Inspiration (Week 5-6 Design)

This is one of the things that we have been doing for the last couple of days, in order to complete the design stage. First of all, we had to create a wikispaces account, so that we could begin the process. Our first task was to make up a plan for our digital portfolios. In order to do this, we needed to use a software, called Inspiration, so that our plans could be clear and easy to read. The plan basically looks like a mind map, and it represents all of the things that are going to be placed on the digital portfolio. First of all, I started off with a wikispace site, and I used the biggest circle to represent that since that is the most important part. After I explored on how to use the inspiration software, I found out that you could be creative and could use other pictures to represent the subject that you are trying to show. For example, for the community and service section I didnt use a boring old round box that was available on inspiration. I went onto the internet, and got a picture of the Earth, since that is what you could link to the subject of community and service. I also used smiley faces for the subjects that I am planning to lay out on my digital portfolio. These smiley faces made the mind map look more lively, and funny as well! After I completed my mindmap, I uploaded onto my wikispace, since that is what we will be using for the next couple of classes. I am happy that I completed this task in one lesson!

March 12th, 2008

Today we were asked to create our own wikispaces in class. This is the first step to creating our project. The computers were having some technical problems once again, so it took me some time to catch up with the class and create my own wikispace. The name of my wikispace is "xpolkdaotx". I usually use the same name for every account that I am making in IT because it gets quite confusing since we have so many different accounts in IT now. After creating our wikispace, we had to begin the task that was gievn to us. The task was to create a rubric that you could use when grading a digital portfolio. The different criteria were given to us by Mrs. Lindsay, where the lowest was "poor", middle "satisfactory", and the highest being "good". The rubric that I created consisted of 7 different criterias. I chose what I would use for my criterias. The different criterias I used were: Content, Organization, Font and colors, Page layout, Spelling and grammar, and Navigation. I made a table with all of these criterias, and then I wrote about how each criteria meant if it was in the, poor, middle, satisfactory, or good section. I described breifly how it could fit into each level. I completed this task on time, which was good because I got extra time to explore the wikispaces site.

March 5th, 2008

Today was another IT lesson with Mrs. Lindsay. Like everytime we learn something new, which we have to use later on for the future work. Today was a lesson where everyone had to catch up with the tasks that we had to complete because a lot of people were behind. I completed all the tasks that were asked to complete this class, so now I am not behind the class. Mrs. Lindsay taught us today how to Print+Screen a page. We basically just have to print screen the page and then add that information onto the web page that we wish to add it on to. After print screening the page, you have to open up a paint page and paste it on to there. Then you crop the picture out as much as you want it and then save it as a .jpg file. I tried using this new technique today on my blogger, however, it did not work out for some technical problems that the computers were having this class. I wished to add more detail onto some of my blogposts however the print screening did not work out. SInce it does not work at school, I will try to put in the extra detail at home for homework. Mrs. Lindsay told us that if we put screen shots onto our blogposts then the page will look more attractive and it will also be more interesting for the reader to read!