Cover Letter
This FYS was not my top choice when I was registering for classes, but it had two things I was fairly interested in, so I decided to take it (that and it was the only one i could get in). However, this class has turned out to be my favorite class of the semester, without a doubt. I have actually enjoyed doing work for this class, as opposed to all of my other classes, where the work is more like actual work. I have really enjoyed learning how to use all of these programs and all of these different things on my computer that I would have never found out how to do otherwise, and probably would have written it off as too hard for me to learn. I have learned that I am not so bad with computers though. I was even wondering what other kinds of classes I could take that would be similar to this and if they had any major that would go along with them. :)

I think that I have learned things about English too, because I always saw English as reading books or poems, and only seeing those things as literary, but this whole class has opened my eyes to how things can be viewed when talking about English. Also, the idea of who actually owns things on the internet is such a fascinating question and one that I had never really explored before now. However, I realize more that once you put something on the internet, basically anyone can take it and use it and you would never know. Which is kind of a scary thought to me, because I like keeping some of my stuff private and it's a reason for me not to use something like flicker in the future. However, I will stay on the internet all the time, I am not afraid of using it. I am still cautious of meeting people though, and I don't think I would ever date someone online (as of right now).

I think I have grown as a writer and technologically as well, which is a great combination in my opinion. I think you can see throughout my portfolio that I have grown and overcome some challenges. However, managing time well is not quite one of them yet, but I'm working on that. This was a really great class and I am very happy that I took it. I feel like what I learned in this class, I can actually go out and use in the real world and in other classes.

Playlist
I am pretty happy with my playlist since I made the revisions for the midterm portfolio. I feel like I had a lot more time for revisions then, and I got everything done that I wanted to on that, and I am very happy with it. I really like that I got to play with colors and make it a lot more interesting then it was before. It's cool that I was able to make it interesting to listen to and to look at at the same time. I also think that I did a lot better in explaining myself for the reason as to why I chose each song. I also think that it was nice that I liked all of my songs choices and could not think of any other ones after the second revision that would fit any better then the ones I had already.

Podcast
My podcast was pretty good the first time, I did dislike the fact that I had to keep recording things over again because it was either messed up or too quiet. I think I had a pretty good topic and I did an okay job explaining myself and my supporting my thoughts.

However, it was pointed out to me that I did talk a bit fast (because I was trying to get it over with), and in my revision, I tried to change that. I also tried to get as little popping noise as possible, but I was having problems with audacity and even when I used the tool to get rid of the popping, it still seemed to be there, and it got really frustrating. I know that I didn't get all of that noise out, but I did fix some of what I said to make it flow better and I tried to slow down so that people could understand what I was saying and so I didn't sound so nervous.

Annotation Project
I think that the project made me look into the text more than I would normally when reading a story. I think that some of the comments I made may have not been the most intelligent, and I felt like I was repeating what some people had already said (especially when I was one of the last people to post). However, reading other people's comments did help me understand and catch some things in the story that I might have looked over otherwise. I thought I did a good job analyzing the videos and comparing the film to the actual story. I think I could have done a better job making some intelligent comments on the actual story though. Some of them were too rushed to be good. However, I did like seeing other comments to help guide me along and see what other people think without sitting down and discussing the story. This helps with my portfolio's message because it shows that I can also look at stories (things always considered literary) and analyze them as well, in a way that is more updated and technological.

My annotation comments were pretty insightful some of the time, but occasionally I was pressed for time (my own fault), and had to make some ones that were not as intelligent as they could have been. I think my video comments were better because I felt that it was easier to compare the video and the story than to just comment on the story itself. It was hard not to compare when we had already seen the film and know the ending of the story.

This part of the year was to me, the closest thing to an English assignment that we had, but I enjoyed it nonetheless, and it was a great way to communicate with people about a short story and not just sit in a classroom and talk about it (which can get very boring at times). The videos also added to the discussion because I was personally interested in why the director put in what he did and left out what he did, and it was nice to see other people's views on that. This shows that I am able to interpret and look at different versions of one story and compare them and discuss my thoughts on each of them well. I was much clearer with my thoughts in this project then some of the early ones.

Collages
My Character Collage was pretty good for the most part to me. I am glad that I listened to people when making the revised collage because I feel like it looks a lot less cluttered and goes with the character more. The images that I took out after the first one did not really add a lot to the collage, and the explanation still fit the character well without them. It still looks a little awkward to me, but it looks better than it did before. I'm not sure why the revised one did not make a thumbnail though, and I'm a little annoyed at that. I feel like I had to look deep into the character to figure out what images needed to be there for it to be an accurate representation. I think I learned a lot about this character because I had to analyze him and try to figure out how to represent him, so I grew to like him even more then I did when I originally started this project. I also realized parts that I thought were about him, really were not needed and I just got rid of them all together.

My Poem/Song collage was a lot easier for me to do, and felt a lot more natural when I did it. I think it helps because I was playing with the program after I did the first one and I was a little more comfortable with it. I was also a lot more sure when I was done with this one and I used less images which helps show that I felt better using the program. Maybe it was a bit literal, but I think it went well with the song. Also, since I only had to do two things for the >a href="http://www.teachmix.com/websampler/?q=node/345">revised collage, I think that also shows that I did better with this one.

I think that I did a good job working with the images and it was really fun trying to find the right ones for each collage and trying to fit then together. I play with this program in my spare time now when I want to put off some work. I feel like I did better in explaining myself when I had to tell why I chose different images. These explanations seemed more natural to me, which shows that I am getting better at expressing my thoughts about my work. I feel like that is harder to do without words, which is probably why I put words in both my collages, but I really felt like they needed them to be fully understood.

Blog Postings
I thought that her collage was really neat, and that the words swirling was a really cool effect.

I liked how she had one huge background and added to it. I think that is harder to do in my opinion.

I really liked the contrast between the colors of the different images in the collage.

I thought that the collage was really cool, and send a strong message. I also liked how it didn't look too choppy.

href="http://www.teachmix.com/websampler/?q=node/310#comment-690">I liked how Jordan used really strong images to convey the emotions of the song.

This comment was because I really liked the collage and how everything looked together. I really liked how she made the flame image the road and had people walking on it.

My comment was a lame, but I really thought her collage was pretty and looked really good.

I liked how she blended together the images so that it looked more natural.

I commented because I was really impressed with how everything fit together and didn't look too crowded or cluttered.

I was impressed with how everything looked like it was suppose to be there and it was a very powerful collage.

I liked the collage for Meredith Grey and thought it was interesting how she blended everything together. I didn't know how she could make those photos so blurry and it intrigued me.

I thought it was cool that Rebecca decided to post something other then what we had to, and I thought it was a really interesting topic to look at.

I liked Jordan's choice of a character and would have never thought of it myself, and I was really impressed with how she put all those images together.

I really like Atticus as a character in a book I have read, so I wanted to see how someone portrayed such a great character through images, since he was a lawyer and used only words.

I really liked the idea of doing Lynette for a collage because she is the best, most sane character in my opinion.

I really like the band that Soham was doing and I was excited to see how it turned out.

I was having a little trouble with exporting my podcast because it didn't do what I thought it was suppose to, so I asked about it, but it seemed to work out okay. It was able to be played on my podcast post.

Jordan's idea was a really interesting one and I thought that she needed to try and be specific with the message of the poem and the song that she was going to match. Although, I'm sure she knew that she needed to keep the messages similar, so I'm not sure how much my comment helped her.

This comment was more like question because I was going through my music and realized that a lot of musicals have messages in them, but I was unsure if it was considered literary by itself, without the actual text of the play along with it. I thought it was an interesting question, and I'm still not sure what I think about it.

I liked the song that I picked for this assignment, because it popped into my head when we were told the assignment. I think I put some thought into choosing the song, and I like how I realized metaphors that were put into the lyrics of the song.

This comment was not very smart, and I did not get a lot out of the poem when I read it by myself. I think I really understood it when we discussed and read it in class.

This comment was in response to someone else posting about the poem We Real Cool. I liked the poem and thought it was fun to comment on.

This comment I made was talking about Amanda's playlist, and that I thought it was cool that she had songs for different characters.

This was in response to Amanda's comment on my playlist about Jack Sparrow. It may have been a little off topic about the Glee Club though......

I loved the Grinch playlist and I made a comment on it because I loved her title and song choices, they were very cute.

This comment wasn't that intelligent, it was more straightforward and blah. I could have done a little better.

I really liked this playlist about J.D., so I had to comment on it. I could have said more, but I was really impressed with the playlist, and I thought it was very comical, which fit the character.

This was in response to someone saying that cool things happened on South Campus, which I still disagree with. ^_^ It wasn't a very intellectual comment, but it was just my thoughts.

The map that Kaitlyn found was very cool and I thought that I would totally use, especially because I'm not very good with the bus systems.

I thought that Kelly made a great point in putting Facebook for good stuff. I just had to comment on it.

For posting on the blog, I was good at it in spurts and sometimes I would just forget to look at it until class started that day. I think I did a pretty good job giving other people feedback on their ideas and projects. Of course I could have done more, but I think I did alright. It was fun to see other people's work and be able to tell them what you thought about it. It was also really nice to see what people thought about my projects. That actually helped me when making revisions, especially to my collages. I think I learned how to express what I thought about people's work in a constructive and non-offending way, which is always nice. I think it also helps that it's on the internet where anyone could see it, but the people that comment are in a class that you go to 3 times a week. It was also a nice way to get to know people, especially after we put pictures of most of us up.

Video Project
My project turned out pretty well. I had a hard time figuring out what exactly I wanted it to be about for a long time, and when I finally decided, I found that it was still a fairly big topic to make a movie about. I did try to use photoplus to make the images in my movie a lot more entertaining than just the ones I found online, but after a while it seemed very tedious. I also feel like mine is a little short, but I wasn't sure what else to add in there.

I also had problems figuring out how to convey what I wanted to say in just images and songs without using a lot of words or text that I stuck in. I felt like it needed some, and so I did put some in there. However, I think towards the end, I got the hang of it a little more. I think if I had left myself more time, then this project would have been a lot better. This was probably the hardest project we have had this whole year, and it was definitely a challenge for me to get my ideas together and put them all into a video full of images and song clips.

I really liked my topic though, and it's still something I am interested in learning more about because I just cannot understand why it is okay for people over the age of 18 to meed other people online. The way I see it, they could still be very creepy awful people, so if I do ever talk to people, I'm very careful with what I tell or say online. I tried to get into some of that with my video, although I'm not sure the whole message got across.