This week so far.

This week, having had our PSA's played in our English classes at school, We have been getting a lot of positive feedback from students who have seen them. They say that the PSA's were professionally made and they looked really good. We were also having a competition where we pick a random comment on one of the PSA's and that person will win a prize, one of the prizes being a ticket to a basketball game. 

Aside from having presented our PSA's this week, I've decided to talk about just what has happened this week to me. This week I decided to wear Christmas sweaters to school, and not just any Christmas sweater. Like really strange ones. The first one I wore was a sweater of Jesus Christ wearing a birthday hat with the words "Birthday Boy" on his shirt (or whatever they called what they wore back then). The second one I wore was Santa shirtless with the body of a horse. This one was a big hit around the school. The last one i decided to wear was one with a cat wearing a Christmas hat with text that says "Santa Claws." The sweaters were a riot with the teachers and it made me feel good knowing that the sweaters made people feel happy. It really all circles back to my passion: making people happy. 

About my passion project, I really haven't been to active with the project so far. I'm still trying to figure out what my final product is going to be by the end of the year. This has been my problem for sometime and I haven't really found anything to have by the end so I'm kind of in a rut right now. But I'm glad that I've taken this time to reflect on my year so far.

But overall, I've had a good week in school. The PSA's are being presented to students, people were happy to see my wearing my ridiculous sweaters, and I've reflected on my genius time and passion project. I just feel like this week was fantastic!

PSA Project Final

We just finished our unit on PSA's with the final portion being a PSA project. Groups were assigned different topics to create their PSA about, things like digital footprint, online safety, and other things about the internet. Our group was tasked to make a PSA about online safety and the dangers of posting information like names, addresses and schools. After completing our PSA and having watched it, we reflected on the things we did well. Things like music, transitions between different shots, and the overall atmosphere of the PSA. We also went over things that we could of done better. Some things include more time to focus on the PSA, maybe get some spellcheck in there, and also have more people in the introduction shot. Overall, after completing this PSA project, I've taken away a lot of useful information about how to get your message across to many people in an efficient manner. I would definitely like to make more of these in the future if I had to.

PSA Projects

A PSA is an acronym for a public service announcement. PSA's usually are made to present a message or to push for change within a community. Many people know of the Kayla McLachlan abused animal PSA's on TV and usually get sad whenever they see it. PSA's need to be effective when trying to present what they want to present. 

This week in class, we were tasked with making PSA's about being online and just about being a digital citizen. My group was tasked with making a PSA on online safety and thinking about what you post before you post. Our original idea was about a girl chatting with who she thought was a high schooler about homework but then leads into the exchange of some suggestive pictures which then leads to a lot of people getting a hold of the pictures. We pitched the idea to our teacher, but she felt like it was very ambitious. She had said that acting can sometimes turn comical and that if we want to present these to our school, then we would need to really be careful about what we were doing. 

We eventually came up with the idea to scrap that idea in exchange for a new one. Rather than relying on acting, we would focus on jelly beans. The idea was that a predator online is asking someone questions about their life and each answer they give, the pile of jelly beans, representing people that the target could possibly be, gets smaller until there is only one jelly bean left, signifying that the predator has found out who the person is. My group thought that this idea would be much easier and much more effective than our last idea. We got all of the jelly beans shots filmed in one day and editing should take that long. overall, this PSA project has been quite fun and has taught me a little bit about being safe online as well.

Kevin Beaty and Passion Projects

Our DigCit class is teaching us not only how to behave responsibly on the internet, it also teaches us how to use our passions to make change in the community or to get your message out there for people to see. We recently had Kevin Beaty, a freelance artist, photographer, and filmmaker, talk to us through a google hangout, a Skype-like video broadcasting website used to connect people from around the world, because he was in Colorado at the time. we talked about how he used his passion to create a career for him. we also talked about how you may go to college for one thing and end up doing something completely different. It was interesting to get a different perspective on college and how certain passions can lead to successful futures. 

I'm not sure I've talked about this yet, but just in case, I'll talk about it. On the week of November 5th, my class held a community showcase in which we displayed on poster board our projects so far and what we hope to do in the future with the project. Think of it like a science fair where people roam around and stumble upon different projects while the people behind the projects take about them. Just in this case instead of science it was our passion projects. My project went very well, but I have to say, it could have been a lot better. I have a problem with procrastination and I feel it could have been more professional. But, on the other hand, my public speaking skills were astounding. I've had people tell me that I speak comfortably and that I hold eye contact with the people I as talking to. Overall, everything we've talked about this week and last week have strengthened my drive toward what I'm really passionate about and I will continue this goal of mine until the day I die.

Kevin Beaty's Website: http://kevinjbeaty.com/cover/#start

First Quarter Reflection

This week in our DigCit class we were discussing some of our progress we've made on our Passion Projects. This week was all about discussing the things we have yet to do and things we have exceeded on with our projects. For me, what I've accomplished is I've rounded my plan for some of the deliverables for the end of the year. I found that I've been slacking on some of my project. I have not been up to date on my deliverables and I understand that I need to be better with those things. It's not the fact that I don't want to do the's just I always think that I'll do it later. I've always had a problem with procrastination and a problem with using that as an excuse for myself not to do work. Just writing about this issue now makes me realize that it needs to stop. And unlike times in the past where I've said that I was going to stop, I now can know that when I say it this time, I mean it.

Aside from me identifying my flaws this week, I'me also learned that this project won't be as hard to complete as I previously thought. Whenever I here the word "project," I think of some history or science project that usually take weeks to complete through rigorous work. Because this class is not like traditional classes, the project has no "rubric," just guide lines for what needs to be done by the end of the year. It's really centered around goals you set for yourself rather than goals your teacher assigns to you.

Looking toward the future, I have made little progress on my final product for the end of the year and, as stated previously, I've decided that I'm going to change that starting today (October 22nd, 2015). Though my final goal is still unclear, my passion isn't. I will continue to work toward global happiness one step at a time. Of my scheduled bookmarks, I have met first quarters goals about 50% of the way. I am going to make things in the second quarter different because my drive to get work done has been lit. My plan for next week is finish some of my first quarter deliverables and start on some of my second quarter deliverables.

Success vs. Failure

In our DigCit class this week, we had a discussion about success and failure in school and in life. I always grew up thinking that if you failed something, that was the worst thing that could happen to you. I wasn't looking at it as a way to improve, I looked at it as a sign of my inferiority. As I got older, I learned that you need to fail in order to succeed. This has been my mindset for the better portion of my life. I am only now starting to realize what being a failure really means. I always thought that being a failure means that you did not do something or not being the best at something. I'm now realizing that what I previously thought to be failure behavior is only me improving. My definition of a failure has changed as well. A failure to me used to be someone who could not do the work. A failure to me now is someone who doesn't want to do the work. The discussion we had in class has opened my eyes to the reality that is success and failure. My definition of success has also changed. A successful person to me used to be someone who did everything right. A successful person to me now is someone who does their work. With the combination of these two new definitions of mine, I am able to feel better about myself and my work rather than only doing the minimum or not doing the work at all.

We also discussed how some schools are starting to use the grade "not yet." Contrary to number grades, this grade would be use if the teachers didn't feel like the students couldn't do the work, but rather for the students to realize that they are capable of doing and completing the work. I feel that this "not yet" grade could motivate kids to try their best and not just their minimum effort. This has inspired me to try my hardest whether or not I have the "not yet" grade in my school. I am now going to treat every grade as a way for me to improve rather than just another grade. When someone says you are successful in school, I think of someone who does their work and gets good grades. I now realize that the true successful people are those who understand their work, try to do everything, and learn from their mistakes. Whenever I heard of a failure in school, I thought of someone with bad grades. I now realize that the true failures in school are those who don't do their work purposely.

Overall, I feel that this week has given my a clearer picture of what a failure and a successful person is. I learned that grades shouldn't be a reflection on a person's intelligence and that someone could have bad grades and be very successful. From this experience, I can now feel better about myself as a person rather than a student. 

Professional Development

Every so often, teachers take part in a Professional Development (PD). These usually consist of teachers only and focus on how the teachers could be better at teaching. Last Friday, our DigCit class took part in the PD by presenting to the teachers different applications that they could use in their class to make class less boring and to promote better collaboration. The application I presented to the science teachers was an application called PearDeck. It's kind of like a PowerPoint or Keynote presentation with questions peppered throughout the presentation in order for student to pay attention and participate in the notes or lectures. PearDeck could also be use to record students' answers in order to determine where there need to be improvement or help. I think that this could be a useful tool because I usually find myself getting bored of lectures or notes in class and I believe that with this tool, I will be able to focus on what the teacher is saying and be more attentive. 

The presentation itself is what I was really nervous about because if I were to have made a mistake, all of my teachers would see it. Overall, the presentation was a cakewalk compared to normal school presentations because the teachers don't like to be in PD because they find it boring. This experience also opened my eyes to what the teachers go through in a normal school day with annoying students. Overall though, I feel that the presentation went successfully. I got my information across to my audience and I feel like they received the message I was giving. If I could have changed anything, it would have been my preparation. I feel that had I to practiced, the presentation would have been better (not to say it went poorly). 

After the presentations were completed, the teachers got a chance to work with the applications and the student got to help them any way they could. I was able to answer any questions the teachers had and I got to show them exactly how to use the applications. I hope that in the future, I see some of my teachers using one of the applications presented in this PD in class to better class collaboration.

Passion Project and Guest Speaker

Our passion projects are starting to take shape on our DigCit class. We've uploaded our project proposals to the teacher and we have had the last few weeks to finalize our goals for what we want to have by the end of the year. I have been working hard at thinking of what I want to do because with my topic, I could go in many different directions, but I've decided to go along the lines of a project where I make YouTube videos. The channel will be a place for people to watch my videos and be happy. Once I have a large number of followers, I will initiate phase two. In this step I plan to get people to send me videos or pictures of them doing things to make people happy and by the end of the year, have a compilation of pictures and videos to present to the class in the hopes that people will watch it and be inspired. 

This week in class, we had a professional blogger, Deb Mitchell, talk to us about blogging and how it works in a professional way. She went over how a good blog needs three things to be a successful blog: Purpose, Usefulness, and Empathy. The purpose is the reason you're writing, like who is my audience and what am I writing about? The usefulness speaks for itself. How can your blog be used or how useful is it to others to read? Every blog needs empathy because if the writer doesn't understand what the audience is thinking, then the blog will not feel personal to them. She said that if just one of these three things is absent, then the blog will not be successful and how you need everyone of these. 

Listening to what Mrs. Mitchell had to say about blogging made me think about how I write my blogs. Whenever we are given a blogging assignment by our teacher, she gives us guidelines to follow, but now I realize that blogging is not a chore or just another school assignment. It's a way to project your voice by means that can benefit a lot of people. I plan to use my newfound outlook on blogging to my advantage, telling people how my project is going and getting feedback on what changes need to be made in my project.

Twitter Chats and Genius Time

Through the use of Tweetdeck and Twitter, our class was able to participate in a Twitter chat which is basically a a conversation on Twitter using a specific hashtag focused on a discussion with questions and people can give their input by answering the questions. I was a lot of fun and taught me that Twitter is more than a way for people to tell everyone what they're doing. If I were to moderate a Twitter chat, I would have the chat about how people act positively in the community. I would give me a way to directly ask the people questions for my project. I would choose this specifically because My project is about how I can spread joy and happiness and if there is a way for me to see directly what makes people happy, I would do everything to try to accomplish it.

For my passion project, I've also decided to follow the Twitter chat under the #CaringChat hashtag because I feel that to be happy, one must first care. Getting a lot of input from different people on the internet will help me solidify my main projects product. By using a lot of different Twitter chats for my project, I am able to get much more input from people than if I were only using one chat for my project. 

I could use this idea and concept of Twitter chats as a way for me to get genius time hours because its a way for me to formulate and make a concept of how the general people think and feel about my topic. Genius hours are dedicated hours of your day dedicated to working on your passion or something your passionate about. It isn't school or work related, its just time for you to do your own work.

Before my teacher taught us about Twitter chats, I thought that Twitter was just a way for people to tell other people about whats going on in their lives. I never thought that Twitter could be used as a way to hold conversations and meeting with people. I now realize why Twitter was made. Twitter was made to get people's messages across a medium where everyone can read and interpret their message. Twitter chats are just an example of how people can get their messages across to many people. I plan to use this to my advantage in gathering information for my project.

Passion Project Ideas and Goals

For the past week, our class has been brainstorming ideas for what our passion project are going to be about. We all had our passions figured out, but this week was dedicated to expanding our passions in a way that could help people or get a message across to everyone. My passion is optimism so I've decided to do a project that focuses on making people happy by doing nice things to people. My goal is to spread happiness to people who aren't or cannot be happy. Although I haven't made a coherent decision on what exactly my project is going to be, I know that it will make peoples' day.

I feel compelled to do a project on optimism because I would never in a thousand years what it would be like to live without happiness. The thought of someone not living live happily makes me sad, and you know I don't like to be sad at all. For this reason, I feel it is my obligation to pursue the ideas or global happiness. The happiness of others is how I remain happy and optimistic. I also make people happy even if it means that I may not be happy in that moment. It is the overall goal of mine to make an influence on people. But, I don't want this project to be about my happiness. I'm doing this so others can feel how I feel about life so they can spread the message to other people like a chain reaction. If I help three people become happier in their lives, then they will help five people and those people will tell people and just after five cycles of this, 3,125 people will have been influenced by that one person who started the chain. And it won's stop a five cycles, it will continue for a long time. Imagine how many people can be influenced by the voice on one persons cause. My overall goal for this project is for everyone to be happy and for everyone to spread the word about living optimistically. There is no real way to measure how effective I was. I just have to trust and believe that people were influenced positively be my cause because happiness itself cannot be measured using numbers or statistics. Happiness isn't physical, but an idea and belief.

I want people to be happy with who they are and not sad about who their not. I want people to realize that anyone can be happy anywhere regardless of age, race, religion, or where they live. Even if I only influence one person through this whole experience, in my eyes, I would have still succeeded at my goal of making people happy. It takes just one person to make a difference and that person could be anyone.