Reflections

As I sit and ponder, I can't help but think about Edgar Allen Poe, just kidding. I'm really going to miss being in this writing class. We have learned so much over the past semester. I have had close friends and family members express to me various emotions about this class. Most people were suprised, and others were jealous about the course work and material. I feel like I lucked up! Not only did we learn about the blogsphere through the various readings and presentations, but we created our own blogs and wikis too.
Who can say that they have experience with web 2.0? The skills that we learned can be added to all of our resumes and experiences, which is such a bonus. Thank you again Dr. Strickland for everything that you have taught us, and for being so patient during the learning process. I think that having a patient teacher really makes a difference, because I can't say that about a lot of teachers and professors.
I am not going to stop posting on my blog and reading other people's blogs. I am not going to stop working on my wiki which is something that I am very proud of. One of my friends recently asked me if my wiki shows up when I search for similar topics on the internet. I'm not certain about that, but I hope so.
I know that I didn't post on my blog every single day, but I do see the benefit of it. It would be just like me to start blogging everyday after I don't have to do it anymore. I hope more people learn the benefit of social networking, so that we can make the world smaller!

Black Women Writers

As our class comes to an end, my final projet is being introduced to the world. I have had such a great time in this class over the past semester. I had a few difficulities choosing a final topic, but I decided to use another english class as the framework. My wiki, blackwomenwriters.pbwiki.com, is still under construction but I am satisfied with where it is now.

My hardest moment in developing the wiki was when I wasn't sure about the design. Everytime I tried to change the layout it always went back to what it was before. Obviously this became frustrating, but when I presented the wiki to the class the first time I got positive feedback. Evereyone said that it was coming along good, so I got over the design and focused more on the content.

I had to make some tough decisions about the wiki while I was uploading information. I wanted to include all black female writers, but there was one problem. I had to consider the fact that slaves were not given the opportunity to read and write, so this would exclude a lot of important black female orators and rhetoricians. Since, the wiki is called black women writers, I made the executive decision to make only include women writers.

I had a lot of fun making this wiki. While researching these women, I found out some interesting things that I didn't know. I found this picture of Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson, who was the wife of the famous Paul Lawerence Dunbar. I had no idea that Paul Dunbar was married. I also found out that Countee Cullen was a man. I was about to make a list of his works when I read his biography and saw his pictures. I was so suprised! Finding out information about some women that I admire has been interesting and fun.

Although this class is now over, I feel like my wiki is just jumping off! I look forward to finding more information to post, and developing a group of readers. I also appreciate all of the information that we gained in this class. I remember when half of us didn't know what web 2.0 was and now we all have our own blogs and wikis. To view my final project visit:

blackwomenwriters.pbwiki.com

Update on my Wiki

Today I researched for my wiki some more. Some women that I included on the wiki in the beginning were Sojourner Truth, Maria Stewart, and Harriet Tubman. It was nice to research the women but in actuality, they were not actually writers. They both did important things in African-American history, but I could not find written works that they did.

One spiritual that was used by Harriet Tubman was a folk songs that she used to inform slaves of their routes for escaping. It was called "Wade in nuh Watuh Childun". Although it has been documented that she used folk songs like this, she didn't create them.

Sojourner Truth gave an important "speech" that infamous day in Akron, Ohio, but she did that as an orator and rhetorician and not as a writer.

I don't think I will use orators like Tubman and Stewart because it would be too difficult, since they weren't considered writers. There are many other women out there that are writers, so I will only focus on them.

Pretty Wiki

I figured out how to insert a link into a group of words on my wiki, and I like it so much. I will use this to insert links to the various author's biographies. Now that I can do this, I don't have to stress about the wiki not having biographies. Even though I didn't write them myself, at least they are all there in one place.

My goal was to make the wiki appealling to the eye, and since I can't have the template that I want I will play around with the colors. I think that the wiki will remain neat and appeallingthrough all of these changes. My wiki is really coming together nicely.

Love and Loss

Today I can't seem to push away all of the thoughts that linger in my head about some of the people in my life. I feel like I can't trust anybody. When I don't express these feelings with anyone they just build up inside of me. I feel like I don't have anyone close to me in my life.



I mean I have friends and I have family, but I just don't have deep feelings for anyone anymore. Its like the more I trust people the more I get hurt. The deeper I push myself into relationships of any kind, the deeper I get my feelings hurt.



I don't want to hurt anymore. I don't want to be unhappy.



I love myself so much. I care about me, so why doesn't anybody else?



How can you come inside of my life just to leave?



I want everybody that has ever hurt me to know that I hurt, too. I wish I could be like Alicia Keys' song "Superwoman" all of the time, but I can't. Its like I try. I try really hard, but its never good enough. I just don't know what to do. I'm crying right now.



All of this love is sitting inside of me and it can't wait to get out. I feel this really strong feeling, but I don't know if it is love or pain, because I have both of them.



God help me.

Now you see it, now you don't

Adding all of these women to my wiki is becoming more straining than I thought it would. I can't just take a woman's name and add it. I have to research them to see if the names that I find fit my category. They aren't always a woman just because they have feminine names, and they are always writers just because they have one or two printed works. Sometimes the written works are speeches or someone elses writings about them.

I wonder if anyone else is having the same problems that I am. The process is quite fun and educational but it takes a lot of time. Yesterday, my mom asked me how my classes are coming and I told her about the wiki that I am creating. She became very excited about it, but I won't let her look at it yet. "In due time", I told her. I don't think I will show the wiki off until I'm done with classes. That's fair right?

Slave Women Writers

Today during class I started adding data to one of my pages. I began to write on my page about slave women writers, although this is supposed to be for writers I also included women like Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth. I included them because their writings were very limited during the time they lived. Harriet Tubman's spirituals were a way of gathering slaves together, and this was an oral tradition. Sojourner Truth gave abolitionist and black women equality speeches, which were also orally presented. Paper and publishing was limited to both of them so I included them anyway.

It's only up from here because I've been to the bottom and I'm not going back. I got some positive feedback in class today about the front page of the wiki, and now I'm not as discouraged as I was before about the design and the layout. This is an educational wiki, so the information is the important thing, and not the layout. Now that I've got this boost of energy, nothing can stop me!

Design Versus Data

I think we are all having very similar problems. It seems that we have great content and information for our final projects, but we run into a block in the road when the servers don't do what we want. We all want our wiki's to be attractive and organized, but its hard! The easy part was collecting the data, and the more difficult part is trying to organize it in the way that we want it.
In reference to collecting data, I just realized I had this book called the "Call and Response Anthology", and it is perfect for my final project. It has various short stories, essays, and poetry written by the same group of women that my wiki is about. I am going to use this book as one of my main sources.
After I leave class today, one of my friends is going to come to my apartment to help me with my project. I think if I had someone with me while I am working on my project, I won't get distracted or discouraged and give up working on it. I don't know exactly what happens, but I sit down to work on the wiki, and I have these great ideas but something doesn't go the way I want and I get frustrated and give up. I know that if I have a plan to work on the project with someone, I will definitely get some work done.

Color is better, right?

Today in class I worked on making my wiki more attractive. I changed the color a little. It was white, and I couldn't keep the template that I liked to stay saved on the wiki. Somehow I figured out how to make the background gray though, so that's good.

I also worked on adding pictures. I didn't think I could add pictures unless they are mine, but I found out that I can. I have to give credit to the source of course, but I don't mind doing that. Wiki building just takes a lot of work. I can't wait until it gets so good that I can tell my mom to look at it!

Adding Links to the wiki

I just added links to my wiki. I don't know why, but I always feel like I am behind everyone else as far as building my wiki. I hope not. Anyway, I want to add color schemes and pictures to my wiki. I tried to add a new template and different colors, but they were only available to me for three hours unless I upgrade to silver! I also wanted to change the name of my wiki, because in the instructions it said that I could, but for some reason or another I can't change the name.

What is really in a name anyway? Everything!!! The name has to be perfect, because the wiki won't be perfect unless the name is perfect. I've emailed the pbwiki.com hosts to get this taken care of though.

Even though little things keep happening, I am not letting them stop the final project. Things are going to happen, and I realize that now. Its not ideal, but its okay. I recognize that I don't want it to happen then I simply move on.

I added time periods to the wiki and new pages from each of the time periods. Its going to be a successful wiki...I just know it.

Me, myself, and my wiki !!!

I came to the realization today, that I need to have some alone time with my wiki. I've just created it and already its being neglected. If I just spend time fooling around, I will begin to just figure it out. I wrote an email to my professor today that said when I began to create my wiki , I felt like "a fish thrown into the Atlantic Ocean". She immediately came to my side to assist, but I told her that I probably just needed to spend time fooling around. I will probably even mess up, but that is the only way to really learn.

I have found some examples and tips that pbwiki.com has for new wiki users. I just had to find them. I'm sure I will improve each day. What's wrong with a fish being thrown into the water anyway?

Time to Face the Facts

I've recently come to the sad reality that I will not be able to write very detailed biographies about the authors that will be included on my wiki. Honestly, biographies at this point, might not make the cut right now. I just got done reading a rather lengthy biography about Toni Morrison on wikipedia, and I don't think I will be able to do that for her and the other writers before this project is due.

What I think I will focus on over this next month is organizing the authors into various era's and time periods that they belong, and simply listing their works. There are just so many author's, and I want to make sure that I have enough authors included to compete with other databases. Possibly, I can have the best database of African-American female authors.

I don't want to totally forget about the biographies, but I will not include them before this class is over.

Another thing I want to include on the blog is literary readings of African-American females. As we all know, there are various ways in which one can interpret a piece of literature. I will discuss the different literary theories like feminism, black feminism, African feminism, womanism, and Africana Womanism. After being introduced to all of these theories, in my Africana Womanism class I was encouraged to make this wiki. Including these theories will make the wiki whole.

So Indecisive.

I can't believe I'm so indecisive.

I think I'm going to use pbwiki.com after all, for my project. If someone asked me "Didn't you say you weren't going to use pbwiki.com?", I would simply say "No, I didn't say I was going to use another server, I was just searching." My last post just gives it away that I'm an indecisive person. I couldn't really find another one to use, so I just went back to pbwiki.com and started writing on my wiki.

I developed a policy on my wiki called "TP", which stands for the truth policy. I only want facts displayed on the wiki, since it is for educational use. It will be good.

Back, back, forth, and forth....

I just realized that I don't have to use pbwiki as a wiki server. It was a great suggestion, because I didn't know of any other servers. I just googled wiki servers and many popped up. To be honest, pbwiki seems a bit complicated and I want something a lot easier, and free. I think that there are more tools available on pbwiki.com that they share with the paid members. I'm not willing to invest money in a wiki, so I need to find something that is more conducive to what I am looking for in a wiki server.

One good thing is that I think I have quite enough information to get started, so once I find the perfect wiki server, I can get started uploading information.

Getting hints for my wiki everywhere.

Today in class, I milled around on facebook for a while before I actually got started working on my wiki. I have created a wiki at pbwiki.com called blackwomenwriters.pbwiki.com. I wrote a few sentences on the front page just to see what it would look like, and it still looks quite dull to be honest. The whole wiki making process seems to be quite consuming. I now understand why Dr. Strickland is giving us so much time to complete our final projects.

I want to have a great wiki. Something like a database where people can go and look up African-American women writers and it be fun. I want to have information and fun stuff also. At the beginning of class when I was dabbling around, I was on facebook taking these quizzes that were really fun. I want quizzes on my wiki, too! The good thing about playing around on web 2.0 websites is that you get ideas for your own wiki.

Of course I want the wiki to be colorful, and I want to have separate areas like a photo gallery, a media area where there are constant updates, an about me sections that explains why I chose to do this; But at the same time I want this wiki to be educational. When I initially set up my wiki, I had to choose what type of wiki this would be. I eventually choose educational, because this project was initially for class and also because I want people to come here to learn.

To be honest, I am a little scared, because I have never done something so major on the Internet before. But I won't let that fear hinder me from creating a masterpiece. I am a procrastinator, but one thing I know about procrastinators is that we get the job done. Being a procrastinator makes you think a lot. I envision in my head how I want things to be when I get done before I actually start them. Once I have that vision in my head I can start to really get things going, but I usually do things in like one or two sittings. So I will use my blog as my thinking area, and then I will have an awesome wiki!

pbwiki.com

Oh my God! Guess what! I just created my very own wiki. I can't wait to tell all of my friends and family, I'm sure they will be so excited!

On a more serious note, I am happy that my dear classmate Juanita told me about pbwiki.com. Basically, this website guides you through making a wiki whether it is for individuals, a company, or educational use. I am so glad that I am able to place all of my information that I acquire on an actual site. This will make the whole project much easier, more organized, and more presentable.

Instead of just collecting data and saving it to my email, I think I will begin putting all of my information together sooner rather than later. I really am excited! :)

Wiki Building for Dummies

Okay we are all on our own now. I want this project to turn out successfully, but I'm unsure. If there is a website that everyone is going to to help them in the wiki making process, please fill me in! Has anyone found any especially good sites with wiki tips, or how to build a wiki?

Daily Blog Tips

I recently visited one of my favorite blogs, which is Daily blog tips and it gave me a really good piece of advise. It said to use names as much as you can when writing blogs. For example, if you are in a large room with a large amount of people you would use someone's name to grab their attention. This is the same way with blogs. If you are speaking to someone that posted recently, or if you are addressing the person that created a wiki, you should use their name.

By using someone's name on the internet it makes them respond more easily. When you think about it, how could you respond to someone if they don't use your name or address you. You can't in my opinion.

Let us Pause....

In our pausing practice today I realized that only good can come out of pausing. When you pause, you simply reflect. If we don't take time out to reflect on things and events that happen in our lives we let it pass us without acknowledging them. Everybody and everything deserves its recognition.

Victor Hugo said,

“Be like the bird that, pausing in her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings, knowing that she hath wings.”

To me this means, acknowledging things helps you to live a better life. If someone has a bad day, its okay. Recognize that you have a bad day, tell others about your bad day, and move on! You cannot appreciate a good day without experiencing the bad ones. Always pause for a minute after major events and minor events in your life. You will gain a larger appreciation for everything.

Is the Internet too limited?

Today in class I have been researching my final project topic. Last class period, I did the same thing, but it seems like I found more. I keep being lead to the same web pages even on different search engines. I think its time that I hit up Barnes and Noble or even the MU library. I appreciate the sites that I have found, which were almost too good to be true, and I know that these websites just won't be enough.

The internet is often very helpful, however it is always good to use various modes of research. My next places will be the library, bookstores, and then back to the internet for some wiki searches.

One problem that I know I will have will be writing the actual biographies of each of the African-American women writers.

Also, I got a boot of energy today in class! When I mentioned that I will use writers like Toni Morrison in my wiki, another student commented with "Toni Morrison is amazing!" Now I am encouraged to find out more about black female writers that we aren't so familiar with, so people can say "Oh bell hooks is amazing, or Maria Stewart is amazing!" I've uploaded an image of bell hooks, just for the fun of it! Enjoy.

Online Brainstorming For You and Me

I don't know if I will use the brainstorming website bubbl.us to brainstorm anymore more for my final project. Bubbl.us has been quite helpful to get me thinking about what I wanted to do, because we used it in class for that exact reason. When I attempt to use it at home it is more of a struggle trying to get all of the arrows to work the way I want them to.

I think that I have become comfortable with using a good pen and a thick pad. There is just something aesthetic and nostalgic about brainstorming with my pieces of paper. Although, the more I think about it, the more I realize that I used to feel this way about blogging. I didn't like the idea of keeping an online journal, because I felt like it was an invasion of my privacy. Little did I know.

Music Wiki

Today I found this wiki dedicated to music. It is quite fasinating, and it has so much information. I really like music a lot, and whoever organized it did a great job. There are various sections like, top albums, top song, featured artists, chats, and much more. I think I will frequent this place a lot more since I have found it. What I like about it is that it is simple, but it has a lot of information. If I ever have a good wiki one day, I want it to be like this. It is fun, but you can learn something from it.

One thing that wikis don't tend to have are photo galleries, and a place to take quizzes. I don't know if this sounds a little far fetched but I still like the idea. To find this wiki just go to this url:

http://www.wikimusicguide.com/

My Future Wiki

For the second portion of class today I brainstormed about my final project. I went to my bubbl.us account to brainstorm ideas. I think I will structure my wiki on African-American women writers around the various time periods in which they wrote. For example, I have seven different categories right now. Some of the categories are Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Movement, and the Black Arts Movement. I also added four different web sites to my del.icio.us account. I'm really excited about the finished project.

Wow, that wasn't hard at all! I finally learned how to post my mapping by using Anne's simple steps. The easiest way to learn how to do unfamiliar things on the internet is by experimentation.

For my final project I want to create a wiki that is dedicated to famous/not famous African-American female writers. I am currently taking a class titled Africana Womanism here at the University of Missouri where we read novels by famous African-American female writers.

After I incorporate all of the women writers in my class, I will research some not so famous writers also. I'm really excited about my project, and I hope others in the blogsphere are also.

The Wiki Workplace

Whoever reads “The Wiki Workplace” about Robert Stephens in the book Wikinomics will probably all agree that he is one smart man! It seems like he knew what he wanted to do as soon as he graduated from college; No, he knew exactly what he wanted to do, but didn’t have enough money to do it. Stephens graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in computer science and knew that he wanted a business consultancy firm. Why can't I realize what I want to do?

I know that I want to own my own business when I graduate, but I don't know what I want to do. The most important thing that Stephens did was to tap into an industry that wasn't invested in. He hired people like him, which was a smart thing. One of my friends recently told me that “the day you start fulfilling your passion is the day you stop working." It seems like Stephens and his crews of geeks were all interested in doing the same thing. Stephens’ company hires people that do what he likes to do. They all like computers, playing video games, and fixing stuff. They don't feel like they are going to work every day. They are going to have fun and play games, which is all everybody wants to do.

The key to success is to find something that you are interested in, relate that to something that everybody needs and your life will be pleasant! Stephens wasn't a mathematician, but what he did was very calculated. Your passion + other's needs = Wealth

Negative Nawal.....(whomp, whomp, whomp)

Is it just me, or am I the class pesimist? I can't get into this blogging stuff like everybody else! I'd rather hang out with my friends than think about adding to some wiki. I would never use Wikipedia as a source in a paper or essay, let alone add to it. I've just always left that up to the internet geeks. To get through this class successfully I must cross-over to the land of the bloggers! Ahhhhh....

Me and Blogging

I don't know what happened! It's like all of a sudden I stopped blogging. I don't want to be like this. I tried incorporating links to my blog, but that didn't work. I want to have an easy blogging experience. I feel like a person feels after they get done cleaning up. I've done all of this work, yet I have nothing to show for it. I want to put up my brainstorming webs, but I don't know how! Does anybody else feel like they aren't getting as much as they are supposed to be getting out of this whole experience? If so, let's work together and do something about it. This can't go on forever!

Daily Blog Tips

As a person that doesn’t blog much it is difficult to provide a favorite blog of mine. Once I read the assignment I began to do what any normal person would. I turned to google.com to help me find a suitable blog to write about. A blog that I began to read longer than any other blog is Dailyblogtips.com, because it is so easy to read, and move around on the site. This blog is very neat, and to the point! It gives a lot of tips about having a blog. I need to visit a blog like this to remain a healthy blogger. I need help and this blog gives it to me. There are different links and categories to help a blogger get any type of help he/she may need, such as blog design, web tools, and blogging basics. The daily blog tips blog appeals to me because it is more of a tool. I will place a link to it in my class blog because it seems so helpful. I plan on visiting it on a regular basis so that I can learn as much as I can.
Another thing that I admire about this blog is that it appeals to one’s reason using logos. It seems like without this blog at hand you would not be on track with your blog, so it is only logical to visit it daily. After visiting this blog I feel like I need it to maintain a good blog.
You can visit this blog by going to: http://www.dailyblogtips.com/

Hooking to the Blogshere

The excerpt that we read from Walsh, Clear Blogging was a great introduction to blogging. It made me more interested in finding blogs that I can relate to by simply writing down five things that interest me. I am a believer in the blogsphere. Once you start looking up things that you are interested in, you become connected to others that have similar interests. Those connections bond you with people in your networks.

I appreciated the blogging Dos and Don'ts. These unspoken rules are very important. People are blogging about things that are important to them, so the rules 1) Never spam 2) Be polite 3) Add to, don't hijack, the conversation 4) Include relevant links and 5) Be a real person should be followed by all who participate. I don't see why someone would post anonymously. If a person feels the need to comment on something they should be man/woman enough to say who they are.

As a new citizen to the blogsphere, it is easy for me to say something so blunt like this, because I don't know much about what is going on. For example, I still don't know what a RSS Reader and a shortcut to a bookmarklet are. These tools seem helpful, but I think the best way to learn about all of the tools is to actually try it.

The Long Tail and Chris Anderson

Well I guess I should get this "monkey off of my back" like Chris Anderson, editor and chief of Wired magazine, calls it. I never knew that there could be so many articles about blogging! Yet, I must say that The Long Tail reading was quite interesting. Anderson seems like a pretty smart guy for blogging about his novel ideas, but to me this takes away from the writing process. I have a strong respect for writers who lock themselves in a room with a pad a pin. When you get feedback during the writing process it isn't completely yours anymore. On the other hand, I think getting other people's opinions is important before and after the writing is completed.

Another thing I disagree with Anderson about is the blogsphere. He says "There is no blogspere", but this is not completely true. This statement is quite relative. First of all, we must consider what kind of people are constantly on the internet. Not everybody has the means to use the internet often if at all. Then once we narrow that down, we must consider how many people use the internet to blog. Once this is done, there becomes a whole niche market.

Anderson's term "Long Tail" which refers to the new market place where everyone is looking for their individual low-demand products does not include all people. It includes people that have the means to demand special products. There are still people out there who live on bread and water.

Random Thoughts

Today is the day after Valentine's Day and I had a great time. I went to the District of downtown Columbia, MO with a special someone and I had a ball! All of the restaurants were full so we spent a lot of time trying to find a place to eat, but we eventually ended up at this chinese restaurant. I never would have thought that we would have ended up there. I don't know what they did to the food because it seemed like it was cooked a lot earlier.



I'm not used to writing all of my thoughts down like this but it's pretty hard to just write, and not write stuff that I don't want strangers to know.



I used to have a diary when I was younger that had a lock on it but my older brother, Muhammad, cut the lock off. From that point on I never kept a journal again. When I got into high school one of my english classes made the students keep a journal that we had to write in everyday, and my mom read it while I was away at college. Not only did my mom read my journal from high school, but she questioned me about it! She asked me questions like "

The Algebra of Need

In the Connected book by Steven Shaviro I was most interested in the Algebra of Need section. Shaviro says that "the addict has no choice; she or he will do anything to satisfy total need." I can relate to this idea. Many people will argue with the idea that our culture is a goods driven culture, but we really crave information more than goods.

When people have conversations about what is going on in the world it is usually about who has the right and most up to date facts about a subject, and when you don't know about something you turn to the internet or news to gain insight about a particular issue. Information has become our common input. We need it!

Goods and material things are just an example of what I am talking about. Most clothing stores for example, don't have commercials. The people that wear their clothes are their commercials, because they can spread the word about the store by word of mouth. We are therefore addicted to gaining knowledge. We don't just gain knowledge through reading a book. We are connected to people through our own networks.

As we move along in this information age, Shaviro says that “the drug doesn't get you high any longer; you need an ever-larger dose merely to get straight." We constantly have to learn new things and grow with the time, through media outlets such as the internet. The internet is constantly changing and we are forced to keep up with it. Prior to this class I didn't know what Web 2.0 was or even the Missouri Wiki. Now I have to be an expert!

Electricity Dependency

After reading the "Connected Age" article, I realized how much our society relies on technology and power. Without power our society would be chaotic! I take for granted the simple task of plugging my phone charger up to the electricity outlet, or taking my laptop with me on campus without any plugs because it is fully charged.

Since our culture relies so heavily on power I don't know what it would be like without it. My children for example will be even more dependent on electricity and technology than I am. They probably will never enjoy the simple things about childhood like going to the park or having sleep overs at a peers home for the weekend. Why would they need to go over another child's home when they can talk to them on their cell phones all day, or chat with them on i-chat or yahoo.

Back on August 10, 1996 when the power went out in New York the whole city when crazy, but when it happened in San Francisco the people reacted quite differently. I know that everyone isn't as happy as the people in the Bay Area, so we can no longer go back to a time when there is no electricity. The humans on the planet have a dependent relationship with the electrical environment we live in. We consume it all!

There is a common phrase about people that are greedy, and it states that you would "Drink the well until the water runs dry". This is exactly what we have done.

Wisdom of Crowds

Although the activity that we attempted in class on Tuesday didn't turn out how the experiment did in James Surowiecki's book, "The Wisdom of Crowds", I still believe in the wisdom of crowds. There will always be a good guesser in a group that will have a good answer no matter what, but there are great benefits from having a more that one mind. There is enevitable strength in numbers that can't be ignored.

Important things to keep in mind when doing group averages is that each individual should have there own guess, and the group will not come up with an answer that is better than each individual.

I, myself, love the idea of working together in projects. Although you have to communicate a lot, it usually pays off in the end.I liked the example of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" in the book. I was a dedicated watcher of the show and 9 times out of 10 the audience came up with the right number. I appreciate the idea of the "Wisdom of Crowds", because two minds are better than one.

Social Bookmarking

Prior to reading the social bookmarking article today I had no idea that there were tools on the web to help me organize my internet life. I always just go through the agony of finding the website how I found it last time, which means a lot of unnecessary searching. With tools like this my jobs and assignments can get done a lots faster and easier!

I look forward to trying them out in class today.

Perfect Balance

After reading a few of the class blogs today I realize that we all have very different personalities. I appreciate the fact that we all have the opportunity to create and design our own blogs. I know that in the beginning of the class I was completely wrong about what type of blogs we are supposed to have. I'm just afraid that I am not getting the right balance of school related posts and personal posts.
I don't want to add too much personal things but the readings are not going to give me the right amount of postings. Ahh!

Visual Appeal

I was just looking over the graphic design website that we were looking at in class and I don't want my blog to look like this website at all. I want to make my blog simple but sophisticated. I've noticed that some people in my blogs use their blogs as a tool. There are links and important information. I want to change my blog to resemble something like that. Right now my blog is quite colorful, but that's it.
Eventually my blog will be somewhere that I can go to that has links to all of the important stuff for me. Most likely I will place links to places like my MU webmail account, facebook, myspace, and some gossip websites that I go to. I can see it now.
I wanted my last blog of the week to be a bit more insightful, but I had a hard time finding the articles on eres that we were required to read. The plan is to find them and write more about them next week. Happy February!

Bad Rhetoric

Speaking of rhetoric, after reading this page I realize that I lot of people that I see on tv and other media outlets have becomes professionals at making speeches. I know for a fact that people like ministers on tv and television show hosts have practiced their speeches so much that it is an art for making money.
I don't like the idea of cheating people through persuasion, but then again everybody does it. Sales people are notorious for doing it.

Rules of Rhetoric

After reading the assigned website about rhetoric it seems to me that the only way to have an effective argument in any type of discourse whether it is oral or written, one must include the five canons of rhetoric in their discourse. Once the five canons are included the three persuasive appeals ethos, logos, and pathos automatically appear. The five canons compliment the discourse and should be used effectively to get one's point across.
The three persuasive appeals affect one's discourse in different ways. Ethos is the appeal of one's character, logos appeals to the audience's logic and reason, and pathos appeals to the audience’s emotion. A person's discourse is naturally given style, because one's words must be creditable and passionate as well.
Discourse should not be ineffective jargon that only educated and high-class people understand. By including the five canons of rhetoric as provided by the rhetoric website, it is quite simple to master the "art of persuasion", so that anyone can empathize with the information. The five canons of rhetoric are invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery. As long as someone uses all five canons correctly, the three persuasive appeals should come naturally.
Each writer or orator has a different style, which is developed while using the rhetorical canons. In the style segment of the rhetoric website, it spoke briefly about Julius Caesar having a simple rhetorical style. I also consider myself to be a writer with a simple style. Great minds think alike as they say!
Here is the rhetorical website : http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/silva.htm

My blog, Your blog, Our Blog

The idea of having a blog just for what I want is quite awesome! When our class was initially presented with the idea of Web 2.0 and blogging I immidiately thought about my family, because family is most important to me. I want this blog to be a place where my family and friends can come to have some dialogue. I am very excited about this blog because even after my class is over I can still have it ( ....I hope).

Today, I made a few changes on the "Family Matters" blog with color. Before today the blog was all green, and that is quite unusual for me since my favorite color is purple. I added some of my favorite colors which are purple and gold. These colors represent the regalness of the family unit, and they also represent my fasination with the French culture. Purple, green, and gold are the colors of Mardi Gras!

Another change that I would like to make to my blog is to insert pictures. Right now it looks kind of boring and with the pictures I hope to make the sight more welcoming and interactive. I have never had my own website or blog, so I don't know if a photo gallery would be out of question.

One way that I can get my friends to check out my blog is to place a link to it on my facebook page. I will probably do that by the end of the week.

The Power Behind Persuation

When making a plea to someone you use one or more of Aristole's "artistic" or "intrinsic" proofs. Logos is the appeal to reason, which is also used for oration. Pathos is the appeal to emotion, and ethos is the persuasive appeal of a particular person's character. When you talk to a different person in your family you probably use a different appeal, because they will understand you more that way. I use different appeals to communicate with different people in my family.

My mother and I have a relationship that has withstood the tests of time. We are very similar in looks, attitude, and personality. My mother and I even sound the same! When I want my mother to understand me or something I am going through I use pathos, therefore I get emotional when I talk to her. She understands me the most so I can go from being sad to being excited all in the same conversation with my mother. We laugh and cry together, so our relationship is unconditional because she knows my honest intentions.

Being a daddy's girl isn't always easy! My dad and I have a unique relationship that only he and I truely understand. He likes me as a person and I like him as a person, so we can stay on the phone for hours talking about nothing because we like each other. Whenever I want or need something I don't immediately go to him because I appreciate him, and I want him to know that I don't want to take advantage of him. When I eventually ask my dad for something I really need it. Appealling through ethos is the persuasive appeal of one's character. I know that my dad likes me as a person, so when I persuade him it is because of my character. He just really likes me!

I have three brothers and I use the same appeal when I talk to my two older brothers. I use logos when I am appealling to them, because most of the time they need a reason to do whatever it is that I need them to do. Whether I am asking each of them for a ride somewhere or $10 I have to use logos when I am persuading them because they won't do it otherwise. If I come to them with a good reason why I need them for something they will do it. On the other hand if I don't have a good enough reason they will find a good reason not to do it!

It is important to know how to approach someone in conversation, and most sale people would agree. If you approach someone the wrong way your sale is forever lost.

Procrastination

Being a college senior tells me that it time for reflection. As I look back at assignments that I have been assigned and the time it took me to actually complete the assginments the time in between is just ridiculous. Why do I procrastinate so much when it comes to doing work that I have to do. Of course I know that my life would be a lot less stressful, but I still do it.

For example, I had a assignement given to me two days ago. I could have easily done the assignment when I got out of class, that night, or the next day but I didn't. I waited until thirty minutes before the class to do it. The more I put the assignment off the most stimulated my brain became. This rush came over me! My conscious kept reminding me that I had to do this assignment, but something else inside of me kept saying all of this time that I still had left.

I don't want to go through this semester of school being a procrastinator, and I don't want to do through my life being a procrastinator. Don't get me wrong, I get jobs done. On the other hand, I believe that my life will feel more complete and I will have a stronger sense of completion if I change this aspect about myself. The only thing holding me back is I don't know where to start.

What Facebook does?

Today Facebook serves as an online venue to communicate with friends and family, become aware of issues facing your group of friends, advertise, and share pictures. The people that you are friends with on facebook will become aware of what is going on in your life and vise versa. It is a site to find out what is going on socially in your network of people.



Most people in my network try to make their profile as different as possible to single themselves out. Applications that are popular to my network of friends are funwall, superwall, pacman, gift exchange, mood calculators, and rating how hot your are. The usual pictures are of people having fun and going out to parties. Some pictures are of major accomplishments and successes. I like to post pictures of family, friends, and traveling.



Facebook makes networking and socializing a lot easier, and it also makes the world smaller because you can easily stay in communication with people that you might have lost contact with before.