Where to begin? After looking at all of the sample resources we could use to create our final online presence, and also exploring my Wilkes classmates' sites, I was excited to start creating on About.me. I thought this service looked very sleek and professional, as well as user-friendly, and I wasn't so intimated about putting "me" out there anymore. I have to admit, I am never comfortable focusing on myself; I just don't feel I am interesting enough to rate a specific site all about me and my accomplishments. However, I do see the value in "getting my name out there" as a professional and, this was a final assignment, after all.
About.me was very easy to use, and had many options for design. I admit I am a perfectionist, and must have spent what many people would consider a crazy amount of time on just selecting the color for my name, then the right font and size, and then starting the process all over again with the next line. After many hours of getting it all "just right," including adding my Wilkes Blog, I wanted to link the new Twitter account I began for my Film Class as a part of an earlier Internet Tools For Teaching project. After that, everything went wrong. Throw-the-computer-out-the-window wrong! After adding the Twitter feed, all of my previous edits were gone! So, I went through the arduous task of getting it right again, the program said my "changes were saved" and then -- poof! Some new edits were there, others disappeared once more.
I spent another two hours having the same thing happen to me: fixing then losing, and fixing and losing again. The worst part was, I spelled Media wrong in my headline when I was first entering my information (I began by using the About.me app on my iPad so that I could report here if the app made updating easy) and though I went back and fixed it, numerous times, it kept defaulting back to the incorrect spelling. It's one thing to have a font you didn't pick or a bad color (visitors will just think you have no design flair), but to spell an easy word - one in your title, no less - wrong, well, just didn't speak good for someone who is advertising she is a teacher.
Just when I thought maybe, just maybe all of the changes took hold, I started to go to the About.me home page to look for a place to notify the developer of my issues (I learned to do this from this class! :) when alas, my edits once again were gone. I was beyond frustrated at this point. It took me back to the early days of video editing when software programs were very unstable and on several occasions my projects would be "done," only to have the software crash and everything lost. When this would happen to my students during the iMovie HD time in Apple's history, I could feel their pain but could only help by letting them discuss their frustration and then allowing them more time to complete their project.
I have fixed my About.me page one last time (in fact, I refuse to close the program from this point forward) and took a photo of my page. You will find the photo included in my Blog post below, and I ask that if you ever visit my About profile to learn more about me -- or to grade my work (hint, hint) -- and I come off as a bad-spelling, tacky-in-design-taste somewhat professional, you will remember how it all could have looked from the picture.
I don't know what you will get when you click this...
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