This week, I spent a fair amount of time learning how to navigate the many aspects of designing a website/blog. When I first logged on to begin creating my website it was a bit overwhelming as I had no prior experience that could help me know where to start. After searching around and becoming more familiar with the many tools and the basic functions however, I began to try and put together my homepage. While that is still a work in progress and there is much more for me to discover, I am happy with how my design is turning out so far and am eager to learn how to present the most organized, and visually appealing site. What I have created so far has related back to my vision board in terms of keeping a light color scheme, and a minimalistic but eye-catching design/layout. I intend to continue working towards the completion of my home page and the sub-pages this week, keeping those characteristics in mind.  Aside from working on my homepage, I also made my first two posts this week which was exciting and taught me some skills that I can now use throughout my website. I am looking forward to further developing my website this week and uploading posts in some of the personal categories I have created like “Just For Fun” and “Weekly Inspiration.”

Alongside developing my website, I engaged in a few readings for my class this week. “A Personal Cyberinfrastructure”, by Gardner Campbell, is one of the articles that I enjoyed reading. What caught my attention is a statement Campbell made in the very first paragraph: “…progress means looping back to earlier ideas whose vitality and importance were unrecognized or underexplored at the time, and bringing those ideas back into play in a new context” (Campbell, 2009). I found there to be a lot of truth in this statement in regards to many circumstances, including in the development of a blog/website. At anytime, new ideas can arise or your perspective can change. You can ask yourself questions you may not have thought of before, or you can change your opinion based off of hearing the ideas and arguments of others. There is always room for progress, and I will encourage myself to reflect back on some of my first posts throughout the semester to see how much progress I personally have made, and whether or not I have developed new ideas that could/could have strengthened my post.

Reference:

Campbell, G. (2009). A Personal Cyberinfrastructure. Educause Review. https://er.educause.edu/articles/2009/9/a-personal-cyberinfrastructure