s not certain. I’m also waiting the next mini assignment to see if I want to add it as my fourth assignment in the portfolio because I was originally going to post something like the globster poster about love but now the idea seems unattractive.
ReplyDeleteThe Good:
ReplyDeleteWell, here’s whats been going well for me so far:
I began tweaking my “Users Guide” mini-assignment on Tuesday like I planned. The infographic is going along swimmingly, I’ve finished creating the basic template for the actual graphic, all I need to do is give it a little more eye-catching features. I’ve decided to go along with the zombie theme, and recently have just been compiling a bunch of stills to crop and paste into the graphic itself. Thursday I began editing my piece on the “blogging revolution.” There were a few sentences and spelling errors that I went and retooled. Overall the piece is finished, but I did plan on beefing up my blogging revolution ending, so that still remainds on my portfolio agenda. Friday I began writing a script for my video remediation. I decided to do a rap (don’t act so surprised) after being inspired by the video we saw in class. I’ve begun chopping together a remix of Yael Naim’s “New Soul” to do the lyrics to. It should be interesting the way the whole thing turns out.
The Bad:
On Wednesday I began to import my footage into Pages and redo the look of my Born Digital article. I wasn’t able to do much with the article considering I had to go to my job in the evening. There isn’t much to do with the article, I just need to customize the newsletter preset I used to make it more personable by adding colors and some graphics. The worst thing that’s been hampering me this week is my schedule. I had two papers and a test this week and it took a lot of time I should have spent working on my portfolio. Despite time constraints, I was able to get all the projects up to a speed to where I can finish the rest in a relatively small amount of time.
The Ugly:
I’m a little iffy on my video remediation. I’ve got a lot of work to do in regards to piecing it together. I’ve got a basic beat and a few lines to start from, but I also have to film some sort of video to go along with it. I want to do a video as opposed to a sound clip because I feel like it would provide more of an impact to those watching. Plus, it’s a little more work than a just a song, but a little can go a long way. Next week I plan to finalize everything, including my video remediation. I have a relatively light schedule, so I’m planning to take full advantage of the break in my schoolwork.
This work week has been actually very good for the sake of my digital portfolio. Having a week off from class and blogging has allowed me to solely focus on what needs to be done for this project. Heading into the week the main thing I wanted to get done was to finish up with the actual formatting of my wix.com webpage. Although I have not completely finished, I am close. And getting such an early jump on the formatting of my project has given me the opportunity to play around with different things and allow me to better familiarize myself with the program. The other part I wanted to do this week was to finish up on the revising of all my mini assignments and be able to have a finished list of what mini assignments I would be including in this project. This one the one goal I had for this week that I was actually able to finish. Now that I have finished my work with the mini assignments I am able to move on to editing and revising my main assignments. Because I want to include all of the main assignments to show my progress as a writer, I still need to do some major revising to our first project, the newsletter.
ReplyDeleteMoving forward from here the main things I need to finish up are tidying up the formatting for my webpage, revising my main assignments, and to complete my new original piece. I feel that formatting the webpage and revising the assignments will be relatively easy, but it will be the new assignment will give me the most trouble. Although I am excited to write my own piece for this class about my favorite subjects, sports, I am a little nervous at how I am going to include things we’ve learned in this class to the world of sports. Sports are something I can write about all day, but the prospect of trying to relate it to this class seems a bit daunting.
Overall though I find this project very enjoyable to do. Although there are some elements that aren’t necessarily my strong points (editing and formatting a webpage) I feel that my strengths in the other aspects of the project will more than make up for my shortcomings.
This week I have “tried on” a few skins for my portfolio on Wix. It is a pretty neat program and perfect for what we have to do. I played with the website a little to see what I could do and what I could not do. I am, however, having a hard time figuring out what I want to do with it. I want it to reflect my style and me while still being functional and without being too edgy or too girly, and what I really do not want is for it to be too plain! I think this will be the most frustrating part of the whole assignment, or is at this point.
ReplyDeleteMy revisions are going well. There’s not too much to do with the main assignments. I am not sure how to get my remediation of technology onto a computer. My pages are black so I can’t really scan it. So I’m thinking I will either take pictures of the pages and put them into a slide show or make a video of the pages. The mini assignments and homework include more revision because I do not think I took as much time to do them or could not take as much time. I had this photography professor who always said with shots, “If you wouldn’t redo them, you did it wrong.” His intent of saying this was to keep us from being overly critical of ourselves. We make extraordinary things that we think are ordinary because we could have done them differently. This portfolio gives us a chance to “redo” our mini assignments that had time constraints and homework that we may have rushed through, or in both of these, we may have a better or preferred medium to work in.
I am definitely enjoying this project though. I mean, a website created in dedication to my awesomeness? Come on! It is pretty exciting. Thinking about what the uses of this website, other than for the grade, is a little disconcerting though. I keep thinking “Wait, what? Didn’t I just start college last year and I’m thinking as if an employer is going to see this?” :0 But it is pretty cool to think about it as a showcase of my abilities and talents. And it is extremely relevant to this major. They describe EWM as a “21st Century English Major” and this digital portfolio will definitely be living up to what it means to be an EWM major
This week has been great because I have been able to get working on my portfolio and putting everything together. On Wednesday I was in the digital studio working with a tutor with the wix website. I worked with her from 11 to 12:15, and with this time I was able to pick a template and start designing my portfolio. I chose an image for my portfolio and chose my color scheme around it. I also started to upload my projects so that I could place them on the pages when I was ready.
ReplyDeleteToday I went back to the digital studio and worked with the same tutor for the same amount of time. I was able to work with my images once again and placed finished projects on the pages of their categories. I also worked with a new site where I was able to work with the coloring of the image I am using on my site. I loved the image, but it was a bit too pink and bright for the portfolio so I decided to use this site to tone it down. I am now using a more neutral color for the image. After I had changed the coloring of my image I changed the coloring of the pages as well. I added buttons to link a page to each project, as well as the project as a whole.
For my projects, the only work I have left to do is get a picture of my vday collage and work it into the portfolio. I am also working on my new project which will be a newsletter, however it will not be on rhetoric this time. I am currently writing articles on health and wellness tips for college students. The last thing I will add to my portfolio will be the editing project. I have the letter uploaded, but I am still working on getting the editing part scanned and uploaded.
P.S. Sorry this is late :( Today and tomorrow is my last track meet of the year so things have been a little crazy.
Like I said in the discussion post we did in class on Monday, this week was all about revision of the main projects and the creation of the newest one. I encountered some trials, many successes, and a few unresolved questions/issues.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, I tackled the revision of my newsletter. Since I was pleased with the overall presentation of both content and formatting, I decided some line editing couldn’t hurt. Basically, all that I ended up changing was a few syntax and grammatical issues.
Next was the remediation of that newsletter. The finished project was a woven square of ribbon that had my key word “memory” written on it. I had decided when finalizing it that it did not look polished enough, so I coated it in Mod Podge, a type of finishing product that gave the piece a distinct gleam. However, once everything dried, I realized that it no longer looked like a piece of cloth so much as a piece of plastic. This, coupled with some severe and unfinished edges of course, threw off my remediation. I took another look at the project and realized I had two options: I could finish the edges more and regroup or completely redo the project. Fortunately/Unfortunately, the perfectionist in me insisted that I start over, so I did. This second time around did not take long because I already had the technique down so all I had to do was fix my mistakes. At first, I thought that what I was doing was a remediation of my remediation, because I was transferring the best parts and content of the original but then I remembered that since I was still working in the same medium, I couldn’t possibly call this a remediation. Another thought occurred to me as a I worked. Obviously I cannot display this remediation in person if I am making a digital portfolio. Therefore, I know that I now have to find a way of incorporating photographs of such works, which may be more difficult than I had originally intended.
Finally, I had to at least start on the new project. I chose to do a remediation of the Wordle blog posting that we had done in reference to the discussions on rhetorical situations. As I reflected on what mediums would be ideal for such a remediation, I couldn’t help but think that an ideal remediation would be anything but online, seeing as the blog post was on a website. I chose to do another collage-type project, that will involve using some of the words in the Wordle and others pertaining to rhetoric and composition. I haven’t decided whether I will be printing the words so they are exact in font and size, or if I will be cutting letters out of magazines. What I hope to accomplish is a board that will resemble a game of Scrabble. If I start and it does not look great, then I may contemplate actually using Scrabble letters and/or the game board. Either way, the purpose of the imagery is to focus on how intertwined all of the words are within the subject of rhetoric and composition.