samanthajc

Today in class, we were required to read an article that describes how to strategically place your sections in a webpage in the right places.  There are places called HOTSPOTS, which are places where people most frequently look seeing how they normally read from left to right, and top to bottom. 

 This is what the website showed as the general hotspots.  It is hard to read the writing in the picture, but the hotspots are the blocks in red.

In the case of online communications, our two hot spots are the left and right columns, going from order of importance from top to bottom.  We were required to rearrange our sidebars to coincide with these hot spots. 

I honestly feel like my website was great how it was because I had already strategically placed everything where I thought it should go based on importance and my own reasons.

The only thing that was not as important, but placed at the top of one of the hot spots was the calendar.  I put it at the top of the right sidebar because I like having the calendar there close to the archives, JUST IN CASE SOME ONE DOES NOT KNOW WHAT DAY IT IS!  I also like where it is because of how it looks.  I am a bit of a perfectionist and I like things to look a certain way, and I really like the calendar there.

I like how my website already is, and if anyone has any objections, let me know! And Mr. Stengel if you choose to disagree with me, you can take points off of my whatever grade it is you give for that because I would be disagreeing with you.  This is just to let you know how I feel because I understand the concepts of the hotspots but that is how I choose to do it.

This past week we learned how to put a web 2.0 application into a text widget.  This is just fancy talk for, we learned how to add an animation to our blogs!  The animation is called a voki, and they are characters you personally create to simply welcome you to your website.  It was a nice, fun little break from doing actual work on our blogs.

We recently had to read a few articles about how the internet is potentially harmful to teens or others in general.  I found most of it a bunch of crud, because I do not think the internet has that much negative effect on people.  It is the people that are acting negatively, using the internet incorrectly as a means to satisfy whatever terrible ideas they have in mind.

Also, GOOD NEWS! The class has finally started working on our big project, creating a website for the school that people can actually use!  The website I am creating is a school store for the athletic department, which I have decided to name THE LION’S DEN, seeing how our mascot for Foran is a lion and all! Buttttttttt we haven’t gotten too far, so ill update my blog as I progress with the new website.

After reading the article about the 16-year-old girl who was beaten by 6 teenage girls while they videotaped it,  I was disgusted.  Any person that will go that low to do something like that, has something wrong with them and should be put away.  I feel these girls are sick in the head and I feel terrible for the girl who was beaten up.  Its sad what levels people will go to today to have some fun or to simply get a video on youtube.

“The brutality of the case has drawn national attention and raises serious questions about the lure for notoriety the internet affords. Mental health experts say teen violence has proliferated as kids look to flaunt their deeds on a worldwide stage.”

I tend to disagree with this statement because I feel the internet is a wonderful thing, and stupid kids like these girls should not ruin it for everyone else.  There are dumb people in this world, and not everyone does the right thing, but there is a majority of good people that will use the internet wisely and put it to good use.  I think these girls should get punished but it should not effect any security with the internet. 

Our society should teach kids morals while they are growing up so that girls like the ones in the article do not do something so heinous.  There is not anything wrong with the internet, there is something wrong with the people.

DON’T BLAME THE INTERNET- BLAME THE PEOPLE!

Here is the article if you would like to read it and share your thoughts!

In the article, Benefits of Online Interaction For Teens Outweigh Danger, Professor Brendesha Tynes explains that the internet is an “opportunity to learn or gain a new perspective.”

I agree with the view of this article because clearly there are some dangers on the internet, but the majority of online is beneficial and a very useful tool.  There is danger for unknowladgeable people, and to solve the problem simply teach your kids to be careful and smart when online.  It is simple because there is only danger if you run into it yourself, or simply, STUPIDITY.  I have been a frequent user of the internet for about 13 years, starting when I was about 5 or 6 years old, and I have yet to run into danger.

If you are interested in reading this article and sharing your views on it, click the link and post a comment!

Kurt, Dean, and I completed our photostory tutorial.  I would like to say that it was actually pretty interesting how we created it using the encoder program. 

I am glad to have learned this new way of making presentations on the computer, and for the most part I think our tutorial came out alright.  We could have done better, but it is still good.

(04/04/08)

This week was a short week because we had Monday off of school, which was great because I cannot stand my school.  In Online Communications, we have been discussing more about our tutorials and how to make a good one. 

We have learned the basic steps of using the Microsoft Encoder.  This nifty program has the ability to memorize every movement you make with your mouse.  This is useful when you want to show some one how to do something and have them watch your every step.  In my case, this is great tool to create a straightforward, well made tutorial.

I had also learned that this tutorial is due soon, which scares me a little bit.  Out tutorial is not quite finished yet, and I am a little nervous that we will not have enough time in school, and it will be difficult to split up the work between the group for outside of school.  Hopefully my group and I will pick up the pace a bit and get ourselves back on track to finish our Photostory tutorial.  So…GOOD LUCK TO MY GROUP!

Manon is the lovely girl that sits next me in this class.  She is a big help with my blog when I have any questions, and I really appreciate her help.  Not only that, but shes fun to talk too!!!!!!!!! If you would like to also, just click Manon!

(04/01/08) HAPPY APRIL FOOLS! 

This past week we started our tutorial webpages.  To start, we were put into four groups, mine is group number three and it consists of Kurt, Dean, and I.  We decided that we are going to create a tutorial for Photostory so that Joseph A. Foran High School students have another option for creating projects besides Powerpoint and Windows Movie Maker.  Photostory is an easy way to create videos or stories that one can record on the computer.  We started by adding helpful sites, like google, and then started the actual writing of the tutorial.  We did not get that far, but thats what this whole next week is for.