13 Things Reflection

I have been meaning to look into a lot of these different online tools, but had convinced myself I didn’t have the time. This was a fun way to explore these “things,” but also convince myself that I wasn’t wasting my time. This experiment has made me feel more confident in my Web 2.0 abilities and has encouraged me to explore other similar tools that are offered online. The internet is really a limitless collection of ideas and ways to interact with others, both personally and professionally.

Going forward, I think I will explore many of these “things” and other related tools on my own personal time, so that I will be better-acquainted with their features and possibilities. Taking the time to learn more about these tools will allow me to transfer these skills to a professional level.

I was somewhat familiar with blogs and Blogger prior to this assignment, but I had never felt the desire to create my own blog, nor did I think I had anything worthwhile to blog about. It’s been very interesting and fun playing around with Blogger. I keep trying to find ways I can make my blog more visually appealing to gain more followers and interest.

It’s amazing how many different things you can do on sites like Blogger and Weebly…and they’re FREE. Free blogs and websites have made it easier than ever to promote yourself, an organization, or company on the web. So many people are convinced they do not have the necessary knowledge to create a blog or website, but if I can set up a blog and a website in less than 15 minutes, then just about anyone can do the same. It seems our technological limitations are placed on us by ourselves, rather than our actual abilities.

Of the other “13 Things,” I was most familiar with Twitter. I set up a Twitter account over a year ago, but soon discovered that many of my friends did not have Twitter accounts yet. I never actually “tweeted” until this semester for this project. Being a huge personal and professional user of Facebook, I was somewhat bitter about Twitter and it’s 140-character limit. It just seemed so much more limiting than Facebook. However, after forcing myself to tweet and follow others, I’ve become much more receptive to Twitter, especially on a professional level. I follow a lot of news and non-profit organizations, and I think Twitter has become one of the most effective tools of information dissemination for these types of businesses and organizations. In fact, Twitter seems more useful on a professional level than Facebook -- assuming your target audience is on Twitter and not just Facebook. I’ve come to appreciate the 140-character limit and view it as a new writing challenge. Longer text is not always better text. After becoming a more avid user of Twitter, the longer Facebook posts have become more of an annoyance.

Thing 12, the Wordle assignment, was my favorite post. I have some interest in typography and would love to learn how do kinetic typography videos like these ones created with audio from the TV series Dexter and the movie Fight Club.

Wordle was a really fun and easy site to work with. I think word clouds can be a useful tool used on blogs and other sites to give readers a sort of summary about the content of your blog. I uploaded my word cloud created for my “14 Months Until ‘I Do’” blog, but ended up removing it since it didn’t coordinate well with my background and had become a distraction from the actual content. I tried to receive a similar effect my inserting a label cloud into one of the side panels of my blog. This gadget takes the labels I have attached to my blog posts and makes the words smaller or larger based on their frequency, or the amount of time I have used that same label.

The word clouds created using text from my blogs was an interesting way to become more aware of the types of words I tend to use over and over again. The biggest, boldest words should somehow reflect the content and theme of my blog. If any common words were large, but not necessary to the content of my blog, I became much more cognizant of how I used such words in my blog posts. I have a tendency to use the words “however” and “basically” more than necessary.

Self discovery was an interesting approach to this assignment. I love due dates. I need that kind of structure in order to effectively organize my priorities. With this being my last semester at Coe, I am overwhelmed with different assignments, meetings, and job interviews. Nearly all of my classes this semester are advanced workshops that allow me to set my own due dates, so it has been more difficult trying to establish a list of priorities this semester. I really miss those hard, set-in-stone deadlines. However, not having clear-cut deadlines made me feel more accountable for this assignment. I had create my own timeline that worked for me and with my other classes. There was an enormous amount of freedom associated with this assignment, and it was somewhat refreshing to not have weekly due dates hanging over my head.

Mashup Reflection

The mashup feature provided through middlespot.com was a unique tool that allowed me to sort of storyboard the content of the Clay Creek website. I think this would be a great tool to use for brainstorming (much like the mindmaps created using bubbl.us). Although this is more creative than simply writing about a topic, my creativity capacity felt very limited with this tool. I'm used to playing around with more advanced editing programs like Photoshop and InDesign, so I was disappointed with the programs limitations. The end result is certainly more visually appealing, but my creative side just isn't satisfied.

I actually think I might be able to get more use out of DataMasher. This program has the ability to create user-friendly, interactive displays for statistical information. Since I am currently working on summarizing results from a survey I distributed for my senior thesis, I'm very data-oriented at the moment. However, there is a major downfall with this site in that the data sets are all determined by individual users and may or may not be backed up with verifiable research.

Mashups

Below is a mashup inspired by one of my Advanced Writing Workshop projects: Clay Creek Foods.

Word Clouds

I really love this tool. Coming from a more creative background, I can see how this can be appealing and used even in a professional setting.  It’s a creative way to provide viewers of a website or blog an idea of what the site has to offer and the types of topics that are discussed. I am thinking about using the word cloud I created for my 14 Months Until I Do blog as the header for the site.

It’s fun to play around with the file Wordle creates for you. You can remove words, change fonts, change colors, and change the layout with a simple click of the mouse. It’s interesting to see how a word cloud can change and evolve after making these simple changes.

I thought all of the word clouds I created are representative of the content they are based on. It’s interesting to see what words are most prominent and how that reflects on the writing. Appropriately, the most prominent words based on an essay I wrote about the Flood of ’08 in the Czech Village were flood, house, cedar, river, home, camera, and felt. The essay details my experience taking photos of homes in the Czech Village area damaged by the Cedar River flood. It’s a personal essay, so it also includes my reactions to and feelings about the devastation and my own photographs.

After the Flood essay

13 Things Blog

Visual Thesaurus

I use the synonym feature of MS Word like it's nobody's business. I rarely come up with that perfect word on the first try, so using this tool is a daily occurrence, it seems. Perhaps we've become too spoiled. I don't even bother opening a web browser to go to thesaurus.com anymore.

Although I am generally satisfied with this feature, it does not always work as well as one would hope. Most of the time I am dissatisfied, it is because the word that I think I want to use is not on the list of synonyms. However, it can also be the case that the synonym you choose doesn't quite have the same meaning or the meaning you intended with the original word. Then it's just obvious that you were using a thesaurus.

The best part about using a thesaurus: expanding your vocabulary. Eventually writing that uses more complex synonyms for common words will translate to your speech and become a part of your daily life.

Because I have been working on revising my resume and cover lately, I have been using this tool to best describe my qualifications to a potential employer. I want to limit my use of conventional, cliche descriptions for personality and skills.

I used Visuwords and Lexipedia and compared their results for the word "achieve" (a common word that came up while I was editing my resume and cover letter).

Visuwords



Lexipedia

The synonyms attain and accomplish both offer the same definition: to gain with effort.

Out of the two visual thesaurus sites, Visuwords is most aesthetic, but I found Lexipedia easier to interpret and understand. The legend used to describe the results on Visuwords is very complex and can be confusing. Lexipedia is a little bit more user-friendly.

For a simple word, I entered "fast" into Visuwords.

This produced some very interesting and surprising results:

Alacritous: quick and eager

Meteoric: like a meteor in speed, brilliance, or transcience

Winged: very fast, as if with wings

In some ways, I am definitely a word nerd. I'm generally not satisfied until I find the perfect word and will keep searching until I find it. It's almost an obsession. I like to expand my vocabulary and discover new ways to express myself. Some words are better than others, you just have to be willing to look for them.

Creative Commons

I seem to be very particular about my work. It’s mine, and I most likely worked very hard to create it.

I have a photography background and would be willing to share some of my more basic photographs, most of which focus on an every day object. If a website administrator wants to use a photo of a plate of cookies on their homepage, I would be flattered. My more artistic and time-consuming works, however would generally not fall into this category. For me, it seems to depend on the amount of time that was put into the project.

With writing, I am much more strict. In the past, I have shredded a lot of the academic papers I have written for past classes so no one else would be able to get a hold of them. I’m very particular about how my writing is distributed, which makes me somewhat hesitant to place a large amount of writing on my e-portfolio. I’m sure there probably wouldn’t be anyone who would want to steal any of it, but I just don’t like the idea that my work is out there, on the world wide web, ready for the taking -- ctrl-c.

I definitely see the benefits of Creative Commons and have used it extensively in the past. I’m just a little more hesitant to give up my own personal copyright.

Google Reader

To tell you the truth, I really didn’t think Google Reader would benefit me. I like that personal touch of visiting individual sites throughout the day. Of course, I rarely get to them all, but I didn’t think I would like them all combined into Google Reader. I actually love this feature. It is beyond convenient and, contrary to what I initially thought, still attractive and organized to the eye. Because I already have a gmail account, all of the blogs I am following on blogger.com were already listed on my Reader. Instead of searching for the sometimes difficult to find RSS logo on my favorite sites, I just entered them into my Google Reader by copying and pasting the link. So easy! Outside of the blogs from this class, I also added a few wedding blogs for inspiration for my own blog, as well as an RSS feed from The Gazette, the Red Cross, and the Tosh.O blog.

Professionally, it would be very beneficial to establish a Google Reader account. It’s a huge time-saver. In the world of PR, marketing, and writing, I’m sure many professionals follow and subscribe to blogs and RSS feeds as it relates to their careers. Instead of visiting a handful of websites every morning when you get to the office, you can simply log-in to your Google account and get it all at one place.