Review of Citizen Media for Social Change

After the first day of Citizen Media for Social Change, I was seriously considering dropping the class. I e-mailed Thom to confirm that I had made a mistake in signing up for it: "Dear Professor Gillespie, I had no idea we would have to know so much about computers for this class... I think I'm in way over my head!" Thom replied: "You'll be fine." So, I took a deep breath and took his word for it, and although at some points I felt I had no idea what I was doing, I am very glad I stuck with the class. It actually ended up being my favorite one of all. It was one of those classes where the professor was actually interesting, and the lessons didn't put me to sleep. I liked reading the book "We the Media," and the quizzes on it weren't too bad either. Thom has been so many places and done so many things. He's so knowledgeable of so many different aspects of the subject, too. Any problem that surfaced, Thom would show us an example of something similar that had happened in previous classes, and how the problem was resolved. He was also very patient with us.

We spent a lot of time working on HTML. I believe that only a few people really conquered this, and to those who did, I applaud you. I was a little frustrated with HTML, but Thom was always available to help. When we were introduced to Dreamweaver, I was happy. I didn't quite get it at first, but I think now I sort of have the hang of it. I put together the website for Dormland Security using Photoshop and Dreamweaver. I wasn't quite sure what I was doing and had to seek help from Thom outside of class. I think the Dormland Security website is a little bit aesthetically boring. I wish I could have thought of something else to make it more interesting to look at. Overall, though, I am proud of myself for succeeding in putting it together. Also, I like our website logo, that David created. We had all brainstormed to come up with the logo, but we ended up picking David's design. I liked working in my group. Everyone was very eager to participate. I felt like I needed to be on my toes in order to contribute something significant to the group, because I was always getting ideas after others in the group had already gotten them. My major contributions to the group were putting together the final website and filming the video. Overall, I had a very good experience in this class.

~Alison Stake