This blog post is all about how technology has helped or challenged me while creating my twitterive.

     I am by no means a digital native. I remember getting my first computer when I was a freshman in highschool. That doesn't mean I don't know how to use technology, I do, but it does not come as easy to me as it may for others. While I was working on my twitterive there were times when technology drove me crazy. In fact, weebly caused me some moments of insanity. At first, I could not figure out weebly for the life of me. I had to watch "how to" videos on you tube until I finally figured it out.
     Weebly was notorious for giving me error messages or not publishing when I asked it too. The most frustrating aspect was downloading my slideshow that I created for my twitterive. It took me almost two and a half hours to download the slideshow because weebly was up to it's bad tricks. However, weebly wasn't all bad, I like the aspect of dragging the different document elements into my twitterive. It helped me keep the project very organized. I love that I will always be able to access the site so that I can someday share my twitterive with my daughter. 
     While creating the twitterive I became familiar with new technologies like yodio and jing. Yodio is so much fun. You can add your own voice overs to pictures or videos. Jing is a great tool that I will use in all of my classes going forward. I used jing in my second draft of my twitterive so I could add screen shots of my tweets. 
     I didn't realize how much I didn't know about technology before this class. I love learning new aspects of technology and I know it will be beneficial to my career. Hopefully, I will learn even more before completing the final draft of my twitterive. 
    
     

     This blog post is about the response I received after presenting my twitterive project to the class.

     I have to admit, I was very nervous to present my twitterive to the class this past week. I am not sure why I was so nervous, perhaps because my twitterive is something I have worked really hard on and means a great deal to me. I was nervous presenting something so personal. Once I started receiving feedback my fears started to disappear. 
     The class and Professor Mangini gave me great feedback and opinions. I was happy to learn that the twitterive was not too long and that I used enough genres. I loved Erin's idea to bold or add color to the dates that were "good" days. I left the class with so many great ideas to add to my twitterive. I want to add more pictures of memorabilia from the NICU. I have pictures that the Nurses drew for Bella and hung up in her incubator when she reached a certain weight and pictures of her tiny footprints from the day of her birth that I want to add to the twitterive. I started revisions this weekend and started to clean up the journal entries. This project means a great deal to me. I want to create something that my daughter will appreciate and be proud of some day. 

This blog is all about an application called Yodio. I wrote this blog so you can become familiar with this application. This may be an application that you find useful while creating your twitterive. 

   Yodio is an application that can be used to create photos or videos with your own personal narration. If you would like to see an example of what Yodio is you can visit my twitterive and click on the NICU page. This page includes a picture I downloaded to Yodio of my daughter. If you hit play you can hear myself singing the lullaby I sang to my daughter in the NICU. This application is great if you want to add your own personal narration to a photo or video.

  To create your own personal Yodio, please visit the site www.yodio.com.  Once you get to the page you must first create an account. Once you create your account Yodio will send you a confirmation email. Be sure to follow the directions in the email so that you can activate your account. Then you will have to register your phone number so that you can create your voice overs. Once your account is activated you are able to create your first project!

   First click on the tab that says "Create Yodio." Then you will have to click on the link that says "Create a standard blank Yodio and go to production system."

  The first thing that pops up is the how-to guide pictured above. It shows you exactly how to use the application. Be sure that you call the phone number first to create your recording. The phone number to call is 1-877-699-6346. It takes approximately 5 minutes for your recording to be posted to your account. Once you have your recording uploaded your can upload your photos. To create the yodio click and drag your image  to the right box that states: "Drop Image Here." Then do the same for the voice over. Once you have that done click Preview on the top to see what your Yodio will look like. If you like it, you can hit publish. The publish page will appear and you can choose whether you want your Yodio to be Private or Public. You can make your Yodio private and still publish it to your twitterive.

In order to publish your Yodio to your twitterive copy and paste the first web link on yodio. Drop the HTML element onto your twitterive and copy and paste the code! 

Congrats! You have successfully added a Yodio to your twitterive.

This blog post is about all the revisions I have made to my Twitterive project thus far.  

   In all honestly, I am constantly revising my twitterive. I started my twitterive in a notebook where I wrote down all my different ideas for the project. Then I took those ideas and slowly started creating the project. I have been adding and deleting different material for weeks now. The hardest part of the project for me is finding different genres to include in the twitterive. Today I have been revising the entire project. I added more quotes, a voice over, and a love letter and prayer to my daughter. I am hoping to have the entire twitterive published on my site by the end of the day. I am sure I will continue to revise the twitterive even more so before presenting in class tomorrow night. 
   After last weeks twitterive workshop I got a lot of good feedback and some good ideas about genres to add to my twitterive. I feel like my twitterive is really coming along nicely but I know that I will be making revisions up until the end of the semester. 

1.) Who are the character's in your story?

         The character's in my story are myself, my husband, my daughter and my two sons. Grandparents, Aunts, and Uncles are also included in my story.

2.) What is your story? What genres/modes are you using for your story?

      My story is all about the birth of my daughter. My daughter arrived two months early. I wanted to share our journey together. The modes/genres I will be using include my journal enteries, quotes, poetry, found poetry, lullabies, photographs, video's, a voice over, a love letter to my daughter, and a prayer. 

3.) When does your story take place?

      My story takes place in January/February 2010

4.) Where is your place?
 
      My place is the NICU.

5.) Why do you feel a connection to your place?

   I feel a very strong connection to my place because it is the place that my daughter spent the first month of her life. There were a lot of up's and down's in this place but in the end it is the place that saved my daughter's life.

6.) How do you show your audience your connection to place?

     I show the audience my connection to place by the emmotion in my twitterive. I include pictures, poetry, a video of the lullabies I sang to my daughter. 

     In this blog post I would like to share my twitterive writing process with you. I must admit that writing my twitterive has been very difficult. The hardest part of the twitterive assignment so far was coming up with an idea for the project. I had so many ideas to write about, but everytime I tried writing about a topic I found myself stumped. It was very frustrating. First, I was going to write about my childhood, but I couldn't chose just one theme. Then I was going to write about training for the Broad Street Run. Then I realized that the actual marathon will take place after the twitterive assignment is due, and I found everything I was writing about my training was boring and repetitive. 
     It wasn't until one of our classes on a Tuesday night that I came up with my topic. We were discussing our twitterive's and I heard a lot of people sharing personal stories as their twitterive's. That's when my idea clicked in my head, I would write about my daughter's birth.  I was going through different scenarios for my topic over and over in my head. In fact, I couldn't wait to go home and get to work on my topic. 
     Unfortunately, the writing didn't come to me as easy as I thought it would. During my daughter's NICU stay I kept a journal, it was my outlet for the roller coaster of emotions I was experiencing. The first thing I did was pull out the journal and read it from beginning to end. I never realized how difficult it would be for me to read, it brought back a lot of bad emotions and I couldn't write anything that first night. The next day, I read the journal again, taking notes of key ideas I wanted to include in my twitterive. I also highlighted some thoughts for tweets. I knew then that I wanted to share this experience as my twitterive.
     My biggest challenge with my twitterive  is where to go with my story. I want readers to feel like they are going through the experience with me. I want the readers to understand the rollercoaster of emotions I was experiencing during this time in my life. My biggest challenge now is figuring out a way to accomplish this without being corny or vague. 

     This blog post is all about my Twitterive assignment for my writing, research and technology class. Twitterive is an assignment about tweets I have shared on Twitter. I decided to write my twitterive on the birth of my youngest child, my daughter. My daughter was born almost two months early and spent the first month of her life in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. This was the most difficult time of my life. I truly believe there is nothing harder in life then watching your child struggle, or in pain. During this month, I kept a journal, it was the best way I knew how to deal with my feelings. I decided to share my thoughts (from my journal) during this time in my tweets. I hope you enjoy my twitterive and maybe it could give you some insight into the life of a NICU mom.

     TWITTERIVE PROLOGUE: My inspiration for this project is my daughter. She is the strongest person I know, and she is my little miracle. My daughter was born at 32 weeks gestation (approximately 2 months early) and struggled every day to get bigger and stronger. I wanted to share my feelings during our long 4 week and 1 day stay in the NICU. Below are the tweets that I have shared with everyone on Twitter so far about the experience: 

"We celebrated each little burp and every wee sneeze." #twitterive #wrt1c
A mere three pounds and you were stronger then me. #twitterive #wrt1c
You are my miracle. #twitterive #wrt1cI
I can still hear the sound of the alarms in my dreams. #twitterive#wrt1c
My heart ached for four long weeks and one day. #twitterive

     My twitterive setting will be the NICU. I want readers to feel like they are going through the experience with me. I will post pictures and give readers a sense of the roller coaster range of emotions a parent experiences when their newborn is in the NICU. My theme will also be based on the emotions parents experience: joy, fear, elation, sadness, hope. My repetend will be on the size of my daughter. Through the ups and downs I will return to the fact that even though my daughter appeared tiny and fragile, in fact she was the opposite, she was strong, a fighter.