Reflective Draft

I have some ideas as to what I am going to write/talk about in my Reflective Paper...

I am going to use my Enthusiast Blog

1.)  I had a suggestion to use less video.  I should use it to emphasize my point in my writing rather than in every post.  If I could find a way to add music with an mp3 player rather than a video then that would be great.  I want the reader to actually hear the music that I am talking about so they can get a better feel for the sound of the song that I am talking about.

2.)  I will talk about how I have changed as a writer.  How it has become more of a passion rather than work.  It seriously was like therapy to me on so many levels.

3.)  I will mention how I gained an internship from this blog.

Just some ideas...more to come later.

Project 4 So Far

So far so good for our project 4 "URI Parking Issues".  We all have designated things that we are working on.  I am going to be doing the Mission Statement for our group. I had a pretty good idea of what a Mission Statement was, but I decided to be on the safe side and just google what a Mission Statement is.  It is pretty much just one or two sentences of the purpose of a company or organization.  Here are some ideas that I have so far...

Mission Statement Ideas

1. We are dedicated to making the lives of URI Students easier by bringing awareness to the parking issues at URI.

2.   We are URI college students who have all been effected by URI Parking Issues.  Here is place where we can be heard

3.  Our mission as URI college students is to bring awareness to the parking issues at URI.  We have all been affected by these parking problems and the first step to solving them is to bring awareness to the issue at hand.

So those are my ideas for now.  For workshop on Friday, I am leaning towards having the last statement be the one that will be on the socialgo site.  I feel like it is a good summary of the site, but I also have doubts.  Is it too much?  I'll see what everyone thinks on Friday...

Project 4: Texting and Driving

Here are a few sites that a researched that our group can read and research about...

This is a facebook group of URI students protesting the parking at URI
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2200051829

From the 5 cent cigar...
(it is from 2003 but it has some good info)
http://media.www.ramcigar.com/media/storage/paper366/news/2003/02/28/News/Uris-Parking.War.Still.Driving.In.Circles-382201.shtml


Here is another great article from the 5 cent cigar...
http://media.www.ramcigar.com/media/storage/paper366/news/2005/03/03/Editorialopinion/Uri-Parking.Policy.horrendous.Parking.Tickets.totally.Unnecessary-883868.shtml


...still researching more...

3 Social Issues (Out of 5 )

Here are some ideas that I have for social issues...

1.)  Texting and Driving:  I'm not sure if this would count as a social issue, but it is something that effects our society in a horrible way.  Careless deaths have happen as a result of texting and driving and it can sometimes be equivalent-if not more so- dangerous than drunk driving.

2.)  Animal Rights:  I understand that animals used to be tested for things like medicine and beauty products etc years ago, because of the fact that there was maybe no other option, however I feel as though there are many more options to choose from in present day.  There are plenty of clothes for example that have faux fur and still looks real.  My point with this one is that there are many other options to choose from for testing other than animals.

3.)  Birth Control:  I went to catholic school for 18 years of my life, and throughout those years I have heard that birth control is wrong for it is the prevention of a human life.  Honestly, I couldn't disagree with these teachings more. At eight-teen years old, I was officially an adult and felt as though they were hiding the truth from us as young adults.
      I understand that it was a catholic school and it was their job as teachers to teach us about abstinence, but what about those who were going to be sexually active before marriage?  They seemed to think it was wrong and because of that lack of awareness, I believe that many teens were misinformed about the realities of the world and then ended up in a bad situation-an unplanned pregnancy before marriage.  You can still learn about birth control and be abstinent at the same time.  It is a choice.  I feel like more catholic schools should be informed of birth control rather than have it looked down upon.  Birth Control is harmless and should be taught about in catholic schools.  Catholic school also teach that abortion is wrong.  Maybe if they taught us about the different options of birth control, then there wouldn't be abortions. 

Website Redesign -Final Reflection

  Our group just finished our Website Redesign project.  Like I stated in my reflections earlier, our group did a great job at splitting up the tasts through the project.  We were able to meet outside of class one time just to full out discuss the layout of the site and who was going to be doing what.  I think that having thr group meet for an hour outside of class really helped us become more organized. We were able to split the slides up evenly and if one of us needed help with something, there was always someone who could help or give thier imput.
    I think for the most part, we all did a good job.  We changed the site from cheesy and complicated to classy and organized.  I feel bad for Scandinavian Sun, for the fact that we weren't actually able to cange thier site! For business reasons, I think that they should change their website around.  Who knows, maybe one day they will get a glimpse of our website redesign project and take some ideas!

Process on Group Project...

    So far, our group is doing a really great job as far as communication goes.  Some of us commute and some of us live at URI (or off campus but near URI) and considering the circumstance, we are doing a great job with our project.  There are four members in the group and eight slides that we have to do.  We split the work load evenly, and each member will do two slides.  We are still unsure about the "best " look for each slide as far as color is concerned.  However, we all are aware of what the alignment and layout of the slide will be like.
  We will have each member submit their slides in the group forums by Wednesday/Thursday so we can see what we are working with.  When we meet Friday in class, we will choose what colors we will use for the slides.  Once, we arrive at a decision, we will then create the final design of each slide.  So far, things are looking good.

Scandinavian Sun

       Our group has officially picked the site that we are going to work on and it is called "Scandinavian Sun".  Overall, the website is pretty much all over the place, but not so much that we can't make something great out of it.  I think we are planning to get rid of the music that blasts "Here Comes the Sun" by the Beatles.  Even though I love the song, I don't think that the cheesy opening page will attract many of our clients.
    We want to make the site more appealing to people ages 16-30 and females.  We were talking about making the background a plain white or off-white color instead of keeping the green color that it is now.  We also are going to change  the font to something more classy and clean looking such as cursive or some other type of clean font.  We don't want the colors to contrast too much (like a neon on black) because that might look a bit cheap.  I don't tan, but I have friends who do.  When they go to a tanning salon, they want to go somewhere that looks clean and safe.  The pictures that the site shows right now are not flattering to the tanning salon. 
  We were thinking about putting the links on the side of the page rather than "grid-like columns) that the site has right now.  We feel like the grid advertisements make the site too overwhelming.  It almost makes me dizzy!  We also want to maybe merge some links together that may have similar info.  Overall, we want to do what we can to make the site as clean as possible

I just finished one of the visual maps and will have it all ready for tomorrow!