Journal Entries

These are the journal entries of the writings I've had you do both in-class and out. Please keep them in a flat binder labeled with the numbers below to turn in periodically, and at the end of the semester.

Using readings of Nielsen and Heim to invent criteria for the personal home page assignment (1/31)
Final list of criteria for Personal Home Pages (e-mailed 2/7)
Cluster for New Media Writing Project idea (2/13)
Look at Landow's Victorian Web and his article in Trend (98). What's so great about hypertext, according to Landow? How does the Victorian Web realize (make real) that ideal? What's insufficient about written, printed text? Are there places where you think Landow's being too optimistic about hypertext (considering how the Web is actually used)? (2/13)
What does the "information economy" that Manuel Castells talks about have to do with you? your future profession? your professional life to come? How will your work be different from your predessors as a result of not just of surfing the Web, but the structural transformations in the economy that Castells describes? (2/21)
This evening we are going to design a flow chart and set of navigation labels for a Web site called the Completely Unofficial Guide to Your First Year at UMD, which is being created by an independent organization called Students for Students. For this exercise, you will create a list of an audience profile, a set of goals, a flow chart and a labeling system.
Do this for your own site (see 7 above).
Thinking about the Glocalization Project Idea. Choose one of the examples on the Glocalization project assignment page and visit it. Consider the following questions in a long, informal paragraph:
- In what ways does that site about a local place appeal to a non-local audience who might never actually visit that place?
- What larger ideas, values, concerns, passions, identities (i.e., "scapes") does this place represent?
- How does the site suggest a connection between these larger ideas, values, etc. and the details of the place?
Landscape, 'Scape and Identity in your Glocalization Project. List ideas for your Glocalization Project, choose one, and then answer the following questions:
1. What landscape and other 'scape are being associated here?
2. What identity is being expressed or appealed to?
3. How do the site's links, labels, graphics, tone, etc. help to bring together a local landscape, a non-local scape, and a sense of identity that's somehow connected with both
Look at your Glocalization Project and answer the following questions. Just list the numbers rather than rewriting the quesitons. Consider this a "freewriting" (thinking or exploration on paper) rather than a formal self justification or defense:
1. What is the 'scape (the theme, belief system, issue, interest or passion) that connects your local topic to a non-local audience who will never set foot in Minnesota?
2. What are the emotional and/or intellectual values (the tastes, ideals, beliefs, heroes, sense of respect or "cool") of the "inhabitants" of this 'scape (this deterritorialized belief world)
3. What images, words, phrases, linked text, colors or other design elements are you using to appeal to the values held by this audience?
4. How might the words, images or design be better aimed at the tastes and values of your non-local audience?
5. What about the first page announces (or could announce) that your site is more than just a local-promotion site for people in the area or who plan to visit (4/10/02)
Thinking about the Analytical Essay assignment
1. Visit the weather.com site
2. Make a cluster on the three topic questions that comprise the analytical essay: 1) body vs virtuality 2) traditional vs. virtual community/identity 3) information vs. experience, knowledge
3. look for connections and dynamics and write notes on the cluster.
4. look back at the critics in Trend for some critical ideas
5. Make an entry each in the areas on the discussion board (4/17)
Audiences for your client's site.

First, take a look at the Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival Web site. How many different audiences are being addressed and appealed to on the front page, and with the various links and pages?

In your journal, list the some audiences you might expect at your client's site, and the scenarios by which these audiences might find their ways to the site. What are their different values, tastes, needs and purposes? From your analysis of these audiences, begin to think about site design: map the pages and links of your client project. What verbal labels for the links would appeal to these audiences and be understandable to them? Think about page design: what are some recurring elements, designs, layouts, images, words you'll use throughout to unify the pages?
Read through the criteria.for the last two projects carefully. Then go back through each list, and "rate" each criterion according to how challenging or difficult you see it being, relative to the others, using the four-part grid: running from "NA" for "Not A problem," up to "EX" for "EXtremely challenging." Then, in a journal entry, try "freewriting" (thinking on paper) about the challenges of one or two of the criteria, and how you might better make use of it to improve your project(s). Try working through some potential problems and solutions. (5/8/02)