Reflecting Back while Looking Forward
As a writer, I tend to see things differently than most people. I see in detail, sometimes extreme detail. I don’t just see the morning sun. I see golden rays of sunshine enveloping, warming everything it touches. I see tranquility and the opportunity to sit still and just be. I see rebirth and the chance to start over. With renewed freshness, I can see the morning dew slowly bathe a flower’s pink petal. I have been this way all my life, but it’s only recently that I can fully understand and appreciate why I see things in such detail. It’s because I believe, in my truest form, I am a writer at heart, and therefore, I think like a writer.
As I reflect back on this Research, Writing, and Technology class, I can say with complete honesty that my writing skills have been greatly enhanced through our in-depth writing assignments, our professor’s nudging to take risks, and learning how to write with new technology. This class afforded me the opportunity to utilize my writing skills as my art form vehicle, while using innovative technology as my tool to help showcase my writings more effectively.
During our first night in class, Professor Mangini explained we would be creating our own website as a way to showcase our final assignments, and to create weekly Blogs for reading reflections and assignment ideas. I was interested yet skittish at the same time. I’m not one for change, and this class and the professor’s ideas had the word CHANGE written all over it. However, I have found out the hard way, that once I accept and embrace change, I tend to be just fine, sometimes flourishing in fact. We would be using a user friendly site called Weebly. I left class that night feeling a bit curious at the prospect of using another form of technology to give my writing life.
Overall, I am very pleased with the way my Weebly turned out. I feel it effectively reflects my personality as a person and as a writer. The format is very simple and understated. I tend to enjoy clean lines with complementing color schemes. I don’t enjoy harshness unless it’s there for a reason. I kept my website professional looking because I may use it again at some point in the future. I did have some issues with the website. At times, there were some font, spacing, and posting issues, but nothing so bad I couldn’t accept or recover from. I believe using a website was the perfect genre for this technological class. It makes perfect sense to use technology as another way to express our writing. Through my Weebly, I was able to create multimodal writings. I never would have thought to write in multiple ways for an assignment. I’m glad my eyes have been opened. In fact, I recently used my Weebly website as one of five forms of genre in another writing class, “The Writer’s Mind." We had to take a researchable topic and present it in multimodal fashion. My topic was Reading in general, my love for it, and how it promotes literacy. My thoughts quickly turned to my Weebly. I was proud of mine, so I decided to use the website as one of my multimodal forms. I created a tab called “Mixed Bag” in my Table of Contents, and placed my multimodal assignment on its own page.
As you read further, my reflections for my Twitterive, my Oral History, and my Collaborative Research Project can be seen. Each writing piece is different in its own right. The Twitterive and Oral History assignments have more of a creative flair to them, while my Collaborative Research Project is more of a traditional academic paper, sprinkled with non-traditional genres. I am extremely proud of my work. I have completely dedicated myself to these projects. I dug deep and opened myself up; exposing a rawness inside of myself I never thought I would allow to see the light of day.
Twitterive:
Oral History:
Collaborative Research Project:
As I reflect back on this Research, Writing, and Technology class, I can say with complete honesty that my writing skills have been greatly enhanced through our in-depth writing assignments, our professor’s nudging to take risks, and learning how to write with new technology. This class afforded me the opportunity to utilize my writing skills as my art form vehicle, while using innovative technology as my tool to help showcase my writings more effectively.
During our first night in class, Professor Mangini explained we would be creating our own website as a way to showcase our final assignments, and to create weekly Blogs for reading reflections and assignment ideas. I was interested yet skittish at the same time. I’m not one for change, and this class and the professor’s ideas had the word CHANGE written all over it. However, I have found out the hard way, that once I accept and embrace change, I tend to be just fine, sometimes flourishing in fact. We would be using a user friendly site called Weebly. I left class that night feeling a bit curious at the prospect of using another form of technology to give my writing life.
Overall, I am very pleased with the way my Weebly turned out. I feel it effectively reflects my personality as a person and as a writer. The format is very simple and understated. I tend to enjoy clean lines with complementing color schemes. I don’t enjoy harshness unless it’s there for a reason. I kept my website professional looking because I may use it again at some point in the future. I did have some issues with the website. At times, there were some font, spacing, and posting issues, but nothing so bad I couldn’t accept or recover from. I believe using a website was the perfect genre for this technological class. It makes perfect sense to use technology as another way to express our writing. Through my Weebly, I was able to create multimodal writings. I never would have thought to write in multiple ways for an assignment. I’m glad my eyes have been opened. In fact, I recently used my Weebly website as one of five forms of genre in another writing class, “The Writer’s Mind." We had to take a researchable topic and present it in multimodal fashion. My topic was Reading in general, my love for it, and how it promotes literacy. My thoughts quickly turned to my Weebly. I was proud of mine, so I decided to use the website as one of my multimodal forms. I created a tab called “Mixed Bag” in my Table of Contents, and placed my multimodal assignment on its own page.
As you read further, my reflections for my Twitterive, my Oral History, and my Collaborative Research Project can be seen. Each writing piece is different in its own right. The Twitterive and Oral History assignments have more of a creative flair to them, while my Collaborative Research Project is more of a traditional academic paper, sprinkled with non-traditional genres. I am extremely proud of my work. I have completely dedicated myself to these projects. I dug deep and opened myself up; exposing a rawness inside of myself I never thought I would allow to see the light of day.
Twitterive:
Oral History:
Collaborative Research Project:
