I wish I could say that I’ve made design choices during this class period that I plan on keeping but I’m not quite satisfied. I’m still trying to find the perfect template that flows with a header image I found on Google. I really liked the template that I previously had; I actually thought that it would still be great for this semester as long as I changed my quote and background image. But, we must change our template. The header image that I’ve found is of a person jumping from one cliff to another which in my opinion symbolizes the jump that we have made from being lowly freshmen in August to rising Sophomores. It’s a perfect header, but I need a template that fits perfectly around that one image.
Website Influence
When I think of websites that I have used so far in college, all I can remember is The New York Times. We used this website EVERY SINGLE DAY during writing last semester so I believe it’s fair to say that I am accustomed to that website. There wasn’t one particular way that we used The New York Times; we pretty much did everything imaginable. This was my first time to really dive into a website of this magnitude and search for hours until I could find the perfect article. When I was doing all of this research I started to notice a trend. In every article, there was no works cited page. The writers didn’t use parenthetical like we were learning how to do; they used hyperlinks. When an article had a piece of information from another author that would need a citation that would make it to where we could click on a small piece of the text and be sent to the original piece. On our multimodal project this will be key to creating a sleek, hip website that can still maintain credibility. And the whole not getting caught for plagiarism is a plus too!
Connect 10 Website Design
The website that I find myself always coming back to is definitely Facebook. I never post anything but I am fascinated by the ease at which I can see what my friends and family are doing or thinking at the exact moment. I would say that the Facebook executives that design the website have put a lot of effort into making the site so user friendly and addictive. One thing that I love about Facebook is the opening page. As soon as you enter the site you are greeted with so much information that your senses are overloaded. In the middle, where your eyes look first, is a timeline of posts and shared videos from your friends and family. On the right of the page there is a column of trending topics that always interests me. The left column has a ton of links to everything from your home page to pages you’ve liked or created to favorite posts or videos that you have saved. Everything that you could possible want out of Facebook is available on the home page. At the top of the page is a search bar so that people can find someone or something that they can’t find on their home page. There is also a notifications button that alerts you whenever someone has communicated with you, whether that be a post on your wall or a like on your recent shared video. It also tells you whenever one of your friends has a birthday so that you never have to experience the awkwardness of forgetting your aunts 46th birthday. Facebook was the first chapter in our social media age for a reason. The whole point of the website is to connect with your friends, so having a website that is easy to express opinions and browse through other posts is very necessary. Additions like trending topics, search bars, and notifications make Facebook that much more user-friendly.
God’s Intervention: The Cause and its Effects
Well, as of yesterday I was on track with the Cause and Effect research paper, but I am utterly behind right now. I feel like a complete idiot because yesterday as I had finished my second paragraph I went to close the document and did so without saving. For over an hour I searched for my work but it was gone forever. I wanted to quit, seriously. So, I am furiously trying to remember what I had previously written and catch up with the parts of the paper that I hadn’t yet written. If I am completely honest with myself, I have to admit that what I had written wasn’t my greatest work ever. I’m just going to tell myself that God got rid of the draft because it was awful and He knew that I could write better. I wish He would have done so about a week ago, but being pessimistic isn’t going to help me now. My plan is to finish the first draft by Wednesday and then start going back over it and writing draft 2. Conference on Thursday and Peer Review on Friday should help me realize what I need to fix over the weekend.
Connect 10 — Amazing Introductions
Usually, I tend to read a book before it is adapted into a movie. I love how the first few chapters, maybe even pages of a book can grab you and not let you go until you’ve completed the entire thing. To me, books are far superior to movies for that simple reason. Movies are great, don’t get me wrong, but the connection is not there. One of my favorite books is “Gone Girl” by Gillian Flynn which was mad into a movie two years ago. I was weary of the book. The synopsis on the back seemed vague and dull, but I had still heard good things about it so I decided to try it out. I’m not lying when I say that after the first page I was hooked. One page! It usually takes me a good three or four chapters to become immersed into a book, but this first page was astonishing. It started with a man telling what sounded like a love story to his wife. As it went on, the love story went south. The narrator’s story went from thoughtful and compelling to dark and dangerous. I couldn’t believe how the author managed to evolve the character’s portrayal in one single page. I couldn’t put the book down after that. I finished the entire book, which I might add was pretty lengthy, in one day. I don’t think I left my bed that day, but I finished the book. When I watched the movie, I was so excited to see that the filmmakers didn’t stray away from that beginning storyline. The movie put me on the edge of my seat, as if I had no idea what was coming next.
Prejudices
When I think of someone who is prejudice, I think of many people of my Facebook feed. These people are of different races, religions, and economic backgrounds but they are each similar in the fact that they publicly express their dissent of others. I read their posts and am sickened to see how a person of one race can call someone else a racist and then follow that claim up with racist sentiments about that same person. I don’t know how the author from Rereading America would feel about these people. He couldn’t argue that it was economics fueling their rage as they come from all types of backgrounds. If I had to choose one cause of their hate, I would say that they feel like they are threatened. Out of fear, these people put down others in the hopes of weakening the “enemy”.
Discussion Forum
The question that I am asking today is “Do you think that standardized tests improve or hurt education in the United States?”. The myth that I am reading is about the social classes and how they affect the different types of schools that kids go to, which doesn’t talk that much about standardized tests. However, when I was doing research on the myth, I saw an article that said standardized tests are focused on more heavily in middle class and working class schools whereas creativity is seen as more important in the more elite schools.
Annotation Connect 10
Question 5. Describe how today’s course material relates to something else you are learning in another course.
I would have to say that what we are doing right now correlates with what I am doing in both my Philosophy and Political Science classes. In these classes, I spend most of my time reading material and then expressing what the author was trying to say. The annotated bibliographies are meant to get us to read an almost excessive amount of material relating to our topic so that we can hopefully write a great research paper. In Philosophy, it’s virtually impossible for me to not read the book if I want to pass the class because I’ve never seen any of the material before. This research paper remind me a lot about my philosophy class since I know absolutely nothing about the myth that I’m attempting to write about. I know that these annoyed bibliographies will allow me to learn so much more about what I’m writing about.
Discussion Forum Question
The question that I am asking today is “Do you think that businesses should check the personal social media account of their employees or do you think that this is an invasion of privacy?”. The article that I read didn’t lead me to any great questions because it was so straightforward. I sat in front of my computer for several minutes trying to come up with a question but nothing was happening. Part of the article talked about how social media is being used by companies when they are hiring so I decided that this could be something worth debating. Unlike last week, I don’t have a firm stand on either side of this question. Even though this question wasn’t the focus of the reading, I feel that it will help contextualize the message that the author was trying to get across.
Annotated Bibliography Possible Myths
“Quality Time, Redefined” by Alex Williams talks about how more and more families are being consumed by technology. What really caught my eye was the tag line “One family. One Room. Four screens. Four realities, basically.” I feel like this would be great to research because this is a real problem for our generation and I think that it will only continue to worsen.
“Idiot Nation” by Michael Moore caught my eye because it forcibly talks about how our schools are churning out illiterate students that can’t even identify places in the middle east that our country is bombing. The abrupt way in which Moore speaks just in the two or three tagline sentences made me interesting in reading the rest of the paper. I also like any of the education myths because I feel like education is the topic which I know most about, and can contribute the most to.
“George Orwell…Meet Mark Zuckerberg” by Lori Andrews was an article that I considered for my synthesis, and I am still intrigued. I feel like the articles on social media hit so close to home that they will be very interesting, and eye-opening to write a report on. This specific article sticks out to me because its tagline talks about how social media is creating a “second self” of ourselves.