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.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
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.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)