Information Design
Literacy
Information Design was the third course in the series and was a combination of document creation and website design. I took Information Design in the spring 2005 semester, and it consisted of several individual projects and one large collaborative web design project. The first portion was autobiographical, in which I wrote and design three documents, each describing a particular aspect of myself. There was a Literacy Autobiography that described my learning methods and my different modes of literacy, for instance, music, writing, video games, and several other modes. It was in this class I discovered that literacy could be applied to many areas, not simply reading and writing. This was a new concept to me, and it completely subverted my traditional thinking on the subject. A good reference tool for this theory is Gee's, The New Work Order, in which he discusses how reading, and the meaning we derive from it, are based on our everyday experiences and fall outside the strict guidelines of educational templates. You and I may both read and write very well, but we may both read the same passage and discern from it two completely different ideas. This theory was fascinating and started me thinking about literacy in a much broader scope. Below is my Literacy Autobiography, which describes my education and how I've attained the level of literacy I now possess.
Technology
In addition to the literacy project, I created two other documents both pertaining to my technological side. The first was the Technology Autobiography, which simply concluded how I came to a particular degree of technological know-how, and how technology has affected me, whether in a positive or negative light.
The second project was called "My Working Self," a technology autobiography solely computer based; how I work on my desktop, how things are arranged and why, what I typically do while working or playing on my desktop and so on. All three of these documents helped shed light on my interests, literacy, and technological savvy, though it should be noted that these documents were created a year-and-half ago, and while that does not seem like a long time, my knowledge, and skill have grown tremendously since then. I suppose I should redo these at some point, nonetheless here they are in raw form.
Web Design
The final project in this course was a group web design project. Our group designed the new Graduate Certificate in Advanced Writing website for the university. This was the largest project thus far in the program and took a great deal of preparation and time. This site was my first real attempt at web design and I used tables as a backdrop for its design. I have since moved from tables to Cascading Style Sheets, or CSS, but it was a good start. The Advanced Writing Certificate was designed for Graduate students, or those who might attend UNO in the future, and served as a reference tool for them to become acquainted with the program. Because of this need, we were mindful of the intended audience and the rhetorical situation surrounding the site. The research proposal was a lengthy process in which we took audience, need, rhetorical situation, and project planning into account, and created a proposal outlining our objectives. After this research we came up with several designs and agreed upon the one shown below. The design is a bit rough; nonetheless, it was an effective and well thought out site. As you can see I've improved a great deal since then. The other link is a PDF. of the documented research we did for the site. Click on the picture below to view the website in its entirety.
Course Listing
Digital Literacies
Technical Editing
Senior Capstone