Website Reflection

This website will be used to promote myself by showcasing my work and making my best projects easily viewable.  As someone who wants to go into public relations and advertising, having examples of my writing, lesson plans, and professional use of social media is important to potential clients and/or employers.  Employers who are see this website will get an idea of the kind of student I am as well as the style of my writing. It is also impressive to be able to say to an employer that they can check out your website in an interview.  The biography gives companies and potential employers a taste of the candidate they are looking at. The social media projects completed in this course tie into the website in having them as clickable image icons. The twitter and blog projects in this course were done professionally so that students could use them to promote examples of their work.  These were also baby steps to creating whole websites. Having these social media projects done was necessary so that in the future, there can be examples of professional twitter and blogs by students that were not used for recreational use and do not have anything inappropriate on them. The overall experience of creating a website was challenging. Using coding and creating a website was a whole new ball game.  Coding the wikiHow pages was a struggle so hearing that coding was necessary again for website creation was alarming. Accidentally taking out one character messes up every part of a single page. It was pleasantly surprising that everything turned out fine with patience and questions. The easiest part was picking which works to promote while the most challenging was definitely coding and using photoshop. Once again, using photoshop had not been done before this class so learning the intricacies of it took time.  Repetition made it easier but it still took longer to edit those photos than desired. Learning how important resolution, height, width and image size are was another new experience. Dreamweaver was another new application for me. It is overwhelming as a whole to log onto Dreamweaver because of how intense the coding looks. Also, remembering which tab to work under was a tad bit tricky at times when not being able to see why something is not working. Organizing the content of the website went different for everyone.  Making a website very neat and organized felt aesthetically pleasing while others either could not get theirs like that or changed the sizes of certain projects so they stood out more. The look this website is going for is professional and fun. The beach banner was fun to create because of the intentional blur on the photo and the lesson plan image is very colorful which shows my bright personality. Also, the professional feel of it is extremely important since my facebook, twitter, instagram, etc are all for recreational use.  Sharing these website links on resumes, applications, and in interviews will set us apart in the best way.

First Experience Microblogging on Twitter

Twitter has been used beyond socializing and marketing in the instances of the Boston Marathon explosions, the Egyption social media revolution, events in Paris and the Houston rainfall.  In the case of the Boston Marathon explosions, shortly after the attack, many tweets were sent out that were full of false information proving that twitter may be first to get the news but not always the 100% accurate information.  Egyptians using twitter to organize revolutions actually led to people being physically present at a revolution while tweeting that their head and heart were in other places. These events being organized through social media also led to arrests since the information was public.  After the terrorist attacks in Paris in 2015, more than four million tweets were sent out and the majority of them were in English which shows that twitter connects people from all over the globe. More tweets were sent out in the English language than in French. Celebrities voiced their sympathy for Paris on twitter after these attacks.  These celebrities include, Justin Bieber, Louis Tomlinson, and Niall Horan. In the instance of the mass floods in Houston, people tweeted that they needed help and could not get through to 911. People who tweeted that they were in serious danger received help after their tweets gained popularity and were seen by others who could help. Instead of twitter being used for socializing or marketing people have also used twitter to get the news out there first, organize revolutions, voice their sympathy, and get the help they desperately needed.  Twitter can be used to reach out to people all over the world to gain their political support, share political views, and support one’s favorite politicians. Twitter can also be used an an organizational tool when it comes to keeping in touch with people from all over and reaching out to them for meetings or to let them know the dates of events. Journalistically, twitter can be used to keep a personal journal or journalists can make stories out of celebrity tweets. Over the last twelve months, twitter has been used as a communicator of events.  One event that twitter was successful in spreading was the Jonas Brother’s reunion earlier this year. The Jonas Brothers, who split six years ago, blacked out their twitter icon and announced they were getting back together. The three individual brothers, Kevin, Joe, and Nick, then each changed their personal twitter pictures to ones of the all three of them. Twitter communicated the reunion and was a tool that allowed the entire world to get the news fast. Of course then everyone started retweeting and commenting so the news spread like wildfire which was exactly what the band hoped for.  Another instance where twitter was a successful tool in the past year was when this mom and pop donut shop in Florida opened up but hardly received any business. The shop daughter tweeted about how sad her parents were that their donut place did not bring in much business and so many people retweeted the tweet that the next day, a line was out the door. People pay attention to the tweets out there and some even help when they can. Twitter is constantly used as a wonderful form of communication. Another announcement was made on twitter earlier this week. The popular Disney Channel show, “Even Stevens” is coming out with a reboot called “Even More Stephens”.  This show was announced on twitter by the former stars of the show. Again the nostalgia factor set twitter off with countless retweets and comments. Twitter is a great communication tool because of how easy it is to spread information. For my twitter project, I chose to follow the NCAA March Madness account and UB Men’s Basketball for the two accounts I had interest in because I enjoy college basketball. Every year since I was a kid, I have made a bracket and rooted for my teams to make it to the final four. As I got older, I learned more and more about college basketball and developed a love for certain teams such as UB. My cousins works with UB to market their basketball program so it felt like the perfect fit to follow that twitter account.  My family also loves March Madness and rented out a room at Leo’s in Orchard Park to watch the UB versus Texas Tech game as a large group. I knew following those accounts would be the right ones for me considering I have a lot of knowledge about the topic and my family and I would be following the games closely anyway. For the account that made me uncomfortable, I chose President Donald Trump because I disagree with many of his views and his immature behavior on twitter shocks me. I knew in choosing him, I would at least be interested in the stupidity of his statements. This experience using twitter is a lot different than what I thought blogging to be like. When I thought blogging before, I never would have thought of twitter. This experience showed me that blogging does not have to be extremely long and thought out.  Compared to other social media, I thought twitter was a good fit because of the character limit. There are always people who type way too much for one Facebook post to having a limit was helpful and time saving.

wikiHow to Make a No-Added-Sugar, No-Bake Berry Pie

The experience of communicating the How to Make a No‐Added‐Sugar, No‐Bake Berry Pie wiki came from multiple sources.  The main source of information used in creating this wiki was personal experience.  Cutting sugar out of a diet can be difficult when a sweet tooth is persistent.  The benefits of cutting sugar are many.  Cutting sugar can cause better sleep patterns, weight loss, clearer skin, increase in energy, and a happier mood.  The three recipes created for this wiki taste sweet yet have zero added sugars.  This is perfect for anyone trying to fit into a dress or outfit in a compromised amount of time.  Learning about health and diet in school and from personal trainers gave all the knowledge necessary for this project.  Once someone tries cutting sugar, they will see that it is easier than expected with these zero added sugar desserts that still satisfy cravings.  Every time someone makes these recipes, they will learn what to add or take away so it suits their taste.  There are always substitutes in case a person does not like a certain ingredient which is listed in the “Tips” section of the wiki.  Personal experience is the source of all of the information in this wiki.  Creating the photos for this wiki is also credited to personal experience.  The general information about wiki layout was taken from looking at multiple wikis.  Checking out multiple published wikis led to a general knowledge as to how to create a wiki that would also be published.  When creating the photos for this project, each recipe was made with the help of a friend so that the photos could be taken more easily.  Managing this project was kind of difficult since a friend’s younger siblings wanted to help but they were too young.  The ease with this project came with already having made these desserts before so there were no surprises.  Learning how to edit those photos was a new experience.  Photoshop is a very useful tool when creating a better highlighted and overall edited photo.  Photoshop allows people to see their original photo versus their new edited one to see if they overdid the editing.  Keeping all of these photos in a folder on a flashdrive made transporting and working on these photos in different locations simple.  After figuring out exactly how the photos should look, they were to be coded into the wiki.  Coding was a new, confusing experience.  Pasting the No Bake Cookie code into a word document and changing things to fit the wiki created for this project was like playing operation.  Every single space, and character changed something.  It felt like dodging lasers trying to get the code just right.  Each time an image was to be put in a spot, exactly that image name had to be typed correctly in the right spot.  Once the code was pasted into wikiHow and the preview was shown, something was clearly not right.  The wiki page created had each photo repeated when it should not have been.  This meant going back into the code and figuring out where it all went wrong.  Somehow each image was placed in there twice so deleting one of the image codes solved this problem quickly.  There was also an issue in trying to get rid of the spaces and bullet points in this wiki preview.  The only way to solve this was to go back and compare the new coded wiki to the original.  Come to find out, extra spaces and pound symbols threw the whole page off.  After correcting those mistakes, the wiki looked just as planned.  Hitting publish was a nerve racking moment but not as bad as the intense sweating that started when receiving an email from the wikiHow admins.  Anna, the admin, said that she had to cut two of the three recipes out and was only going to publish the page with one recipe.  Anna emailed an option to cut things out and when allowing her permission to do so, she published the wiki with the no-bake berry pie recipe and photos.  This was frustrating because of how much time was spent cooking and coding.  All of the time spent on this project to only have one third of the project posted seemed like a huge waste but after finding that some wikis do not get posted at all, it no longer seemed so bad.  When looking over the published wiki, it was clear that breaking the original wiki down was the best call for clarity reasons.

How to Make a No‐Added‐Sugar, No‐Bake Berry Pie

https://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-No%E2%80%90Added%E2%80%90Sugar,-No%E2%80%90Bake-Berry-Pie

There is no second reference for this wiki page as the information came from personal experience.

All photos were created by this wiki’s author.

https://www.wikihow.com/User:Lexi-McTigue

Extra! Extra! Social Media Reports the News First

Social media has changed and will continue to change the way people receive news, share their lives, and spend their time.  Social media is intrusive to a degree.  By turning on privacy settings and following certain things people can limit how intrusive social media is.  Sometimes, even when people are not posting themselves, they end up in their friend's posts or some private story of theirs was shared by another person.  The fact that one post can reach all around the world gives social media the intrusive power when the person the post is about did not want that information to go that far.  With great opportunity comes great responsibility and that is exactly the case with social media.  The connections all over the world, news sharing and more are awesome positives of social media but with that comes the responsibility of not letting it take over one's life.  If someone is spending all their time on social media and procrastinating homework, skipping plans with friends or ignoring those around them, they are not using it responsibly.  Also, if someone posts something they should not such as underage drinking, drug usage or nude photos, those things can spread like wildfire.  If that person's grandmother, pastor, employer or teacher sees that post they could get in more trouble than the post is worth.  Not to mention the responsibility of being kind to one another and not saying mean things just because the screen acts as a shield.  There is a huge responsibility when it comes to having social media which is why I think it is important to make sure kids accounts are monitored.  Twitter is one social media platform where many people get their news.  This all started on January 15, 2009 when Captain Sully miraculously landed a plane on the Hudson.  Jeff Krums tweeted "There's a plane in the Hudson.  I'm on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy".  This tweet caused hundreds of millions of people to start turning to Twitter for serious news.  The news that this tweet delivered got people talking and became the first serious news event that was first reported on twitter.  The news of Osama Bin Laden being killed was also first delivered on twitter a couple years later.  The easy usage and constant attention the app gets makes Twitter have a positive impact when it comes to delivering information.  At the rate it is going, social media could easily put newspapers out of business.  Many older people appreciate the newspaper but with the younger generations being raised in a technologically advanced world, newspapers will become a thing of the past.  Social media will also continue to allow people from all over the world to connect in new ways.  Many advancements have been made in such a small amount of time with no signs of slowing down.  Social media is also hurting people's face to face social skills.  The growing field has a world of opportunity and danger ahead.

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