A reflection of my semester in CT101:

 

Final Course Reflection Blog Post:

Before this class, I was a very nervous if I’d be able to keep up because I had no background in this area, but Prof. Seslow does an awesome job making this class easy to understand.  His process has allowed me to not only keep up but to relax enough to be my authentic self and show my personality in these creative assignments.  I’m no filmmaker yet, but I can now make a mean meme, gif and so much more. 😃

A recap of what I’ve learned in CT101 & reflection/assessment of grade earned:

I’m still have a lot more to learn before I’ll feel confident in setting up my own website and getting it to look cosmetically the way I’d like, but from where I started prior to the class having no background in this area of study to now, I feel I’ve earned a solid A.

I feel I earned this grade because from where I started having little to no knowledge of creating gifs or memes, adding media and captions, registering a domain name and host set up and WordPress install, setting up and customizing my very own website, working with blog navigation menus, widgets and adding plug-ins, working with blog pages, categories and even setting up a Twitter and IG account and embedding content from those sites and cross posting them into my blog and adding hyperlinks…this was all a foreign world to me prior to this class and now I can figure it out somewhat on my own now or by referring to Prof. Seslow’s video tutorials.

This kind of technological wizardry made me really nervous about it before this class, and now I’ve done it all with Prof. Seslow’s help.  I feel good about it and think sticking to it even when I had anxiety about some of the tasks and seeing it to completion has earned me an A. 😃

What did you enjoy about our class and how you will apply your new skills into the world?:

I think the thing I’ve learned the most is everything in this class, how to make a gif, a meme, how to arrange them on the blog with narrative so that it flows and it pleasing to the eye, to keep all the images uniform size.  There’s not one thing I’d say I’ve learned the most.  It’s all been equally beneficial.

Likewise, what I enjoyed about our class is the same, everything that I have learned that I can now use even after the class is over for personal or business purposes, which is pretty exciting. 😃

Will you maintain and keep up your new website? If so, how? If not, Why not?:

I was taking an Online Journalism class this semester, so CT101 came in handy with helping me learn tools to create online news stories with my new website for the class.  I even figured out how to make a pretty nice 5 photo slideshow with detailed captions for my Online Journalism class.  My Online Journalism professor even asked if he could use my slideshow project to show the class to give them ideas for their project.  That made me feel pretty good.  I feel the tools I learned in CT101 gave me the skills to maneuver around WordPress to make a pretty nice slideshow.  That’s something I’ll take with me for my future classes and even my personal projects outside of school. 😃

My new website link URL, successes, frustrations, and an over-all assessment of building and having a website:

My domain name for my new website is “Sankofa Talk”.   My website link URL is https://sankofatalk.com/.

As of now, my new website is still pretty bare as I’ve only used it for CT101 assignments and news article assignments related to my Online Journalism class.  Because my new website was created at a time that I really needed it for my Online Journalism class, I decided to keep it simple for now and just use the website for school purposes.

I did have some struggles deciding on a background or theme to use for my home page.  These cosmetics will probably come to me when I decide what I actually want to use it for beyond school.

However, what I found pretty successful was navigating around my new website since it is WordPress and operates similarly to Commons, particularly the dashboard which was helpful.  Because this is my very first website, my indecisiveness in how to set it up can be pretty frustrating, but again, I think once I decide what I really want to do with it, ideas will come to me.

Over the summer I definitely plan to play around with my new website and spruce it up.  I’m still not exactly sure what I want to use it for but I have some ideas, which is exciting. 😃

This class has been really rewarding and more than I could have asked for.  The tools I learned are invaluable and can assist me creating a website even for business purposes which is great.  I’m saddened that the class is over but glad I now know these new tools thanks to Prof. Seslow, an awesome teacher.