The reason for this title comes from my lapse of reason. I once again decided to leave this project to the last minute. Although this seems to be my MO which has worked seamlessly for the last few years, it does get me into trouble every now and then. It is okay to leave one project to the last second but it is not okay to leave three projects to the last second. This was a lesson I learned. I left this project to its final seconds and boy did I cut it close.
This all started during the peer review process. When we opened our laptops for the peer review, it came to my attention that I was the only one who posted blogs on the site. Although we hadn't decided how many each member would post, I had nothing to do one night and decided to do a couple of posts. I became nervous that the group we were paired with would tear apart our site, revealing the true lack of work put into it. To my very pleasant surprise, the group had barely done any work themselves. Coincidentally, my group had aspects that the other group lacked and vice versa. This peer review process turned into a brain storming session. Of course this group held the other popular topic in class, the Party Bus. We brained stormed away and came off with a few good ideas. We added them to our pages and then went our separate ways with the promise of a peer review in the very near future.
My group then started sorting out the work. We agreed each member should complete 6 posts. Others decided to add events, pictures and videos.
I added a couple videos and once again put the project on the back burner. In leaving it to the last second, two of my other classes interfered. I had left a grand total of three big projects due to the last milliseconds. I had two papers, one which required me to analyze a very good yet confusing film Memento and one about the Dos Equis commercial. I worked away Memento and moved onto Dos Equis. I was distracted for a couple hours by the unplanned stop of a friend but I continued onwards shortly after their departure. With Dos Equis completed, I slayed blog post after blog post until I was champion. My happiness was short lived when I looked at my site and realized that only a couple people had done their work. I then went on to finish my process blog. We now converge with the present and I am currently hoping my group will get their work in. I have no reason to doubt that they won't but what can I say I'm a worrier. So lets hope that all the work gets done but at least mine is in so I've done all I can. Goodnight and goodluck.
Monday, December 6, 2010
Hunkering Down
So it was time to start doing some actual work. My group got off to a bit of a slow start, almost missing the first deadline. The first deadline was to come up with 12 sources in an annotated bibliography. This was not a hard task which made it a very easy task to procrastinate. I procrastinated right up until the the deadline, finishing it at around midnight. To my unfortunate surprise, the task I had procrastinated so much that I almost had forgot about its existence, I was the first to post the bibliography onto Sakai. This did not anger me at all but I was a little worried that this would become a common theme right up until the final due date. I was happy to wake up and see that two others had posted and I realized we were going to be okay.
When I got to class that day, my group laughed at the fact that most of us forget about the assignment. That since has been corrected. With most of the sources inline and the group in place, it was finally time to make our page. We found a very good background of green smoke and we picked a generic title "Legalization of Marijuana in Rhode Island." Very much short and to the point.
The next task was to assign work for the project. We decided on a few important points we wanted to cover. Medical Marijuana, Hemp, Prohibition and a few others which currently slip the mind. My assignment was hemp. Due to the fact that I wrote a paper earlier this semester on the Legalization of Cannabis sativa, I was not worried about the up and coming work load. I put this project on the back burner for a little bit and my groups discussions mainly turned into real life adaptations of our project.
The next due date will be the peer review. I am not exactly sure what needs to be done for it but I am sure I have it written down somewhere. I'll take a gander.
When I got to class that day, my group laughed at the fact that most of us forget about the assignment. That since has been corrected. With most of the sources inline and the group in place, it was finally time to make our page. We found a very good background of green smoke and we picked a generic title "Legalization of Marijuana in Rhode Island." Very much short and to the point.
The next task was to assign work for the project. We decided on a few important points we wanted to cover. Medical Marijuana, Hemp, Prohibition and a few others which currently slip the mind. My assignment was hemp. Due to the fact that I wrote a paper earlier this semester on the Legalization of Cannabis sativa, I was not worried about the up and coming work load. I put this project on the back burner for a little bit and my groups discussions mainly turned into real life adaptations of our project.
The next due date will be the peer review. I am not exactly sure what needs to be done for it but I am sure I have it written down somewhere. I'll take a gander.
Project 4: The Wonderful World of Weed
If the title didn't tell you enough, the next project in our class I did was about Marijuana. The aim of this project was to create a social networking site for an issue in Rhode Island that we cared about. The site we will be using is called SocialGo.net. Although I have not been there yet, my professor assures me that it is easy to use. I can only hope that he is right. The first thing we had to do for this project was to come up with a list of 5 social issues we cared about in Rhode Island. The first thing that came to mind was music. I wanted to come up with a social issue sensitive to Rhode Island that had to do with music. Music pretty much runs my life so I figured this would be a good and easy choice. Unfortunately, as I looked for social issues having to do with music I was left empty handed. In the shadow of defeat, I still trucked on. Next I found issues having to do with recycling, global warming etc. the obvious choices. I then found the perfect idea. I was going to do my project on orange stickers in Narragansett. If you don't know what this is then I will tell you.
Every year, the police in Narragansett ride around town on the weekends in search of parties. They either wait for a noise complaint call or they ride around until they see what looks like a party. Once one of these happens, they walk into the party and break it up. Normal police procedure?? I think not! The police will sometimes then break out their patented orange sticker destroying the tenants lease and giving them extremely large fines. Most lose their security deposits and the sticker is placed on a visible part of the front door for all to see. This house is now targeted by police and they will check it more often and if another violation occurs on the property, more fines follow. It's a terrible discriminatory policy that needs to be changed.
Now you know how I feel about this and I strongly believed that this would be a good choice for me. As I went into school with the hope of my idea would be picked for one of the groups, I saw a much more attractive option. The prohibition of marijuana is an extremely important subject. I have been very interested in these policies since high school. I have very much about this to say but I will keep it short. There is no good reason that marijuana should be illegal.
Another group ended up picking my orange sticker idea and I began the task of working in a very "marijuana-like group." I don't mean this in any derogatory sense but when I say "marijuana-like group" that includes myself and I mean that we are shall we say slow workers.
Every year, the police in Narragansett ride around town on the weekends in search of parties. They either wait for a noise complaint call or they ride around until they see what looks like a party. Once one of these happens, they walk into the party and break it up. Normal police procedure?? I think not! The police will sometimes then break out their patented orange sticker destroying the tenants lease and giving them extremely large fines. Most lose their security deposits and the sticker is placed on a visible part of the front door for all to see. This house is now targeted by police and they will check it more often and if another violation occurs on the property, more fines follow. It's a terrible discriminatory policy that needs to be changed.
Now you know how I feel about this and I strongly believed that this would be a good choice for me. As I went into school with the hope of my idea would be picked for one of the groups, I saw a much more attractive option. The prohibition of marijuana is an extremely important subject. I have been very interested in these policies since high school. I have very much about this to say but I will keep it short. There is no good reason that marijuana should be illegal.
Another group ended up picking my orange sticker idea and I began the task of working in a very "marijuana-like group." I don't mean this in any derogatory sense but when I say "marijuana-like group" that includes myself and I mean that we are shall we say slow workers.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
After the Ending
I have always wanted to use a clever title like that because it is the last song on one of my favorite albums, The Empyrean by John Frusciante. I wrote about this album in my other blog, The Blue Oyster Blog, but I decided to use the opening song title for that posts title, Before the Beginning. So anyways about Project 3.
We successfully got through our peer review but I didn't get to see the work sheet for it. I did talk to the group who peer reviewed us and they seemed to like our redesigned website for the most part. This pleased me at the time because I thought there was nothing else to do other than a post write. With this weight lifted off my shoulders, Professor MacKnight wrote on the board that we had to make maps for the sites. Now I had no idea what a map was so I just assumed that meant he needed the old and new website, simple enough. Unfortunately through further questioning, my group and I discovered that these maps were something entirely different. We found that we had to map out each link on the new and old websites. This map had to be visual in PowerPoint using boxes and lines. I thought this would be easy enough so I volunteered to do the new site.
I put this off until today, the day before the project was due, and I was extremely surprised at how much work this map entailed. I first had a fun time dealing with my computer attempting to download the example of the map. After this was completed I looked at it and I figured out what I had to do. I went to our website and quickly made the map in my notebook. I took this sketch to power point and then the fun began. At first I couldn't figure out how to make the boxes. When I figured this out, I couldn't make a text box. When I did make a text box it wouldn't let me write in it. After banging my head on my desk for a few minutes, I figured out how to put he text boxes into the other boxes and labeled them. I put all of the links in two nice and neat columns and put the external links in the middle. I then began making arrows from each box to each other and this slow and arduous process turned out to look horrendous. When I say horrendous I mean HORRENDOUS. The lines were going every which way, covering the entire screen. I wasn't even half way done at this point. As I continued to put line after line down, I had lost count and I'm sure I doubled and tripled up on at least three of the boxes. When my 2 and a half hour affair ended, there was a short guitar break in between, I uploaded it to Sakai and told my group. I began my post write and I received the dreaded message which pretty much told me to go back and do it again in very cordial words. As I began to pull hair out of my head, my friend Andrew walked in the door. He pretty much lives at our house so in turn he owes up many favors. I cashed in one of those favors and my new map was created much neater. I was very happy about this and gave him a very heterosexual hug. I uploaded it to Sakai and washed my hands of ever making a website map again.
In other news, however, our site looks awesome. It has all the aspects it needs and it looks very good. I expect to receive a spectacular grade on it, as I expect this from anything I touch my hand to that gets graded.
We successfully got through our peer review but I didn't get to see the work sheet for it. I did talk to the group who peer reviewed us and they seemed to like our redesigned website for the most part. This pleased me at the time because I thought there was nothing else to do other than a post write. With this weight lifted off my shoulders, Professor MacKnight wrote on the board that we had to make maps for the sites. Now I had no idea what a map was so I just assumed that meant he needed the old and new website, simple enough. Unfortunately through further questioning, my group and I discovered that these maps were something entirely different. We found that we had to map out each link on the new and old websites. This map had to be visual in PowerPoint using boxes and lines. I thought this would be easy enough so I volunteered to do the new site.
I put this off until today, the day before the project was due, and I was extremely surprised at how much work this map entailed. I first had a fun time dealing with my computer attempting to download the example of the map. After this was completed I looked at it and I figured out what I had to do. I went to our website and quickly made the map in my notebook. I took this sketch to power point and then the fun began. At first I couldn't figure out how to make the boxes. When I figured this out, I couldn't make a text box. When I did make a text box it wouldn't let me write in it. After banging my head on my desk for a few minutes, I figured out how to put he text boxes into the other boxes and labeled them. I put all of the links in two nice and neat columns and put the external links in the middle. I then began making arrows from each box to each other and this slow and arduous process turned out to look horrendous. When I say horrendous I mean HORRENDOUS. The lines were going every which way, covering the entire screen. I wasn't even half way done at this point. As I continued to put line after line down, I had lost count and I'm sure I doubled and tripled up on at least three of the boxes. When my 2 and a half hour affair ended, there was a short guitar break in between, I uploaded it to Sakai and told my group. I began my post write and I received the dreaded message which pretty much told me to go back and do it again in very cordial words. As I began to pull hair out of my head, my friend Andrew walked in the door. He pretty much lives at our house so in turn he owes up many favors. I cashed in one of those favors and my new map was created much neater. I was very happy about this and gave him a very heterosexual hug. I uploaded it to Sakai and washed my hands of ever making a website map again.
In other news, however, our site looks awesome. It has all the aspects it needs and it looks very good. I expect to receive a spectacular grade on it, as I expect this from anything I touch my hand to that gets graded.
In the Midsts of the Project
So let me update you: We picked our website. It was not the one I had originally thought because apparently someone in my group posted the wrong URL. Our new site is the New England Flag Football Association (NEFFA) and let me tell you this site is in pretty rough shape. Most of the links are dead and the site design was probably done by someone aged 5 and under. Some of the pages have so many links that I swear I ended up in Narnia at one point, true story. Our site also fits my criteria of having just enough information that we can copy and paste it to our new site.
We also chose to use Google sites. I was not happy at first with this choice but after playing with it I realized that it was extremely easy use. My group decided that we would all go home and create a site and then next class we would see which one looked the best and combine the best parts to make the Megazord of sites. For those of you who don't know Megazord was the dinosaur that the original Power Rangers made with all of their vehicles. Think of all our own sites as Jason's Tyrannosaurus, Billy's Triceratops, Trina's Saber-tooth Tiger and Zach's Mammoth and we put them together to make Megazord or the NEFFA website. If that doesn't spell it out for you than I suggest you stop reading, look up the original Power Rangers and watch an episode, that should clear things up for you. Anyway, we did this and we chose a football template. I then made a better looking black and grey color scheme which was a hit with the group. I then created a new email and web site that we all had access to.
I copied a header from the original site and put that at the top of our site. With them template in place, the site was ready for a revamping. So far everyone has done there part and the site looks very good. There are pictures from the original site all over it as well as a photo gallery. My part of the project was to make the free agent, rules and regulations and the archive sections. The archive section was the most difficult to do because I had to figure out how to link pages to it. I had originally just linked the three aspects of it, Players of the Week, MVP's, and Hall of Fame, to the original page and then I figured out how to create new pages in our website. I then linked them to new pages and the links work seamlessly.
I am very proud of my own work on this so far because I am not usually the person to turn to with computer issues but I figured out how to use Google sites fairly well. We have our peer review tomorrow so hopefully that will go off without a hitch and we won't have to change too much on our site.
We also chose to use Google sites. I was not happy at first with this choice but after playing with it I realized that it was extremely easy use. My group decided that we would all go home and create a site and then next class we would see which one looked the best and combine the best parts to make the Megazord of sites. For those of you who don't know Megazord was the dinosaur that the original Power Rangers made with all of their vehicles. Think of all our own sites as Jason's Tyrannosaurus, Billy's Triceratops, Trina's Saber-tooth Tiger and Zach's Mammoth and we put them together to make Megazord or the NEFFA website. If that doesn't spell it out for you than I suggest you stop reading, look up the original Power Rangers and watch an episode, that should clear things up for you. Anyway, we did this and we chose a football template. I then made a better looking black and grey color scheme which was a hit with the group. I then created a new email and web site that we all had access to.
I copied a header from the original site and put that at the top of our site. With them template in place, the site was ready for a revamping. So far everyone has done there part and the site looks very good. There are pictures from the original site all over it as well as a photo gallery. My part of the project was to make the free agent, rules and regulations and the archive sections. The archive section was the most difficult to do because I had to figure out how to link pages to it. I had originally just linked the three aspects of it, Players of the Week, MVP's, and Hall of Fame, to the original page and then I figured out how to create new pages in our website. I then linked them to new pages and the links work seamlessly.
I am very proud of my own work on this so far because I am not usually the person to turn to with computer issues but I figured out how to use Google sites fairly well. We have our peer review tomorrow so hopefully that will go off without a hitch and we won't have to change too much on our site.
Project 3: Entering Cyber Space
Okay so my title may make you believe that I'm actually going into cyber space on some sort of Tron journey but I am not. This just seemed like a good title because I can hear my roommates watching TV and making fun of the new Tron movie coming out. I personally think that there should be a project where we go into cyber space and have epic battles but I don't think our technology is quite there yet.
Project 3 for class does not seem to be too difficult. We have to first find a website that is in rough shape. This means that it has to have links that go nowhere, look terrible etc. Basically the website has to be so bad that we can redesign it to be in full working order. To do this we can either make a power point or use Google site's to create a new web site. I don't know which I would rather do as both of them look fairly easy. Personally, I'm leaning more toward using PowerPoint because it is something I am familiar with. I have never used Google site's nor have I ever created a webpage so I don't want to have to learn how to write in HTML code or anything like that. If Google sites are as confusing as I presume, then I have no interest in using it for a project.
This is a group project, and I generally work well in a group so I hope that this will be no sweat. I have been put into a group with three people that I don't really know in class but I have no doubt that we will be successful. I think the group will help me procrastinate less due to the fact that I am a notorious procrastinator. If procrastinating was in the wild west during the 1800's and the towns people treated procrastinators like outlaws, I would truly be Jesse James or Jesse the Kid. Generally, I don't like to let people down so I think that my procrastination will sit out during this project.
I haven't really looked in depth into a website to do but a couple people in my group seem to have found one they think is terrible enough to redesign. I looked into this nomination and it seems to fit all the criteria. I also think it's funny because this site is for a URI sports team and I would have guessed that our university paid people to work on websites. Apparently not, or they are just doing a terrible job of it.
I typed in on Google "the worst websites" and I got a few I found to be hilarious but they were so bad that I didn't want to have to take the time to make up information and put it on the site. My ideal site would be in tough shape but have enough information on it that we could just copy and paste most of it. This will mean much less work for everyone, something that I would enjoy as we are in full swing midterm hell week right now.
Project 3 for class does not seem to be too difficult. We have to first find a website that is in rough shape. This means that it has to have links that go nowhere, look terrible etc. Basically the website has to be so bad that we can redesign it to be in full working order. To do this we can either make a power point or use Google site's to create a new web site. I don't know which I would rather do as both of them look fairly easy. Personally, I'm leaning more toward using PowerPoint because it is something I am familiar with. I have never used Google site's nor have I ever created a webpage so I don't want to have to learn how to write in HTML code or anything like that. If Google sites are as confusing as I presume, then I have no interest in using it for a project.
This is a group project, and I generally work well in a group so I hope that this will be no sweat. I have been put into a group with three people that I don't really know in class but I have no doubt that we will be successful. I think the group will help me procrastinate less due to the fact that I am a notorious procrastinator. If procrastinating was in the wild west during the 1800's and the towns people treated procrastinators like outlaws, I would truly be Jesse James or Jesse the Kid. Generally, I don't like to let people down so I think that my procrastination will sit out during this project.
I haven't really looked in depth into a website to do but a couple people in my group seem to have found one they think is terrible enough to redesign. I looked into this nomination and it seems to fit all the criteria. I also think it's funny because this site is for a URI sports team and I would have guessed that our university paid people to work on websites. Apparently not, or they are just doing a terrible job of it.
I typed in on Google "the worst websites" and I got a few I found to be hilarious but they were so bad that I didn't want to have to take the time to make up information and put it on the site. My ideal site would be in tough shape but have enough information on it that we could just copy and paste most of it. This will mean much less work for everyone, something that I would enjoy as we are in full swing midterm hell week right now.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
3am
I have now officially retired from WikiTravel. I tried to go to sleep but WikiTravel loomed over head. I have just finished and I am still only a little bit happier with my work. I don't want to blame WikiTravel alone for my inability sleep due to the intense rain that is amplified by my house. It really does sound awful outside right now and I hope that it will stop before I get to school. I am also afraid that I may have left my sunroof vented and that rain is pouring into my car but I digress.
Looking through my page I saw still a fair amount of mistakes. Although I had thought that I had fixed the Buy section, all the words were jumbled together. I can't begin to think how this happened but I put it on the back of my mind and entered the edit tab.
I was forced to read very carefully through this section and pick out what stores were what. As I did this, I realized that I was still missing some addresses and phone numbers. I looked up each and every one that was missing this and wrote it on the page. This mistake was in more than one place and I realized that it was a good thing that I had woken up and decided to keep trekking on my page.
As one problem was fixed I realized another needed attention. I discovered that some of my sentences I had changed were still very opinionated and this led me to realize that I had never actually posted the page. In my state of pure exhaustion, I had hit preview instead of save page. I closed my computer after this and lost the file. Fortunately, my father has instilled the value of save early and often whenever using a computer. This code ingrained in my DNA was a life-saver and I will be sure to thank my Dad tomorrow. I had saved my page on a Word document in a couple of different files so I was set. All I had to do was re-paste it and do the work I had done a little while ago again. This at first seemed like a daunting task but proved to be simple as I had become much more familiar with WikiTravel. I am now completely done with my work and I can finally get some sleep. Goodnight!
I should also note that although the post says 3am, I was not up until 3am. This is simply the name of the song I was listening to by OAR while doing this post. The actual time is 2:06 according to my watch.
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