My artifact for this week is Buzzfeed. Buzzfeed is a website famous for its wacky quizzes and funny posts that are usually found being shared on social media sites. On Thursday I was taking a break from studying and was looking at Facebook on my computer. I came across a Buzzfeed article as I usually do, and decided to check it out. About half way through the article, I lightbulb popped up above my head. I realized that this format would be perfect for my website design. Buzzfeed does a great job at creating visual elements intertwined with their text. They like to use gifs, pictures, videos, quizzes, etc to make their audience interested in whatever subject they’re discussing. I immediately closed the Buzzfeed window and went to my website. I rewrote every post so that they would flow with pictures and gifs that I had found on the internet. I still feel uneasy about my site. I think that I may be pushing it on the college audience content, but I think that what I did might pay off big time. I did include a lot of gifs and funny references, but I still think that my message is still there.
Weekly Artifact
This week’s artifact for me is my computer. More particularly, Quizlet on my computer. For those who don’t know, Quizlet is a website or app that lets you create flashcards to study or search for already created study sets. As I had three tests this week and not near enough time to make the necessary amount of flashcards, I was lucky to find a few already created sets of Quizlet flashcards that saved me a lot of time. I can say without a doubt that I would not have been able to study for all of my tests this week if it weren’t for Quizlet. I love how convenient the Quizlet app is. Actual flashcards are hard to use when you’re standing in a line or in a car but using your phone to study in those conditions is very doable. I even used the app of my computer while I was in my political science class. This app probably saved me from a mild panic attack before my big bio test on Thursday.
Weekly Artifact
This week’s artifact is definitely the cause and effect research paper. I have worked on this paper so much this week! I can honestly say that I have never worked harder on any paper than I have on this one. This paper has showed me a new sense of dedication that was required to finished this paper. First off, I had put off starting my paper until last weekend because I assumed that 2000 wouldn’t take me too longer to write. Then, after I had two body paragraphs written, I accidentally deleted my paper and all of my work. So, after a brief moment of aggravation and several minutes yelling into a pillow, I began working again. I set a goal on Sunday that each day of this week I would write a minimum of 400 words a day. I can say that I bested that goal everyday by a pretty good bit. I had 7 pretty good sources from the annotated bibliographies and could have probably gotten by with just using those, but I pushed through the awfulness of citations and added about of dozen more sources. This paper literally made me scream. I wanted to quit this paper more than I have ever wanted to quit before. I have learned a lot about education in Mississippi as well as the writing process. I also learned a few more reasons not to procrastinate including that once you finally get started, you might have to start all over again due to an act of God, so start early in case that happens.
Weekly Artifact
This week, my weekly artifact is my biology lab. I cannot tell you how many times I have cursed that class. Every time that I thought that I was getting the hang of things, I got another dose of reality. We are required to know so much material in a very little amount of time while still managing our other classes, which is basically impossible. I had a BIG test Tuesday. To sum everything up, I bombed the first test so the importance of this one could not be understated. Last week I was so consumed in my other classes that I pushed off studying for this test. It wasn’t until Sunday (two days before the test) that I was able to START studying. Talk about procrastination! I sat in my room and studied, for what seemed like eternity. On Tuesday, I was basically brain dead, but I knew the majority of the information. When the dust cleared, I had made an 81! I know that doesn’t sound spectacular, but if you knew my first grade an 81 would sound like a miracle from God. With only a month left in the semester, it’s very easy to forget our school work. I can start thinking about May 11th and immediately forget about an assignment due the next day, it’s just human nature. I needed this week to show me that the semester is not over; it’s actually at a very important part. The next month deserves all of the effort that I can put into it, not a half-a** effort that will merely get me through the semester. I don’t want to just get through the semester, I want to get through these classes with flying colors!
Weekly Artifact
One thing that I am going to take away from this week is planning is key. This week alone I have two papers due, three quizzes, and two midterms. I don’t think that I would have mad it this far into the week without the meticulous planning that I do. Every night I make a list of everything that I need to accomplish the next day. On an extremely busy week like this, I even say what times I need to focus on each specific course. Last semester I did not do this and I think that it hurt my grades. I know that I get more done when I can look down and say “I’m right on schedule!”. A little planning never hurt anybody!
Weekly Artifact: Stop Procrastinating!
The most important thing that I can take away from this week is that I need to stay on track. It’s so easy to push away an assignment for what you say will be an hour or two and then end up days later hurrying to finish your work. I know that this is a very real problem for myself. I pushed off writing my annotated bibliographies for a day which turned into two. When it came time for me to start writing them, I was way behind and really confused. The topic that I had picked turned out to be awful and I had to pick a new one at a time when I should be polishing my finished product. Because of my procrastination, I missed the opportunity to pick up extra points which would have been very useful considering the sloppy paper that I turned in a couple of weeks ago. I know that after Spring Break I will not be able to procrastinate because there won’t be any more breaks in our schedule.
Weekly Artifact
The biggest thing that I am going to take away from this week is something that had nothing to do with my classes. For the past two weeks I have been working non-stop. I have spent my hours in the library than in my own room and yet I still seemed to be getting behind in my classes. On Thursdays, I don’t have class until 4 in the afternoon and I get out on Wednesday at 12, so I decided that I was going to take a break from studying to have time to myself. I don’t think that I have done this since the first week back this semester. I know that I can’t do this every week, but I think that I needed time to let my mind rest. When I finally woke up Thursday, I felt like a new person. I think that I was more productive after the day off than I was before.
PowToon: The Journey to the Center of the MultiModal Project
When I started working with PowToon, I thought to myself “There is no way that this is going to happen”. I have never been a creative person and I knew right off the bat that this project required a lot of creativity. After two days of just staring at my computer screen, I decided to jump into the deep end. I know that I could have and probably should have watched at least one of the tutorials, but I wanted to be able to do this my own way. During my first hour experimenting with the site, I got impatient and angry, and then PowToon decided it was angry too and quit on me. After going through seven different templates, I finally found the one that worked for me. It took me a while to drag and drop the characters into the shot and took almost two hours to figure out how to set up the audio format. It took a while, but I finally figured out PowToon.