Rationale for Project A

Project A Rationale

I chose to do an online exhibition of William Shakespeare and adaptations of his plays and other works. I enjoy William Shakespeare's work and fear that others have been restricted to his work because of the language. In my website I attempted to make Shakespeare easy for those who are studying his work or are just interested.

My website included:
*A list of Movie Adaptation for his most famous plays
*A miniature dictionary for Shakespearean language
*Video links for pointers on how to read Shakespearean language
*News Articles about Shakespeare
*The Shakespeare Globe
*The Bell Shakespeare Theater Company
*The Shakespeare Center Group which I linked an RSS feed

I also included links to Facebook groups, Flickr, YouTube and my blog.

I made the website interesting and useful by including photos, web links, videos and social network links it would engage the reader and help them find their way around the relevant sites.

My technical processes used include:

RSS Feed

Video Feeds

Div Class

Table

I found a website (Feed Informer) that allows you to upload RSS feeds and transfer them into the HTML file. I used this for The Shakespeare Research Centre which has a blog on blogspot. I thought an RSS Feed was appropriate for this website as it is constantly being updated.

I used Video feeds for my website because I thought it would make the website more engaging and entertaining for the reader. I found these two videos on YouTube and thought they were appropriate for my website. One was a short clip of a rap song about all of the Shakespearean plays. I thought this took the edge off Shakespearean plays in a humorous way. I found the embed code on Youtube and copied it into my HTML file. The sizes of the videos were appropriate and both played without any complications.

The div tags I used were helpful especially while using CSS. I found that I could adjust my information in CSS and not have to change it again in HTML. I mainly used my div tags for columns and spacing out my webpage. I thought this gave the webpage more structure to make it easier for the reader to access the information.

I wanted to put a table in to give my movie adaptation information so it would be easier to read. I looked on the internet for the right code and was pleased to learn how to do it myself and customize it to how I wanted it to be.

Cultural Context

The reason I picked to do Shakespeare was that he has had an impact on my life and I have studied many of his plays. They all interest me and I have come across so many people who will not even try and understand the basic plot because the language is so difficult. In fact, the language wasn’t even understood when Shakespeare wrote the play but was considered to be an entertaining aspect of the plays so no one in the audience (including the royals and upper class men) could understand. His plays were more of a visual and expressive piece of work and should be performed to understand the stories. The movie adaptations I suggested are just as important to understanding Shakespearean plays. Although not all of the movies follow the language or the exact storyline, it helps the audience understand the basic plot and makes it more enjoyable for people living in the 21^st century. Because people have adapted Shakespeare’s plays, it makes them last longer and become relevant to modern society.

Design Patterns

My design patterns were very simple for the website. I am not a design student and preferred to focus on the content rather than using a lot of colours and textures. I used a website called Colour Scheme which helped me identify what colours contrasted and coordinated. All the codes for the colours were available on the website which was helpful. My font was a reference to the “Medieval” time Shakespeare which I thought was appropriate with the theme.

Overall, I learnt how to source sites, videos and blogs to my website to make it more useful and accessible to the reader. My website has multiple links with reference to different Shakespearean ideas and facts. I enjoyed making this webpage and hope that whoever reads it will find it useful and entertaining.

The Network Carving up the World

Dear Diary,
Yesterday I carved up the world...well not literally of course but I did learn a lot of cool words and how the world is viewed by different people. Actually I was listening to this lecture and viewing posts online which gave me a very wide view on how different the world is and how I (yes I personally) link it all together!

I, as the network, never realised how much I link different people together and no matter how big I get or how varied I am there is always a link to the people using me...for example: everyone who accesses me has a computer and the internet. So I thought that was interesting because although everyone is very different in their own sense such as race, culture, religion, sex, age etc. everyone who has access to the network in connected to everyone else in the network!

And because this information is so wide and varied people are constantly labeling subjects and trying to force them into categories. Two of these "labeling techniques" are called taxonomy and folksonomy. Ok Diary, I know you're not that smart so I'll explain these terms for you:
Taxonomy is defining a subject by what it is so for example a Yellow submarine. The submarine is yellow so is defined with things that are also yellow. It is also a submarine so is defined by machines that can transport people underwater. But this is very limited because there are different types of yellow and there are different types of submarines. The Yellow submarine could also have a lot of other qualities which link it to other things.
So Folksonomy ASSOCIATES The Yellow Submarine with yellow things and associates it with submarines. There is a lot more variance in Folksonomy so people can accept that the subject is associated with the term.

So now I am very busy Diary so I am off to work on my assessment. I know that you are probably not very interested but my Motion assignment is taking alot more time and effort than I thought it would and I would assume many other networks would sympathise with me!
Cheers Diary and Happy St Paddy's Day!

The Network writing in his diary

Dear Diary,
My companions canceled on me! I'm so offended that I don't think I will have anyone else over for a while...Instead I'm going to talk about what I have been doing with my time this week because that is what diaries are for. You sit and listen to me while I rant on about what I have been up to and you can be a good friend and silently agree with me. SO! This week has been mainly busy because I just helped some students make a film within ten days for Lights! Canberra! Action! They were so busy for those ten days trying to write the script, storyboard, find extras, props, boom mics, music and then the editing came!!

Phew so busy but now they both have to focus on doing a web page for a subject they are doing at uni. One of the was thinking of doing current affairs but found that too boring because she did Journalism last year and switched to Media mainly because she wasn't interested in current events. So I think she may do the Shakespeare language and how people can interpret his language and plays. I was reading her blog and she said she was going to try and put up a mini-Shakespeare language dictionary and then post a few of his plays/sonnets up separating them into Comedy, Tragedy, History and Sonnets/Soliloquies. She also mentioned she may have a few lists up on Shakespeare interpretations (such as 10 Things I hate about you and The Lion King) and then show which plays are coming up in Canberra and Sydney. I think it will be good for people who are interested in Shakespeare but don't have the energy to learn the language but want to get a sense of his writing and stories.

Now all she needs to do is try to find time creating the web page. I might ask my friends Mr HTML and Mrs CSS to help her out because I have a feeling she will need them. She will have to try and find time to make it between her filming for Drama Production, her Motion Graphics assignment and her creative research exam coming up. But I think she really likes Shakespeare and enjoys so hopefully she will power through HTML (because sometimes he can be a little annoying and fiddly) and create a web page!

The Network having dinner with Mashup and API

Evening Diary,
As the Network I have to constantly have friends over for dinner and learn about their connections and functions but in the end it is really exhausting! Application Program Interface also known as API was explaining that if someone makes a webpage and uses someone else's API it is cheaper and better! It's not stealing but more like "sharing data" and people use APIs in different ways and change the way people interact with the webpage for example: Twitter and Flickr.

Mashup was explaining that two APIs "mashed up" was used so that multiple things could be used at once. So that different things can be correlated together and be made into feeders. Websites that do this is News Map, Neave TV and Everyblock Chicago. Mashup seems to be so useful to people because it means that a person can do everything on the one webpage and therefore the website gets more viewers!

I need to start havign so many people over and focus on a project coming up. I need to get a good idea on what type of webpage to build. I need HTML and CSS's help but I think I should be ok. I'm tossing around a few ideas on a current affair topics like the Olympic games or Garrett's insulation scheme.