Another amazing experience I had happened after 24+ hrs. I was sitting in the presentation hall, before the Dalewood students got there, barely able to keep my eyes open. The students began to walk in and I said to myself, “Alright sit up, and act like you care as much as you did 24 hours ago.” An 8^th grade beautiful young girl sits beside me with her arms folded. I ask her how she’s doing, and a couple more questions just making conversation questions. She just nods the answers and continues keeping her arms locked against her. The presentation begins, and she looks at me and says, “Is this where you all have class?” I started to answer her, but then I stopped and thought she has no idea what a college campus is all about. We went on the talk about her hopes and dreams, and at this point I didn’t have to pretend anymore that I cared as much as I did 24 hours ago. I cared more now. This project came to life. It was real, she was real, and I did something for her that day. I’ am sorry, fellow classmates, but the young girl and I were not watching your presentation, we were talking about her future. I think possibly that, that conversation she had with me might have changed her life, or at least open her eyes to the possibilities. Then the best part of it all was when she stood up, unlocked her arms and handed me a painting. She said, “Read it.” I did. Then she waited till I looked back up at her and she gave me a hug. That experience was greater then any grade I could receive from this project. I know for sure now I do want to be a teacher because I want to help so many others see their dreams as more then something you see when you close your eyes.

Learn more about CreateAthon

http://createathonchatt.wordpress.com/

When you take time away from electronics your brain is able to think better, and create. It has been scientifically proven that imagination is extremely important. It makes you have your own ideas, common sense, and happiness.

In relation to my last blog about education, we need to take the electronics away from kids. Teachers are not able to hold the students attention because they do not worp into hyper speed like their favorite cartoon.  Learning is not as fun when electronics are even better. When I was going through math class in elementary school till middle school we had to add and subtract in our heads or on paper with a pencil. Now they have fancy calculators that just do all the work for them and the simple math is not getting stored into their brain.

We need to have less stimulation and pay more attention. I challenge you to go an hour without any electronics and just think, write, draw and use your imaginations.

I would start with the parents. Parents these days think of school as “daycare” for their children. I would make each parent once a month take parenting “lessons” on how to help their child succeed in school. Some of the subject matters will be; showing interested in their studies, offering time to help, pushing them to do their best, and most importantly giving the child positive reinforcement. I know that in this economy it is hard for the parent to have the time to meet at school or give time to their child. I think once a month with plenty of notice the parent or parents could meet this requirement. The idea I have heard many threw around for helping this issue is longer school hours. I disagree completely with that as well as students having homework in grade school. Longer school hours and homework take away family time, and relaxation time. There are exceptions such as writing papers, and reading that should be done outside of class to be prepared for class.

The next issue I would work with is the teachers. Teachers are molding our children. They can be the real hero’s in our lives. They can also be the reason why we fail at life. I personally have had a teacher tell me, “You will never make it in college, why don’t you think about something else.” With the right positive reinforcement any student will surpass your expectations. I was lucky enough to have parents that gave me the positive reinforment I needed, and I am doing just fine in college. Someone I know very personally never had teachers that could remember his name, or parents that cared if he made it school or not. He is now not able to find a job due to the fact he doesn’t have a high school diploma. I have worked with him and given him positive reinforcement and now he is doing high school online by himself, and every time he passes on to the next subject he smiles like a 10 year old who’s teacher wrote in red writing “Great Job!” the words he should have heard when he was 10 but didn’t. These teachers that I am referring to are thinking of teaching as a job. It is not a job, it is a privilege.

Fixing the school system is very complex, but these are the two steps I would start with. If you think about it, things have been running the same way since the 1800’s. The common change is the people. Children are not being told no, therefore they are hard to discipline. Parents are to busy making a living because of the economy and not spending time with their children. Teachers are going to a job everyday instead of inspiring minds and giving positive rainforest. Yes, there are exceptions and a lot more issues but these two groups could make a difference if they just cared more.

Having an art brain I pretty much do everything in a creative way. (Not saying it’s all beautiful, just creative.) The best way to observe every aspect of my creative madness, let’s start at home. I cannot live somewhere with no color and inspiration all around me. My apartment is full of color schemes and décor that makes me happy. If I had another 4 years to blow I would go to interior design school. I love decorating.

Let’s go now to my closet. I hang everything up color coordinated. I don’t really know why I just can’t stand for it not to be that way. I’ve heard there are others that do the same. Am I wrong?

Then the next place to visit is in my gift giving. I am a college student so money is non-existent but people are expecting. I make cards for every occupation, memory boards, and decorative pieces. My fiancé thinks I am just crafty and creative if he only knew I’m just cheap. (I plan to be better when I have a “grown-up job”)

My conclusion to how I show my creativity is it is everywhere. Creativity helps me organize, be inspired, and make people smile. It is actually a lifesaver. My advice is to use what you have naturally before spending money.  Now go be creative.

Writing for me is seeing me naked. I feel like my heart is on my sleeve when I write. I tend to put everything I can into my writing. It is at times a lack of confidence, but for the most part the reader is seeing my heart, which scares me. I actually love to write, but I have a hard way of explaining myself. I have had many writing classes and tutors both in grade school and college, and other then working on punctuation I haven’t gained any confidence in my writing. I learned a lot about positive reinforcement when I was a Psychology major. I have never had a teacher/ professor give me positive reinforcement about my writing. It is important to have to gain the confidence to be a good writer. I have several careers I want to do that will do good in the world. First is being a teacher that is passionate and dedicated to the students while practicing positive reinforcement and equality to every student. I think I would be a wonderful teacher. I love kids and I love teaching children. My second career would be to write children books that promote positive reinforcement in the stories with life lessons. I had the opportunity to write a story and produce a book in a class last semester and I LOVED it. My new career dream is designing websites. We are creating a website from scratch right now from all that we have learned from “Interact with Web Standards”. Once I finally got things to fit where I wanted them, I realized this is a lot of fun and would love to continue on and do more with websites. I have a lot of dreams, and I hope that they all can come true. Perhaps I can do all my careers at one time. I love design and what I do.

I will be putting up a weekly post on my thoughts and personal writing so maybe I can build my confidence in writing. I would love some feedback.

When using copyrighted materials you should always have a license from the author of the work that it is ok to use the work. It is important to only use the work as far as the license agreement states it can be used. It is common law to have copyright protection by placing a copyright symbol next to the work. To have federal copyright you can go with U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

As a designer, contract agreements are needed. The things that need to be defined in the client’s right are payment terms, ownership of work/ property, and liability. It is important write in detail to where there are not questions later on. If you have your contacts tight your designing career with go a lot smoother.

There is visual impairment, Auditory impairment, and cognitive difficulties. According to Derek Featherstone with “Interact with Web Standards,” it is up the designer on how accessible they want to get. Of course, the more the better. It would be hard to cater to every disability out there, but the good thing is some changes made will help one particular impairment and would also help another. Though these changes would be for the impaired it also makes for a better website for anybody disability or not.

I have a cognitive impairment know as Dyslexia, and can relate to others with the same issues when designing. I personally hate reading because I skip words, and lines of text to where when I am done with that paragraph I have no idea what I just read. I also work so hard to try to read each word and line that I do not pay attention to what I am reading. I have found a wonderful solution for myself to solve this problem. I went into audio controls on my computer settings, and made a key command to where when I highlight something and press that key command it will read aloud. Hearing the paragraph read aloud helps me so much, and it can read off of any text.

They asked in the book to try oven mitten on and fill out a form to see the difficultly in not have full use of your hands. I have to say I kept wanting to cheat. I could not image not having use of my hands. This opened my eyes.  I want to always consider people who may have that issue, when designing a website.

I personally see the importance in web accessibility, and intent to always practice accessibility. I hope that more people will get this desire to help all viewers and take a little extra time to make the Internet fully a universal friendly experience.

In learning about web design, I am going over Table with the help of “Interact with web standards”. The book helps break it down well I feel. The “Try It Yourself” asked you to create your own table. I picked Disney Princesses, Beanie Babies, and Barbie Dolls. To start you would need to tell the HTML you are making a table by <table></table>. Then use <th></th> to show the categories. After use <tr> </tr> to show what the headings in the table (this where my Disney Princesses, Beanie Babies, and Barbie Dolls would go.) Then each <td></td> shows the information listed according to the categories. That is how the HTML is set up for the table content. In CSS, to tell the table how to behave you need to have padding, row size, text align, font family, border control, etc. The way you make sure each part reacts the way you want; you name it the same as in the HTML. For example the <th></th> in HTML would be { th } in CSS.

I am so excited to learn about tables because now I can set up the links/ navigations on a website as well as present a table within a website. Below I have posted my screen shot of what I practiced above. It’s not beautiful, but I am excited it worked.