Dear Professor Mangini,

Reviewing the grading contract for Writing, Research, & Technology, I feel the grade I deserve in this course is an A. I only missed class one time the day it was snowing because I am terrified to drive in the snow. I believe that I went above and beyond with each assignment, by having them done well before the due date, making improvements on my work, and by being organized  within my group projects as well. The projects I especially believe that were A material was my This I Believe, and my group advocacy project. With our advocacy project my group and I presented a great argument during class presentation time and our group advocacy blog turned out great as well.
 During every class I also participated when we had class discussions. When writing my blog entries I wrote thoughtful blog posts every time. Meaning, the quality of my work was above and beyond the grading contract of a B. Overall, I believe that i deserve an A in this course, and I think that that shows in my work throughout the semester :)

I am very excited to be getting my ideas together for my Social Media Investigation Project. Since I spend a good amount of my time on Facebook, this is just my type of assignment where I can investigate my Facebook friends.

The social media outlet I have chosen is Facebook. The idea I am going to do is adults on Facebook and how they only use social media to brag about their children, and share information about their children's lives on there. I chose to investigate 5 different people, one of them being my mother, and one of them being my aunt. The other three people are my friend's parents that are my Facebook friend's that I also found common themes within their statuses.

I am currently working on reading the sources that Professor Mangini found for me (thanks! :)) so I can choose one or two that back up my argument that adults are on Facebook to brag. Once I narrow down my sources, they will add more information to my paper, as well as making me sound more credible if I have information to back up what I am saying about my argument.

All in all, I am ready to start my paper for my SMI, once I narrow down my resources!

Rutgers researchers classify 80 percent of Twitter users as "meformers" meaning that these people mainly only tweet about themselves. When I go on social networking sites, I would have to say that I agree with the statement of a "meformer."

On my personal social networking sites, I know that I tend to talk about myself a lot more than I probably should. On my social networking sites such as Twitter I know I tweet a lot of "I" statements such as "I have so much homework to do." or "I am so stressed." I guess I really never thought about it as tweeting about myself!

Some trends I see on social networking sites is that people like to let others know about what they are doing, because if you don;t tweet it, Facebook it, or Instagram it, did it really happen?

In one of our articles that we read, it said, " I've heard both job seekers and employers wonder aloud about what it means if a job candidate doesn't have a Facebook account. Does it mean they deactivated it because it was full of red flags? Are they hiding something?"
With this question, I do believe that people deactivate their Facebook's most of the time because they are hiding something. My boyfriend and all of his roommates deactivated their Facebook's last spring because they are all graduating from Temple University this May. They all felt as though their Facebook's were not a true representation of them because they had a lot of pictures of them at parties and what not. Yes, that is them on the weekends in college, but that is not what their lives revolve around. My boyfriend is an engineering major and deleted his because he was applying to jobs all last summer. He already got hired before he even graduated, and his employers did not question why he did not have a Facebook. In his case, I believe not having one was more beneficial for him.

For myself, I still have my Facebook because I do not have any pictures on there of me at parties, or anything that would make me look suspicious to future employers. I still use my Facebook to communicate in a group for my honor society, and for class purposes. I like using my Facebook to communicate with my friends at different colleges, and my classmates about our assignments. Facebook can be useful if you use it the right way.

When I apply for a job, I will still have my Facebook. I do not think my "Facebook Image" is any different from the way I am in real life. Everything on there is a true representation of myself and most of the time I am talking about school anyway.

My experiences with collaboration thus far have been very good. Everyone in my group has worked together to get our project done. It helps that we all have the same views, which makes it easier for us to all agree on what we want to do. I believe that working with my group members has pushed me forward because we all got our work done before spring break even started. Our joint efforts has helped us get our work done so all of us had equal work and none of us were stressed. 

When reading over Chisholm's article, I found myself agreeing with a lot of the reasons why I really dread group work or collaborative work. As I kept reading, I found ways that collaborative work can actually be beneficial and helpful for college students and as a future teacher.

My definition of collaboration would be working together as a group towards a common goal. A common goal could be a group project for school or even a floor set at work. What makes a project collaborative rather then co-authored is that each group member is responsible for his or her share of the work. A co-authored project would be one that one member does by themselves by putting different pieces together and the others just let them do all of the work and get the same good grade for it.

My past experiences with collaborative projects have been good and bad. Sometimes my group members were very helpful and full of plenty ideas and other times no one had anything to say or any ideas and they seemed like they didn't even want to do the project.

Potential benefits of collaborative work could be that the work is split equally among group members and more ideas can be shared. 

Potential obstacles for collaborative work would be finding time for everyone to meet and agree on what to do or one person in the group not cooperating. 

What it means to me to be an advocate is to stand for something that you believe in. An advocate tries to persuade or inform an audience about a certain topic that they feel strongly about. Whether it be drinking and driving, drug and marijuana use, or shorter class times. An advocate believes that what they have to say is important and they want their voice heard. 
I am currently an advocate right not for my Relay for Life Team. I am persuading and informing people about how important it is to raise money for cancer awareness and for the American Cancer Society. I am a huge advocate for this because my grandmom is a breast cancer survivor. 
The samples I collected for class today are one for students to support the American Stroke Association, yo get tested for STI's. and to join Rowan's Christian Fellowship. These examples of advocacy are good for my age group because they are all relevant to our college lives.

Today I got to sit back and relax and watch everyone's presentations because I completed mine last week. It felt good to be able to relax and watch everyone's presentations without being nervous about mine. All of the presentations today were SO good it is hard to pick a favorite. All of the presentations today were very motivating, inspiring, and uplifting. I really loved Shelby's presentation because it was so cute and happy and made me think about all of my friend's I have on my bed at night such as my zebra pillow pet, my ducky, and my frog. I also liked Danielle's presentation because it had an unexpected twist in the middle of it that was so sad. While her audio was playing you could tells he was so strong and that took courage to share that with the class. Mea's TIB was also one of my favorites because it was very inspiring and the story that she told made me believe that everyone is capable of more if you put your mind to it.

I really enjoyed all of the TIB presentations & everyone did a great job!

This is the first time I can say that I really have enjoyed a project in school and enjoyed listening to what everyone elses were as well. I thought everyone did a great job in presenting and the 9 people that went today all had different ideas and you could tell that they felt very strongly in their beliefs.
As for my own presentation, I am GLAD that's over with!! One change I would have made is to organize my pictures in a way to go with my words more, but overall I thought it was a success.
The two presentors that really stuck out to me today were Matt and Gianna. They both took an emotional risk with their writing (something I KNOW I wouldn't be able to do.) They both sounded great while reading it and they were both very mvoing and inspiring. I could relate to Matt's becausemy grandmom has breast cancer so I could feel the pain in his essay, and I could relate to Gianna's because I too belive in angels, and my Pop-Pop is mine!
Overall, these projects are such a fun way to get to know your classmates more and I can't wait to see what Monday brings :)