This semester has been nothing short of amazing, truly. After going to that first day of class, I’ve looked forward to every Tuesday since to see what cool new skill we’d be learning that week. 

What I enjoyed most about this class is the creative freedom that we were allowed on every assignment. Each task we were given was so simple but could be interpreted and completed in many different ways, which was also really fun.

I think I earned a grade A/B because I completed each assignment that we were given and I commented on posts for the majority of the semester, coming on to the end I know I could’ve done better with commenting which is why I think I could receive a B.

Assignment 1: What is Making You Happy on the Internet?

I wrote about my favorite places on the internet, specifically YouTube, and shared some of my favorite content creators on there.

Assignment 2: Making our first GIF

Assignment 3: Should Memes Be Considered Art?

Assignment 4: DS106 Assignment 

Assignment 5: Digital Art & Creative Immediacy

Assignments 2-5 were where our creativity was really tested. I learned how to make memes and gifs using sites like Giphy, Imgur, Makeameme, dabbled in web design with mmmpage and even created a website for our DS106 assignment. These were loads of fun to complete because there really were no limits on what we could create.

Assignment 6: Mid-Semester Reflection

The Mid-Semester review was similar to this one, just reflecting on the first 6/7 weeks of the course.

Assignment 7: Picking a domain name

Assignment 8: Registering my domain name

Assignment 9: Getting To Know WordPress

Assignment 10: First Website Post

The journey of creating my very own website: brownecorner.com was one with a few bumps in the road. It took me a while to actually figure out what I wanted my website to be about and after that was the struggle of finding an available domain name. After this, registering my domain name and setting up the website itself with Reclaim Hosting and WordPress was smooth sailing. Designing the site was my favorite part because I could make it look exactly how I envisioned it.

Assignment 11: Panoramas and Storytelling

This assignment was fun, especially going through the process and coming up with ideas first, in person with the class. When the time came to take the panoramas on my own however, it was a bit more difficult.

Assignment 12: Surfing The Web

This was probably one of the easiest assignments of the semester, because we had basically been doing this the entire time. It was really exciting to explore everyone’s websites and see what they were able to come up with.

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I have some pretty cool ideas that I would like to explore for the remainder of the time I do have the domain, especially during the summer. There really is no limit to what I can try when it comes to having my own website, I just really hope I do maintain the site while I have it, because why not?

These following 3 plus the home page are the only pages I have so far, however I do have 2 posts up on my website already. One of them is categorized as photography because it is mostly made up of photos.

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A huge part of the class was giving feedback on others’ posts, I enjoyed reading and receiving everyone’s comments just as much I enjoyed reading your posts every week. You guys are extremely talented and I’m glad I got to witness some of it.

This course on its own is a pretty cool one but I think having Professor Seslow as our teacher made it even better. Whether it was making a joke or letting us know that he’s here to support us, the experience was infinitely better because of him.

The Endless Creativity

After completing this assignment, one thing is clear to me…my classmates are super talented. Every website I visited was just something different and unexpected in the best way possible. With every click, I thought to myself…

Many of the sites really inspired me to work harder on my own as well as just think outside the box. I visited the websites of Paola, Manpreet, Juan, Safiya, Fatema, Sudipta and Duojay. All of them had great designs and layouts, which I loved because I’m a sucker for visuals but their content was also really good.

Instead of rambling on about each website (because they’re a lot), I’ll leave you to have a look at them for yourself, but here are just a few reasons why I really liked some of them:

Safiya’s website – http://overthinkersanonymous.net/

Like I mentioned before, I enjoy good visuals, which her website has loads of. The home page is full of cool (and kind of haunting) images and quotes, which is what drew me in. Her first post was really fun to read and I also got a few new movies added on my to-watch list. The main thing I love about this website is that it looks like it’ll really have something for everyone.

Juan’s website – http://juancar1os.net/blog/

This website stood out to me for many reasons, but especially because it was one of the few that had a comment section on the post. His movie review was great and included some stuff I didn’t pick up on so I was happy that I read it. Also the media he chose to include in his post were mostly gifs from the movie, which made it easier to picture and follow along.

Fatema’s website – http://love2explore.net/

I loved everything about this website, from the blog posts to the images and design, it all was wonderfully constructed. It was fun to read about all the places that she has traveled to. I, myself, love visiting new places so this served as some great information as well as inspiration.

Overall, everyone had very creative websites with cool content. I can’t wait to see what more they have in store!

I truly believe the possibilities are endless when it comes to using a panorama to tell stories. However, I had a pretty hard time trying to set up the image while also having to move around to change each new frame.

For my first few images I didn’t really have a story that I related them to, I just thought they would make pretty cool photos. I took a drive through Manhattan with my family and we ended up at Riverbank State Park where there were these bold blue lights so how could I not document the moment? With only a couple minutes to work with (because we were just passing by) I did my best to explain the concept to my sisters (thanks guys).

My younger sister, on one hand, was overly excited so she kept running too far back into the previous frame causing the image to be a bit distorted:

My older sister on the other hand, was better at understanding the boundaries, so the shots were a lot more clean but less energetic lol:

Despite the differences in each photo, I absolutely love how both of them turned out. They’re kind of like polar opposites: chaotic and calm.

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My second idea was a pretty last minute one. I decided to take a few people from my Friends Lego set [fun fact: every Christmas my mom and I build a lego set] and a stuffed animal to create this image:

I tried to get more than just 2 frames in the image but it was a bit difficult having to move everything around in a timely manner. Also I chose to use the shadow of the stuffed animal because it was more ‘scary’ that way. Honestly, who would be scared of this:

What a marvelous setup, I know right? A 15lb dumbbell, a tv remote, 4 lego people and a stuffed animal.

First Website Post

Hey guys, I recently uploaded my first post on my website: brownecorner.com, I’d love it if you go check it out and leave a comment! Here’s a little sneak peek of what it is, I hope you enjoy it!

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“I took to the internet to find out what are some things you usually ask a person when you first meet them. Some were hilarious and others would simply make the situation more awkward, luckily I found this article: 27 Questions to Ask Someone You Just Met.”

The very first step to customizing  my website was rewatching professor Seslow’s recording to refresh my memory of everything he explained. In the recording he demonstrated different ways to design our websites using the Twenty Twenty theme. 

I was unsure of what theme I would go with, but I think I had a pretty solid idea of what I wanted my website to look like. So as I read each theme’s description, what caught my eye was “Twenty Twenty-Two embraces the idea that everyone deserves a truly unique website”. 

Now I know you might be thinking…

“Didn’t professor say that might be the hardest one to use?” Yes, yes he did.

“Didn’t he also say that there’s not much tutorials on it?” Yes and he would be correct.

“You still chose it didn’t you?” As a matter of fact I did.

“After hearing all of that, why would you still choose it?”

With all that being said, I tried my best to understand what I was working with and I’ll be honest, I love a good challenge, but this was super difficult. Thankfully I kept searching to find a clear explanation of that specific theme and I happened to stumble upon this life saver:

This video made things 100% easier and as time went on I’ve become a lot more comfortable with WordPress. I’ve managed to create the homepage, about page and contact page so far. I thought having the website being different shades of brown and colors that go well with it would be a great play on the name of the site.

Honestly nothing on the site is completely finalized yet so knowing myself I might just try to customize another theme to have options to choose from or entirely change the current layout.

It is still a work in progress but I think I’m getting the hang of it. Check the site out and let me know what you think: https://brownecorner.com

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Resources I used:

• • Logo -> created on https://vectr.com/design/
  • Website colors -> https://coolors.co/ and https://www.schemecolor.com/
  • Social media icons -> https://www.iconfinder.com/

And The Fun Begins!

Before I began working on registering my domain, I took a quick glance at the site we’d be using, Reclaim Hosting and immediately loved the layout and graphics of the website.

The process was a quick and easy one because I had the previous week’s class recording to watch and follow along with as I was getting everything set up.

Like I mentioned in my Assignment 7, I checked for the availability of the domain name before even fully considering it because I didn’t want to get excited about it and then not be able to use it. So this step took less than 20 seconds to complete. 

After choosing the domain name all I had to do was fill out my personal information and enter the coupon code we were sent. When everything was finalized the next step was to install WordPress to get the site up and running.

In a matter of seconds there it was, my very first website. I am so excited to get started with designing and customizing it and overall just gaining knowledge as the owner of a website: brownecorner.com (that’s crazy to think about).

Honestly, the whole process of setting up the website with hosting and installing WordPress was a lot easier than I had expected, which was great because after having to brainstorm domain names, my brain needed a break.

 

Before I started this assignment I watched this domain name check list video to hopefully get some ideas. It was tailored more towards business websites but it was still informative.

Coming up with ideas for my website was hard enough but then came the time to think of domain names which was even harder. Then making sure they were available was the hardest part. I used WhoIs.com to check to see if any of the domain names I chose were ‘unoccupied’ which was super frustrating because they usually were which meant they had to be heavily modified or scrapped altogether.

I’ve managed to conjure up two main ideas for what my website could potentially be:

A basic blog site; I’d post weekly updates sort of like a web journal about things I felt, realized, thought about or learned during the previous week. Although I’d mainly be writing about myself, I think it’d be cool to leave a prompt or ask a question at the end of every post to spark some sort of conversation (similar to our class assignments).

• • • lets-chat.net
    • weekwithme.com

A website based on music; Each post would consist of songs I love, discovered or listened to during the week before and I’d ask for any suggestions based on what I posted. I’ve been trying to broaden my musical horizons lately so I thought this would be a fun concept. 

• • • musictoyourears.us
    • music-room.us
    • music-spot.us
    • feel-the-music.us

One of my favorite websites recently has been Heardle.com; it’s the music equivalent to Wordle.

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*This part was written after thinking about it for a while*

I think I’m too indecisive of a person to pick one topic and stick to it so I have settled on fusing together all the ideas I had. The website will be about any and everything that I think of or feel like talking about at the time of posting. It’d be like playing ‘topic roulette’ each week to decide what to write about. One week the post could be about art and the other it could be about school but it would always be 100% authentic.

• • • brownespot.com
    • brownecorner.com
    • brownebronco.com

I didn’t really want to include my name in the domain name but it was a lot easier to find one that incorporated my last name because it’s an uncommon spelling. I used ‘spot’ and ‘corner’ because the site will be my own little place on the internet and I have my dad to thank for the ‘bronco’, it’s my favorite nickname I’ve ever had so it felt right to include it.

How am I doing in CT101?

I’d like to assume I’m doing well so far in this course. I’ve done a decent job at not falling too far behind with my weekly posts.

Assignments:   #1  #2  #3  #4  #5 #6

How many points have I earned so far and what grade do I believe I am maintaining? 

I’m not sure how the points are broken down in terms of per post or comment but so far I have uploaded 6 posts (including this one) and commented on at least 2 classmates’ posts for the first 4 or 5 weeks. As of right now I think I have a grade of at least a B.

What have I learned and retained the most?

One thing that I learned in this course is that there are plenty of ways to express yourself. Although I didn’t choose any of them for my assignment, the ds106 bank was a great example. There were assignments with different forms of expression like writing, creating videos and design.

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

Learning how to create gifs and memes is probably the skill that I’ve used the most. Each week I search on Giphy to find gifs for my posts and find myself laughing at all the hilarious ones I see.  I think they’re the cherry on top to each post I make because I also get to personalize them to fit each situation I’m writing about. 

How do I assess my performance through self-reflection in this class?

I view myself as a very introverted individual and having this class being so heavily focused on self-expression and creativity, the way I assess my work is based on how honest I am. I have witnessed myself gradually become more and more comfortable with sharing in my posts over the past 8 weeks which I think is a great sign.

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

Before this class I had no idea what WordPress was but it has been fun learning about it. So far it’s been quite easy to pick up on since the user interface is similar to Microsoft Word.

Do I see my weekly blogging work expanding creatively? If so, please explain –  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 more recently I’ve been switching it up in terms of the format of each post specifically because I thought they were beginning to look the same every time. I hope to find different ways to keep changing them up.

Are there any assignments that you are missing? If so, list them. Are you commenting regularly on your classmates’ posts? Are you responding back to comments given to you by the professor & your classmates? Are you participating during the class time? If not, explain why. This is the time to be accountable. How will you make needed improvements?

Currently the only assignment I’m missing is Assignment #7 which is about picking our domain name. I have not been as active with commenting as I should be but I think if I spend a bit more of the lab time on commenting I’ll be on top of it. I don’t verbally participate during class time mainly because I’m just listening to the professor’s explanations of the assignment but I do try to answer questions in the chat when they are asked.

Intuition + Creativity + Immediacy

I think there are two different ways that these concepts can be ordered. Simply put:

Creativity -> Intuition -> Immediacy

You get an idea and without having thought too much about it you still sort of understand its potential so you act on the idea right away.

Intuition -> Creativity -> Immediacy

You have an understanding of what something could potentially become so you then use your creativity to bring it to life in that very moment.

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The first half of this assignment was all about being introspective, which is an interesting concept…until it’s happening and it becomes more intimidating, less interesting.

What does being alive mean to you? Have you ever defined it beyond someone else’s interpretation?

CARPE DIEM! To be alive to me means being present and fully aware; understanding that every moment is a chance to find joy in whatever you’re doing. I don’t think my interpretation has ever been solely defined by anyone else but I do acknowledge that it has been influenced by others.

At first I found it extremely difficult to come up with answers for certain questions so I skipped them. However, I noticed that in talking about the process of creating the web pages, I was actually able to indirectly answer most of them.

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MY WEBPAGES

Working with mmm.page was mostly trial and a lot of error, for the first page especially. I thought it was going well until I saw there was a 10 image upload limit and I had already used all ten and deleted nine of them, leaving me with one image (that I found on Pixabay.com and edited on Photopea.com) on my page to work with. I had to resort to using gifs, stickers and quotes to compensate for my lack of visuals.

1st Page

In the process of trying to figure out the platform I forgot to take screenshots to track my progress. Even though the process didn’t go as planned, I was able to stick to my original idea, which was having the theme of the page be critical thinking because it was a recurring topic for me the entire week.

The quotes I used came from google searches and remembering stuff from movies and an article I read for an English course last year. Given that it was about critical thinking and the idea of being able to think on your own, it was only right to include the statue “The Thinker” in there somehow. Even though it was the trial run, I like this one a lot better.

2nd Page

The second page I completed was much harder than I thought. Although I had better knowledge of the platform and how it works, I found it harder to visually come up with an idea. In hindsight, I realized that I went into it focused on the limited amount of images I could use and how I should use them wisely, which caused me to second guess myself a lot during the process. 

My idea for this page, which I didn’t go through with, was the topic of duality (something I’m very passionate about). I didn’t feel like what I envisioned was what I was creating and especially for it being a subject I love discussing, I wanted the page to be something that I could wholly appreciate in the end.

What I eventually settled on was just creating how I was feeling while trying to figure it out, which I guess was the whole point of the assignment anyways, being able to take a step back and “Ask yourself: “What is the creative potential of my awareness of this moment? What would you like to express about this moment and the awareness of it?”

The first thing I chose from the ds106 assignment bank was the coding assignment to create an interactive program. I decided I would create a program to find all the factors of any chosen number (why? you might be asking. I truly have no idea). I was originally going to code in C++ but then I figured “why not utilize everything I know and have some fun as well as practice with it?”

I recently learned about creating websites and haven’t really had a chance to practice for myself or outside of what was required for the course so I saw this as the perfect opportunity. One of my favorite things about this class is that I get to do stuff I enjoy, but normally wouldn’t have time for. 

Click the image below to go to the website:

I began working on the HTML code first to give myself some sort of vision for what the site would look like. I figured simple was the way to go for this assignment, so I included what I thought was necessary: some description, instruction and a place to enter input.

After figuring out the look of the website, I then had to get it to actually work. This part took a few lines of Javascript code defining what a factor was and then allowing it to be displayed on the screen. Honestly, this was the most difficult part because I’ve had less practice with Javascript compared to HTML and CSS. The W3schools tab on my computer was always open, searching for ways to get my code to work. I also found myself looking at old projects and tweaking its code to fit this website.

Finally, I reached the fun part, where creativity really comes in. Using CSS I experimented with different designs for the website; I enjoy discovering the different fonts and color combinations to use. Again, with the point of the site being simple I used a nude color for the entire page and different shades of brown for the text. I also added a gif to make it less monotonous, and animated some of the text.

The second assignment I chose was a mashup assignment to find two similar songs and edit them to show how they are identical. I imagine it would be fun to learn how to edit/mix music. 

Analyzing the different sounds to find minor similarities seems like it would be really exciting. A couple days after reading about this assignment I was listening to music and actually found two songs that are actually quite alike but I just never realized. 

I’m on the fence when it comes to determining if memes should be considered art or not. It’s hard to write about something that you’re not that familiar with (obviously everybody knows what memes are but I personally never use them) and that’s where the research comes in:

The term art encompasses diverse media such as painting, sculpture, printmaking, drawing, decorative arts, photography, and installation.            – Britannica.com

Art is an expression of our thoughts, emotions, intuitions, and desires, but it is even more personal than that: it’s about sharing the way we experience the world, which for many is an extension of personality.                – philosophynow.org

Based on these definitions, one would conclude that memes should be categorized as art because they are an expression of thoughts and emotions. However, I still feel as though there’s a disservice being done to those who dedicate so much time and effort into perfecting their craft, to create well thought out and intricate pieces compared to anyone who can create a meme in less than five minutes.

The main reason I’m on the opposing side of this argument is because “plugging text and an image copied from a search browser clearly requires such minimal creativity, skill, and imagination”. The reality of it is that all you need is a photo and a few words to create a meme, there’s no hard work or ‘rare talent’ that goes into making them.

While I may disagree that memes are art, I do believe they are an amazing form of media and communication. It’s interesting how all you have to do is send a meme and the recipient can deduce how you feel about a subject. I think the relatability and simplicity of memes is what makes them so popular, of course for some memes you’d need to recognize the cultural references to understand but for most you can look at them and immediately be able to tell what they represent.

The article Are Memes The Pop Culture Art of Our Era? mentions that,“memes can blur the line between content and art, but certain pieces that begin as art can also take on the qualities of a meme.” I definitely think there is some overlap which causes there to be conflict when deciding what is art and what is not. Below is a compilation of many great art pieces that have been incorporated into memes:

It’d be crazy for me to say that memes can’t be used for storytelling after I literally just used memes throughout to explain this post. However, in my opinion, memes are just a method of self-expression and I think this solely because I can’t come up with a reason or justification for them being anything more (feel free to give me a reason).

If I’m being completely honest, I’m not sure what I was hoping for on the first day of CT 101. I enrolled in this class at the very last minute, in desperation of meeting the 12 credit minimum for the semester. Out of the classes left, this one, despite its ambiguous name, seemed like the most tolerable (after consulting with Rate My Professor of course). 

         

After about 10 minutes into the class, I was smiling from ear to ear because I was so pleasantly surprised by both the professor and the course itself. Over the last few years I’ve come to think of myself as a non-artistic artist (hold on, I promise it’ll make sense). I always have these great ideas but never the skillset to execute them properly. Hearing about the course and how creative I’d have to be with assignments and sort of figure out how to give life to certain thoughts/concepts was amazing.

It’s only been a few weeks into the semester, but I can wholeheartedly say that this class has got to be my favorite one I’ve ever taken. I have been considering taking more CT classes in the future because of it. In comparison to my other courses, this is the least content heavy, yet the one I’ve learned the most in (crazy I know).

Like I mentioned before, I think this class gives me a chance to simply just voice my thoughts through different mediums of art, the possibilities are truly endless. Not to mention I get to witness everyone else do it as well. Although we all have the same assignment, everyone does a great job at making it their own, I really enjoy reading the other blog posts.

As a Computer Science major I am absolutely thrilled to learn more about the internet and its endless wonders. Hopefully I can take all that I will learn in this course and continue to build on it to create some pretty awesome stuff in the future. So far I’ve been introduced to Giphy and Imgur, two great gif repositories. After playing around with both, I prefer Giphy more because I found it easier to navigate and find content that I liked.

 

Fun On The Internet

Like most persons, I spend a great deal of my time on the internet using Youtube, watching video after video after video for hours on end.

Whether it be school related videos, music videos or simply just vlogs, there’s never a shortage of entertaining content on Youtube. Commentary/reactions to shows, movies and music has rapidly become my favorite type of videos because it’s like I’m watching or listening with a friend. Some of my favorite reactors are, ur internet mom ash, ZZAVID, HTHAZE, jay meets world,  KioshiWarrior and FilmFreakBecky.

When it comes to any form of art I think it’s always good to see things from another point of view and be made aware of things that you might have initially missed or misunderstood. 

This past week I have mostly been watching reactions to the show Euphoria on HBO Max but I also watched the movie Dead Poets Society for the first time. I heard of it some time ago but never got around to watching, I guess I can thank this assignment for helping me rediscover it.

In searching for different media pieces to use in my post I found the clip above (youtube coming in clutch once again) that sparked my interest. It’s a wonderful film that, though it was released in 1989, touches on some tough topics that are still very relevant in today’s time.