Chrome Extensions

ColorZilla

ColorZilla is a plugin that grabs the color from a specific part of the page and returns a value for that color. It's very useful for designers, you can just take a color you like, and use it on your own work.

This plugin is very easy to use. You can just click on the icon, and a hexcode for the color will show up wherever you hover.

This extension is very easy to use. I didn't need any instruction, it was very easy to figure out. I would recommend this plugin to anyone who finds themselves working with colors.

Forest

Forest is an extension that's meant to help productivity. It provides a small incentive to keep the user from going to blacklisted sites which they might get distracted by. This extension is nice for someone who feels their productivity is falling behind.

To use it, you simply set an amount of time that you want to be productive, and it will plant a virtual tree. If you go to certain websites before the time is up, you're gonna kill the tree.

This extension is very easy to use. It doesn't completely restrict you from going to these sites, but it provides a slight incentive to stay away from distracting sites.

Grammarly

Grammarly is a plugin to help correct grammar mistakes as you type them. It's the perfect tool for anyone that's prone to having grammar problems.

This is a very easy to use plugin. It'll put its logo in the bottom-right hand corner of the text box, and display how many mistakes it finds. If you click on it, it'll give you the option to automatically correct the mistakes.

This plugin takes no time to set up. Just download it, and you're ready to go.

Final Reflection: Exploring Web

What I Learned

Technology

I came into this year with a pretty basic knowledge of what I was doing in web design. I ended up being one of the only people who could make a working website for our final project last year, so I figured I should give the class a shot and see if I liked it. I ended up learning a lot and making some works that I'm really proud of. One such example is my rollover site, that in my opinion looks really clean, and I enjoyed learning how to make it. We learned so much over the course of the year, and I can honestly say I took significant knowledge away from this class. I'm glad I got to extend the knowledge I previously had with the minimal amount of web design I learned last year and enjoyed doing it along the way.

Collaboration

There wasn't much collaboration throughout the course of the year. This has been a pretty solitary class, which I don't mind at all. It was my biggest struggle in video because I'm such a solitary worker. This class was a good fit for me in that way because I could work by myself and only take responsibility for my own work.

Communication

Despite there not being much collaboration, there was a significant amount of communication. Whether that was with my classmates or my teacher, I had to talk to people all the time. There were people in the class who knew a lot more than I did, and even though it hurt my pride a little, I asked for help when I needed it. (Thanks Ethan!!) I also had to communicate with Mr. Olson through email at times. Even though there wasn't as much communication as was needed in video, I still used it throughout the year, and mustered up the courage to ask for help when I didn't understand something, which has been a struggle for me in the past.

Project Management

I tried to do a lot of my work outside of class. This was probably pretty confusing for my teacher, but I have some good reasoning. I have a much better knowledge of the version of Dreamweaver that I have on my laptop, so working outside of class was much easier for me. There were probably days where it looked as if I was not doing much, but I always worked hard behind the scenes. I would often create content if that was required of me in class, and then would do the actual site building at home. That was just what worked for me. Transferring the files was a bit of a challenge at times, but I would always manage to figure it out. Overall I would say I had solid project management, even if I had a skewed process.

Leadership

Because there was not much collaboration to be had in this class, I can't say that I improved in a major way in the leadership category. I also wasn't one of those students who knew a ton about the class coming into it so I couldn't help out my classmates like some have done for me. In video, I would say my leadership skills got more of a chance to shine, but in here they weren't really applied. This wasn't a problem for me because I am more of a solitary worker than anything.

Strengths and Weaknesses

I don't know that I would say I have specific strengths in this class, but overall I would say I have enough technical ability to call that a strength. I get my work done and when I finish with it, I like the results. I think I produce work that is clean and is something I'm proud of. Even though I don't possess the skills that some of my classmates do, I think that I have good technical ability in general. I guess I could say that my project management was a weakness for me because I had such an awkward process: working some at home and some at school. If it seemed as though I wasn't working, I was doing a lot at home. Because of this weird process, sometimes my work did not get turned in on time because I had trouble relinking all the files and uploading it to the server, which is something I wish I could just do from my computer, but what I did worked. I can't speak for the other areas because there wasn't much application of them in this class as a whole, so I can't say that any of them were a real strength or weakness.

Application

The strand I am going into next year is journalism, so I most likely won't have much use for the skills that I learned this year in web design. There is a website for that class so I may have to use them to make edits or solve problems regarding that. In my personal life, however, I can see myself using the web design skill that I cultivated this year to make websites for my own personal use.

What Would I Change?

Overall, I wish that I had more knowledge of web design coming in, especially from my freshman year. I wish that it was stressed more heavily than the other strands because having a better grasp for it would have helped me a lot. I also wish that I did not have such a backwards process of creating websites because it would be better to get all my work done at school rather than save some for home.

Conclusion

I really enjoyed this class. Often I would look forward to it more than any other classes because it was just so fun. It was a great way to let my creativity flow in a productive way, and learn some skills that will help me in the future. Even though I am not going into the web design strand for my junior and senior years, I still will look back on my days in exploring web design fondly, becuase it really was just a fun class. Almost everyone that I talked to enjoyed it a lot, and so did I. Here's to a great year.

Final Reflection: Exploring Video

What I Learned

Technology

I joined this class somewhat late in the year, and because I did so, I never really got to learn with the other students how to use the cameras. Over the coarse of the year, I familiarized myself with the cameras and how to take good shots. I also learned how to improve my editing skills, and did so with numerous tutorials and just raw experience. Using Premiere is so fun for me, and even if the other students do not like it, I enjoy learning the many uses of the program. The technology aspect is important because it is how the overall video looks, and over time I have become obsessed with only making projects that I am 100% proud of. I strive to make videos that are the highest quality, and when I do not achieve that, I am really disappointed. My favorite project this year was the music video, which turned out as an amazing frame by frame recreation of All Star by Smash Mouth.

Collaboration

Collaboration has been my biggest challenge this whole year. I am a very solitary worker, and as everyone knows, video is a very collaborative class. Over the course of the year, this was an extreme challenge for me, especially during the entertainment section during second semester. I realized that I work better with some people than others, and I need to accept the differences that I have with them. Even if it is difficult to work with some people, I need to just get over it and deal with it, because it is only for a short time and is not a big deal. I also have realized through my continuation of the year that I do not deal well with difficult partners, because I am such a perfectionist with my work, and if I feel like they are not, it really bothers me. Overall, this year has showed me that I need to work around that weakness of mine and just get along with people, because multiple minds working towards the same goal is better than just one.

Communication

Communication has a lot to do with collaboration, but is not entirely the same. I communicate with others fairly well, be it outside of school or in class, in order to get work done. However, as I am more of a solitary worker, communication does not come as easily to me as the technical aspects of this class. Communication is vital to this class because of the heavy amounts of collaboration involved, and I feel like as the year progressed and I got closer with some of my classmates, my communication improved.

Project Management

Project management is so important in the class that I am going into next year: convergence journalism. I strived to improve my project management, as I struggle with procrastination a lot. I feel as though I am a very effective editor, and because of that my project management did improve a lot. However, because I am such a perfectionist, actually filming shot was very difficult because I wanted to make sure they were perfect. That is why some projects were done more efficiently, because I was confident in my ability and confident that it was a good video. I wish that I was as confident about every video, so that it did not hold me back, but I feel as though I am improving.

Leadership

I feel as though my role as a leader shined through in some projects, and others I was too timid to step up. Every group needs a leader, and even though I do feel as though I have very good leadership skills, I sometimes do not have the confidence to step up and say what I am thinking. My confidence in this area did improve over time, especially towards the end of second quarter, because I felt as though I had done very with journalism, where I think I am the best. That is where I stepped up the most, and helped out a ton with the final project and its production. That was the height of my leadership. As the year progressed though, and lead into entertainment, I felt my confidence in the area drop a bit, and I found myself going with what my group wanted to do rather than speak my mind. I feel as though next year, when I will be more confident with my abilities, I will be able to best demonstrate my leadership skills, particularly in the production of ONW Now.

Strengths and Weaknesses

I feel as though my abilities as an editor really got a chance to shine throughout the year. I learned how to better use Premiere, and I believe that I improved a lot. I know how to do so much in the program, and I am really proud of myself for that. I wish I could have primarily done the editing, as in I wish instead of focusing on filming, sometimes I could primarily focus on editing and post production. I know that was not the focus of this class, but it would have been a good fit for me. As far as weaknesses go, I had a lot of trouble with my self-confidence and perfectionism, even though I did my best to hide these problems. I wish that I could get over them, and I am working on it, but I hope to abandon that problem completely by the end of my senior year.

Application

I hope to apply the skills I have learned this year in my junior and senior year as I improve further in convergence journalism. I am going to focus more on improving my editing and my post production skills to better myself, and to be a good help while working on the set of ONW Now. I want to be primarily behind the scenes, and I feel as though the skills I have learned this year will adequately aid me in doing so. I want to be a big contributor to the production of ONW Now, and I feel like I can do so well.

What Would I Change?

Overall, I wish that I was not such a perfectionist when it came to filming. Also, ideally I would just  be doing convergence all year, but there is not much I can do about that. I wish that I was better at working with people, and that will be something that I have to work on heavily, in order to better myself and my work for next year.

Conclusion

I had a great time this year. From graphic design to video, I progressed as a content creator and found what I wanted to do. I improved my skills as an editor and film creator, and enjoyed doing so. I had my strengths, and my weaknesses, but overall I feel like I improved greatly. I got closer to some of my classmates, and learned skills that I will use for years to come. I hope to continue to work as I transition into journalism. 

Index Part 2, Electric Boogaloo

My Experience 

Overall, using the template to make a new website was very easy. You just substitute pictures and sentences fort he ones that are already given. The website looked very clean and concise, and the color scheme went very well with my profile picture, so I decided I would not change it. The way the final product looked was to my liking, and it made displaying works easy and appealing to the eye. Using it, however, meant that the final product was not entirely mine, and that was something I did not enjoy. It also was kind of rigid, and design view was practically unusable. It wasn't that hard to work around, and I enjoyed working with it in all honesty. I would hope that most pro web designers work from scratch, but I think that may not be the case. I guess it all comes down to preference and how unique you want your site to be, but I'd prefer to do it myself. 

Please Design Responsively

Overview and Importance

Responsive design is when the web designer uses media queries in order to make a website suitable for different screen sizes. No matter what size the screen is, the website should be able to work no matter what. This is important, because in this day in age, there are a variety of devices used to access the internet, with varying screen widths among said devices. The goal of a web designer is to organize information on a web page in a way that is easy for the viewer to digest. If the text on a page is too small to read on your phone, or too large to read on your laptop, it becomes harder to use the website. On my website, I used media queries to change the location of the navigation menu, from the side on larger screens, to being in the same column as the content on smaller screens. This will make it easier for visitors to my site to use the website.

This is the desktop version of my site, as you can see, the sidebar is sitting comfortably to the right of the content.

With a smaller screen width, the sidebar moves out of the way of the content. Without this change, there wouldn't be enough room for both the content and sidebar to fit on the page.

Intro to Responsive Design

So What Is It?

In this day and age, we browse the internet across many different devices with varying screen widths. The amount of people viewing websites on mobile devices is increasing, so now it's important to account for both desktop and mobile users. Without the using responsive design, it can be hard to design a site that looks good across all devices. This is the goal of responsive design. Responsive design is when the website you're viewing adjusts to the screen size in order to look good across devices. The most efficient way to do this is by using media queries. Media queries are used to apply certain CSS styles only when the viewing width of the page fits within the parameters of the media query. In order to create a responsive design, you have to watch for breakpoints. You can find breakpoints by slowly decreasing the width of your window until the elements on the page become dysfunctional. This is where you insert a media query. You can make a website responsive by fixing these breakpoints.

My Example Site

e-Communication

At full screen, the eComm site has a lot of information. This makes sense because there is a lot of room for this information.

However, when the width is decreased, the navbar reduces to a hamburger menu to reduce clutter.

At the smallest width, the sidebar changes position in order to make room for the article.

Quick as a Flash

What Is Flash?

Everyone knows Flash. You probably have, even if you don't know it. Flash games dominate school computers, where sites like Coolmath Games and Miniclip are widely used. As a general definition, Flash programs are interactive animations or videos that were widely used in the transitions stage of the web. It guaranteed universally identical content, not dependent on the user and their operating system.

Deterioration

Flash was still widely used when Stave Jobs announced in 2007 that the new iPhones would not support the plugin, marking the downfall of the program. This was in part due to users utilizing the program's ability to automatically run complex scripts on any website for malicious purposes. Among the other companies not supporting the program, Google has announced that Chrome 53 may be the last version that includes Flash standard, putting most companies at this point passed the Flash era. Flash's future is fairly bleak, because all media tends to deteriorate over time.

Still Important

Despite its rapid decline in recent years, Flash is still useful in many ways. In all, the program is the pioneer of video sharing services that most everyone is able to use, unlike the newer HTML5. The Flash Media Server is much more secure than sharing HTML5, keeping the content that is being shared on the creator's side, which in turn makes stealing their content much more difficult. Adobe acknowledged the decline of Flash in 2011, releasing Edge Animate, an HTML5 creator, that was mainly for mobile content sharing; most modern phones do not come with Flash Player installed automatically, and some do not have access to it at all. In doing so, they also stated during a press release: “This makes HTML5 the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms.” Among the sites that still run the program (mainly free gaming sites), Facebook reigns supreme, with games like Farmville and others that are still i use by many to the day.