Upon entering the classroom on the first day of Writing, Research, and Technology we were asked to fill out a notecard describing whether we were a writer, a teacher, a writer teacher, or a teacher writer. Then we were told to go back at the end of the semester and reevaluate this question. My first instinct to this question was that I was a teacher. Teaching has been my passion since I was a little child, it seemed so natural to answer it that way. As that class period progressed I knew that this class was going to be unlike any other I have taken. I wasn't sure if that was a positive or negative assumption. Throughout the course of the class we were introduced to three main projects: a Twitterive, an Oral History, and a Collaborative Research Project. We were also assigned blog posts and tweets to complete during the week. Within each of the assignments the ideas of writing, research, and technology were required in order to complete them successfully. By completing all of the assignments I believe that my writing skills have improved over the course of the semester. This semester has taught me the benefits of using technology as an alternate means of writing.
Twitterive
Writing: The Twitterive was a hard project for me to complete. Writing wise this project was to be a multi genre project where we would compose micro-fictions, conversations, journal entries, comic strips, etc. to get our narrative across. In order to get to this stage of the project we were required to tweet our everyday observations in order to find our place. Once I went back and looked over my tweets it was apparent that the place that appeared the most was Disney. Now it was coming up with genres to incorporate. Throughout my project you will see micro-fiction pieces, diary entries, dialogue, a recipe card, to-do lists, poems, quotes, and photo essays to compose my narrative. While creating draft one I wasn't sure how to incorporate the multiple genres. Once I completed draft three the genres had exploded and really told the story.
Research: In order to complete this project as a class we were assigned readings to introduce us to the narrative genre. These readings showed us how to compose narratives using multiple modes and genres. After completing the readings we were to begin the overall assignment. Whenever I began to struggle when using Weebly, iMovie, or BeFunky I relied on Google to research the solutions of my frustrations.
Technology:Within the construction of my Twitterive I have become faced using multiple different modes of technology. Some of the modes were a struggle to understand and some were simple to being with then became frustrating. So far in this project I have used Weebly, iMovie, YouTube, BeFunky, and Microsoft Word. The first mode of technology I had to face was learning how to work Weebly, which I am still not fully comfortable with. At first I was completely overwhelmed trying to learn how to create the pages and all of the little details that needed to be added to make the website look professional. I am slowly becoming more comfortable as I continue to work more and more on my Twitterive. The next mode of technology I used was iMovie on my MacBook. I have used this program before and the first time it defiantly went smoother then it did this time. I grew frustrated multiple times in the three hour process that I went through trying to make a six minute movie. At first everything went smooth then I tried to add multiple songs and everything went downhill. Growing frustrated I walked away from the computer screen and then would come back and fix all of the mistakes that I had made. I actually felt as though I almost gave up on the video and just finished it as fast as I could. Youtube was the next mode I used in order to upload the movie I had made into the Twitterive. The one problem that I had with YouTube was the long, drug out downloading process. I think it took about a hour for the video to fully download into YouTube. Besides that the process wasn't completely intolerable. Another mode of technology I used was BeFunky. This is a photo editor that I used to edit a boring photo of the castle in Magic Kingdom. The process of using this program was completely seamless. Everything was easy to access and easy to understand. I will definitely use this program in the future. For the last couple of pieces that I created for my Twitterive were created in Microsoft Word. I took pictures off the internet and used text boxes to incorporate the text that I wanted to include with all of the photos. The only thing that irritated me about this was that I could never line up the words from the photo and the words from the text I created. They always looked slanted. But after playing around with them for a little while they kind of lined up the way I wanted them too. Creating this Twitterive has definitely forced me to face multiple modes of technology I had never used before. It forced me to step out of my comfort zone with the technology in order to create the pieces that I felt would help enhance my project. Overall even though some of them frustrated me I am glad that I used all of the different programs that I did.
Oral History
Writing: Within my group for the Collaborative Research Project the writing took place composing the questions to include within our interview questions. These questions were based off of our research question "Why do people raise and slaughter their own livestock?" Then once the interview was done, I was in charge of creating the Oral History page on our Weebly sites. When composing this site I wrote an introduction to the assignment and contextualized the what, where, when, why, and hows of the interview. This was easy to write as I was the one who was there during the interview process. Finally I had to compose the conclusion piece of this assignment. This piece included the results that were found during the interview along with any follow up questions that we would ask. The writing for this project seemed to be a lot easier for me because it was more of an academic type writing.
Research: Before completing the interview process we had to research some of the benefits of raising your own livestock online in order to create our interview questions. Once the questions were completed, as a group, we had to research possible people to interview. We came up with a total of three people. This was then turned into six participants after further research. My next task was to edit the video clips and upload onto the Weebly. This is where I once again used Google to research my frustrations with YouTube.
Technology:For this project I purchased a Kodak Playsport camcorder to conduct the interviews with. The first interview I ended up redoing due to technical issues with the camera. (I never played with it to get a feeling of it before the interview.) Then we had take those videos and upload them to my MacBook in order to edit them. We couldn't figure out how to drag the clips into the timeline. I couldn't figure out how to edit the video clips. It took multiple Google searches to find a video that showed me how to complete the task. The video then had to be uploaded to YouTube in order to insert it into Weebly. Of course that wasn't an easy task. Apparently YouTube doesn't allow videos over fifteen minutes to be uploaded. So I had to break the videos into two. Then they went into Weebly without any problems.
Collaborative Research Project
Writing:Christie, Ashley, and I completed many different types of writing while completing the Collaborative Research Project. We first had to compose a research question. As a group be decided that our main question was "Why do people raise and slaughter their own livestock?" Then we came up with three additional research questions. One of these questions included "What are the benefits of raising your own livestock?" As mentioned in the above project, we had to come up with questions for each of the interviews that we conducted. It was imperative that each groups of questions be relatable to the person at which was being interviewed. Once the interviews were completed and our findings were completed we broke up with work. I completed the Oral History aspect, Ashley wrote the introduction, conclusion, and possible future research questions, and Christie composed the documentary. As a group we summarized the sources that we had found within the Annotated Bibliography and composed blog updates about how the project was going. This project, like the Oral History, was easier to complete for me because it was an academic piece.
Research: The research all began when watching Food Inc. When we completed watching this documentary the class broke down into groups of two to four members. Each group had to pick a topic that dealt with the food industry. As a group we wanted to do something different then everyone else. Something besides organic food vs. nonorganic food or a topic that dealt with the fast food industry. We chose to research the reasons behind why people raise and slaughter their own livestock. At first it was difficult to find good sources but once we found them they just kept coming. Each source was found using the Google search engine. Once interviews were conducted we researched different topics that dealt with the information that our interviewees had provided. For example, I researched the tax deductions that are available to those who raise their own livestock. Overall this project included a lot of research, which was expected.
Technology: Throughout this assignment many different forms of technology were used to put all of our research together. First we had to relay on Google to conduct all of our research. Then each one of us used different applications and programs to compile all of our information. Personally I used iMovie, YouTube, Google, and Weebly to complete my portion of the assignment. iMovie was used to complete the video for the Oral History aspect of the movie. YouTube was used to upload the interview to the Internet. Google was used to figure out how to edit all of the video clips and to figure out why it wouldn't upload to YouTube. Weebly was the site used to compile the project together. I know that Christie used the same applications and had the same frustrations as I did with the involved technology.
Blogs/Twitter
Writing: I have blogged and used Twitter previously for other classes. Blogging has always been a difficult process for me to complete. I am not sure as to why it is so difficult. Maybe it is because I try hard to impress the reader instead of actually contextualizing the information that I have read. Throughout the semester I blogged only when it was required due to the fact that there were questions that could guide my writing. Twitter, on the other hand, I had used before to contact members of previously classes I have had. Now I have learned to use twitter to compose thoughtful, heavy, tweets. This class has made me a lot more comfortable with Twitter and blogging as a means of expressing my thoughts.
Research: For each required blog most, we were assigned different articles to read in order to compose the posts. As a student I never realized that by actually reading an article you are researching. Most of the time you are trying to find the answers to questions that the professors had assigned or the answers to your own questions. I had to really pay attention when reading the articles in order to comprehend the information to compose the blog post. It is expected that some of the research conducted was harder to comprehend then others but this just meant that you had to continue researching to get a better understanding.
Technology: When composing blog posts and tweets, two main web sites were used to complete these two different types of writing. These websites included Twitter and Weebly. Twitter as a website is very easy to use once you get the hand of it. At first it was hard to compose tweets that were 140 characters or less. I seem to really find a hard time making meaningful tweets within these restraints. As I have used this site I have become a lot more comfortable with the site. The only thing that continues to frustrate me is when the site is "over capacity" and doesn't allow you to log in. Weebly was the website that was used to post our blogs. When I first was introduced with Weebly I was in over my head and had no idea what I was doing. Once I figured it our blogging became a breeze.
After exiting the Writing, Research, Technology class for the last time it was a sad experience. This class ended up being a lot different then I had expected it to be. As a class we had grown into a family. After completing the Multi-Modal Wedding everyone's guard was down and we all became more comfortable around each other. As an individual I have grown from a teacher to a teacher writer. My writing has become stronger due to the assignments that I have completed this semester. Particularly my creative writing process. I have become more confident in my ability to create meaningful pieces that are not academically related. As a writer I have grown but more importantly this class as allowed to me grow more individually. I am truly going to miss going to this class every Tuesday and Thursday at 12:15 PM next semester.