Week 9: Scramble With Friends

Scramble with friends is an app created by Zynga that gives you a block of letters and you have to make as many words as possible. I personally like this game because it keeps me thinking and it's also very fun to play! They have a chat that you can talk to people and interact with each other. It has options of getting helpers such as inspiration which picks out three words for you, freeze which stops time, and scramble which mixes the letters up. Overall I find the game very enjoyable! I even play against my grandma who lives in California! 

Screenshot From Scramble With Friends

Week 8: Whats on your mind?

Since we get to talk about whatever we want in this blog, I thought I would take time to promote a show I'm singing in on June 16. The show that I am singing in is called Skate For Hope. It is in Columbus, Ohio and I have been part of the show for 5 years now. Skate For Hope is a show at Nationwide Arena that raises money to help fun breast cancer research. Every year, skaters from different skating companies raise money for an opportunity to skate in the show at Nationwide Arena and meet different olympians who will be skating as well. In past years, olympic skaters such as Johnny Weir, Sarah Hughes, Rachel Flatt, etc. skate at this event to help the cause. To date, this show has raised $370,000 dollars for breast cancer research. 

Poster for Skate For Hope 2012 

How did I get involved you ask? My dad has been the behind the scenes director of this show for a while now, and about 5 years a go the lady who put it all together asked my dad if I would be willing to sing live for a skater while he skated. Of course I said yes and was extremely excited to be a part of something like this. Over the years I have sang for many different skaters and this year I get to sing during the Rose Dedication where the skaters bring roses to family members that have survived or are fighting breast cancer. 

Me singing for Parker Pennington at SFH 2008

It is a truly amazing experience and I am so happy that I get to be a part of it. Not only do I get to help out with breast cancer research, I get to sing as well! 


For more information you can go to www.skateforhope.org

Week 7 Blog: The Power of the Mind

Technology today has hit an ultimate high. There are things we can do now that people never could have imagined a hundred years a go. The biggest question we have today is, is it a good thing or a bad thing?

The technology we learned about in this video is a technology that can ultimately control other things with your mind. I feel like this could both help and hinder human connection. On one end, it gets a human to use their brain more and helps them gain control. But it can hinder the human connection to other people that we need so much. 

Technology like this can help people with disabilities better communicate or become more mobile. But it can also take an already lazy generation and make it lazier. But there is really no way of stopping the inevitable. I do believe that it could eventually turn out to be an isolating technology. Why would anyone want to do anything when they can control most things from the comfort of their own chair? 

Week 5: What's on my mind?

Ahh the age old question: What are you thinking? Most of the time I have a hard time answering this because I always have about a million things going on through my brain... and right now is no exception. The main thing I have on my mind right now is graduation... Even though I'm not graduating, it's been running through my mind over everything else. I am a senior right now and SHOULD be graduating, but I didn't really know what I wanted to do until about 2 months a go. So now I'm trying to get everything together as fast as I can so that I can be out of here within the next year and a half. I also don't want to rack up TOO many loans. It's extremely weird to me that I have been in the beautiful bubble of Athens for 4 years now (where does the time go?). It feels like only yesterday I was moving in to my dorm in the dirty south.
                                              


 Now as I look through pictures I see the same people that I graduated from high school with, in cap and gowns from their respective colleges. I have friends getting jobs in the real world and all I've been able to ask myself is, am I ready for that yet? and honestly the answer to that question is no. I have so many dreams and aspirations, and I feel like I have yet to achieve anything that I want to. I guess a lot of people's dreams are things that they can get a degree in. Mine however, is to be a successful musician which I did not want to go to college for. All I know right now is that after I graduate I want to move out to Nashville or Los Angeles to work in recording studios and eventually start a singing career. Imagine all the blank stares I get when I tell people that. I've even had someone ask me why I even went to college. If there's one thing I've learned from life in general it's not to let the doubters get you down. I was blessed with a gift and I intend to use it. 

Week 3 Part 2: Blogging Blog

The blog I decided to highlight is the blog "Undressed Skeleton". This blog is written by a girl names Taralynn who lost a lot of weight and she shows girls how she did it. Taralynn moved a lot growing up and gained a lot of weight as the result. She was unhappy with herself and one day decided to change it. When she was doing this, she blogged about what she ate, how she exercised, and made it fun. She has a bunch of recipes on her blog that are good and heathy. She even includes a section on what to get when you go out to eat. I would categorize this blog as a health blog. The blog is very organized and she has her blogs cut up in different categories such as lunch, dinner, snacks, etc. There is a lot going on in the blog and I think that there could be a little less but overall it is pretty easy to follow. I have used her blog many a time for healthy recipes to make!
http://undressedskeleton.tumblr.com/ <-- there is the link to the blog!

Week 3 Blog: Wikia

Wikis are tools that companies are using to get everyone in the office involved and making sure that people's voices are heard. It would be helpful for new employees as well because they can gain knowledge faster and easier and take other people's knowledge and apply it to their own. Overall i think wikis are very helpful because they hold a lot of information in one place. I do think that wikis are a good investment and are worth people spending time on. There are other ways to do things, but in this new age i think it is a good idea to incorporate wikis into the main workplace so that people get used to them and know how to use them to their full potential. 


The Wiki i decided to look at was the Spongebob Squarepants Wiki. I did this because it was the biggest one on the page AND who doesn't love Spongebob Squarepants?
The website was relatively easy to follow and very informative if you want to know more about Spongebob.
The wiki has a list of all of the episodes EVER made and a list of all the characters. There is even a calendar at the bottom of the page that says what happened on that very day a few years a go. The Wiki is a fun one but the page is kind of scattered. There is really no rhyme or reason as to how it is set up. 

Open- Sourcing

In class, we watched a video by Rheingold that talks about the Open Source movement and what is so special about it. He talks about collaboration and cooperation and how important they are. He states that they are something that help with open sourcing because many people can update/ help out with these concepts. Collaboration is the whole tool that helps build these softwares, etc. It requires cooperation because everything is constantly changing and people need to have patience in working with others.

I like the idea of open-sourcing. It gives people the opportunity to share their ideas and get their ideas out on the table. The one thing I do not like is the fact that things are constantly changing and it can mess up what you have going on. I do believe that it will be a success, however, I am not sure how the people that are doing this can be successful considering everything is free. If it is successful, it will not last very long without having some sort of a charge. Overall, proprietary companies will have the advantage over everyone else because they will end up with the software that lasts longer and does better. I think eventually I will buy into it but as of now I'm not so sure.

Well, What have I learned?!

We have learned a lot of interesting concepts in this class but I think my favorite so far has been learning about the wikis. Before this class i sincerely thought that wiki meant wikipedia ... and I was wrong. It's cool to see all the other wikis and how many there actually are! 

The thing I could care less about was learning about the industrial revolution, etc. It is something that we have been learning since we were in grade school and hearing about it now seems kind of redundant. I know it's important to understand where technology comes from but there are other things we could have learned about too!

I can take what I am learning in this class and apply it to the real world by using blogs more effectively and more often. I also want to look more into using the cloud and wikis as well. 

From Google Images

In the eyes of Brogan

I like the way that Brogan touched on the subject of commenting on blogs. It can be very time consuming to comment on every single blog you read so it is important to pick the ones that matter to you the most. I liked the other options that Brogan gave in order to get your blog out there to other users.


Here are some of my classmates blogs as well! 
Eric Rieser
Adrian Andrade
Mary Swick

What Social Media Do I Use?

The site I use the most: Facebook 

I use Facebook to connect with people that I don't see everyday. Facebook has many functions and my favorite is the photo application. Not only can you put up your own pictures, but you can see what pictures you were tagged in. To make Facebook better, I would change the format of the pictures back to how they used to be. When you open a picture on Facebook, it takes up your whole profile instead of just opening it in the page. 

The site I use less frequenty: Twitter

I use Twitter almost as much as I use Facebook, but I still use Facebook more. This website is basically used for status updates, to follow celebrities, and for parody accounts. It works for businesses because they can promote deals, but it is not good for trying to catch up with people. People can post pictures, but I think it would be used more if they were able to make photo albums to store pictures in. I still use twitter everyday but I find myself looking at Facebook more! 

Goals For My Blog

In previous generations, privacy was crucial to any family. With the internet and social media sites, privacy is something that we do not get a lot of anymore. With blogs, people are able to voice their opinions and some people do it in the right way while others do it wrong. My goal for this class is to learn how to use blogs the right way and to get my voice out there for people.

I chose to add the search bar by google so that people can easily find my site or link to other sites from mine. The other gadget i added is the twitter feed on the side of my page. This is so that my social media sites can link together and people can get other information as well.

Who am I?

I'm not sure why i ALWAYS freeze up when I'm asked to write about myself because I normally have no problem talking about myself to other people, BUT here we go:


My name is Jenny Alu, I'm 21 years old. and I'm a senior at Ohio University. I pretty much came to college to focus on my backup plan because ultimately I want to pursue a singing career. Seems a little bit out of reach but if I don't try, I'll be mad at myself for the rest of my life. This past summer I had the amazing opportunity to sing in front of Randy Jackson, Steven Tyler, and Jennifer Lopez on American Idol. In order to do that, you have to get through 3 rounds of lower level judges.. I auditioned in Pittsburgh where about 18,000 people showed up to auditioned. Out of those 18,000 only 85 people got to see the judges and I was lucky enough to be one of them. Although I didn't make it, it was an experience of a lifetime. 

I auditioned for American Idol and all I got was this  dumb picture ;)

I am the oldest child of 4 and I love my family more than anything! I am a member of Alpha Xi Delta and a Server/ Bartender at The Pigskin. I am so interested in everything media. I love movies, music, TV shows and i LOVE watching sports (even though most of the teams I like constantly let me down). When I was a baby, I lived in Los Angeles and my parents worked in Hollywood. I have been around all types of media since the day I was born. My mom was a Stage Manager in Hollywood and my dad was a director/ producer in Hollywood. Most of my childhood years were spent on the set with my parents-- I even made some appearances on TV :)One day I hope to move to Nashville to work with bands/ in recording studios and help them with their social media and getting their names out there! 

Some of the Ladies in my Sorority 

Until about 3 weeks a go I can honestly say that I had no idea what I wanted to major in. I have always been interested in media, especially music, so I realized that a media major would be perfect for me. I run the social media sites for The Pigskin and in this class I am hoping that I can learn a lot more about social media! Social Media is such an amazing thing because it brings people together and helps you connect with people you never thought possible. For example, I will never forget the day Peyton Hillis responded to me on twitter. Social Media has become so present in our everyday lives and I think it's important for people to know how to use it right! I am very excited for this class :)