Monday, November 30, 2009

reflection 3

For the last reflection on this project I decided to wait until we got to do peer review. For the workshop day we were told to finish up what we were working on and I think as a whole we finished strong. Our site was altered for the design and I think it looks pretty spiffy. 

For myself, I think this project project was pretty good. I found it easy yet challenging at the same time. I was in charge of the events and I think I chose some decent events. I didn't  really have any problems with this part but I did have trouble with putting a song on my personal page. I had to uploaded the song from my home computer because my laptop doesn't have all my music on it. When I uploaded it, it worked without any problems, and I opened it up on different computers and different browsers and it was fine. When I checked it again before leaving for school this morning it wouldn't work but unfortunately I didn't have time to fix it. So hopefully I can figure it out because currently it's out of order. 

Other than my music mishap everything went smoothly, and we worked really well together. 

Sunday, November 29, 2009

reflection 2

During our last class the group was really ahead of the game. We decided who was commenting on the disucssion boards, which was everyone, respond to everyone. And we had to finalize the details of our own tasks. We left it so we didnt have a lot of work over break, so it worked out quiet well.

Our group is working well together and the project is going smoothly; it's interesting and gets you involved. Not to mention sharpens your web skills, but I think this is a good group project because the work is split up evenly.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Cause Site Reflection

Our group decided to Animal Abuse as our topic and so far its going really well. Our group works really well together, I think it's best group I've been in all year. We all have topics that we care deeply about so it works out well for our site, we each are focusing on one area and we have organized ourselves quiet well this far into the project.

We each decided what we would talk about in our discussion and blog posts, and I chose to discuss the laws and legislation for the blog and for the discussion I chose to examine slaughter houses. We gave ourselves deadlines so that everything would be put up on time and no one would be waiting and so far it has worked out well.

While I was doing some research on this topic I really found myself upset and angry. I did this topic in another class but it was focused on animal testing in laboratories and I was all by myself. I like this project because it allows all issues to be looked at and your not doing it all by yourself which makes it better especially with animal abuse. I look at my group members as others who care about animal abuse so it's nice to have them there for support of the project.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Discussion Forum

My group decided that for our discussion board we would each pick a topic to talk about. We would each tell a case of cruelty that was currently going on. The topics that we chose for our blog are now becoming our discussion board questions. I will be doing a post on slaughter.

So the point of this post would be to inform about what the blog will be about since our discussion board has been filled already. Our blog will be meant to inform and we all chose something that related to our topic that we felt was important enough to have a post. Our categories were:

ways to report abuse
animal testing
laws & legislation
fur trade/clothing

I will be doing a post on laws and legislation regarding animal abuse.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Blog Topics for Cause

-The 2010 Winter Olympic Games are to be held in Vancouver, Canada. Currently Canada is undergoing a "seal slaughter" meaning people are killing poor baby seals for fashion purposes. With the games being held there, there is much controversy regarding these killings. They are scheduled to be stopped but with dwindling support the killings are slowly starting again.

-The University of Utah recently got in a lot of trouble for inhumane animal testing on dogs, cats, rats, monkeys, rabbits, cows, pigs, and sheep. Currently this testing is still underway and animals are being studied and ripped apart for their pain to be studied.

-IHOP is using a caged method for all their chickens who lay eggs and the chickens are abused and neglected and left in inhumane cages. IHOP is neglecting to find alternative methods such a cage-free feeding for their chickens, and their customers are unhappy.



After all my research these are the 3 that I thought were most important and most recent.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Ning.com

My initial reaction to Ning is that its a mix between facebook and a blog. Its got the causes right in front of you that give you a little expert on what the cause is about, kind of like a status update on facebook but the same causes are laid out like a blog. I think this site so far is pretty interesting and somewhat easy to navigate once you get the hang of it.
I went on some of the causes that were on the front home page and I think the concept of this is really great. A cause is created and then instead of maybe asking for donations or just informing you they ask and allow feedback which is good. And it also allows you to voice yourself, to video yourself to explain your cause which I think is a really good tool to have on the site, it allows people to really understand the reason for the cause and it lets the creator put themselves out there.

I think once I get used to how to use the site it will be easier to use but overall I think this is a really interesting, well laid out site. And its for a good cause...or causes.

Lance Bennett article

After reading this article I agree with this one more, I believe it has a more realistic approach to the future and the technology and the path its taking.

1.The article states that the citizenship style is more effective, it gives people the option to be engaged in government issues. Bennett understands that if information is forced upon you that it will be less effective than if the option is presented. Like the other article stated information on the internet is echoed through and forms a trickle down effect....this echo is what this style is a trickle down effect that allow people to gain their information through high populated areas and by staying in contact with their own friends rather than the gov't.

2.The other thing that is stated is the DC and AC citizens. DC citizens are old school, they are formed by the old ways, the ways before technology came along. Now we are going through the change of how we get our news and information and the AC citizens come into play. The AC citizens are based on individuality and are centered around the ideas that voting is less important, it is less important due to negative advertisement on media and government. The AC citizens are based on themselves, they do things for themselves, and in a sense that is good but in the future it will lead to everyone being for themselves and creating world peace or any peace at all with working together will be impossible. I think a balance between AC and DC citizens is the best method.

3. It seems that both articles are based on getting young people to be involved in the government. This article sees fit that it is most efficient to do so in schools. By changing the curriculum and they methods of teaching schools will be teaching students how to be individuals and be able to solve public problems....in a way creating little government officials. The other article saw it fit to go about the internet and get people involved. I think that changing curriculum is a good ideas but not changing it so that kids are put through school for the government in the future. But the article also states a good point that adult created programs are based on what kids "should" do and not what they can do, and I believe that is how they should go about changing the curriculum, by keeping that idea in the main frame.

Danah Boyd article

After reading the article I have come to one overall conclusion but was lead there by many scattered ideas which are shown throughout the article. The main things that I got out of this article were:
1. When the article opens Boyd discusses how people need to be motivated to be more encouraged about the government and changing in means of the internet or SNSes. My thought on that is that, I think that is a very scary idea. If the government wants to get more involved with the SNSes and internet...a place where people are "free" do explore what they want I think that they will start to take control of things in a way to alter their campaign or what not. I think that people will possibly become less interested in the internet because they government has so much involvement in it.

2.With that said though, I also believe that the government getting more involved with the internet could be a good thing. If candidates are campaigning online and are trying to encourage more people to get interested in what they are doing that they might inform us more on what goes on within the system...highly doubtful but its a chance. The government using the internet to inform people I think is alright but what candidates want to do to SNSes I think is wrong. People join social networks to be with their friends like the article said, and people also choose what content they see on the internet based on their interests...the government usually isnt someones interest...because its depressing like the article said about the war in Iraq compared to Hollywood gossip which is interesting.

3.The article also discusses how people on SNSes can allow people to be whoever they choose, they can be an online celebrity. Well my thought is if people can do that they obviously the candidates can do that, the ones that are featured on the SNSes. And if the candidates do it then no one will never know anything. The article also says that the internet has no walls, no boundaries.... for the government thats not good. Meaning if there are no walls there is a small filter on what stays private and what doesnt. A possibility of all of this government involvement could mean that people dont get to choose what they do on these sites anymore, and they dont have a choice but to look at the government content. But at the same time the public would hate that and probably do something to change it.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

SNS

After reading the article it reminds me of the presentation that was done on web 2.0. Since web 2.0 is based on communication SNSes were created to keep people up-to-date on people lives by the minute. The article says they choose not to use the word "networking" because that means relationships are formed, well if the point of web 2.0 and sns are to create communication that I think relationships go in hand with that communication. Whether people are strangers are not they are still searching the web for a common goal, and I think forming relationships over the internet are better than having impersonal relationships and only being on the computer for yourself. And not to mention you cant call something a social networking site if you choose not to use the word thats in the title. It kind of seems like an oxy moron.
Social networking sites also provide a great mixture of people that belong to them, and it really connects people together, however I think if the internet was more personal like sometimes it claims to be, it could be closer and could connect more people, strangers that is.
I also think its rather funny that the first profiles were dating profiles and now there are so many types of profiles for everything out there. Also the first SNS launched was sixdegrees.com which i think should have stuck because of the six degrees of separation, and even though it was ahead of its time I think if it was resurfaced people would really catch on. Although with that the site would have to be updated due to technological advances since '00. Looking at the timeline of SNS I can remember when LiveJournal came out, and I remember when a lot of these networks slowly fell off the radar.
I think now SNSes are created for the convience to the internet user, there are so many networks out there and there are millions of people using them, but sometimes there could be too many. And these networks have taken over the world, in a way its good because it keeps everybody connected in an instant but whatever happened to personal communication and getting to someone face to face and not through a screen.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

5 interests to raise awarness

1. Animal Abuse
2. Child Abuse
3. Endangered Species
4. World Hunger
5. Poverty

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Web Design-Proposal Memo

My part of the project was to write the proposal memo. I did this with great detail so that the work was distributed evenly and I wanted to provide all the points so that none were left out.

I think overall the paper went well, it turned out to be 3 pages exactly and I think it is the perfect length. During peer review the suggestion was made to condense it and make it under 3 pages. Since there was no page limit for the project I decided to keep it the way it was because the more detail the better the paper.

After the revision to the website I had to go back and fix the paper and add what we fixed. During this I got really confused on how to describe the alterations. I had the words but couldnt write them. The end of the paper took me longer than it did to write the first 3 pages. But now I feel that the paper is strong and gives great detail to the before and after website.

Web Design-Group

For this post I decided to reflect on the group since that was how this project was carried out. I think this project was necessary to do in a group, especially when you have students who know how to do certain things and others who dont. I think overall the groups were put together evenly and I think my group in particular worked decently well together.

We had an even number of people who knew how to do web design, and others who didnt. For the ones who knew how to do it, we let them actually redesign the page, and the others were responsible for the site map and writing.

I think the work for each person was evenly distributed and each person put in the same amount of work. We worked well together although I think that more communication could have made it better. Luckily all our parts were done individually and tied together perfectly.

Web Design

To be completely honest in these I will say that this project is the most difficult for me because of the task at hand and the group work. Usually I work best by myself, I can get myself through it but I can go at my own pace and I can organize what needs to get done and when. Working with groups limits that, but this luckily I was paired with a good group who knew what they were doing.

My problem with this project is that it's all about the web redesign, me not knowing how to use a computer the way this course requires, makes it extremely difficult to understand whats going on. I know the basic concept of how to get around, I can do it, but I dont understand it. I know that you dont have to be able to understand the Internet but you have to be able to use. That is not ok with me at all, in the slightest bit. I want to be able to understand what I'm doing, if I dont then in this case it becomes a waste of my time, the teachers, the groups, and the money. Being able to work the Internet would be easier if I knew how to understand it.

Besides my horrible understanding of the Internet, my part of the project is about the only thing I can do. I feel since I cant make a good contribution to the actual design, I can describe using my words. The proposal memo took me a decent amount of time, I wanted to add a lot of detail to it so that I could do my part in the paper.