My Research on Research Experience

2006-08-22T18:47:00.000-07:00

It's here! Our final upload is tomorrow morning. That means that I can't make any more edits until after the showcase on Friday.
Tomorrow in showcase we are going to be presenting our sites to the groups and practicing for the showcase. Then on Thursday afternoon we are going to have an ice cream social with Karen Holbrook, the President of the university, where we will also be talking about our sites. Then the big day is on Friday.
Im going through the site and making sure that things are ready for the final upload now.

Thanks for reading!
- Karla :)

2006-08-16T20:26:00.000-07:00

Today the R2 group ventured out to the Newark Earthworks. We started the day at the Great Circle then we had lunch with the Director of the Native American Indian Center, Carol Walsh. She shared some great personal experiences with us about the Earthworks and about her job. After that we went to the Octagon Circle, which has sadly been turned into a golf course. It was very intersting to see how the circles were almost perfect and the lines were straight. It was also fascinating that the Great Circle had an opening that was perfectly aligned with the Sun to signify planting seasn and that the Octagon Circle ha specific alignments with the moon, although no one knows the reason behind that. Then we went to the Newark Earthworks Center where Kristin and her faculty partner, Dave Shields, are working on the Oral History Project. We talked a little about the project and the Earthworks and then headed home.
I have been working on my site ever since and am still working on it now. I underestimated how much time it would take to caption these videos.
We have to have our site uploaded at 9:00am tomorrow. I will upload it by then, but I know that I will be making changes to it all weekend.
I have another interview with Scott Lissner tomorrow because the sound on our first interview did not work. Other than that I will be working on the site all day.

Thanks for reading!
-Karla :)

2006-08-15T19:25:00.000-07:00

In this morning's workshop Beck Andre led a session on Presentation Skills. She gave us the basics on how to communicate and present yourself. We practiced our "elevator speech" which was a sum of our project in less than 25 words. It was interesting to see how hard it was to explain your research in less than 25 words. We also worked with a few tongue twisters to work on anunciating and that got extremely hilarious.

Then I had a meeting with Vicky and Natalie to go over my abstract again. We changed a few things around and i think it looks really good now. Since then I have been working on content. i am nearly done with the Website. I just have a little more video captioning to do.

The only problem I have with getting the content done by Thursday morning is that one of my interviews with Scott Lissner had a problem with the sound. So I now need to interview him again which I will be unable to do until this Thursday afternoon. Other than that my website should be complete by that point.

Tomorrow we are going to the Newark Earthworks to talk about Kristin's research. We are spending the whole day there, and then we have the afternoon to finish our sites. It should be fun.

Thanks for reading!
- Karla :)

2006-08-14T18:10:00.000-07:00

There is one day left before my website has to be complete. I still have quite a bit of content to get into the site but the design is complete. I finished the main page today with the Flash navigation. Prof B and I went over the project description for the main page in our meeting today and a few other content questions that I needed to get clear.
After my meeting with Prof B I worked a lot more on content. I got a few more movies edited as well.
Class tonight was all about the Social and Cultural models of disability. It was really interesting to learn the differences between the two. We also talked about "qeering the crip" and cripping the queer" in relation to representations of performers with disabilities.
Tomorrow's workshop is going to be about Presentation Skills led by Beck Andre. Now I am about to continue working on content.

Thanks for reading!
- Karla :)

2006-08-10T19:26:00.000-07:00

I realized I haven't posted in a few days! I have been so busy working on the site and getting it ready for these deadlines I have coming up that this journal slipped my mind. Basically what I have been doing is video editing and captioning. and While I am editing the video I type up the content to put into the site. I put my first video into the site today. It was really neat to see a page complete. We have to have 3 pages completely done for tomorrow. Sapna will be taking screen captures to put into the R2 video.
So, the plan right now is to have our sites down by next Wednesday so we can spend a week revising and proofreading for the showcase. I have a lot to do, but I think that it will be done and looking good by Wednesday!

Thanks for reading!
- Karla :)

2006-08-07T19:46:00.000-07:00

In today's workshop I mostly worked on getting content into the pages and getting most of the "people pages" set up. My main goal is to have all of the typed content into the site by this Friday so that I can spend the weekend getting the video and the main page done.
After workshop I had my interview with Brenda. We got a lot of good footage and I got a lot of the content that I was missing to this point. After my interview with her I had one with Bruce Growick from the Rehabilitation Services Program in the College of Education. The interview with him was very informational and I now have a lot more people to contact for this project. I am realizing more and more that a "complete" history of disability and Disability Studies at Ohio State is almost impossible! This project is getting larger by the minute which I think is great. The fact that it is so big means that Ohio State's disability history is very rich.
I have an appointment with the Flash expert tomorrow to work on the design for the main page. So my plan for the day is to go to workshop and work on getting the video uploaded to the server and then some content. Then I want to go to the library and work on organizing the events page and getting that content in and to also work on getting the images ready for my Flash tutorial. Then go to my Flash appointment in the evening. It should be a busy, but very productive day. So I better get some rest!

Thanks for reading!
- Karla :)

2006-08-03T19:08:00.000-07:00

Prof B and I had our meeting today with the Research on Research instructors. They basically wanted to make sure that we were both communicating about what we wanted the site to bo and how we wanted it to look. We also talked about the new design for the main page. I have been talking with Ken Petri and I think that Flash may be the best way to go, I will just have to make it so that Screen Reading Software skips over the Flash and moves to the regular navigation. I have an appointment with the Flash expert next Tuesday night. The R2 instructors would like us to be done with our sites in a week and a half. I have a lot of work to do! After the meeting the herded Prof B and I into a room to do our video interviews for the R2 video. It was not as scary as I thought it would be although I am sure I repeated myself about a million times. Thank goodness for editing!
After that I went to the library and got a lot of content typed up and put into the site. I wanted to make sure the site looked presentable so that I could show it to Prof B's class tonight. We were talking about Disability History sites. The class gave me some very useful suggestions of how to organize some of the content and navigation. I am really glad they got a chance to look at it because there are things that I never would have thought of.
Now I better go because I still have a lot more to do! I have a feeling I will be pulling some late nights the next few days!

Thanks for reading!
- Karla :)

2006-08-02T16:51:00.000-07:00

Today I have mainly been working on the content of the site. I spent a lot of time inworkshop editing the video interviews and typing up my content to get ready for the site. I also talk to Joe about the design for my main page. He said I may have to do it in Flash which is not very accessible. I will need to talk to Prof B tomorrow after we have our meeting with the R2 instructors to go over our site. I have emailed Ken Petri to see what he thinks about the accessibility of Flash.
In seminar today we talked about plagiarism and the issues surrounding it. I did not know how much of that goes on and how little it done to stop it. Then Ben and Allison's faculty partner came and did a presentation on his research. He is an Oncologist at the James Cancer Hospital and is on of the only researchers in his field that is working with a certain treatment with HIV/AIDS patients with tumors. I thought that it was very interesting research and the success rate seemed phenomenal.
Since I have been home I have been emailing people to get some missing information here and there and getting more content typed up. I have also been getting the parts of the site that I have ready to show the R2 instructors tomorrow as well as Prof B's class.
I am going to finish up the night with putting the pictures that I have been taking of the people I have been interviewing onto my computer and editing them to the size I want for the website.

Thanks for reading!
- Karla :)

2006-08-01T18:05:00.000-07:00

I had yet another very productive day today. Ever since we have finally decided on the color scheme I have spent most of my time converting all of my templates and adjusting CSS. They are looking really nice and now I have to prioritize what I have left to do. I need to finish the main page of the webpage, finish editing the video interviews, and get the content onto the website.
I may have a problem with the original design for the main page. Since we have changed the navigation we would have to have 5 wheels instead of the 3 wheels that we were planning on. I am worried about it being too busy. So that is something that I will have to play around with.
Workshops are now mostly independent work periods. So I work on getting my interviews off of the video tape and onto the computer and use that time to work on whatever I need to get done.
I have some reading to do before seminar tomorrow so I am going to do that.

Thanks for reading!
- Karla :)

2006-07-30T17:11:00.000-07:00

I have finally found a color scheme that I like for the website this weekend. I am working on converting all of my templates but I want to get Prof B's opinion before I get too much done. Tomorrow, in workshop, I need to work on some more video editing and work some more on my templates.
Sorry to make this short, but I just got back from New York City and I am in need of a serious nap!

Thanks for reading!
- Karla

2006-07-26T18:23:00.000-07:00

We had another individual meeting with the R2 instructors today. They went over the progress that I had made on the site since our meeting last week. We decided to make some more changes to the navigation list and to the color scheme. We all decided that I need to make it more visually appealing which is going to be a challenge for my creative side (which is virtually nonexistant haha).
After that we had free work time where I tried to get some more video editing done. I also emailed Ken Petri from the Web Accessibility Center to get some advice on color schemes. I am thinking about purple but I will want to talk to Prof B about it first.
We did not have a schedule lunch today but some of us decided to go to Charley's together. I had never had it before and I must say that the Philly Cheesesteak is pretty good.
Seminar today was lead by Beck Andre because Vicky Getis is in Italy until next week. We talked about issues in research in teaching. We talked about research institutions committment to their undergraduates and whether they are fulfilling it.
Since I have been home I have been working on the templates and trying to get the navigation list right. I have some reading to do and then I am hitting the hay.

Thanks for reading
- Karla :)

2006-07-24T18:18:00.000-07:00

Yet another Monday complete. Wahoo! Today was very busy. We had workshop this morning which was more of a free work time. I used it to work on my templates some more and load some of the video onto the server so I can free up some tape for more interviews. Then I had a meeting with the R2 instructors to go over the abstract and the pictrues that i turned in last week. Two of the pictures I turned in were not able to be used and I need to make some changes to my abstract.
Later in the day I went to the captioning workshop that the Web Accessibility Center put on. Ken Petri taught us how to put a transcript into a captioning program and then into the video. It was very helpful because I will need to use that for all of my interviews.
Than I had a quick break and it was off to class with Prof B. It was a very interesting class today. We talked about intersectionality and disability as well as gender relating to both of those.
Now I need to go find some more images, edit my abstract and prepare some interview questions for my interviews tomorrow.

Thanks for reading,

- Karla :)

2006-07-20T17:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday workshop consisted of each of the members of the group meeting individually with the R2 instructors to go over what we had done so far. I showed them my template and the work that I had done on my site. They made some very helpful suggestions about my navigation list which I have already started implementing. I originally had only one template to be used on all the pages except for the main page, however, I have decided to make a few more templates off of that in order to make my navigation list more visually accessible.
Then we all went to lunch together at Panera! Very yummy! After that we went back for seminar where we talked about models that mapped out current trends in research. For the rest of the day I worked on refining my template.
Today I had off of workshop again so I spent the morning making more appointments with people for the research. I also worked on getting some content into the pages. I also worked on preparing some interview questions for my upcoming appointments. I had my weekly meeting with Prof B where we went over what we want to see the site evolve into and went over the intreview questions that I had been preparing.
Our guest speakers in class tonight were Margo Izzo of the Nisonger Center and Ken Petri from the Web Accessibility Center. Izzo talked about the FAME project and Petri demonstrated how some different types of Access Technology work. I got both of their talks on video tape and hope to put it on the site whether it is a part of their bios or their program histories.
Tonight I plan on getting the intreview questions out to the people who I will be interviewing within the next few days and work more on my templates.

Thanks for reading!
-Karla :)

2006-07-18T16:29:00.000-07:00

I got so involved in CSS last night that I forgot to make a post! Yesterday's workshops was on the basics of CSS again. We needed a review now that we understood HTML a little more. So after Joe lead us in a tutorial we each worked on our own sites. I spent the rest of the day working on my template with CSS. I decided to only make one template for all of my pages except the main page which will be VERY different. I am waiting to work on the main page for when I have some one on one time with Joe because the CSS required for that is going to be very difficult.
I did that pretty much all day until I had to go to class. I did not have my weekly meeting with prof B yesterday because I have another meeting with the R2 instructors on Wednesday and I wanted to talk to her about it on Thursday instead.
At class I presented a sample page of Braille that I had gotten from one of my interviews at ODS. It was an interesting piece to talk about because of how technology has developed. After that we discussed Ruth Colker's book "Disability Pendulum." It discussed the issues surrounding the ADA.
Today I had the day off from workshop, so I got to SLEEP IN! I spent the morning refining more of my CSS and I have finally finished my template! I then had a phone iterview with Lydia Block, the former Assistant Director of the Office for Disability Services. She gave me a lot of information about the history of the office. Then I had an interview with Scott Danforth from the Education department. He talked to me about Disability Studies at OSU. They were both very good interviews.
Then I spent the rest of the day doing some writing for class and getting some reading done for seminar tomorrow. I am going to work on getting some more content into my template and then do some relaxing.

Thanks for reading!
- Karla :)

2006-07-14T11:57:00.000-07:00

Yesterday's workshop was spent as free work time. We were each working on parts of our project and we could ask questions whenever we needed to. They encouraged us to work on our templates since they will be reviewing them again on Wednesday. I worked on that as well as some editing of the interviews I have gotten on video so far.

After workshop I had an interview with Jillian Ober at The Nisonger Center. She talked about the Next Chapter Book Club and come of her other projects. Then I met with Stephen Kuusisto who talked about his role in the history of Disability Studies at OSU. I also got to meet and play with Vidal, his very handsome yellow lab guide dog.

Then I had a meeting with Prof B to go over the images that are due today as well as the abstract. After that we went down to class. We talked about Disability Rights and the ADA. We had read Voices From The Edge by Ruth O'Brien. It was really good to have the narratives along with the legal commentary because legal jargin makes no sense to me!

Today we had the day off from workshop so I SLEPT IN!! It was amazing! Then I worked on setting up my interview appointments, getting the images and the abstract ready to turn in, and some more video editing. I will continue to do that throughout the weekend as well as work on my templates. It does not sound like a lot, but it should be a busy weekend!

Thanks for reading!
- Karla :)

2006-07-12T16:44:00.000-07:00

The blog site was down yesterday so today's post may be extra long. So, yesterday I spent the day at ODS doing interviews with Krista Winger, Sarah Terry, Chris Keck, Mary Koeninger and with Ken Petri from the Web Accessibility Center. It was a very long day after 5 hours, but I got some very good video footage and was able to put it onto my computer this morning when I went into workshop. After getting all the video onto my computer I had another meeting with all of the instructors and we talked about concerns I had with video and CSS. I also worked on getting some pictures ready for the site and worked on the interview questions that I will be asking Stephen Kuusisto and Jillian Ober tomorrow.

After workshop we had seminar where we talked about how to set up different types of research methods. We split into groups and talked about how we would set up an experiment based on diferent questions that Vicky presented us with. After our discussion we went over to McPherson Labs and met Caymen's faculty partner Donald Terndrup. We learned about stars and went to see part of the new Large Binocular Telescope that OSU is building in Arizona. It was really neat to learn that stars actually vibrate. I would have never known that!

Tonight I have to get some pictures together for Prof B and I to go over that I have to turn in on Friday along with a 100-word abstract for the R2 brochure. I also have to get my video equipment ready for the interviews tomorrow, as well as do some reading for class tomorrow night. So I am off to go get some work done!

Thanks for reading!
- Karla :)

2006-07-10T18:53:00.000-07:00

Ken Petri, who works in the Web Accessibility Center, did a presentation on meeting ADA accessibility guidelines in our workshop today. We talked about all of the common issues in accessing a website. We mainly focused on accommodating for Screen Readers, but we touched on all of the categories of disability. After his presentation I talked to him about setting up an appointment for an interview with him and we ow have one scheduled for tomorrow.

After workshop I went over to Classroom Services in Lord Hall and checked out a camera and a microphone. They didn't have a lavalier microphone, which is what Justin Troyer had suggested that I use for the interviews so I had to check out a stick microphone. I was a little early for my meeting with Prof B, so I went to her office and worked on some emails. Then we talked about the upcoming interviews and questions that i will be asking them. Then we did a practice interview. We do not have workshop tomorrow, so I will be going in to the Digital Union to learn how to transfer it to my computer and to check and make sure the sound worked. I want to get this all checked out before I do the interviews tomorrow afternoon.

In class tonight we talked about the difference between Autobiography and Autoethnography. We also looked at Stephen Kuusisto's new blog and talked about a few of the entries and related them to our own personal experiences. We also talked about Kuusisto's "Planet of the Blind" and Kleege's "Sight Unseen".

Although R2 does not have aworkshop tomorrow, I still have a VERY busy day. In addition to Ken, I will also be interviewing Krista Winger, Chris Keck, Mary Koeninger and Sarah Terry. I will basically be spending the entire day at ODS interviewing! I also have some reading to do for my seminar on Wednesday and class on Thursday.

Well my busy Monday is over and I believe a little bit of relaxation is in order!

Thanks for reading!
- Karla :)

2006-07-06T19:17:00.000-07:00

Today in workshop Natalie gave us some tips on how to use filters and tools in Photoshop to make pictures look better. She taught us how to get rid of unsightly blemishes and how to use a blur to make backgrounds look better. This is going to be helpful since I will have a lot of pictures of the people I am interviewing. After the lesson we got to play with Rob and Natalie's photos. A few people made some absolutely hilarious pictures!
After workshop I came home and worked on setting up some more appointments with the people that had written back to me. I also finished up some reading that was assigned for Prof B's class tonight.
Then I met Prof B in her office and we walked together to the Digital Union for our meeting with my instructors. We talked about generally the same things that we talked about in my individual meeting with them last Friday. We met with Rob, Natalie, and someone I had never met before, Becka. It was good to have Prof B there because she gave great input and thought of things that I would have never thought of. We started again with Audience Analysis which was the same as it has been since last Friday. We agreed to make it accessible to everyone because of our varied audience. We then talked about the site map which led into the storyboards of our templates. I had redone the template of the main page and incorporated the suggestions that my instructors and Prof B had made over the past week. We took the links bar of the left hand side of the page and added another circle of links instead. I won't tell you what it is called because it is very clever, you will just have to wait. Rob made a very good suggestion about the images around the circles. He said that we should incorporate the titles in and then have it rollover to the full image. It is hard to explain in words, but it makes a lot of sense and adds to our accesibilty. Then Natalie made a suggestion about the interview that I will be doing and how she thought it would be a good idea for me to do them in a studio in the Journalism Building. It would give them a more professional feel, but it all depends on the comfort level of th people that i will be interviewing. Those were the main points of the meeting other than our site looked good and that we would be starting soon on creating the templates in Dreamweaver.
After this meeting I came home to a very full email inbox. It is a good thing I am an email queen. So after corresponding to those and taking a quick break I was off to class. We talked a lot about disability autobiography today. We discussed the issues surround autobiography in general and the current issues that are targeted towards disability narratives. The reading that was due for today included an article by Tom Couser on how to teach disability autobiography (my personal favorite of the day) and 3 excerpts for disability autobiographies: Nancy Mairs, John Hockenberry, and Simi Linton. It was a very interesting discussion.
This evening I sent an email to Rob asking for more information on the studio that Natalie was talking about. I need to know the where and when before I contact anyone that I have already made appointments with and before scheduling any further ones. I also emailed Justin Troyer who did the presentations on video about getting a camera and mic from classroom services on Monday for my interview with Prof B. My goals for the weekend are to come up with at least 4 questions for each of the people that I will be interviewing over the next two weeks to show to Prof B on Monday. That way we will have something to start with.
Well this was a long post and I am exhausted! I hope I did not leave anything out!

Thanks for reading!
- Karla :)

2006-07-05T15:04:00.000-07:00

Well it was a very nice weekend and now its back to the daily grind! To sum up what I worked on over the weekend I sent out the email that I prepared to people on and off our campus who have had an impact on the history of Disability and Disability Studies at OSU. I have been corresponding with the people who have written me back and setting up appointments to get interviews with them. I have already lined up 6 interviews over the next 3 weeks. I am still waiting to here back from quite a few people.
I had my weekly meeting with Prof B on Monday. We talked about all the suggestions that Rob and Natalie had made about the site in our meeting on Friday. Prof B also talked to me about putting a 20 minute video together as sort of a preview of the project to put on the main page. We just be using all of the footage that I will have gathered throughout the summer. We decided that I could do this if we had time enough to do it, but if not it could be a project for Fall Quarter. Then we decided that nest week I will report who I had heard back from and made appointments with and that I would do my first video interview with her. We are also going to come up with questions to ask the other people that I will be interviewing.
Today we did not have workshop, but we did have seminar. We talked about Research Questions. We also talked about the structure of research articles that are published in journals. Then Jeffrey Cohen and Roger Ratcliff who are Alex and Andy's facult partners came to talk about research questions and funding. They gave us some good tips about applying for grants and how to fill out proposals.
Now I am off to get some reading done for tomorrow.

Thanks for reading!
-Karla :)

2006-06-30T15:16:00.000-07:00

Our workshop today consisted of individual work time and individual meetings with Rob, Vicky, Natalie, and Sapna to go over our assignments that were due today. We talked about the audience analysis, site map and the storyboarded pages I had done. My meeting was with Rob and Natalie and they got a general idea of what Prof B are looking to do with the website. They gave me a few pointers and ideas to go over with Prof B in our meeting on Monday. That will get us ready for the meeting we have at on Thursday with them as well. A really important thing they brought up when talking about color schemes was about if this was going to be used as an official DS site. If that is the case I will want to keep the same color scheme as our program's site. I will have to go over that with Prof B on Monday.

The assignment they gave us for the holiday weekend was just to think about what we had talked about in the meetings, make any necessary changes, and to communicate with our faculty partners. In addition to that I have made a preliminary list of people to email about interviews and need to get that email out. I will also work on getting the information I have typed and ready to put on a page.

Other than that I plan on having a long relaxing holiday weekend!

Thanks for reading!
-Karla :)

2006-06-29T17:35:00.000-07:00

Today at workshop we learn how to edit video in iMovie. Skip, our guest lecturer, lead us in making a PSA for OSU Professor Mitsch and his Wetland Research from a few sample clips that he gave us. I was really cool to learn how to cut the clips and add transition effects. Then we put titles in the clips. He also showed us how to put music to the clip. After we were done learning it the right way we played with sound effects. We added monkey and elephant noises. It was hilarious! I can not wait to get some interviews on tape to work with!

Then I spent the day finishing up my assignment that is due tomorrow. I am now done with my site map, basic templates for my pages, and audience analysis. We will be going over all of those tomorrow in workshop. They are just first drafts, but I think that they are very representative of what the final project will end up to be.

Class tonight consisted of Prof B, Sarah and I. We decided to push off talking about Simi Linton's "Claiming Disability" until next Monday when the rest of the class will be there. We got a few basic ideas down to spark the conversation on Monday.

I am looking forward to workshop tomorrow and a long holiday weekend!

Thanks for reading!
-Karla :)

2006-06-28T17:04:00.000-07:00

Today in workshop we did some more work with video. Our guest lecturer, Justin Troyer, gavea nother lecture about video basics then they let us loose with a few video cameras. My group stuck by the oval, but another group travelled all around. We watched their footage when we got back to the Digital Union and it was absolutely hilarious! Tomorrow we will be editing that footage with iMovie.

After a brief lunch break we had our second Round table Seminar about the role of the researcher at an institution. It was interesting to learn the hierarchy in a university and the role of faculty and the process of tenure. Then Virginia Nivar, Christie's faculty partner, came in to talk to us about her project. Her project wil showcase her agent-based model of the immune system of humans. I twas very interesting.

After that I came home and finished typing up my Audience Analysis and made the revisions to my sample email that Prof B recommended. After this blog, I am going to work on my site map.

Thanks for reading!
-Karla :)

2006-06-27T19:14:00.000-07:00

Today's workshop was soooo fun! We learned the basics of video and got some hands on experience with a few different video cameras. We went out to the oval and practiced some filming techniques like "leading" which is leaving a certain amount of space in front of a person in the frame in the direction that they are walking. Tomorrow we are going to be working more with that as well. It should be fun!

After workshop I spent a few hours at ODS meeting with Patty and Caity and talking to them about the history of ODS and of the student organization. They gave me a really good history and a few contacts to find out some more information. I have to make some more appointments to talk to some more people in the office. I would like to go back when I get some more experience with video and do some video interviews.

Then I came home and did some reading for our seminar tomorrow, which will be about the researcher's role at a university. We are also going to be having Virginia Nivar, who is Christie's faculty partner, coming to talk about her project. I also typed up the sample email that I was talking about yesterday and sent it to Prof B to get her opinion. I am going to work a little on the Audience Analysis and then get some rest.

Thanks for reading!
-Karla :)

2006-06-26T20:00:00.000-07:00

Oh gosh! Monday morning at 9 o'clock is never a good time for anything! Hahaha! Just kidding! Today’s workshop started off with an hour and a half of free time to go over the programs that we had learned so far and ask questions if we had any or begin or assignment that is due this coming Friday. That assignment is to have a written or typed audience analysis, a site map/diagram and our site storyboarded. It sounded like a lot at first, but then Rob said not to worry because this is just our first draft. So I spent my time working on Friday's assignment since I felt pretty confident with Photoshop and Dreamweaver. After that Robin and Joe, other instructors at the Digital Union, lead us in a workshop on CSS (cascading style sheets). This is code that gets linked to your HTML document and makes it look nice. Of course we learned it the hard way first by hand coding, but then they showed us the shortcuts in Dreamweaver. It was difficult to get the hang of, but after a while my sample site was as colorful as could be! It was a nice alternative to working with a regular table in Dreamweaver because it allows you to work with individual sections of text much easier.

Then I had my weekly meeting with Prof B. We started off by looking at the sample templates that I had drawn on my storyboard of the main page, a sample event page and a sample program page. The main page got most of the editing. We decided against the animation to lead into the main page because it may cause some accessibility issues. As for the "Events Wheel" and the "Programs & Offices Wheel" we are going to do four images and a fifth button that links to "more." We would like them to rotate so that it is always a different four on the wheels when the user visits the page. Also, to make them accessible, we thought it would be cool if the image turned black and white (and maybe a little more opaque) and had text on it with the title so that the user new what they were about to click on. The links we decided to put on the left side of the screen are "Home", "Prof B's research", and "Comments/contact us". That's just a general idea so far. Prof B. brought a very good point up about putting a disclaimer on the site stating that this is not a complete history and that people should contact us if they have any further information.

Then we talked about my problem with finding events by searching The Lantern and the OSU website. I suggested that I write an email to people (program and office directors, librarians, etc.) talking about the project and asking them if there are any events that seem important to them. Prof B. thought it was a good idea, especially since Scott Lissner, the ADA Coordinator at OSU, had already responded to an email she had put out on the Disability Studies Listserv talking about the Project. Then we talked about Audience Analysis and Prof B thought of one to add to the three I already had. It is students with disabilities who are thinking about coming to OSU. That is a very important potential audience that I did not even think of! Oh the joys of collaboration! A few other little things were discussed. We decided to link the document I found on the SDS website outlining the guidelines for a DS program to our site. I think that sums up our meeting; we got A LOT accomplished! We have our site review next Thursday (July 6) so we are trying to get two more meetings in before that.

Later in the evening I went to class and we started off by talking about the protest that is going on at Gallaudet University about the University President that has recently been elected. There is a little bit of history at another university for you! We picked that apart focusing on gender, race and disability viewpoints. Prof B. showed us a blog entry from “Deaf Throat” and it was very interesting because he wrote in ASL format instead of standard English. I thought I would put a not about that in since this is a blog as well! Then we talked about the beginning part of "Voices From The Edge" by Ruth O'Brien. It is a great book with narratives relating to the ADA. We picked this apart as well and talked about the individualization of disability that is caused by the ADA. It's a Catch-22 because there are some good points and some bad points about it, but all in all I thought it was a great discussion and I am already wishing I was in Grad School because the class is AMAZING!

Well this has been a long post to recap a long day! Tomorrow I am looking forward to our workshop on video and iMovie. Then I have meetings with Patti and Caity at ODS to talk about the history of ODS and of the student group. I also need to work on that email that I will be sending out about the project and I would like to have the Audience Analysis and part of the site diagram done tomorrow. We will see if I can get all that done!

Thanks for reading!
-Karla :)

2006-06-23T12:51:00.000-07:00

This morning's workshop was a continuation of our Dreamweaver lesson. We had to make a site with 3 links to other pages within the site and then one of those pages had to have 3 more links to other pages within the site. Sound confusing? Well, it really wasnt too bad. Thank goodness we didn't have to do it all in HTML! Then I got "volunteered" by Christi, who was sitting next to me, to share my site with the class. Haha! My site was about the Haydenettes and Lynn Benson (my favorite synchronized skating team and their former coach). So I showed it to the class and one of the only problems we found with it was that I need to change to format in the part of the table where I put my links to keep them at the top of the page and more user friendly. We looked at a few other people's sites. Allison did a very nice one on Chris Botti and Krisitin made her's about Egypt and Ireland. They were all very interesting.

Our assignment for the weekend is to start thinking about Storyboarding our website. Although Rob said not to worry about actually doing anything yet, I think I better write my ideas down because I tend to forget my brilliant ideas if I don't get them down on paper immediately! So, I started thinking about my main page and I thought it might be cool to have an animation that opens the page! I thought that maybe I could make a parody animation with the standard Disability Access Symbols, but I am not sure if that would be considered offensive so I will have to run that by Prof B. in our meeting on Monday.

This weekend I am going to be working on Storyboarding, more project planning, and getting information about the events that Prof B has given me to start with.

Now I have to go get ready for the barbeque that R2 is having tonight. Prof B. will not be able to go, so I told my roomates that they would get free food if they came with me. Hahaha!

Thanks for reading!!

- Karla :)

2006-06-22T19:10:00.000-07:00

Today in workshop we worked more on HTML and made a few sample pages in Dreamweaver. We also learned how to do it the easy way without having to use HTML. Then we worked on Storyboarding for our websites. We filled out a sheet that Rob made with information about one of our pages including the font size and style, colors on the page, a preliminary drawing, and any other information we thought might be important when creating this particular page.
After the workshop I came back home to work on some more searching in The Lantern. I was not finding a lot of big events and decided that I should probably apply the Project Planning I had learned to this part of the project. I determined that I should have my meetings with Patti Carlton and Caity McCandless, a counselor at the Office of Disability Services, first so that I can talk to them about the History of ODS and History of the student group and then talk to them about major events that they think have been a significant influence. Also, I was doing some searching on the Society for Disability Studies website and I came across a document that states their "Guidelines for a Disability Studies Program." I thought that may be useful as a link on our portfolio.
Then I had class with Prof B.; we discussed what it takes to consider something an academic field and we related it to Disability Studies, and we went to the Sullivant Library to view the new Encyclopedia of Disability which was very useful! And the new section of the library is BEAUTIFUL!
It was a long day and tomorrow I have another workshop and a lot more research to do!

Thanks for reading!!
- Karla :)

2006-06-21T16:42:00.000-07:00

Today in workshop we started by talking about Audience Analysis which is the process of examining your target audience and determining how to convey your information in the best possible way. We each came up with three potential audiences for our projects and performed our own audience analysis. Three of the potential audiences I thought of for this portfolio are graduate and undergraduate students and instructors in the Disability Studies program here at Ohio State as well as students at other institutions and other schools that are looking to start a Disability Studies program. We then talked about what formats we may want to include in this portfolio that would appeal to the audience and create maximum usability. I expressed the fact that I wanted to use video and audio interviews but that in order to make it accessible I would need to find a way to add captioning and scripts.

After that we began working on HTML code, which seemed very daunting at first, but after working at it for a while I was able to create a very simple little webpage! I was lucky to have Mason sitting next to me who happens to be an HTML whiz! I had a problem getting an image to load on the page at first, but we figured out that both the image and the HTML have to be saved in the same directory in order for Dreamweaver to find the image to upload onto the page. I look forward to working with HTML more over the summer.

Then Vicky talked to us about Project Management and Planning. We used Alex's experiment with grasshoppers as an example and went through all the steps on the Planning Document that she gave us. The steps were to identify the Problem/Opportunity, Goal, Objectives (break the goal into parts), Success Criteria (have you reached your goal?), Assumptions/Risks/Obstacles, and Tasks. This will be very helpful to plan the course of my research.

After our lunch break we had our first seminar. We discussed the "image of the researcher." Then Mason's research partner, Professor Brian Stone, came and gave us a presentation on "Type in Motion" which is what their project is on. It was very interesting!
So my plans for tomorrow include another workshop at the Digital Union, applying the Project Planning to my research, doing some more searching for major events in disability history, and going to class with Prof B.

Thanks for Reading!
- Karla :)

2006-06-20T10:06:00.000-07:00

Welcome to all who read this blog! It has been created to track the progress of the Research on Research project that I will be working on this summer. I will be working with Professor Brenda Brueggemann to create an accessible multimedia portfolio that documents the history of Disability Studies at The Ohio State University. I hope to keep this updated daily and to document everything about my experience with the Research on Research Program and the process of researching and creating this portfolio.
Yesterday I went to the first activity for Research on Research. It was a luncheon at the Faculty Club where I met all of the other participants and learned about their projects. Later that afternoon I had a meeting with Professor Brenda Brueggemann where we made a plan for what information we would like to include in the portfolio. We decided that I should first start by searching archives of "The Lantern" and the OSU website for major events in disability history on our campus. In addition to that I plan to meet with Patti Carlton, the director of the Office of Disability Services, within the next week to talk with her about the major events that she remembers, where I can find out more about the history of ODS, and who else she thinks that I should contact that may have more information for the project. I finished off my first day of R2 by attending ASC 700 which is the first course offered in the Graduate Interdisciplinary Studies - Disability Studies Program. Professor Brueggemann is teaching this class and we thought it would be a good idea if I participated in the course to the best of my ability without taking away from the time I need to spend on the portfolio.
Today was the second day of the R2. We met in the Digital Union and got the Apple Laptops that we will be using for the summer. Then we split into groups and took digital cameras around the campus taking pictures. We used these pictures to learn how to use Adobe Photoshop. Our instructors, Rob Griffiths and Victoria Getis, showed how to use each of the editing tools on the toolbar and how to undo things if you mess up (very useful!). I plan to spend the rest of the day doing the searching that Professor Brueggemann and I talked about yesterday.

Thanks for reading!
- Karla :)