Blogging Portfolio 4: Watching the Process in Action

It's been a long, tough climb, but I’ve almost reached the top of the Writing for the Internet mountain.  As we entered the final portion of the course, it was more about applying skills than learning skills.  The class spent the better part of the semester learning various types of internet writing, from HTML coding and website content writing, to interactive fiction games and creative hypertext. 

We wrote for the internet.  We read about writing for the internet.  We practiced writing for the internet.  We were tested on writing for the internet. We had others test our work. We talked about our own writing for the internet.  We blogged about writing for the internet.  Finally, we were able to apply internet writing skills in a project of our choice: we were asked to create either an informative hypertext (website), a creative hypertext project, or an interactive fiction game.  I chose to design a website for an on-campus organization at Seton Hill, The JoAnne Boyle World Affairs Forum. 

Our projects, however, began an entirely new series of small-step learning and projects.  We drafted a project proposal, submitted project progress reports, submitted an Alpha Release of our projects, administered Alpha testing, revised, drafted a Beta Release, administered Beta testing, and revised again...And now viola!  We are on the verge of a finished project.  Along the way, we offered advice to one another, both in-class and via blog.

If you're interested in seeing this process in action, see the compilation of blog entries below.  It's not a traditional blogging portfolio, but I think it chronicles the steps of the project completion process nicely, and particularly highlights the importance of student interaction in problem solving. 

Project Progress:

These series of blogs chronicled the progression of my term project.

Progress Report - After submitting my Project Proposal, I blogged about the very early stages of my project.  It wasn't about getting anything coded or written at this point, it was more about brainstorming ideas and mentally mapping my project's path.

Alpha Report - The Alpha Release of my website was a half-completed draft; I blogged about user testing of my Alpha Release, the suggestions I got from it, and the revisions I hoped to make.   

Beta Report - You get the idea: Much like the Alpha Release, the Beta Release was a draft that was user-tested and then revised based on the test results.  However, this draft was at a much more developed stage.  I had a completed product that I had worked to fruition, but needed to hand it over to users to see what steps/changes to make next.

Interaction:

Interaction and problem-solving was vital to the term projects.  The links show comments I made on class mate's blogs to help in their project.

Chelsea's Blog - I try to offer some ideas for expanding her project, and when all else fails...I volunteer to test.

Maddie's Blog - Offering words of encouragement, and of course, volunteering to test.

Andy's Blog - Acting as a tester, I offer some specific suggestions

Aja's Blog - Helping her slove a blackground problem

Reflection:

Expectations - Based on a class discussion, I decided to blog about my expectations going into this class, Writing for the Internet, and what I actually got out of the experience