Reflective Narrative
Writing, Research, and Technology was definitely a class that I was worried about taking. When it comes to technology, I don’t know very much. I’m not very comfortable using new technologies either. When I looked through the course syllabus, I could tell that this was going to be a very challenging course. Overall, I am very happy with the accomplishments that I have made throughout the semester with this class. I have challenged myself, and I have really learned a lot. I have used Writing, Research, and Technology in every assignment that I have had to complete for this course.
Twitterive
Writing: The Twitterive was very difficult for me to start. I wasn’t sure what kind of writing that I was going to do or what kind of genres I was going to write. I had never written a multi-genre piece before this class, and I was very nervous about starting it. I was worried that my Twitterive wouldn’t flow or wouldn’t make sense. I put a lot of time and effort into thinking about the different genres that would work for my piece. Once I thought of the different genres that I wanted to include in my piece, my Twitterive, slowly but surely, came together quite nicely. I was happy with the writing and constructing that I had done.
Research: I did a lot of research on myself for the Twitterive. Our Twitterive was based off of the tweets that we had posted throughout the first month or so of the semester. I had to look at all of my tweets, and notice a pattern that was taking place. Once I noticed a pattern within my tweets, I had to dig deep into my brain to decipher what these really meant to me. Also, I did a lot of searching for genres that I thought would fit into my Twitterive. Constructing a Twitterive became a long research project, for me, and I was not really expecting it to consist of any research.
Technology: As I stated previously, our Twitterive was based off of the tweets that we had posted. Before this class, I think I used Twitter three times, at the most. Getting myself to tweet multiple times a day for over a month was really a challenge. It was something that I wasn’t used to doing, and honestly I didn’t really enjoy it that much. Our Twitterive had to be posted to a website called Weebly, and before this class I had never heard of Weebly before. I am not good at using technology to begin with, and trying to figure out how to make a website and post assignments on it was very difficult. At first, I had a lot of trouble with formatting my Twitterive. I couldn’t get anything in the positions/places that I wanted them to be in, but eventually I figured it all out. I was pleased with my technology use.
Oral History
Writing: My Oral History consisted of very little writing for the actual assignment. However, I did write research questions. I also came up with interview questions that I would be using when conducting the actual interview. When I posted my Oral History to my website, I had to include an introduction and an afterword.
Research: Before my interview, I definitely had to do research. First, my group and I had to figure out who we would actually be interviewing. This took a lot of thought and research because we didn’t want to interview someone who had nothing to do with what our research was based upon. After figuring out who our interviewee was, we had to do a little research in order to come up with questions that we wanted to ask Scott Smith, our interviewee.
Technology: When conducting our interview, we used my iPhone to record the interview. I have never used the recorder on my phone so I was a little nervous, but it worked very well. After the interview I tried emailing myself the conversation from my phone, but the length of the interview was too long to send. I ‘m not going to lie, I started to panic! However, I hooked my iPhone up to my computer and uploaded the interview that way. When I tried posting the interview to my Weebly website I had a lot of trouble. I couldn’t just upload the audio because I don’t have the WeeblyPro. However, I looked at the students’ websites from last semester and got the idea to use Sound Cloud. My interview is now successfully posted, and I’m very proud of myself for figuring all of that out.
Collaborative Research Project
Writing: For this project, we worked in groups. We wrote the research question(s) together. After figuring out what our research topic was and doing the actual research, my group and I decided that we were going to use a Prezi to present our information. We had to figure out what information was necessary and how we wanted to write that information. This was a little bit of a challenge because I usually have a hard time writing researched information into condensed sentences, but when we were done I was proud of the work that we all did!
Research: This project required a lot of research, hence the name of this assignment! I spent several hours trying to find out information, and a lot of the information that I did find wasn’t relevant to my actual research question(s). However, I didn’t give up. I looked at many different sources until I found what I wanted. My main search engines were Google, Yahoo, and Rowan’s website. I found all of my information online.
Technology: All of the research that I did for this assignment came from technologies that I was familiar with. As I said previously, my group and I decided that we would present our information through a Prezi. However, none of have ever used Prezi before this. At first, we had a lot of difficulty trying to figure out how to use this technology. After playing around with it for a while, we finally figured out how to use Prezi and started plugging our information in. Our Prezi turned out very nice and we were all so proud of ourselves.
Blogging
Writing: Blogging was very difficult for me. I only blogged when I had to because I never really know what to blog about. We had two blogs every week and I always stayed on top of them. I tried writing as much as I could about the topic that was given, but I always ended up not writing enough. There were a few blogs that I really elaborated on because I was comfortable and enjoyed the topic. However, if I was unfamiliar with a given topic I felt like I didn’t know what to write within my blog post. Blogging was a lot of work, and it required a lot of my time. However, I liked having the assigned topic because if I didn’t I would have been clueless about what to write.
Research: For almost every blog post, we had an article that we had to read and respond to. When reading these articles, I had to pay close attention to what I was reading because I needed to know what I was writing about. I never realized this, until now, but with every article I was reading I was doing research. I had a question I had to answer or a topic that I had to write about, and I had these articles to use for my blog post. That is researching, in my eyes. I had to use what my professor had found, and interpret it into my own words.
Technology: Our blog was through our Weebly website. I didn’t mind using Weebly as a place to post my blogs, most of the time. Like I’ve said previously, I had to figure out how to post a blog to this website but it was very simple. However, sometimes I had trouble with the Weebly website, and I couldn’t post my blogs when I wanted to. Sometimes Weebly wouldn’t let me log in or the website would be extremely slow. I guess these are some risks you have to deal with when relying on technology.
Twitterive
Writing: The Twitterive was very difficult for me to start. I wasn’t sure what kind of writing that I was going to do or what kind of genres I was going to write. I had never written a multi-genre piece before this class, and I was very nervous about starting it. I was worried that my Twitterive wouldn’t flow or wouldn’t make sense. I put a lot of time and effort into thinking about the different genres that would work for my piece. Once I thought of the different genres that I wanted to include in my piece, my Twitterive, slowly but surely, came together quite nicely. I was happy with the writing and constructing that I had done.
Research: I did a lot of research on myself for the Twitterive. Our Twitterive was based off of the tweets that we had posted throughout the first month or so of the semester. I had to look at all of my tweets, and notice a pattern that was taking place. Once I noticed a pattern within my tweets, I had to dig deep into my brain to decipher what these really meant to me. Also, I did a lot of searching for genres that I thought would fit into my Twitterive. Constructing a Twitterive became a long research project, for me, and I was not really expecting it to consist of any research.
Technology: As I stated previously, our Twitterive was based off of the tweets that we had posted. Before this class, I think I used Twitter three times, at the most. Getting myself to tweet multiple times a day for over a month was really a challenge. It was something that I wasn’t used to doing, and honestly I didn’t really enjoy it that much. Our Twitterive had to be posted to a website called Weebly, and before this class I had never heard of Weebly before. I am not good at using technology to begin with, and trying to figure out how to make a website and post assignments on it was very difficult. At first, I had a lot of trouble with formatting my Twitterive. I couldn’t get anything in the positions/places that I wanted them to be in, but eventually I figured it all out. I was pleased with my technology use.
Oral History
Writing: My Oral History consisted of very little writing for the actual assignment. However, I did write research questions. I also came up with interview questions that I would be using when conducting the actual interview. When I posted my Oral History to my website, I had to include an introduction and an afterword.
Research: Before my interview, I definitely had to do research. First, my group and I had to figure out who we would actually be interviewing. This took a lot of thought and research because we didn’t want to interview someone who had nothing to do with what our research was based upon. After figuring out who our interviewee was, we had to do a little research in order to come up with questions that we wanted to ask Scott Smith, our interviewee.
Technology: When conducting our interview, we used my iPhone to record the interview. I have never used the recorder on my phone so I was a little nervous, but it worked very well. After the interview I tried emailing myself the conversation from my phone, but the length of the interview was too long to send. I ‘m not going to lie, I started to panic! However, I hooked my iPhone up to my computer and uploaded the interview that way. When I tried posting the interview to my Weebly website I had a lot of trouble. I couldn’t just upload the audio because I don’t have the WeeblyPro. However, I looked at the students’ websites from last semester and got the idea to use Sound Cloud. My interview is now successfully posted, and I’m very proud of myself for figuring all of that out.
Collaborative Research Project
Writing: For this project, we worked in groups. We wrote the research question(s) together. After figuring out what our research topic was and doing the actual research, my group and I decided that we were going to use a Prezi to present our information. We had to figure out what information was necessary and how we wanted to write that information. This was a little bit of a challenge because I usually have a hard time writing researched information into condensed sentences, but when we were done I was proud of the work that we all did!
Research: This project required a lot of research, hence the name of this assignment! I spent several hours trying to find out information, and a lot of the information that I did find wasn’t relevant to my actual research question(s). However, I didn’t give up. I looked at many different sources until I found what I wanted. My main search engines were Google, Yahoo, and Rowan’s website. I found all of my information online.
Technology: All of the research that I did for this assignment came from technologies that I was familiar with. As I said previously, my group and I decided that we would present our information through a Prezi. However, none of have ever used Prezi before this. At first, we had a lot of difficulty trying to figure out how to use this technology. After playing around with it for a while, we finally figured out how to use Prezi and started plugging our information in. Our Prezi turned out very nice and we were all so proud of ourselves.
Blogging
Writing: Blogging was very difficult for me. I only blogged when I had to because I never really know what to blog about. We had two blogs every week and I always stayed on top of them. I tried writing as much as I could about the topic that was given, but I always ended up not writing enough. There were a few blogs that I really elaborated on because I was comfortable and enjoyed the topic. However, if I was unfamiliar with a given topic I felt like I didn’t know what to write within my blog post. Blogging was a lot of work, and it required a lot of my time. However, I liked having the assigned topic because if I didn’t I would have been clueless about what to write.
Research: For almost every blog post, we had an article that we had to read and respond to. When reading these articles, I had to pay close attention to what I was reading because I needed to know what I was writing about. I never realized this, until now, but with every article I was reading I was doing research. I had a question I had to answer or a topic that I had to write about, and I had these articles to use for my blog post. That is researching, in my eyes. I had to use what my professor had found, and interpret it into my own words.
Technology: Our blog was through our Weebly website. I didn’t mind using Weebly as a place to post my blogs, most of the time. Like I’ve said previously, I had to figure out how to post a blog to this website but it was very simple. However, sometimes I had trouble with the Weebly website, and I couldn’t post my blogs when I wanted to. Sometimes Weebly wouldn’t let me log in or the website would be extremely slow. I guess these are some risks you have to deal with when relying on technology.