Process Post #2

This last week was an exciting one. I got Everything kenna up and running! I used the platform Reclaim Hosting to set up and create my website. The most challenging part I came across in this step of the process was creating a name for my website that was clever and that fit with the aesthetic I was trying to achieve with my website. Eventually I came up with something that I thought encompassed what my website was going to be about, and that’s when Everything kenna was born. 

Before this past week I had never heard of the term cyberinfrastructure. I’m in the baby stages of my blog, so this was a great time for me to read Gardner Campbells thoughts on cyberinfrastructure. What really captured my eye was when he said:

In building that personal cyberinfrastructure, students not only would acquire crucial technical skills for their digital lives but also would engage in work that provides richly teachable moments ranging from multimodal writing to information science, knowledge management, bibliographic instruction, and social networking.

I came to the realization that there is a lot for me to learn while creating my cyberinfrastructure that are invaluable and maybe even hard to learn under other circumstances. Creating a cyberinfrastructure that represents who I am and what goals I want to achieve won’t be easy, but I’m up for the challenge.

The next step in getting my website up and running was choosing a theme. I was in constant deliberation. I would look at my vision board and then at the themes I saw. After a couple wrong choices I came across one that I knew instantly was what I wanted my website to look like. I loved the fonts they used, the colour theme, and the layout was ideal for the type of blog website I was after. Lets just say it was love at first sight!

The first thing I did once I had all of that figured out was work on my header, which is the focal point of my website. I was inspired by my Pub 101 TA’s PowerPoint slide to do a collage with all pictures that relate to what my I will be focused on in my writings. This took me some time, first because I wanted it to look nice, and secondly because I wanted to find pictures that together could paint a picture of who I am. The girly basketball girl who loves her family, who likes to travel, who’s into fashion and beauty, and who can’t stop smiling at life. 

My vision board was a great place for me to start, but I feel like my vision has come to life more than my vision board was able to capture. In a sense I don’t think I truly knew what I wanted my site to look like until I began working on it. Nonetheless I am very pleased with how its all coming together, and I’m very excited to see where its going to go!

References

A Personal Cyberinfrastructure. (n.d.-c). EDUCAUSE. https://er.educause.edu/articles/2009/9/a-personal-cyberinfrastructure