Post for Week of 12/6

The last week of Dissecting the Internet was definitely a fun one. We learned to use software called "Scratch" that uses a simple programming language to create animations. It was a little hard to get a hang of Scratch but once I did, I found it a lot of fun. I made a few extra animations for fun, but even then, I don't think I took advantage of all of Scratch's features. This week was also cool because I felt like the class was really bonded and we were able to collaborate more since we knew each other.

As a final reflection, I think this class was awesome. Having heard my friends' stories from their honors freshman seminars classes, I am incredibly glad that I chose this one. I thought the work load was really good and classes were extremely interesting and engaging. The assignments and discussions were rewarding and I think everyone was able to get involved in class. I feel like I have gotten to know my classmates a lot through the class, too.

Thanks for the great semester!

Post for Week of 11/28

This week we began to play around with programming language. I had some experience with HTML from middle school when I was in a sort of technology club at school. It was cool to recognize some of the code, but most everything we learned was new to me, or rather it had been so long that I had forgotten. My website turned out alright I think. It's really nice that ASU gives us all our own webspace. I think more people should be informed about this service and have the tools to take advantage of it. After making our rudimentary homepages, we moved on to simple animations. I thought animating was really fun, although getting it to work on my website was extremely frustrating. I finally got it running after some expert help from Sydney.

Post for Week of 11/21

In our one class this week, we had a very special guest come to speak to us. As a former advisor to the presidential cabinet on cyberspace defense, Colonel Barry was an extremely informative treat for the class before break. He was an excellent communicator and I wish more of the class had been around to learn from him. The part of his presentation that I found the most interesting was when he talked about the origins of the term "cyberspace." It made me think of 1984 because of how the government knew that it could have more control over something if it controlled the language.