Cause Project: Finishing Touches

To put my finishing touches on our site, I've added a couple more pictures to the site (although for some reason I can't figure out, they will not show up in the picture slideshow on the main page, though they are present on the Pictures page of the site) and added/highlighted the source citations I needed to include in my blog. My last responsibility for contributing to this project is (as I mentioned in the last post) to collect and compile the links to resources we used for the project and create a site bibliography to post to or Ning group.

Overall I feel like my group has done quite a bit better with this project than in the last one. Maybe that's just because Ning is more visually satisfying than Google Sites was, or maybe it's representing (even if only on a tiny scale) a humanitarian cause, but I can only hope that my satisfaction and optimism for our project result is reflected in our grade. Ning was easy and satisfying to use, though, once you get accustomed to it. It took me longer to get used to Ning than it did for Google Sites or WikiTravel, and granted, there are a few kinks that I still haven't been able to work out (the picture issue from above), but our results for this project just feel more satisfying. Hopefully my opinion on it isn't off base.

I guess after this project is wrapped up on Wednesday, I'll have to start thinking about what project I want to revise for the upcoming assignment.

Oh, and needing to finish the enthusiast blog for Friday! I'm working on my last 3 (required) posts, hopefully I can finish those off with a bang.

Causes Project, post-peer review

Well, a couple of things got left up in the air a little bit since people were away and busy doing things over the long weekend, but we got almost all of our Ning site up to speed with the stuff we needed to do. There are still a few additions and tweaks that need to be made--I need to add a source and citation to my blog post, and we need to add more information to our Facebook Causes site (which we let slide due to working more on Ning). We also need to add a bibliography of our sources to the Ning page, which I will be taking care of. All that's left to do is the number of small, last-minute revisions and additions that usually occur in completing a project assignment.

Aside from the revisions that need to be made, our review was pretty positive. Nothing too critical, other than the coulple of suggestions to add more sources to our blogs and info to our Facebook Cause page.

I'll write more once I wrap up some of the stuff that I have to do to contribute to completing this project.

Cause Project

The project has gone well so far, though it took quite a bit of getting used to Ning and (to a lesser extent, at least so far) Facebook to be able to actively contribute online. After the group settled on a topic (anti-semitism) we started putting the (Ning) site together almost immediately. Over the next several days we've added pictures, videos, a description and welcome statement, a music file, and picked a suitable aesthetic scheme.

I've felt more confident with my contributions to the project this time around, having helped write the site description note, picked the/a song that will be used on our site, and created an order to the blog posts to most effectively highlight the common threads in our drafts. I also think the group is working together pretty well, and I definitely feel like I work pretty well with Rachel after working on the last project together. It's also easier to communicate and set goals and tasks for each person this time around, so I feel like this project is going well.

One thing that's been bothering me, though, is that I can't seem to upload a picture to the image slideshow on our Ning Cause's main page. The photos section of the site recognizes the upload, but not the slideshow. I'm going to keep trying to get it up there, but it's been giving me trouble so far. Thankfully the song upload was much easier. Hopefully the blog, event, and discussion posts will be fairly easy as well.

3 potential discussion topics

1. Splitting up [Ning] blog posts about what can be done to fight discrimination on a local/ state/regional scale between groups members (one person posts about fighting on a local scale, another on a state-wide scale, etc.)--and this way people have a backup blog topic if they can't think of something else to write about.
2. Is our group geared more toward raising awareness or providing resources to fight discrimination, or something else, and what can we do to be most effective in that?
3. What medium would we most like to use to support our cause -videos, images, articles/journals, etc, a combination?

3 blog post topics for social change

1. People that do not actually hate, but still commit intolerant acts (discriminatory/threatening graffiti, messages, etc.) still fan the flames and contribute to the problem.
2. Set the facts straight: anti-Semitism is still a problem, and though numbers are down in America, they are up worldwide [provide statistics and rates for concrete proof and reference] (basically an overview from a statistics standpoint)
3. What can be done on a local/state/regional/national scale to support tolerance and oppose discrimination (pick 1 scale--group members can split up scales for different blog posts?)

SNS articles

These two articles are quite different and take two starkly different stances in the way they analyze SNSs.

Boyd's article presents SNSs as a fact of the new world that people must comes to terms with. She demonstrates a good understanding of the functions of SNSs such as Myspace and Facebook, but seems to regard them with near contempt. She describes them as a platform from with egotists can exhibit themselves and that people can use to reach mass audiences, although she concedes that SNSs are more often used by young audiences to network in groups of friends. The tone and presentation isn't condescending, but seems weary, or simply resigned that SNSs are a reality that everyone must become accustomed to.

Bennett, however, seems much more upbeat and accepting of SNSs, and the overall message seems to communicate that the new reality of digital networking ought to be embraced and used to better shape the next generations of internet users. The message of Bennett's article is a bit harder to read, simply because the context of the writing seems dated, comparing modern internet usage to lifestyle designs of the past several generations. That isn't to say that the information isn't pertinent or useful, just that the tone is almost old-timey. The call to embrace modern lifestyle and realities is definitely a useful one, but Bennett could have helped his cause by showing that he has an understanding of some of the SNSs available today--for all the talk about accepting the modern reality, not once are any SNSs named nor intimate knowledge of their machinations demonstrated. Talking even briefly about some of the SNSs that are influential today would have added a considerable amount of ethos to the article, but even so, Bennett makes a good point in saying that the way young people live, learn, and interact is vastly different, and teaching and learning methods should accommodate this change.

Ning

I've set up a Ning account, but haven't yet created or joined a Ning network because my group hasn't settled on a topic to use for this project, and also because I'm not quite sure what to make of Ning. There doesn't seem to be a clear way of navigating the site. In fact, aside from blog links, I haven't seen that there's all that much to the site at all yet. This is probably just because I'm totally new to the site and haven't gotten accustomed to how it works or what it does, but even so, having seen what little I've seen on the site, I had a hard time imagining how it will fit into this project. A trip to Wikipedia cleared up a good deal of my confusion, however. I'm still not sure how the social networking aspect will work within the context of Ning, but now I do understand that it functions as a kind of host and archive for many social groups and networks. Once my group settles on a topic for our project, it will be interesting to see how this site functions from an inside context.

Thoughts on SNS

The first impression from this page was the pretty stale and uninteresting due to the dull presentation combined with a long page. At least they included a navigation...bar? list? I'm not quite sure what to call that thing there. But putting that aside, some parts of this article were interesting to read, namely the histories of various social networking sites (SNSs), and some of the descriptions of how they worked and what their intentions were. Although I guess that's really just my opinion as someone who didn't know where the Hell SNSs came from (they seemed to just pop up out of nowhere in 2004/2005).

As far as the content goes, I thought it was a decent crash course in the motives and functions of SNSs, but not much else occurred in the article. Judging by the abstract and the title (SNSs: definition, history, scholarship), though, a crash course may have been the desired result.

Considering the article from a rhetorical standpoint, I don't think the author did all too great a job of imparting ideas and using effective language. Most of the time I found myself bored and skipping over sentences or even paragraphs at a time if a quick skim didn't pique any interest. The language was pretty dry and uninspiring, and used (what I feel was) too many technical terms that weren't really called for, nor explained either before or afterwards. As an audience member for this article, I can't say that I feel I took much from it. The areas that shone through as interesting and enlightening were those that were written casually and naturally, seemingly without conscious effort to be eduational. Perhaps the author should have taken that approach toward the article as a whole (though of course, the intrinsic nature of the article is to educate, forcing language to reflect that purpose is counteractive).

Issues & Causes

1. wrongful convictions
2. keep arts in public schools
3. animal abandonment
4. puppy mills
5. stem cell research

Final Revisions for Web Redesign

I was looking forward to the peer review on Wednesday to see what the feedback would be for our site redesign since I was pretty pleased with it, considering what we had to work with. We must've done pretty well, because there weren't any significant changes suggested for our final revisions. Aside from a site map rewrite, mostly what got noted was small issues like font inconsistency and color, keeping the visual themes related and appropriate, those sorts of things.

So, once the peer review was over, there weren't actually that many responsibilities to divvy up amoung our group. Kelly is taking care of rewriting the (old) site map (the new one [for our site] is fine), Steve has handling the proposal memo and font-type consistency, Rachel is making sure that the Scandinavian Sun logo is on every page for a repetition appeal and consistency, and I am checking font colors and aesthetic agreements. It doesn't really feel like that much to do, but luckily that's because we did well enough before the peer review that there wasn't anything very objectionable, so I guess we should feel pretty good about that. Hopefully everything is all wrapped up and looking good for Monday so that the only thing left is to hand it in with a postwrite. This time around I'll try to keep it shorter. And then it will be onto project 4!

Site Redesign Progress

Although it's been a bit difficult to get in contact with other members of my group outside of class, I think we've all figured out who will be taking care of what as far as the last few aspects of the project before final revisions and submission. I was working a bit on what I hope is the correct way of highlighting a website template. I'm not positive about what exactly that entails, whether it's on the site itself or if it can be demonstrated seperately, but I guess I'll find out for sure when I talk to my groupmates again and can revise or add to what I've done already.

That aside, I'm looking forward to the peer review--I'm curious to see what other people think about our revised site; I'm quite satisfied with how it's come along so far. Hopefully there aren't any outstanding oversights in our redesign and we don't get any significant complaints about what we've done, although I don't think the responses will be very negative. I also don't have basis for comparison to other groups in the class, though, so I guess I can't say for sure. Once we get our feedback on the site, I hope we can all pin down exactly what each person should get done for Monday, that way we can wrap up this project as easily and effectively as possible. This is another project that I think I might feel quite proud of once we're through with it, but that does depend on what I can get done before the due date and how well I can do it. Here's hoping it all ends well!

Project 3 (Site Analysis)

So far in this project, we've had to pick a site that was in serious need of rhetorical and format reworking (which we did--Scandinavian Sun), and create a new site that essentially serves the same purpose, but is more effective in both rhetorical and formatting aspects. We also created site maps to better understand the connections of a website's pages to each other and to the main site itself. Before starting on the project itself, we also had to do a site analysis to pick out what the chosen site did well and needed to work on, so that we would know what to do in our reworked version of the site.

My group is using Google Sites to create a new website template for Scandinavian Sun, and although I am not great at site design (at least not with my current experience), I've contributed to information to multiple pages on our version of the site. Despite my contributions and my in-depth site analysis before starting on actually reworking the site, I still have a feeling that I could be doing more to help the group. Since starting the site, I have gotten a better grasp of editing, both textually and in design, so I hope to quell that feeling by the time our project is completed. I am pleased, however, that the two pages that we will be submitting for grading at the end of the project are most likely going to be pages that I have worked on and contributed to.