TeeDee

Building our game on Minecraft has definitely been an experience. There's been ups and downs but overall building our game has been fun! I really like our end result of our game. Amy and Bryan have been such great team members. Working with them has been a blast. When we had our rough draft recently, everyone gave us really good advice but at first it was kind of discouraging. But, I'm glad we did it because we really improved our game. Everyone said our game was really confusing because there was no direct path to follow, so we fixed that. And then they were super confused when they were spawned in the wrong place, so we fixed that as well. Then I tested the games, Gladiator and Ranshaw Mansion. Both were pretty fun actually! I tested Gladiator as the test game and then played Ranshaw Mansion to test their spawn point! Gladiator was confusing for me because their spawn point was messing up, but they had awesome potential going on. I ended up spawning at like the end of the game and there was a legit dragon which I needed to fight. I ended up dying because I didn’t have the right equipment but it was still interesting to play. When playing Ranshaw Mansion, I spawned in the right area (YAY.) Their game was really cool looking but kind of frustrating when I got stuck. I found this room full of bookshelves and found the chest that I needed to get to, but couldn’t get back out to finish the game. It was okay that because all they wanted me to do was test their spawn point. They still had work to do I believe. Either way, playing both of these games was very interesting and fun and I hope other people find our game just as neat!

  With this past week, I feel my team and I have worked together better than ever. We have a solid plan for how our game will go now and I am so excited. Every time we work on a new project, we work together and communicate so well. Whenever one of us would have an idea and explain it to each other, other people probably wouldn't get our ideas but since we've been working together and communicate so well, we all understand what we're trying to say. Like I've said before, our ideas work together so well. Our game is developing and becoming so amazing and fantastic. I can't wait to see the end result. I really do appreciate Brian's experience though! Without him, Amy and I would probably be so lost. Amy and I are always like, "Brian, how do we do this?" Which is really great because Brian is sharing his knowledge and now we know even more! Amy will always say how she knows nothing but honestly, she has gotten so much better! All we can do is progress and keep learning! At first, I wasn't sure about this project, but now I can't wait to work with my group and continue to build on our game. I am kind of sad that we only have a short amount of time, but I feel that there would be no end to building on our game. Which is kind of rhetorical. I love turning back to rhetoric while working on our game. Because Minecraft is such a great example of rhetoric and I see that now. It's all so clear. Our group would honestly sit there and repeatedly say, "Hey, that's rhetorical." or "There's rhetoric for you!" We'd say it all the time! I love using minecraft for learning purposes! Yay!

I feel our progress is going well. With Amy's creativity, Brian's experience, and my leadership, we will have this game going in no time. I am really happy with my team actually. They are really fun to be around. Our company is like an energy which we feed off of to be more productive with our game making. So, again, I am really excited for this quite interesting assignment! I think I am most excited for the command block creating. I've played Minecraft before, but never have I used command blocks. They're pretty cool and we have so many ideas on how to use them! Like for example: I had the idea that when Fredward walks into a room of the kingdom, he will trigger a command block which will block off the exit to the room and open other rooms which will contain enemies! It's going to be so awesome! I feel it!!

So, the situation here is Snapchat. When using Snapchat, your purpose is to communicate with people in a quick, easy, fun way. Your audience, when using this app, is whoever you’re sending your picture to. Whether it’s to one person, or multiple people at once. With Snapchat though, you are able to screenshot a picture which means the person can save the picture you’ve sent them onto their phone. So, you might have a larger audience than you intended to have for a picture you’ve sent. You need to be careful with what you send. You shouldn’t Snapchat something you don’t want the world to see. Which leads us to the constraints. The timing on how long a person can view a picture is a constraint. If someone sent a really awesome picture, you can only view it for how long the person set the timer for. Unless, of course, you screenshot it. As well as the time, the text space is limited. Which I mentioned as a constraint in my lit log. You can only write up to about forty four characters. Another constraint with Snapchat is be the lighting. I also mentioned this in my lit log. I’ve noticed that my Snapchat pictures are darker than my regular camera pictures for some reason. So, if you’re in a darker room, Snapchatting may be difficult or impossible for you. I always manage to find a way to send my creepy faces to my friends though!

Being literate with emailing is a great life quality to have because I will use emailing for many years ahead. Emailing is a great, quick, short way to communicate with persons you don't see every day. The exigence is to get messages across to other people with ease and speed. The audience can be anyone who has an email that the writer needs to speak to. Examples, like I've said earlier, can be professors, advisors, friends, etc. Emailing has many constraints, however. Emailing is fast and and easy, but the receiver will only see the messages when they check their email. Emails aren't immediate like text messages. So, if your message is urgent, the person receiving it might not find it for days because they don't check it daily. Another problem could be the person you need to email might not have an email. However, many people have emails now-a-days because you need one to sign up for Facebook and such. So, the likelihood that they do have an email is probably good. Also, if you don't know the persons email, that would be a constraint. Besides these factors, emailing is a great way to communicate with others and I love it!

Like I've said, Jessica has done a list of super amazing things. This picture is a great example! This was during homecoming week and this day we were supposed to dress up like we were from the 50's. Jessica cut, sewn, and created both of these dresses in this picture. She put her heart and soul into these projects and it resulted in two super pretty dresses. I was so happy that day. projects of Jessica like this make me want to create really neat things too. Which is why Jessica is one of my literacy sponsors!

Many people would say that their siblings are their literacy sponsors. I do not have any siblings, however. But I do have a best friend from birth, though. Her mom and my mom have known each other ever since high school, therefore, we had no choice but to be best friends. Her name is Katy Burger; yes, Burger. She is a super sweet, kindhearted girl, with a huge, caring heart. Many people describe her as the kind who wouldn't even hurt a fly. Katy and I live an hour away from each other so you'd be surprised at how close we are. Most people would say distance ruins friendships, but Katy and I could not speak to each other for many months (just because we were busy or something) and then see each other and talk like we never even separated. So, obviously, we are pretty close and have a great friendship. I love this girl because she always motivates me to be a better person. Just like a literacy sponsor! We kind of feed off of each others' success. Katy would always follow in my foot steps. I will always remember the time that I got the new My Littlest Pet Shop and I showed it to Katy and then the next time I seen her, she had almost twenty My Littlest Pet Shops and I was so jealous! My mom has always told me that when Katy seems that she's copying me, she's really just looking up to me. And when Katy does what I do, she can do it much better sometimes. Which comes back around and motivates me to do better in anything and everything. So, again, we motivate each other to do better. So as you can tell, Katy has been a super literacy sponsor in my life for a long time now. This is especially effective with academics. If I get A's and B's on my report card, Katy would get straight A's. Then motivating me to do better things. Like take AP classes, joins clubs, get a job, get my license, etc. So, to other people, this may seem like a huge competition happening between us. This is true. But the competition is a healthy one. We're almost like each others' disguised coaches. Which works out pretty well because we both tend to not only succeed but be at the top! I am very happy to have this girl in my life. Couldn't ask for a better influence!

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbJtYqBYCV8

So, overall, I loved this article, but wasn't a huge fan of how the authors felt us Digital Natives needed to be controlled. I think we just need some gentle guidance if anything.

LOL What we do on video game night!!(: