What I Did
Today I outlined the text that I will be writing for my WordPress project. Additionally, I filled in the majority of the outline chart we were given in class.
Why I Did It
I realized I had begun my presentation, but failed to think about the pages of the blog I will be creating to present my findings on. I realized that I am more behind than I thought I was. I hope that over the next 2 days I am able to catch up in time for a peer review.
What I did
Today I worked heavily on project 2 and interrogating an interface. I am tasked with interrogating Prezi, I am looking at it for many different things, from what it is and what it can do, to what sets it a part from competitors. I started by answering all the questions on the Writer/Designer Analysis page. This has helped me lay everything out and see what I need to answer. I have been moving right along and I am about half way done with this, and once I finish that I will move on to making the presentation part as well as putting it on my blog. This is still a rough draft that needs work.
Why I did it
I started by doing this because I wanted to lay everything out before I just started doing things that I may not be sure of. Filling out these questions makes it easier for me to see what I need to answer and what I need to cover on my project. Over the next day or two I will continue and finish answering these questions so that I can start on the final product.
WriterDesignerAnalysisQuestions
Today was another workshop day for Project 2- Interrogate an Interface. After being sick all last week, I have some serious catching up to do. See below how I tried to help get back ahead.
I added a Table of Contents navigation system, continued working on the Writer Designer questions, starting writing an overview of Pixlr, and began taking the screenshots that will supplement my text.
I used a Table of Contents navigation system because I like to have all the options at top. I wanted to create a custom menu, but my theme only supports one menu so this was as close as I could get. The writer designer questions are necessary to write my text, so I continued to fill those out. I’ll finish them later today so I can really get started. I began a rough outline of the overview, but won’t finish that until the questions are complete. Im trying to take the screenshots as I go, so I don’t forget or can’t find the right image later on in the process.
What I Did: Today, I worked on formatting details for the project. I made a new menu with pages and I took some screenshots for visual the aspect.
Why I Did It: I wanted to make sure I could include all of the information that I thought was necessary into the Interrogate and Interface page on my blog – but in an organized way. I looked at some of the examples provided, and based my current pages off of those. I included an “About” page, an “Affordances” page, a “Constraints” page, and an “Experiences and Interactivity” page. These may change over time as I work through the information I have and reorganize everything. I think having these separate pages is important to break up the text (essays) of the project into more readable material.
The screenshots I took from the Dipity site were of the timeline creation process. I began creating my own timeline of Virginia Tech events as an example. This is important to show the steps of how to use the site and prove some of the affordances, constraints, and general uses of the tool. I have not decided which pages will include which screenshots yet.
Before next class I plan to insert some of my actual text and visuals into the pages so that I can get some of my work reviewed by a peer on Wednesday.
Introduction:
Today I had a minor freakout about this project because I realized that this is the last day to work on it in class and I felt like I have nothing done. So that was fun.
What I did:
First I calmed down and then I got to work. I began writing my essay in a Google Doc so I could go to lunch and work on it some more without worrying about a USB drive. I got through the introduction, audience, purpose, and genre. I still have to begin the design, postives, and constraints. I figured if I get all the writing done today I can begin my PowerPoint.
Why I did this:
I freaked out because it is almost due and I realized how little time I have this week. I began writing first because that is the biggest part of this project. Once I get this project written it will be easy to create the PowerPoint based on my essay and then I can move on to figuring out how to put the essay in WordPress.
I continued experimenting with Draft today and even starting drafting documents within the tool to include as examples in my presentation. I also made notes of the affordances and constraints of the site that I experienced when constructing an example draft within the tool. I received an email from the creator of Draft as soon as I logged into my account today and experimented with the specific features of the site that were mentioned in the email.
There is much more than meets the eye with Draft! From copy-editing to publishing to team collaboration, this site offers a variety of tools for its users. I have spent a significant amount of time reviewing these tools so I can best describe the affordances and constraints of the site in my presentation and web essay. Lastly, I wanted to look at the highlighted elements of the tool that were emailed to me to ensure that I was not overlooking important features of the site.
What I Did:
Today I browsed around the website to see the different affordances and constraints that the website offered. I clicked around and tried out different formats and layouts that were provided for the user.
Why I Did It:
I wanted to see how the website worked and the different aspects that made it unique. Before starting the project, I wanted to get a feel for the entire website so that when I discussed the project it was easy to lay out the pros and cons of the website. I will continue to play around with the website and figure out different features that the class would benefit from learning about.
Even though I was (still am) sick, I was able to do a lot of work on my own regarding the project and the presentation. I found it easier to do the project on my laptop because it is the HP I’ve had since 11th grade. I am very comfortable with the snipping tools and to be honest, the keyboard works better for me.
I decided to use the Creatavist web tool for my presentation as opposed to google drive. It was a great way for me to learn about the tool first hand and allowed me to find my own affordances and constraints as I worked. Though I am technologically challenged, I was able to navigate the tool rather well. Today in class, I reviewed my presentation to see if there was anything I could tweek. I changed the cover photo to a colorful picture of the brain instead of the Creatavist homepage. I realized that I could simply click on the homepage to show the class what it looks like instead of having it as the main background of my story.
Something else I did was add some more information about the audiences, the creators, and rhetorical devices of the web page to give the reader some more background information. I left this for class since I knew it would be mostly typing in wordpress as opposed to actually doing snipping and stuff that I don’t really know how to do on the Mac.
