When I first started customizing my page, I wanted to at least have the basic down. However, my mind was racing with all the stuff I have planned.

I’m beyond excited to fully customize my website. I was also very unaware of how to customize a website. Thankfully Professor Seslow is guiding as all through this process.

Some of the things I’ve customized on my website have to change the default settings. I added background pictures that I’ve gathered from Pixabay.com.  Also every time the page is refreshed a new background picture will show. This is a sneak peak of the type of pictures I added…

I also updated my about section, giving the viewers a quick background on myself and the cite. If you want to check out what I’ve done just click here.

I still have have so much more to add and I can’t wait!

This week, we continued customizing our personal websites and added a lot of much needed features. One of my concerns when I first started up my website was the notice that kept saying “Not secure” whenever I entered my site. After watching Professor Seslow’s tutorial, I learned that we needed to install a plugin called Really Simple SSL and once that was done, the message no longer popped up!

The image below shows you that my website now has a lock icon next to it, showing that it is now secure.

I was also able to install the Contact Form 7 plugin that allows the website moderator to receive messages directly from users without using email. A pretty useful feature!

The image below shows you the page where you can add and edit the Contact Form feature.

The image below show you how it looks like when you actually go on my website. 

The last thing I added to my website was a digital art gallery, as shown by Prof Seslow. It was pretty easy to do and I think it looks great! However, I did run into an issue. If you see text I circled in red, the title of the Digital Art Gallery page is stuck on the left side, but I would prefer to have it directly above my art gallery like in the video demonstration. Hopefully there is a simple solution to this.

We’re already halfway through this pizza- I mean semester! There is so much I’ve learned in CT 101 so far and even though we are getting close to the end, I’m still excited to see what new things we’ll learn for the rest of the term!

I’m proud to say that I’ve developed many great skills from this class. Some of the thing I’ve learned include the power of communicating through blog posts,

using gifs to express my thoughts and emotions,

creating my own CT 101 memes,

and even starting my own personal website! (Click here for the blog post talking about starting up my website!)

Collectively, the blog posts have taught me that I don’t have to write everything like an essay, rather, I have the freedom to integrate my own style of writing into messages I post online. As a communicator, this gives me relief and excitement because I personally believe the formal guidelines of essays and college papers restrict my range of creative expression.

After enrolling in CT 101, I’ve learned that at my core, I am a creative person and always have a plethora of ideas in my mind. One of my long time hobbies is drawing in sketchbooks, however, after taking some time to search for other ways to exercise my imagination, I have discovered other forms of artistic expression.

(The image above is not my artwork). One of the things that I discovered because of CT 101 is an art form called flat landscapes. While starting up my personal website, I used a copyrighted image for my background, however, I already knew that if I truly wanted to make my website my own, I would have to create my own assets to express what kind of artist I am. My plan for the future is to illustrate my own flat landscape for my portfolio website, paperpig.net.

I have grown as a student, artist and person, but I know I still have many things to improve on. Some of the things I want to focus on even after completing CT 101 are my web development coding skills, learning to use software such as Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, and improving my writing skills for blog posts and textual content on my website.

My plan for my website, paperpig.net, is to make it my own personal portfolio website. For future semesters and even after graduation, I want to continuously add more content regarding projects I’ve been working on such as school assignments, personal drawings and illustrations, motion graphics animations and when the time comes, even work related projects to showcase my experience.

I will proudly say that I deserve an “A” for the class. Aside from consistently attending lectures and keeping up with my blog posts, I have developed new skills and reached my personal goal of “Broadening my horizons”, as mentioned in my first gif blog post. CT 101 truly feels like a class that is more focused on student growth rather than giving out assignments for the sole purpose of filling out a quota.

As we get closer to the winter solstice, I begin to realize that my time in this class is coming to an end. Even though this class is only a semester long, I’ll cherish all the experiences I’ve gained, such as the profound discoveries I’ve come upon.

As a closing note, I just want to thank Professor Seslow for being such an awesome instructor. Whatever you have in store for us for the rest of the semester, I’ll be waiting anxiously in my seat for it.

This current semester is like no other

This one is for the books..

BTW, this is how 2020 is going so far…

The truth is…

there’s been days this semester where I feel like nothing is going my way. I’m speaking about all my courses btw! some days are simply more stressful than others!

Overall, this Covid semester has been a roller-coaster as many people would say! but I can definitely say I’m getting through it!  The semester is more than half way done, I just need to finish strong!

CT101 has taught me a lot actually! Small things such as inserting hyperlinks, creating giphs, playing with the text, and using many different sources on the internet.

I can comfortably insert hyperlinks with no problem, for example, here’s a link to blackboard. 

These are helpful tips and tools that I can use in the future or with current school work!

Now, one of my main skills that I learned this semester is creating my own Gif! This is something I’ve never knew how to do before.

Now I can easily create GIFS and share with my peers, friends or family members!

So far, at this moment I’m working on my new website, I want to be as unique and creative as possible. so that is something I would definitely like to improve and work  on.

These blog assignments has helped me a lot as a communicator. I genuinely feel like I can speak about anything that’s on my mind or how I feel at the moment. For example, I love basketball! By looking at my previous work viewers can see how much I expressed my love for the game! Click here, and you will see one of my previous post blogging about my passion and love for sports!

I LOVE blogging.

I can speak what’s on my mind!

Like right now! #2020 #president #who’s going to win? #nervous #future

hmm… what grade do I believe I’ve earned?

As of right now, I believe I’ve earned an A. I say this because I’ve been putting in effort into all assignments and using each skill I’ve learned into my work.

BTW, take a look at my website! please take note that I’m far from done and there’s a lot of work to be done! but progress is being made!

As I stated before, I have a passion for the game of Basketball! so I will be publishing NBA content only on my website!

With that being said, thank you all for reading my blog post!

Whew! I can’t believe we’re already in the middle of the semester. Not sure if this makes sense, but this has been the longest but shortest semester I’ve ever had. The weeks seem to be moving pretty quickly but the amount of work that needs to get completed somehow drags the week out longer. ( This is obviously not the case for this class. CT 101 has been good to me.)

For CT 101, I have had the opportunity to learn to make memes and gifs and that has truly been amazing. Earlier in the semester, I mentioned that meme and gif-making were on my ‘to learn’ lists and I am so grateful for this class because it has taught me how to do so. I have all my memes and gifs stored in a folder- they’re kinda like my kids.

One thing I did not know how to do before this class was how to build customize a website. For one of my journalism courses, I was obligated to make a blog site, and I did, but it did not require as much work as creating the website for this class did. CT 101 afforded me the opportunity to create my own domain name and customize defaults on the site- down to the widgets! Widgets have always been one of those words that pair perfectly with technology in my head; so to be able to manipulate it on my site was quite fun. So, I think building a website is a new strength of mine, but I know I still have a long way to go where building and customizing a website is concerned.

My customized website.

My plan for the website is to talk about controversial topics and topics that are not addressed as much as they should be. I want ‘Straight Talk With Kysa’ to be a highly respectable platform that encourages people to do good in this world. I would love to hear suggestions on how you guys think I should go about accomplishing this. (straighttalkwithkysa.com)

Based on all the things we’ve learned throughout the semester, I still think I can improve in every area. I don’t believe I have mastered any of the skills taught to us but I have been practicing then so hopefully, one day, I can master them. But, I am way better at completing certain technological tasks, due to this class.

One thing this class has done is helped me strengthen my writing and communication skills. From a very young age, I loved writing and so I always jump at the opportunity to write something. Having to constantly make blog posts helped me knit-pick at my writing and I think I have improved so much. And this isn’t just pertinent to this class, but also in my life- as I want to be a journalist. I have even gotten comments based on recent articles published in Pandora’s Box, about how much better my writing is and I can honestly attribute that to CT 101.

Now to talk about my grade:

Just Kidding! 😀

I never like evaluating my performance in a class, even if I think I’m performing well. The main reason for this is that I sometimes think so highly of myself/performance and when I receive a grade, and it’s different from what I expected, I beat myself up about it. So when the college asks us what grade we believe we expect to receive for each course, I always press “C’. And no, I don’t ever think I’m supposed to get a ‘C’, but that way, I don’t disappoint myself. So I don’t know if I want to say what grade I think I have received thus far, but I’m hoping it’s a good one.

Needless to say, I am anxiously waiting to see what grade the professor believes I deserve.

All in all, I have loved every bit of this class and it has become one of my favorite courses from my college career. I cannot wait to see what the remaining weeks have to offer.

I came to a decision….I know I know, I’m adulting

So after much thought and annoying my friends, I decided on a domain name. I trashed my original options and thought of something that would be self explanatory, I want you to know, the content you will be receiving when clicking on my blog.

This is what mad me decided to go with TeaTalkWithJaNya and it was available, so that was a plus.

And of course, It wouldn’t be a normal experience if I didn’t run into some trouble. I registered my domain name and downloaded WordPress, as it is installing I thing to myself “wow this was kinda simple” and what happened next is why I just don’t think…….

So I tried to retrace my steps like I lost my glasses, I watched the tutorials, I even tried to just install wordpress again and start over. Guess what happened……

Nothing happened

So now if this was the Ja’Nya before this adulting business, I would have just closed my laptop and put on a movie because by this point the assignment was feeling really toxic.

In a few simple words..

But instead I contacted the support team (Growth!) and although it was kind of late, I got a response within 10 mins of putting in my ticket of assistance.

From there things were kind of simple again. I am nowhere near finish but I wanted to show you guys the work in progress.

I am actually loving it so far.

To MIT, to Jstor, to the U.S. Government and to all the institutions that decided to stand by and let this abused of power unfolded . You are charged with murder and the internet finds you guilty for being a bunch of

**********************************

you are to be executed for your crimes against humanity and the death of an American Hero.

Now sure I could be being a little extra with these gifs but Aaron Swartz was fighting for our 1st  amendment rights and we should hail him as an American hero and not label him as a criminal. We praise the Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zukerberg’s of this world but what have they done for us really. Yeah revolutionize the internet and the computer industry but all they want is power and money they would never dare attempt to do what Aaron did.

We have a right to information, public information, as citizen of this country and to quote the doc “Secrecy serves those who are already in power”. If all this information is under lock and key away from the public eye then those in power can do whatever they want in the shadow. Aaron wanted to the shine a light on those who think that they are entitle to secrecy. It takes true courage to go up against U.S. Government while having a BS lawsuit put against you and then use the same tactics they deemed illegal to get congress not to pass SOPA.

Man that is legendary.

Rest in Peace Aaron your work will never be forgotten and it’s a shame that our democracy does not respect those who fight to uphold it.

“Aron is Dead. Wanderers in this crazy world, we have lost a mentor, a wiser elder. Hackers for right, we are one down, we’ve lost one of our own. Nurturers, carers, listeners, feeders, parents all, we have lost a child. let us all weep.”

Sir Tim Berners

I think Cory Doctorow at the end of the Documentary really express the true essence of what Aaron was trying to achieve and why he fought so hard to give us access to information because without it there are catastrophic consequences that affect all of us.

My domain name is…… Vibewithcindy.

It was one of my favorites from my list and it was available. I can’t wait to set up my website. I hope to inspire others to do something they always wanted to do. Having my own website is something I’ve wanted for myself for 2 years now. This class is allowing this dream of mine to come true. I plan to create an environment on my website that people feel safe to share anything. Either they can share something making them happy or something that’s causing them pain mentally or physically. It won’t be a place where people spread hate, instead a place where one can go support and uplift others. I hope to boost people’s confidence. It took me years to boost my confidence after constant bullying and I can finally say I’m at my happiest point in life with many people I love. I plan to talk more about how I got to this point in my life through my website.

I felt that registering my domain name and creating a website was surreal. In the beginning, it didn’t hit me until I saw my website with the official URL, it took me a while to decide what I wanted to blog about. Since I knew that life right now has been nothing but a loop for me. But I finally decided to combine my love for Halloween, my favorite tv shows and to let my frustration about the justice system out on one website. This website is unique and sticks to the theme of good vs evil.

I dislike that the process can be complicated if you don’t follow the tutorial video and the instructions listed on our class website. I was able to follow the instructions steps by steps and completed the process in 25 minutes. However, after managing through the final step my computer started glitching. Rather than that, it was amazing to have experience creating my own website.

Thus far this has been an amazing journey in CT. I entered this class scared of what was to come. I’ve never had a class this unique and impactful before. This is a cross between my love of writing and visual learning. I was able to ponder and express my emotions about education and matters that actually concerned me . I learned that every writer does better with the use of visual learning. It’s how we first learn the world and makes things more easy to comprehend. I was able to see my classmates different perspectives on art and enjoy the way it uplifts their life . 

This class has also helped me improve my photoshop and be able to dissect the meaning of visuals . I also adopted the 4 quadrant technique where you split photos into 4 . Through this you’re able to notice small details you wouldn’t have by just taking a quick glance at the visual . My skills in photoshop were not very good but the DS projects encouraged me to give it a try . I watched YouTube tutorials and even used the experience from other classmates . 

What I enjoyed most about this class was the the fact it was like a small community . Despite Corona effecting our in person classes , we were still united behind a screen . Everyone was very nice and indulged in each other’s work . I can’t say the same for other classes , because the enthusiasm is not there . Our teacher is very nice and makes asking questions feel safe . I respect and commend his dedication to teaching us . He is respectable and clearly has a passion for the major he teaches . I hope to take another class with him and get to finally meet my classmates on better circumstance .

My official domain name is Dessydoc. This is because my website will be a place for users to be able to understand my way of thinking and get to know me . This will also be a place people can comment questions and have them answered. Some people don’t have people to turn to , and I want them to know they can use my website as an outlet . I’ve just begun to step out my shell and really let the world know what I have to offer . As a child my outlets were art , writing and through music . Writing is something magical and has been close to my heart forever . As a child I remember being immersed in literature, it was a safe haven . Now as an adult I understand the power of tone , language , and emphasis. I’d like to provide a sense of security to my viewers and allow them to see life impacts everyone differently . I would speak on topics that are appealing to viewers in my range 18-25 and speak on ways to cope . People often make content self centered but I want to make a change within my people . Emotion has been smeared as a useful thing and I want to demolish stereotypes .