The Introduction to New Media Technologies (COMM372T) class has been very insightful into media practices and the evolving nature of social media. The assignments drove the lecture home by connecting them to a thought-out response to how we use technology. My favorite assignment throughout the class was building on the Wix website. I was excited from the beginning of class to start building my website because I knew that I would need to build a website as my portfolio when I started looking for an internship or job. I liked that the first task after designing what the page would look like, was setting up our professional self on it. I had my resume on a word document and I liked that I was able to tie this into my page and have a section for it. I think this is a great base to switch over and turn into a website that I use to submit my work for consideration to future employers. I believe this Wix page would present me better than several Word attachments on an application or email. Even though I did not focus on completely uploading my work from before the class on this, it helped to have assignments like the Media Curation assignments to explore building different pages and segments. I believe this has placed me in on a great foot to begin my professional online presence and to keep developing it through my time at Old Dominion.
I don’t feel like I have changed the way I engage with media since beginning this class. I was taking this class in conjunction with Understanding Media (COMM260) and I felt like that class affected my media use much more than this but only because it targeted other platforms. I grew up with media and I watched it evolve and felt like knowing about it was expected. I also worked in the Navy as a Mass Communication Specialist and as a communication specialist we had to pay close attention to changing media and its intricacies to make sure we could do our job as effective as possible. As well, being in the military and deploying in the middle east we were given training to modify our privacy settings to make sure we didn’t cause as much of a trackable footprint and be aware of what we could put out on the internet for our safety. Even after the Navy I have kept my location-aware technology use as low as I can, and it sometimes feels paranoid and even a bit dystopian. I understand that my information can be used against me and I would choose to opt out as much as I can. Even though I don't feel like I changed anything about how I use media technologies doesn't mean that I haven't learned about this class. This has been an eye opening class and one I would like to further explore.
The advice I would give to new Intro to New Media Technologies would be to spend as much time using and learning about the Wix website. We will get absorbed into our assignments because we will introspect on our own media usage but the more you use Wix the better you can make your website. I also found that Old Dominion University offers free Wix workshops. I was able to sign up and attend them and they were very informational. This workshop also provided a code in which I could have access to the Wix Pro version. They will also send a copy of the workshop for later use or revisit a topic. Old Dominion also has an ePortfolio Team and an ePortfolio studio that can help develop your Wix page either through the class or after the class. I say use all the resources you have through the school to help build and polish your professional page.
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