Assignment: As a student who is taking a 200-level college course on emerging media and rhetoric, you’re already a rather digitally-literate person: you wouldn’t have gotten to this point otherwise. This assignment asks you to reflect on and to reflect through multiliteracies how you have become digitally literate and to communicate your strengths as a consumer and producer of digital texts.
Having been born in the late nineteenth century I have been lucky enough to grow up at the same time that the world’s technology has grown up. I got my first email when I was eight years old and used it to sign up for online websites like GirlsGoGames and to talk to my best friend after school nearly every day. I would play Webkinz and GirlsGoGames online and watch silly videos like Numa Numa on YouTube. I got a touch screen iPod when I turned ten years old and from there the desire to join social media stemmed and blossomed into what it is today. From Facebook to Instagram and now Twitter to TikTok, I downloaded and used all the social media apps that would link me to classmates and people across the world. Naturally, as the world outside the classroom grew and expanded in technology so did the world inside the classroom grow and develop too. My generation gradually switched from white boards to overhead projectors in the span of only a couple of school years. I know how to use an older generation standing projector with the huge reflective mirrors, as well as being able to connect my computer to the projector in the ceiling. With every new piece of technology there are new kinds of online tricks to learn too.
My “digital design” adventure actually started in my middle school history class where I created my first websites ever. They were all part of a Google generated website program and I seriously hope that none of the websites still exist. The point of each website was different; one for the history of Ecuador, one for the Trail of Tears, and one for the life of Martin Luther King Jr. Thinking back onto my designs, each website looked dreadfully barren and yet horribly messy compared to my current project of Talking Education.
My tribute to Ecuador was the first contribution to the internet out of the three, and was by far the roughest of the websites. This was probably because I had little desire to create anything digital and never allowed time to play with designs or learn the tricks to making a more professional looking page. If I had taken the time to learn these tricks in the beginning, my pages for the Trail of Tears and Martin Luther King Jr. would have been more appealing for my history teachers to stare and grade. The most adventurous edit that I added to my three websites was a, poorly planned, “photo gallery” on Martin Luther King Jr. where I added a handful of photos and arranged them in an odd display of sizes with little room between the photos.
Both in middle school and high school, I was required to use an online forum called Edmodo (what my classmates referred to as the "School's Tumblr"). This website is really similar to Canvas, the online forum I use for classes now. Edmodo was the first online place, for school, that required me to learn how to link videos, images, and documents. I remember becoming really frustrated with myself while trying to figure out how to post my part of a group project for my group and teacher to see. It was here I learned the etiquette to posting and replying comments for class activities. In one case, each student was put in charge of a high school English class for the day and we had to implement technology into the classwork in any way we saw fit. For my day, I played with the teacher’s Edmodo account and learned how to create and post a quiz for my classmates to complete. Being a student for many years already, I knew how to take a quiz, but not how to create one myself. It was a really nice feeling knowing that I could create and post a quiz involving multiple choice and short answer questions.
Now, at the same time as Edmodo I was beginning to use Facebook and Instagram alongside the rest of my generation. Instagram, sadly, did not really help my technological knowledge. It only showed me how to share pictures and even if I added links there was only one way to really share, by placing it on my profile. Currently My Education is linked to my personal Instagram account, but back in middle school I changed the link to a different video link almost weekly. It was something of a ritual for me to do every Sunday night instead of my homework that was due the next day. I had videos of cute puppies with even cuter kittens, highlights from America’s Funniest Home Videos, and anything else that was taking the internet by storm back in 2013 to 2014.
The first time I made a digital hotspot that was clear, organized, appealing, and I was proud to show off happened in the Basics of Secondary Education 150. Check out the EDSE 150 tab on this page after finishing reading. We were assigned the semester long project of creating a website that included linked videos, embedded pictures, book reflections, and personal writings centered on various topics in the course. Throughout the semester I taught myself how to embed twitter feeds onto pages, create photo galleries, and record voice overs. Some of these have been removed from the website in order to avoid embarrassing myself in front of future employers.
There was one week in class that required me to, not only create a presentation over the book The Smartest Kids in the World by Amanda Ripley, but create a video with a voice over of me explaining my points. This Youtube channel and video are linked at the bottom of the page. This was so far out of my comfort zone that when it came to recording the video and voice over I waited until the VERY last possible day before doing so. While I still dislike creating videos and hearing my own voice overs, I have attempted to create a couple other videos over topics my classes have discussed. However, these videos have yet to see the light of Youtube. I will say that my comfort zone is slowly being expanded in the direction of video making, and maybe one day these videos will be posted.
The Basics of Secondary Education is the reason for my professional Twitter account as well. Scrolling down through the page will show a lot of quotes and comments on various educational or book related conversations, but it will also show images, videos, and links. While this may seem “to easy” to have accomplished anything in my digital adventure, what all these tweets have shown me is how to use a social media site better. Using hashtags to help my opinion be placed into the conversation, looking up accounts of people for research, and searching for relatable content to add to tweets are all skills that can be used in other social sights as well. Sites such as LinkedIn allow you to look up, follow, and connect with people on a professional level, but function in the same sense as a Twitter account.
Linking connections, such as YouTube videos, image links, and anything else that could be shared via social media was a new experience for me. In my history class I linked YouTube videos by placing the link onto the page and nothing else. So all the viewer saw was a blue line of code with hashtags and underlines. In Talking Education I forced myself to learn how to actually embed the video into my page, allowing the viewer to simply click play (maybe skip an ad) and view the video directly from my website. Not only does it allow for a cleaner looking page on my website, but it also allows for all of my information to be one coherent place.
Talking Education is the first time I have actually become interested in the website creation process to the point of obsession. There were always new designs or tricks I needed to master and place on my pages for the viewing pleasure of my classmates. For example, I never explored the “Blog” portion of this website until my ENG 213 class. Instead of creating an entire page for the Commonplace Blog, I only needed to create the feature and add it to my already created ENG 213 page. In setting it up I can change the Author’s name, manage what posts are visible, the title of each post, a cover image I want to add, and even write out a short description of the post.
Talking Education has become a bit of a hobby for me now. The goal is for this website to reflect me and my learning experience and to show case what I have learned throughout my years in college classes. The problem with creating a large scale website that will contain a lot of different topics and an equally large amount of information is that it may become boring to the viewer. In order to avoid this and keep challenging myself on the creative plain I have to keep pushing myself to step into new design roles.
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