Response to Journal 9

I can't say that I fall for every single marketing campaign, but if there is a new product that I find interesting, I will probably go out and buy it, assuming that I have a coupon. This, I guess I can say, comes from my mother who, having lived in Communist Cuba, believes that if she wants something, there is no need to wait for it. Also, because so many new products are available, she has taught me that someone has to give the product a try, it may actually work. I don't have a particular product that I buy based on marketing, but most of my focus is on hygiene products and food because there is always a new product to help dental strength, or ways to make cooking easier. I do think that marketing plays a great role in my purchasing decisions, most of my purchases are based on ads.

Web 2.0

I do agree that the nature of writing, power and knowledge is changing as technology is increasingly democratized. The technology seems to be developing faster than we can keep track of. As soon as the majority of people get used to a new development, it is then revamped and made better. We are growing with the technology. It is changing the way the world operates. Fifty years ago no one would have considered the possibility of their entire life online. Now most people can not operate without a computer. College would be almost impossible now without a computer because most assignments are online. There are even classes taken strictly online with no personal contact, the idea of a teacher is just that, an idea. As technology continues to increase the average person gains more control. With everything now online, it is difficult to prove the validity of everything you see but the convenience of it makes it worth it. With websites like youtube and wikipedia where anyone and everyone could be the "authors" there is a new equality. Now that the web is affordable and available to the majority of the nation, there is nothing stopping us from moving full speed ahead and becoming a predominantly electronic nation where everything is done with computers.

Journal 2

“Look I told you I can’t do it until next thursday,” said some guy on the phone. What I get from this is that something needs to be done next thursday. Since he was a student it could either be his final rent payment or something for a job or internship that he may have. Also, it could be something he needs to do for a friend or his girlfriend. Regardless, he seemed to have stated that he can’t do it until later before because he was obviously frustrated at being asked again, and he stated that he had already proclaimed that he couldn’t do whatever it is until next thursday. I listened to this on the way from one class to another, walking across Landis Green. If I had to guess what this guy was talking about then I would say that it is something for a job or an internship.

I have to say, out of all of the assignments we've had this semester, the web portfolio has to be my favorite. Whether this is because the medium suits me (I am a bit more of a techie than the average person, and I'm never without my laptop) or simply because it gave me a chance to display my work in a creative fashion, it's been fun and I actually feel proud of the (almost) finished product. I think the hardest part so far has been figuring out how to keep the pages strung together. A website is almost like a book in the sense that you wouldn't read a page in a book about cats, turn the page and suddenly be reading President Obama's biography. All of my work this semester has had an underlying theme, but the papers and journals are all still pretty different. I needed to figure out how to make everything look like it belongs on this website, and not like just some random paper I decided to upload. I think I've managed to do this well enough though, and I look forward to developing this website further as I continue to progress through college and produce work worth displaying.

The end

The digital portfolio has been alot more fun than I thought it would be. I am having alot of fun with the design that I have picked, It fits my style perfectly. By being able to make the web page anyway I want to and adding pictures I feel that it makes the project more personal. I have come up with alot of ideas for things to add to my webpage, but it has been difficult executing those ideas.
I am naturally not a technology savvy person and since the website I am using to create my website is virtually new it makes it even more difficulf. I have come up with creative ideas to link parts of my paper to the website but I cannot fiigure out how to do it. This process have been much different than writting a paper because it does not follow the strict format of introduction, conclusion, transitions and such. I feel like I can be more free in how I write and I also feel that I can write less :).

the end of the world as we know it...

Overall I think that my website is going well, I have mainly focused on the site itself and it's organization and not on the reconstruction of the papers. I plan to add video to at least one of my papers, because I believe that will make it easier for an audience to understand what I am trying to say. When I found out about this project I was excited to do it because I think this is much more interesting and useful than simply writing another paper.

The problems I've had so far have mainly had to do with the limited capabilities of the software, I've used Flash in a lot more detail before so I know what its capabilities are, and it's difficult to some things on the website.

I think the process for this project is different than that of a normal paper because this is much more about re-imagining something that you've already worked on, instead of creating something from scratch. You also have access to a lot more media options in this project, so that makes you take another look at what you're trying to say and how you're going about saying it.

LAST ONE!

When I first found out we were going to have to do this digital portfolio i was both angry, and scared at how difficult it was going to be. Luckily it turned out to be a lot easier and a lot more fun. The websites are super easy to use and are actually quite interesting with all the different things you can do. I like this different approach to a final paper especially when writing isn't my forte. The only difficult part is putting all together to flow well. Since its something so different, it's a lot hard to use all the tools effectively. Also the writing process is a hundred times more visual than if just writing on a piece of paper, you can do hundreds of different things that you could never do on a word document. The dimensions you can play with on a portfolio versus a paper are numerous, the technology at our hands is far greater leading us to be able to do far more.