Thing 13: Reflection

This blog ended up being more of a learning experience than I expected. I did not think I would learn about so many interesting and intriguing social networking sites. Some of the websites I used I will continue to use, others I may not continue my use with. Regardless, I did learn a lot and I intend to pass this knowledge on to others who may benefit from some of these sites and the knowledge I gained from them. I think the reason I learned so much from this blog is because I was new to all of the websites that we used in each post. Not one of the websites were familiar to me, I mean I have heard of a few of them, but never actually started using any of them for my own use until I started this blog. If you go down to Thing 11 and check out my wordle for this blog you will see just what stands out the most from this blog, in general. I think the wordle does a great job of showing what I take out of this class the most. The biggest thing this blog did for me is the knowledge I gained; knowledge from websites to knowledge of writing styles, I have learned so much!
I think this sums up just how helpful this class and this blog was overall:

Looking back over my blog, my favorite post is the mashup I created. I am a lover of beaches so I found this project to be the most fun out of all of the other websites (with the wordle being a close second). I really had fun with my mashup, got some of my favorite beach pictures, a few of my favorite things about beaches, used all bright “beachy” colors, and included a great beach sound (waves with seagulls). This post, by far, is my favorite over all the others.

I discovered lots of things that could be useful for my day-to-day activities. For instance, the thesaurus website could become so useful for when writing papers, way more useful than my Microsoft word thesaurus. The other thing that I found to be very useful is the wiki sharing information. I think I will attempt to use this when trying to share information with my bridesmaids, in the future, for planning of the wedding. I also want to continue to use bubble.us in order to get ideas for writing, it is very helpful for having ideas for what to write about for my wedding blog and so I will continue to use it for other things as well. I am excited to see how I can use all or some of these websites in my professional life after Coe. I hope I can really WOW an employer with my knowledge of these websites and maybe be able to use them creatively in my future job/career.

The best part of this class/blog is the fact that it is largely based on “self-discovering” and we don’t have STRICT due dates for all of the writings. Especially when it comes to the blog, it was very helpful. I could come and go as I wanted and work on it at my own pace which helped me to get the most knowledge out of the project because I was going at my speed. I think, when it comes to writing, it should be based on our own personal due dates because our work could be a lot better that way.

Thing 12: Word Clouds

Below is my wordle for my 13 things blog:

Below is my wordle for my wedding blog:

The last wordle I did was using my 5th Prompt which was a questionnaire for a reference about me, and my grandpa filled it out and described me to a T so I decided this is a wordle all about me:

These wordles were very entertaining to me. I enjoyed putting them together and messing around with them. I would also say they were eye opening as to what stands out in each blog/document. In my 13 things blog the following words stand out the most to me: Website, Research, Helpful, Word. Based on all the “Things” we had to do for this blog I would say these 4 words describe this clog pretty well! In my wedding blog the following words stand out to me the most: Nick, Wedding, Father, Time, Thought. These words all describe the posts I have written so far in my wedding blog, you have the theme in there, my fiancés name, and the fact that a lot of time and thought is put into the planning of this day. The last wordle, based on my 5^th prompt, is all about who I am and the words that stand out to me the most are: Strength, Always, Others, Determination, People. These words all describe me in some way or another and I’m glad it’s these words that stand the most. I think it would be fun to use this kind of a tool in the professional world, to be creative with a speech, to see the key words in a speech you have to give, if you have to talk about yourself or give a biography of yourself it might be helpful to use this to see which words you should pinpoint on the most. It’s also just a fun tool to use when you have free time, put in a few of my personal documents and see what is created and what stands out to me.

Thing 11: Synonyms

Creative: innovational, groundbreaking, resourceful, fresh, cool, originative, formative, inferential, structural, novel.

My favorites:

Innovational=being or producing something like nothing done or experienced or created before

Originative=having the ability or power to create

Skeptical: leery, wary, cynical, unbelieving, doubting, questioning, incredulous, disbelieving

My favorites:

Incredulous=not disposed or willing to believe

Leery=openly distrustful and unwilling to confide

When I am typing or writing a paper I will use my computer’s thesaurus a lot. If I am having a hard time coming up with a word or even if I have a word but I want a different one similar to it, I use my thesaurus. I have never had problems, such as using a word that doesn’t actually work in the context of a sentence. Generally before I use a word I look at its definition to make sure it’s what I think. I don’t use words that I don’t know their meaning.

I am definitely going to add this website to my “favorites” because I can see myself becoming a “word nerd”. Here are a few words that I decided to search for and their synonyms:

talk: discussion, lecture, speak, spill, blether, prattle

happy: fortuitous, pleased, glad, felicitous, expansive, cheerful

Some of the connections seem to be right on, others seem to be not quite what I was looking for. Overall I highly recommend using this kind of a sight next time I am writing/typing a paper.

Thing 10: CC

Creative Commons. What a great idea, something I have honestly never heard about. I knew everything these days was copyrighted ("All rights reserved") but the idea of everything having creative commons ("Some rights reserved") sounds even better. Then, creators still have their rights to their own ideas, but so do we, those of us who want to have access to their ideas, and want to be able to use it and mix it with our own ideas. I think this is great, it really shows how the world is changing. It is because of this website that more things, on the internet, are more readily available to everyday users.

I could potentially share my psychology thesis (after making corrections and having it be almost perfect) on my blog or open to the world wide web, and let other users work with it, possiby add to it or include it in their research. I can see how creative commons could be VERY helpful for those of us who do research and having access to much more on the web could be very helpful to our research. On the other hand, it could also have some downsides. With everyone having access to everyone else's research, I can see how that might make things get out of hand. Even though it would be nice to share research that has been done with others on the internet, it also means people can "remix and resuse" that research anyway they please, and that isn't always a smart thing. When you put all this hard work into research and want to share it with others you don't necessarily want them to mess around with it and claim it as theirs. Overall, though, I think that creative commons is a great idea and could really change the way things are shared and used on the internet, whether with everyday users like myself or big time institutions.

Thing 9: Reader

Yet again...another site that I had no idea about and I will admit I was a little skeptical of it when i first read about it...but I set it up anyways and learned all about it. I figured I was going to have to play around with it for a while to really get the feel of how it works, but I was wrong. It was really, quite simple. All you do is click one button to subscribe to different websites/blogs of interest and TA-DA! the websites appear in the newsfeed.

Even though I created my reader very easily and had no problems with it, I still wasn't sure if I actually will get any use out of it. I mean, I don't think it's that inconvenient to just type in the separate websites I like to visit on a regular basis. When I really think about it though, this application might be useful for keeping up with people's websites that I don't get to visit on a daily basis because either I just set it aside and say, "Oh, I'll visit it tomorrow." But tomorrow comes and I still don't visit the website. For instance, my sister's editorial page with the Monticello Express, I always have the intent to read her weely editorials, but I don't stick to it! By adding the Monticello Express website to google reader, I will have it at the click of a button, and I will no longer be able to ignore it, it will be right in front of my face! So I think it's pretty helpful for those websites that I often WANT to check out but never really get around to, rather than those websites I visit on a daily basis. Another website, which is actually a photography blog of a young gal who graduated with my sister, is one I often WANT to check but never really get around to it. She has great photography skills AND writing skills and so I added her blogsite to google reader so I will be more apt to peak at it every now and then. This site will be very helpful for those sites I procrastinate in looking at!

Thing 8: Delicious!

Check out my delicious account!
Never having dealt with this networking site before, it seems like a very useful tool for someone like me who is going out into the professional world. This way, whether I am at work, at school, or at home I can have access to those websites that I go to so much and there is no pressure to remember the website word for word! I can see this website being helpful during the planning of my wedding. I can see this website being helpful while going to school, sharing websites with other classmates or friends. I can also see this website being helpful when I get a job after college! This website sort of replaces my favorites bar on my own personal computer.

Thing 7: tweet, tweet

slbrooks_coe--This is my twitter account!
So I finally set up a twitter account and I think this is going to be an exciting experience. I was very leary about getting one set up because I always thought it was a waiste of time, but nowI am looking forward to seeing how this works.
I followed a number of people from famous movie stars/singers to family and friends and favorite hobbies: My first person that I followed was Jimmy Fallon, a great comedian who is a favorite of mine..I love watching his late night show every week night.
I followed my sister, who is the editor of the Monticello Express.
I followed Relay for Life for the American Cancer Society because I am a huge advocate for that and I am a team leader for Relay for Life every summer back home.
I followed "The Knot" which is my favorite bridal magazine.
I followed Brad Paisley who is my favorite MALE country artist.
Following the country theme, I followed GAC (Great American Country) to stay up to date with what's going on in the country music world.
I followed my favorite store to shop at, Victoria Secret.
I followed two the Family Christian store and another Christian group.
Lastly, I followed Taylor Swift, who is my favorite FEMALE country artist.

I used to think that twitter was a waste of time and that I didn't need to be a part of it. But after reading the two articles about it, I now see it more as an educational experience and I'm excited to see what comes of it. I used to think it was a waste of time and I never thought I would be one to  get a twitter account. Now I am glad that I created an account. I can see how it would benefit me to keep up on different employers that I am interested in or keep in touch with potential employers. It would be a huge benefit. I think I will continue to tweet but I cannot promise that it will be very often. .

Thing 6

After doing LOTS of research on this topic I have come to realize that it seems as if people mainly comment on other people's blogs if they have something to say on the topic, or to give their opinion. One blog I looked at was a woman's rights blog, this lady was all about feminism and how important it is in today's society and MANY comments were made on one of her blogs and you could see all the different types of opinions people hold towards the topic of feminism. It was interesting. I can see how having comments on a blog can be helpful or annoying. In the case of that feminism blog post, I found it to be more annoying than helpful. It was pretty much a mixture of people going against each other on who was right and who was wrong. In that case, are those comments even helpful? I don't think so. I think commenting on a blog to offer advice, or to comment on a job well done, or to politely voice your opinion, could all be considered ok. What seems tacky, though, is when a bunch of comments on a blog post seem to be "arguing" over an issue.

The last thing I did for this blog was create "tags" for my past posts. All I really did was use one word to describe what that post was related to. What I really want to do is, as I add more posts to my "Forever & Always" blog, organize those posts under specific "tags". I can see as you add more and more posts how a blog can get confusing and by adding tags you can really organize them nicely for others to get to them easily.

Thing 5: Wedding blog Ideas

I found this experience to be very FUN! I really enjoyed creating my mind bubble! I knew it would be hard to think of ideas after ideas for my wedding blog but after creating this mind bubble, I think it's going to be a lot easier than I would normally expect. This was almost more fun than doing it with a pen and paper. I think I would definitely use this tool again and again for different projects, but especially when writing. It gets my mind going and I think of creative ideas. After I thought of one idea, i kept thinking of more and more, and they just kept coming to me. I could use this for meetings for a group/organization so I talk about every topic I need to talk about at the meeting. I could use this for future papers, to come up with ideas to write about. I could use this for numerous amounts of projects/papers. I definitely think I will continue to use this tool and even recommend it to others!

Thing 4: wiki

Wiki is a whole new term to me. I have never before used it and knew nothing about it until now. I am so glad I now know how to use it because it will come in VERY handy when it comes to planning my wedding! The way I see it is, there are so many people in our wedding party that I will have to constantly be in contact with for planning certain aspects of my wedding, why not create a wiki and everyone can be informed that way! That is BRILLIANT! I watched the movie example of what a wiki is, and that was very helpful, I also looked at other examples of wikis and this intrigues me to want to try it out for myself. I think I want to encourage my bridal party to use it when planning my bridal shower. The best part about it is, numerous people can be a part of the wiki, it can be on any subject, and changes can easily be made at the drop of a hat. It's helpful that changes can be made, but at the same time that can also be seen as a negative. This means other people can make changes to things that you have already added; words can be changed or deleted, and same goes for pictures. This could really be frustrating to some people but, overall, I think the wiki is VERY helpful and useful for many occasions. Wiki really just reminds me of a chain email but way less complicated.

This is something I will definitely continue to use and recommend to others. I am excited to use wiki with different groups of friends/family to socialize on the web; it's so eye-opening!

Thing 3: Some Beach...

Learning how to make a mashup, was an interesting experience, to say the least. I started by using middlespot.com but was having problems getting it to work. Then I decided to use a different website, so I created this mashup on glogster.com. It was a great experience overall! I loved being able to use my creative side and use it on a topic that is of interest to me. I would highly recommend this to anyone who wants to get a little creative. It was cool that I was in control of where things were located on my mashup, I could add words where-ever I wanted, pictures could be overlapped, I even learned how to use sound clips and videos on my mashup. My favorite thing about creating the mashup was the visual aspect of it all; I can write and write on a topic but there is something about visually seeing a picture that is pleasing to the eye. On the one hand it's fun to add as many pictures/videos as I want but on the downside you are confined to the limited space that a mashboard gives you. Once you fill it up, you're done. I think all writers should learn to do a mashup because it's a nice way to see different opinions on different topics.

Thing 2: Love Letters

Our very first picture, on our very first date together!

This is my fiance, Nick, and I taking our very first picture together, before our very first date. This picture is significant to me because, on this first date, I NEVER imagined that I was going to end up getting engaged to this guy. In this picture, that summer, I was not going to have expectations of where things would go with Nick. I kept an open mind and made sure to be clear with Nick how I felt. Well...feelings became strong for him in a matter of months and a year and a half into the relationship he proposed and I said, "YES!".

Keeping a relationship going while I am here in Cedar Rapids attending college and Nick is back home working a full time job, is not easy, but we make it work. It can sometimes seem like a bumpy road...but with good communication, we make it work. When I say communication I don't just mean talking on the phone every night, or facebook, or texting. We also write each other a letter each week...love letters. It's an old lost art, that I think is very important because the way you communicate on paper is sometimes VERY different from the way you communicate over the phone, through a text, on facebook, or any other way.

Maybe you're thinking, "How do you go about writing a love letter?" or "What do you say in a love letter?" There are many websites out there that could help you with this but the best way to learn, I think is by watching this video: http://youtu.be/Mrv6a_UB6JE
This will help you get started and after a few love letters, you will become a pro at it. It doesn't take much but it can mean a whole lot to the receiver of the letter.

AND...if you want to spice up your letter a little bit, it may be fun to say "I Love You" in a different language at the end of each letter. This makes the letter a little more unique and you will learn something in the process.

This has helped Nick and I keep our communication going and it could help anyone else who wants to spice things up a bit. You can never have too much communication!

Thing 1: Web 2.0

Watching the posted video "Did You Know 4.0" was really an eye-opener for me! For me, when it comes to being savvy-online I would say I am a mere passenger in the web 2.0 car. I am still learning the ropes to the course but I feel like there is a lot more out there, that I have yet to learn about. I hold a facebook account, I have multiple emails, I'm a huge pinner on pinterest, I rarely shop online, and now I am learning not only how to set up my own web-portfolio but I am learning how to blog. I feel like I am in driver's Ed. all over again. Learning all the different rules and regulations to being a part of different social networking sites and how to manage them. It's exciting! I have yet to become a part of twitter, or wiki, or create a Delicious account. These are all new terms to me but I have a feeling I will become very familiar with them by the end of this school semester.

To me, it seems like everyone has internet on their phones these days. Those people that don't seem to be "out of the loop". When it was time for me to get my new phone, I requested no internet on it because of the fact that I am already on it enough, texting, I don't want to appear to be glued to my phone. I see nothing wrong with being disconnected from your phone from time to time. But, times are moving that way, pretty soon there may not be an option for whether to have internet on your phone or not!

Even though I am not willing to get internet on my phone I am interested in learning more about some of these social networking sites: Delicious, twitter, wiki, etc. Social networking is the new thing to do, everybody is a part of some type of social networking site. Through this class I am hoping I will learn more about these multiple social networking sites and decide which ones are or aren't for me. I need to broaden my horizons and be aware of what is out there in the "internet world". This is just the start, for me, and ready or not, here I go!