Reflection

The 13 Things blogging assignment turned out to be more than I expected, especially when I figured out all of the different websites we had to explore. Before I started this blog I was not familiar with blogging in general or why people even do it. I felt like blogging was something you did when you had nothing better to do then to spill information, feelings, or ideas out on the internet for almost anyone to view. I have now come to the realization that it does consist of things but it is also a way for people to gain other people's ideas, knowledge, or criticism. When used professionally one can get answers to a question, feedback on a piece, or ideas that they may never have thought of. When I started to look at blogging in that sense I became interested and intrigued to keep up on my posts and other sites I have registered under.

The sites that we got to explore while creating this blog are all new to me. I have heard of some of them before but never took the time to get involved with any of them. The biggest that I was familiar with was Twitter but saw the site as another way for people in the world to creep on you. When I found out that some of my wakeboarding idols all tweet about once a week, I became very interested and decided to follow them. Come to find out now I have one of the wakeboarding brands following me on Twitter, which is rather amazing if you ask me even if they are following 2,500 other people. The site that I found to be a lot of fun was the word clouds site. This was simple and fun to me because it deals kind of with a graphic design (typography) format. It was nice that all you had to do was copy and paste, or paste the URl to the website, and the site would give you all sorts of different cloud designs to choose from. The word cloud of my blog gave me insight on words that relate to who I am. The words that were the biggest described me the best and the words that were small were just everyday used words. This was my favorite post because of the graphic design aspect but also because of the story that I wrote about Doreen Meiers and her husband. The word cloud that was created from this story was rather touching due to the words that ended up being the largest. Everything that meant the most to Doreen in her life were the words that ended up being big and standing out which made it an amazing and touching post.

This blog made me realize that sometimes it's nice to sit down and just reflect your own opinion about a site, feelings, or ideas. A blog gives you no limitation and allows you to open up and write about whatever it is you want to write about. As far as my day-to-day activities, I feel as if I should take the occasional break to lay my ideas, thoughts, and feelings out to step away from the stressful world and calm down. By laying everything out on a screen you either realize it is that bad or there is an easier solution to a problem. After I leave Coe I will probably continue to blog for those exacts reason that I just listed. I may even create a blog of something that I feel strongly about so that when I get off work I can think creatively and openly about something close to me. This will allow me to take my mind off of the world and put it into something that makes me happy and calm.

Having no due dates in this class forced me to get ready for the real world were there are not always due dates but instead to manage my time efficiently and effectively. This was a difficult transition because I am used to always having due dates in school but it was finally nice to have a reality check of what is to come after college. I always found myself giving my own times and dates of when things needed to be done based on my other work and social events. Some of the material in the class I wish we sometimes had a set date to have it in by because it allows me to manage my work, or prioritize it, based on when it should be done. It also helps me keep track of what I am supposed to be doing instead of remembering it at the last second. Overall, I would have to say that I am pleased with the work we are getting an opportunity to create this semester in this class; I would also have to say that I am happy about creating this 13 Things blog because it opened me up to something new that I probably would never have done if it wasn't for this class.

Visual Thesaurus

I decided to use the Lexipedia website and found that this is a very nice hands-on website that provides the user with different aspects of a word such as it's synonyms, fuzzynyms, antonyms, adjectives, adverbs, verbs, and nouns. I used the following two words to see what kind of results I would get.

accessible: apprehensible-capable of being apprehended or understood.
beneficial-promoting or enhancing well-being.
creative: inferential-based on interpretation
formative- forming or capable of forming or molding or fashioning.

To be completely honest I never use a thesaurus when writing any paper. Using one in the past would have made my life easier because there have been plenty of times when I get stuck on a word, or don't like the word I chose, and couldn't figure out what to use. Instead, I would sit there for 10 minutes trying to come up with something myself when it would have only taken me 2 to find one I liked in a thesaurus.

jump: the results to this word were actually interesting because the site thought of the different forms of how "jump" could be used in a sentence and then formulated the results.
write:I'm having trouble finding the synonyms of this word even though it says there were 11 found..? An antonym to this word is destruct which means to do away with, cause the destruction or undoing of.

I'm not sure what it actually means to be a "word nerd" but if it involves knowing the definitions, antonyms, and synonyms of all sorts of words then I would have to classify myself as not being one. I wish I was though because I feel like it would make life a little easier when writing so much with a PR major.

Creative Commons

Creative commons is a good way for the world to share their material whether it be educational, artistic, scientific, research, etc. I'm not sure if I'm a big fan on people being able to alter or reuse the material especially if it is research that is done or a piece of art that was created. I feel like this would be a good way to see what you may have missed or not thought of but it is also a way for people to take your hard work and use it for themselves. I don't think that there is anything that I would want to put on the creative commons website because I feel like it is personal stuff that I don't care for the entire world to see. A lot of the writing that I have done are either personal or about others in the community which I don't feel is a great idea to post for the world to see. The only thing I might want to ever put on creative commons are the advertisement designs I did for my advertising class. This would be to see what others think of my work or to see what I could have possibly done to make them better.

Word Clouds

This application is a lot of fun to play around with!!! It gives you so many different options and layouts to choose from and it's neat to see which words turn out to be big and which ones turn out to be small. In regards to the paper that I wrote about Doreen Meiers, she was very emotional about the history of her husband and the life they had together. I kept funaling throught the options to find one that made the key qualities in the paper that I felt were important in the paper. The program also did a great job at choosing these key words to have stand out. I feel as if this program would be used more for fun than any professional use. The key words that stood out in the paper of Doreen were Meier, first, Coe, husband, college, England, and war. This was the main topic of the interview paper about her life in America and in England. The key words that stood out in my blog word cloud were professionals, comment, words, share, and a couple of others. I would have to say that this program does a great job at picking out the words to make large and the words to make small. Definitely going to use this again for fun in the future!

RSS Making it Easy

RSS feeds and news readers are helpful in that it is not necessary for users to have to go through the process of typing in the website or blog they are looking to get information from. Instead, the information is processed straight to the users Google account when they sign in. This make the transfer of information easier and more efficient. I am connected to 8 classroom blogs as well as the Gazette and the Hyperlite Wakeboarding website. I am impressed with the amount of information the Gazette provides in the news reader and how accessible it is to just click on the heading and get taken to where you kind find more information. I feel that this would be useful in the professional world because it allows you to save time searching but it also makes it capable of connecting with people/clients. It allows a professional to view material that others may need feedback or criticism on and you can also follow any blogs of your interest. Another great program I will probably continue to use in to the future.

Social Bookmarking: A Okay

Delicious Account: ggsmith3434

I was not aware of how easy Delicious made bookmarking a page. I actually like the way that it give a short descriptive title of what you bookmark so you can remember what is on that page. The shortcut tool also makes bookmarking important/favorite pages easy and efficient. I feel that in my future career I will be able to use this site to help me save pages that I may need to refer back to on occasion. Social bookmarking will also take some stress off of my shoulders when I am trying to sit there thinking back at what the URL was or searching google for the site. By using this tool I can simply bookmark it then know it will always be on my account. I am definitely going to start using this because of that simple reasoning of taking the stress of me trying to find important pages.

Twitter

Just signed up for my twitter account and I'm actually impressed with how this works. I am currently following Travis Pastrana, Phillip Soven, J.D. Webb, Shaun White, and Hyperlite Wake. All of these people are of interest to me because I am into extreme sports such as wakeboarding and snowboarding. Before this blog assignment I was not a big fan of Twitter. I felt like it was a way for people to once again creep on others and what they are doing in their lives. I know feel like it is a way for professionals and others to share what they are doing as well as videos or writings they have done. PR and other professionals can use Twitter as a way to get their material out to the world as well as feedback or comments that could be crucial to their piece. After the term I will probably keep tweeting to follow professional wakeboarders to hear about events or competitions that may be coming up. I think it will be helpful for me to continue tweeting to share ideas and hear of things going on in the world.