A Temporary Stop ...

I have come to a stopping point for my Google Sites and coding exploration. My goal has been to create a class site for my high school freshmen on Google Sites with CSS coding within the pages to personalize them. My students will use this site throughout next year to share work with each other and a larger audience (for example, they will present original poems and recorded recitations of them) and to complete group projects (for example, they will work with partners to research and create a page on the site about a Holocaust topic).

Coding like a (New and Inexperienced) Pro: Project Reflection #2

As I was exploring CSS in the middle of this semester, the one piece of advice I read again and again was that the best way to learn to code was to just jump into coding.  Well, I have jumped in, and my Google Site now has custom fonts, custom font colors, and custom spacing ... all brought to it by CSS Coder Susanne Nobles!

So, what is your dissertation going to be? (Reading, Reflecting, and Thinking #10)

Dear Dr. Rodrigo,
Thank you for the open reflection blog, and I hope you will indulge me as I veer a bit away from your particular course only to see how it fits into my PhD puzzle.  Read on ... there just may the seeds of a dissertation planted somewhere in here.
Sincerely,
Susanne

Mapping New Media

Google Sites Kinda Scared Me: Project Reflection #1

Step 1: the seemingly simple goal of creating my Google Site -- just the homepage.  I was confident I could do this easily because I have been using a Google Site for my grad class all semester and I have created multiple online sites for my own classes using Wikispaces and Nings.  I also use many other Google applications, from gmail to Google Documents/Forms/Presentations. How hard could it be to set up a basic Google Site? 

Individual New Media Project Plan

Please visit bubbl.us to explore my map in detail. Add me (user name: Susanne Nobles) to your contacts, and I will share my map with you.

Going Academic on Turkle (Reading, Thinking, and Reflecting #9)

Alone Together, Chapters 11-end: 

I have to admit: Reading, Thinking, and Reflecting #8 is a much more satisfying post -- I really enjoyed that week and enjoyed capturing it in a new blog form for me.  This week it is a return to academics.  Ultimately, I will present this book to my class, so I want to start getting my head around what Turkle says about our core course concepts (garnered from New Media: The Key Concepts and Lingua Fracta). Here go the ones I have played with so far, and I have found constant overlapping in the robotic and digital environments Turkle is studying.

Striking Out on My Own (New Media Project Proposal)

Rhetorical Situation

My goal is to create a class site for my high school freshmen on Google Sites with CSS coding within the pages to personalize them.  My students will use this site throughout the year to share work with each other and a larger audience (for example, they will present original poems and recorded recitations of them) and to complete group projects (for example, they will work with partners to research and create a page on the site about a Holocaust topic).  I will also research the implications of FERPA for an online classroom for minors.

My Life Collides: Grad Class, Colleague, and Church (Reading, Thinking, and Reflecting #8)

Alone Together, Chapters 7-10:
 Let me tell the story of my week in this post.  I learned as I finished reading Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand that what draws me to nonfiction is the existence of a narrative, something Hillenbrand is a master of. So let me try to draw you into my nonfiction life as I lived the very things of which I was reading.

Children Dream of Electric Furbies (Reading, Thinking, and Reflecting #7)

The Gray Furby

Alone Together, Chapters 1-6:

As I move deeper into this course, I am finding the connections fascinating.  I was assigned to read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, I got my second choice when I read Understanding Media, and I am now reading my first choice, Alone Together. None of these were assigned to me or selected by me with any thought to the others, yet they fit into a thought-provoking single picture of our current society.

Final CSS Exploratory Outing and Reflection

Explorer Nobles reporting in from week four. Lost bearings on third outing. Ended up mired in the CSS Language Swamp. Have regained footing. Repeat: have regained footing.  No longer feeling smug but know upcoming trip into the Coding Canyon of CSS will not be a disaster ... most likely anyway ...

Canonical Texts Wikipage Review

The two wikipages I reviewed are Manovich's The Language of New Media and Baudrillard's Simulcra... and  The Illusion ...