Author: Luis Santana

I enjoyed the fact that we were able to use our creativity to the fullest. It’s not every day where you are encouraged in class to go out and experiement on things you find best to fit your way of thinking. I’ll definitely give many of these skills another try when they’re called upon. I know at some point down the road, I’ll be able to make good use of these abilites that we’ve learned. Being able to take another class like this would be amazing in the future even if it is not a requirement. It gives you a healthy dose of perspective in being able to learn how many different things are out there for you to try in your own creative ways. 

I haven’t been able to work on my website I made a whole lot if I’m being honest. Having to balance out other schoolwork makes it difficult to implement enough time to even think about adding more content onto it. It would be great to not have so much work to do but things don’t come easy. When I get more time, I’ll experiment on more things but for now, I’m just going to lay off of it.

Thinking about what we did for most of the year was tough cause we had so many assignments to keep track of and it makes me scratch my head. I know we had been experimenting with ideas in terms of themed posts and all but for the most part, I only remember the mid semester recap and the mini project we did choosing what type of project we would like to do where we would post a blog on a specific theme we chose.

Not sure what else to really speak about if I am being honest so I will just scatter all sorts of hyperlinks from every post I’ve made.

Here’s a post I just made down below! (Sorry for the poor quality, the PNG won’t capture in proper size)

A new post!

Gaming

That’s pretty much what I’ve got, I don’t have much else to make as I’m going to be on vacation by the end of this week so I will wrap up here. I had an amazing time being in this class and getting to see such creative talent in so many people, hope everyone has a wonderful summer break!

This is the first time I am making a website after finally getting WordPress to work, turns out I forgot to do something important on the hosting website so I had to go back to fix it. Finally after so many hours of figuring out what to do, I can finally make a blog post with my website!

Now to figure out the rest of this, but for now, this is all I am going to do for today.

Sample Page

Thinking of a domain name wasn’t too difficult but all I did was put my name and an initial then went to town on my keyboard to get a good name that wasn’t taken.

luiss22
luiss1273

luiss1615281

Just a massive array of numbers to make sure it wouldn’t be taken. If I had any idea what my website would have, I’d like for it to be something close to a collection like Pinterest. It’s nice being able to find cool ideas and organize everything so that way you don’t have trouble finding something you need.

It’s going to be fun to experiment with your own website and make it to how you like it to be.

Looking back at this half of the year and nothing has been more fun to experiment with than the things in this class! I really enjoyed all the various tasks we have at hand whenever we are learning to create, imagine or explore. There’s so much to recap and its only been about 2 months since we returned from break and already we have 2 months of class left.

How am I doing in CT101?

In this class, I’ve been able to learn a lot and have been able to learn so many things in this class which will be valuable to me in the future. I have been able to stay well on track with each and every assignment posted and made sure to refer to the recordings that are posted every class session for guidance. I feel confident and comfortable with how I am doing in this class.

What have I learned and retained the most?

The main thing I have kept with me throughout the year was to not be afraid to be creative. Being able to express yourself in the ways that best fit you is always something to retain no matter how long it has been. Being able to put forth new ideas in your own style is something important to have and it’s best to not let it go.

What new skills have I developed , cultivated and displayed regularly in my weekly posts?

The GIFs and hyperlinks, can’t get enough of using these. I would use them now but I would get carried away with so many so just have this one gif instead. With that aside, the vast amount of fields to look at in terms of how to creative and innovate and imagine are limitless and there’s so many things that helped us cultivate it including the various media collages and the tasks given to us on what type of media to do that we would like to do again and again.

What do I know now that I did not know before taking this class?

I know that there are many simple yet extensive things I have picked up from class including how to organize a collage of photos, editing with websites, making gifs and so much more.

What grade do I believe I am maintaining and why do I deserve that grade? 

I imagine that I have somewhere between an A- and a B+ because I have been on top of my work and did everything that was asked to do assignment wise while not really being able to go to class in person as much due to sickness and injury so I think I did well but might lose some points because I hadn’t been in the best of shape to go to classes regularly.

Do I see my weekly blogging work expanding creatively? If so, please explain why –  or am I stuck in a loop where my posts seem to look the same most of the time, how will I change that?

I think my blogging is slowly growing, it’s not easy to tell when writing it obviously but once you look back on it, you can see something different in each and every one of the posts and notice what you tried that was unlike the previous post you’ve created

Are there any assignments that you are missing? If so, list them.

I don’t think I have any missing assignments, I did accidentally do 2 assignments in a week (one for the week that it was assigned and the one that was assigned for the following week). I should be 100% on homework as far as I know.

Are you commenting regularly on your classmates posts? Are you responding back to comments given to you by the professor & your classmates?

Sometimes I forget to comment, I usually expend a good amount of time on each post and forget to comment on another post, I should get back to making sure I comment on at least one person’s post after finishing with mine.

Are you participating during the class time? If not, explain why.

Not really,  I haven’t been in the best of shape to go in so I haven’t been able to participate much.

This is the time to be accountable. How will you make needed improvements?

I think that I will get improvements through feedback, I think that will make it clear what I need to improve on.

Technology has advanced quite far from where it first began. We went from using sticks and stones to make fire to driving mechanical vehicles to wherever our hearts desire. Communication and social interaction has evolved with this progression of technology and today, you see everyone with a phone regardless of purpose. It has since become a staple towards our daily lives as it allows us to be able to talk to our family and friends in seconds and allow us to share our experiences in a few pictures and videos

Here’s a short video on the timeline of social media.

When thinking of these three words: Creativity, Immediacy, and Intuition, I don’t use those exact words but the concept of each of these words exist in whatever you put your mind to.

Creativity is the very essence your mind and figuring out a solution with an unorthodox method that proves to be effective.

Immediacy is to recognize and value.

Intuition is understanding the feeling right away without having to research what you’re looking at.

If I had to put these three in order, I’d say Creativity + Intuition = Immediacy.

When asked the question of what it is being alive, I think of being placed on this planet to do something, we don’t know what it is until our life plays out. There’s so much in life to do that puts you through so much and you as a person has to take all of it in and channel this into something great for yourself. Life is precious and has something to it which makes it special and that is the memories you make while you’re here. It’s always important to have good and bad memories that help you grow as a person.

Now onto the assignment.
I made a collage that represents myself through https://build.mmm.page/
Here’s my page!

I used a multitude of pictures/gifs to represent what I like and what would help people understand me as a person. Many of these stem from my interest in reading and researching sports to watching anime and other things like that. I wasn’t able to insert the collage as a whole GIF for the post but I hope that’s fine.

All in all, I really liked using this program as it gives you the freedom of making a collage that best represents you and you have full creative control when creating such a piece.

To kick off, DS106 provides a lot of bases to build ideas up and I really like how many different choices there are that we can choose.  The ones that were the most intriguing to me were the GIF assignments and the Writing Assignments.

The GIF assignment appealed to me the most and when looking through the list of what to do, this one caught my eye.

Animals Doing Funny Things

I found it to be a fun one to do as I like watching videos that make you laugh and relieve stress from whatever you were doing. In terms of completing this, I don’t think it would be much of a struggle since making GIFs aren’t hard at all especially when you have a lot of resources available. It would be nice to make use of something not so difficult to use.

Since this one is both fun and easy, here’s a couple funny animal GIFs!

As for my second type, I would like to try the writing assignment and in particular, this one.

I do have a lot of passions to choose from but the biggest one for me is sports. I really love not just the physical/mental trials that you go through when working to be at your best but also the fun and positivity that can result from it. Coming from a sports background, there would be many of those present and studying the history of certain sports have been thrilling. Unfortunately, I haven’t really been able to capitalize on the real life aspect of it because of other passions I have but I spent several years doing my own type of research in various sports (soccer, baseball, boxing, etc.)

To make it short and simple, I’m going to focus on how much I love the sport of boxing. While it can be a brutal, violent and unforgiving sport, it has a lot of history behind it as it is one of the oldest sports known to man! During my time in high school, I first started getting into the sport thanks to the man many know as “The Greatest”, Muhammad Ali.

Since I have had my own experiences with combat sports (doing 3 years of karate), I was hooked on the sport and wanted to learn more. Boxing and combat sports in general require a lot of discipline and patience in order to hone your craft and be the best that you can possibly be.  Upon making extensive research on boxing later on and having to do a research project for sports communication class last year, I was able to find a collection of rare footage of past champions dating back to the late 1800s. I was stunned at how it was possible to even capture film back in those days.

Here’s the footage!

Part 2 of the footage

If you ever have the time, you can access the footage for yourself.

Researching many past champions was a real treat but the one’s that I enjoyed researching the most were the aforementioned Ali and Mike Tyson as the two have some of the most intriguing paths during their careers and today, are revered as the two most popular fighters in the sports history.

It was awesome getting to learn about these two men and understand more about their lives.

Bio of Mike Tyson

Bio of Muhammad Ali

Bio of the history of prizefighting

To cap off, boxing can be a beautiful sport to watch if you’re into watching two human beat the stuffing out of each other but regardless, there are many more things that go into it than what meets the eye and it’s always important to remember that these people risk their lives to fight for people’s entertainment and to always give them a lot of respect to step into the ring even once.

What did you think on the first day of the CT101?

(patiently waiting for class to start)

The first day of class was very nice, getting to introduce each other one at a time and learn more about classmates and the teacher was cool. Not much else happened afterward besides the rundown but the first day went well.

Did you like hearing about the course and its creative content? How did it make you feel?

(This is how I brainstorm ideas for the posts I make)

Absolutely! It’s nice to try something new and even if this class isn’t required, sometimes they can be the ones that teach you the most about something you didn’t know you were interested in. It made me feel good to know that I can learn a lot about posting and the internet. Even if I miss a day every now and then, I still can work from home which makes it very easy to catch up.

How does CT101 compare to some of your other classes so far?

It’s very much what I like in a class, a decent size class with everyone ready to learn, a very relaxed and calm atmosphere and a teacher who’s excited to teach everyone.

What are the creative potentials of this class?

There’s a lot of things that can happen, even while we’re not in class. There’s a lot of potential for everyone to make things that are super creative and everyone’s got limitless creativity.

How do you feel about learning new skills that use Internet tools?

I feel good about it, I use my computer daily and it doesn’t hurt at all to learn more about the internet that could potentially result in something very useful. It’s always nice to learn something new every day!

A lot of things make me happy on the internet but the main thing that brightens up my day is a nice post of wholesome content, whether it would be a funny cat video or a cool post involving people with their pets.

These types of videos are always helpful in making me feel better if I’m not in the best of moods. It’s hard to not smile at a nice video with animals in it.

Another thing i enjoy on the internet is reading.