Welcome to the "Electronic Campus"

Am I the only one that sees the irony in Northwest being the Electronic Campus, yet the internet being extremely slow? Not really. For a campus that prides itself on being "Green" and "Environmentally Friendly" by going online, the internet sure does suck. You can tell that it sucks when you're sitting in a class ready to turn a project in, yet you can't. This wouldn't be so bad, except for the fact that this is continuously the problem. Maybe it's just the building we're in. Maybe it's the fact that this year's Freshman class is the largest that has ever come through and the internet didn't change at all. Anyways, this has been a crazy week and even though it was a great class, I think I'm ready for this semester to be over. I want to have "Me-Time" again....

Last Project!

It's almost hard to believe that this semester is almost over. I've actually been thinking about my portfolio for a while now. I know that I'm going to have to present my speech in a particular way, just because it is a speech. Recently, I've been toying with the idea of putting my brochure in the portfolio as well, though I'm not quite sure how that will work considering the different media types I used. I have a general idea about how I want to put my project together. I know that all three of my artifacts have been aimed towards mostly students. The thing that is going to tie them together the most is my Programmed Oral Interpretation since I'm using brief sections from both my Prezi and my brochure in the speech itself. I like that all of my projects are connected through the audience and my POI. It's all about change. What is changing, why it's changing and confirming that it is, in fact, changing. I'm really excited for presentations.

Here we go again...

Two down, one to go. Actually, I'm really excited about this upcoming project. It is going to be the easiest, and the hardest for me to put together. Easiest because I know how to put together a really inspiring, awesome competition POI, but the hardest because now I have to come up with all of it on my own. To make matters worse I also have to break the habit of cutting my pieces two days before I have to perform, which is what I typically do for competitions. The good news is, since it's for class instead of competition, I don't have to be as precise, or have it memorized as completely. I mean, I will have it mostly memorized, but a competition ready piece has to be absolutely perfect.
I am really excited for this project because I knew that I was going to do it all semester. I'm also really excited to show the class what Forensics is all about. I know that a few people have a general idea, but I kind of want to wow them. I just have to stay on top of things and keep focused on the task at hand. It shouldn't be to hard, right?

Breakdown of Communication in the Communication Department

I'm not going to lie, this was supposed to be the best Spring Break ever. Emphasis on the supposed. Wednesday I was supposed to get on a flight, with some of my best friends, to Portland, OR to compete at my first ever Pi Kappa Delta nationals tournament. Unfourtunately, the day before we are scheduled to take off, the coach calls me and tells me I can't go. Not because of grades, not because I'm not good enough. No, because he can't tell the two Samanthas in my class apart and put my best friend's last name on my ticket. So here I am... Sitting at home after working my butt off for two days so I could eat while we were on this trip that I'd been waiting for all year. Yeah, life and reality have a way of rearing their ugly heads sometimes.

Though all is not lost, the money I made over the weekend went to something that I had been wanting for a really long time, a 32GB iPod Touch. It's not as great as going to Portland, but an iPod is more useful and will last me longer than that trip. Even if I did miss out on some very valuable experience and networking opportunities. I had planned to introduce myself to the coaches of the schools I plan on applying to next year, but now I'll have to find another way.

Let's Talk About Show and Tell!

So I originally thought about presenting my Prezi to the class, but after thinking it over, and finding out that I would need to present it a second time, I've decided to leave all my presenting for the last date. I feel like this would be the best way to go about it considering the types of all of my projects. There is a slight disadvantage of not presenting this time because I think it couldn’t hurt my project any.

However, the advantage of not presenting this time around is that the class won't have to sit through my Prezi twice. I know that my portfolio presentation will be fairly long though. My first artifact could use a little presentation, my second can stand fairly on it's own, but my third artifact has to be presented to the class. There is no way around it since my third artifact is a speech.

I may end up slightly adapting my Prezi to make it a little easier to present since I hate it when people read directly from a screen and I want the class to stay involved. To present my second artifact I'm going to have to get creative as a brochure is one of those projects that it's hard to actually present. I think, I'll introduce the brochure, explain what it is about, where I would put it and the purpose of the brochure, but actually do most of the presenting through my third artifact.

At this point, I think my plan fits my artifacts very well and I am definitely looking forward to completing artifacts two and three and then presenting them all.

One Down, Two to Go

If I thought coming up with an idea for Artifact 1 was difficult, I hit a brick wall for Artifact #2. I know that I want something with a little more writing than my Prezi, but not as much straight writing as my third artifact. I really liked the idea of a brochure, but I'm not exactly sure what information I would want to put on that. I think I'm going to take a more scientific approach to this artifact. I want to look at how the scientists are saying that social networking is affecting our society. I think the brochure would be a great way to break up the larger chunks of information into readable and interesting sections. I'm leaning more towards creating more than one brochure. Possibly one aimed at school counselors and one aimed at their students. The one aimed towards counselors could have more of a technical feel because the counselors would be more education in that specific field. The second brochure will need to be interesting enough to engage a high school teenager and inform them of what social networking is doing. I’ve thought about briefly mentioning the fairly new idea of being addicted to the internet or video games as well as the new type of arthritis that is nicknamed Gamer’s Thumb. Doing this would inform the student that the decisions they are making now could ultimately affect the way they live in the future. The goal of the brochures won’t be to encourage students to delete their Facebook accounts, but more to monitor how much they are using these services.

The Library is A-Calling...

The library visit on Thursday was very interesting. I've always been a big fan of Academic OneFile because my Comp I teacher pushed the site, but I could never really find what I wanted with EbscoHost. It's a little ridiculous, I know, considering I've had access to EbscoHost since I started research projects in 4th grade, but the search engine always seemed too complicated for me to sit and figure out. The librarian did a good job of explaining the site, and making it seem a little more accessible. I was a little frustrated at the fact that I couldn't find a way to put the books I wanted on my eReader. It's a little hard to read a computer while your in a van with no power outlets, but it's much easier to read my little eReader.

Before I made it to the Library today I was a little unfocused in my research. I had an idea for a broad topic, but was sort of floundering to narrow it down. But between the library meeting and my discussion with Ms. Lieske, I believe I've narrowed my search down to specifically social networking, and how it has, and will continue, to change our lives. I'm in an entirely different place now than when we went to the Library on Thursday, and I feel more focused.