Chapter 9: Evaluating Your Project

The information in this chapter will be particularly useful when we are finalizing our Drip Irrigation Guide. If put together ineffectively, the guide won't be used, and the garden will have to go on passing drip irrigation lessons from one volunteer to another by word of mouth. Because the garden is in the middle of the neighborhood, it should be easy to find people to test the guide. (We might also be able to raise awareness for the garden while testing!)
"Testing" the brochure will be a little more complicated. Having the classmates review the brochure, evaluating it based on what we have learned in class, might be more useful. We could also have the garden members and volunteers and Green Florida members review the brochure and provide us with feedback.

Chapter 7: Designing Your Project

This chapter was interesting. It gives me a lot more to consider about design: white space, rhetorically relevant images, and a style sheet.
I think the most important part of this chapter is the section on discourse analysis. We have not met as a group and discussed the whos, whats, whens, and whys of Green Florida and the Bartlett Park Community Garden. Our audience was somewhat understood by all of us, and it worked out pretty well. The website provides us with an example of the how the brochure should be directed.
I think that the discourse analysis will become more important with the further development of the Drip Irrigation Guide. We have yet to answer these important questions about the guide's future:

Who will read this?
Where will they read this?
Why will they read this?
What will they already know if they read this?

The development of our design scheme and research process is going well. We have kept in contact with Shari and received valuable feedback throughout the project so far and will do so until the final products.

Three things to work on:
Determine the audience of the guide.
Design thumbnails for the guide, page by page
Intensely review the brochure's design, room for improvement?

Chapter 8: Assessing Your Progress

The samples in this chapter have been the most helpful to me while drafting progress reports. Since we have started working on this project, I have focused less on the book and more on in-class work, the wiki page and work on this project.

Green Florida group?

The group formerly known as the Bartlett Park Community Garden group met with Shari this Saturday to discuss the proposal. It was my first time down to the garden, I admired the obvious differences in gardening styles and all the plants thriving in their own little rectangles. I expected the neighborhood to be much worse, but it was nice, with people on the porches and very little going on. We met Joe, a member of the grounds committee and Tom, a gardener. Drew, Amanda and I grabbed a shovel and a pitchfork to turn the pile of compost while a few of the members worked on changing the filters in in the drip irrigation system.
When the new compost and all of its inhabitants were cozily tucked away under the older, more "digested" stuff, we talked with Joe about his expectations of our project. Joe wasn't much a fan of making a volunteer handbook, but for very good reasons. This is a community garden, people should be coming out to be in a happy place with their neighbors, family and friends. Garden members should get to know each other, teach and learn, and take care of the community.
We also talked shop with Tom, a week old member of the garden, who was in the process of amending his soil. He taught us that lady bugs eat aphids (a very common garden pest, often called plant lice, that will eat almost anything you plant) and earthworms are your best friend.
We left the garden and met Shari at her house where we talked over the proposal.
I was given an entirely new outlook on this project- more then likely because I had not yet met with Shari or Angela about what they needed. Our project shifted from a volunteer handbook to a guide for the drip irrigation system and an information pamphlet for Green Florida.
I feel a lot more confident in my understanding of the project after being able to talk everything out.
Shari also mentioned referring to the neighborhood the garden sits in as "underprivileged" should be avoided. After visiting the neighborhood, I understand why. We want this community to be proud of where they live, and not ashamed or belittled. We want to let the public know that Green Florida isn't around to help a lesser neighborhood out, but to show them that they can help themselves.

Going for the green

Today, I've been clicking around the internet to find website with information we could include in the Bartlett Park Community Garden fact sheets. I'm really amazed with the amount of region-specific information that is available on organic gardening; and even more amazed by the number of community gardens there are in the U.S. When these gardens are started in lower-income parts of cities, they tend to improve property values and provide these families with very affordable, healthy food.

If you go to the grocery store, and for the sake of bottom-dollar pricing we'll say a Walmart Supercenter, you might find three small tomatoes for a dollar. They won't taste much like a real tomato and they might not be very ripe- but you only paid a dollar (and the gas to get to Walmart). If you spent that dollar on a packet of tomato seeds from the same Supercenter, you would have tomatoes all summer long for the price of water (pennies a gallon). In my experience, some of the easiest plants to grow are herbs, and we pay two or three dollars for a few sprigs? Maybe growing-your-own is more of a secret than I first thought.

Chapter 6: Managing Your Collaboration

This chapter goes over the most effective ways a group could work together. There is, of course, the most ideal group would have all of their time to devote to the project, but this isn't the case for our group.
I really like the idea of a field journal- a dated log of each members' work on the project. Adding one of these to our group wiki page might help everyone stay on track even though we won't be able to have face-to-face meetings more than once or twice a week. It will also help us keep up with the progress reports.
Google Docs and the group wiki page are awesome places for our group to work on the same documents, with most the freedom one would have with a physical meeting. It also eliminates the existence of several word documents floating around waiting to be condensed into one piece.

Chapter 5: Refining Your Project

Many sections of this chapter provide the reader with very important guidelines for writing a proposal and deciding on a proper project. The sample proposals were useful to me when drafting our initial proposal, but the outline of how a proposal should flow (causes->problem->objectives->solution) was especially helpful in not only out proposal draft but also presenting our project to the class. Now, we didn't stick to the format, and that is something we need to work on, but it gave us an idea on how to do something we have never done before.

To bee or not to bee.

Although I love going to school and learning everything I can, I am excited to graduate. I have been attending USF since 2003, and though I have learned so much about so many different things, I feel as if I have been wandering aimlessly through the course catalog.
In my life, I know that I want to be active; I want to make this world a better place. I have recently (within the past few months) been able to set my sights on a degree- English-Technical Writing. Words are one of the most powerful weapons, but using words is a difficult skill to master. I want to be able to use my hands as well as my mind and pen to make this planet healthier, happier, and more peaceful.
If I could accomplish one thing in my lifetime, what would it be? Right now, today, I would decide on saving the honeybees. I would campaign for everyone to have a hive in their backyard, and to plant flowers. Humans are at war with animals and nature. Through education and understanding of how this world works, we can live harmoniously with the creatures that roam around us.

Field Trip to Mt. Zion Human Services

When only reading about Mt. Zion Human Services, that it was faith-based and in the heart of St. Petersburg, I most definitely had expectations. I thought it would be much more church affiliated and a lot more rough than it actually was. These assumptions were proved wrong after seeing this organization at work. The staff were cheerfully working hard and looked tired after a long day, the children were happy and well-behaved and the place was lovingly decorated with the children's artwork. "Faith" was barely an issue. Although Pat Fried's discussion with us about the organization gave much information on the history and how overwhelmed the staff was with the work that needs to be done, I feel that visiting the day care and other buildings was much more effective, at least for me, in understanding that this is a real organization that battles a huge workload with little time to cover it and few faculty members to do it. I feel more compelled to help MZHS after seeing how it works, beyond simply completing an assigment, and would be willing to help them after this semester.

Point-in-time Training Monday, January 26th, with George Bolden and GW Rolle

Counting the homeless of Pinellas county seems like an impossible task, as you can expect to see a homeless person God-blessing you under almost every overpass. Mr. Bolden presented us with a great training session on how the volunteers would conduct this census. After his discussion, I feel as if I could confidently go out and participate in this effort.
Bringing G.W. Rolle along to give the class, most of whom don't know anyone who is homeless or has ever been homeless, insight as to how anyone can have his or her life turned upside-down and become homeless.
Most of the "bums" I have known were in such a rut because their recreational drug or alcohol use took over their lives; that made it easy to file most other homeless people in the same category. I often forget to think about how our economy is putting many good, clean people out of jobs, houses, family, and luck.
Mr. Rolle also brought to light the future of involuntary homelessness. It saddens and frustrates me to think that there is another wave of foreclosures rolling our way, and there's no way to stop it. Tens of thousands of jobs are lost every week, without any other doors opening. I hope a change is going to come.

These two gentlemen presented the class with a very laid back brand of technical communication. We were delivered precise information in a very effective and refreshing manner. Mr. Rolle gave us the problem, with an appeal to pathos and ethos, and the goals we, as a community, need to meet. Mr. Bolden gave us the tools which can be used to reach such goals.

A Change Is Gonna Come - Sam Cooke

Chapter 3: A Rhetorical Toolbox for Technical and Professional Communication

This chapter has been very satisfying, offering connections between all of the elements of technical communication. I can see now how purpose, emotions, audience, and fact, all come into play when a technical document is born.
This type of communication didn't roll in with the computer age, the foundations were laid when the great orators of ancient Greece passed on their values and thoughts to their students. We are simply applying these techniques to how we live today.

Chapter 2: Service Learning in Technical and Professional Communication

This chapter clears up many questions I had before reading it, mainly, "How do you do this 'service-learning'?" One thing that has always concerned me about graduating with my degree and stepping out into the world with only that diploma to back me up, is that so many potential employers want applicants with experience. How can I gain experience if no one will hire me? Service-learning gives students an opportunity to work in the "real world" while still earning their degree, so that when we get kicked out of this nest we will have some experience to land on. I had not considered all of the benefits of service-learning- from how students benefit, to the organization "hiring" us, and even the university. The citation from Linda Flower's book on page 20 about how universities usually hold a holier-than-though attitude to the surrounding community is all too real and sad. It often seems as though universities close themselves off to the neighborhood they are nestled into, but could so obviously benefit from considering and working with the community. I am excited to get the ball rolling on our projects in class. In truth, I had quite a different idea of technical communication before starting this class, and my appreciation for the field and work of technical communication has more than quadrupled.

Civic Engagement

I didn't have much time to browse the booths at the Civic Engagement Fair last Wednesday, but it seemed a lot like I had expected it to be- YMCA/YWCA, blood drive, Girl Scouts, and a few community aware churches, amongst others. Although I appreciate those who take care of fellow human beings, I've never been driven to join them. Being born and raised in Florida, I have become extremely aware and proud of my surroundings; but I have also watched my favorite orange groves turn into subdivisions, and seen the beaches sprout hotels and apartments. Florida Forever is what caught my eye, a sign on the table of the Suncoast Sierra Club (which I had always thought of as a hobby for rich old people, but this fair proved me wrong). Florida Forever is a state-run program that involves buying large parcels of land throughout Florida in the name of conservation. Even though I have witnessed irreparable damage done to this beautiful place, I got a shot of hope from this billion-dollar program that Florida will not be conquered by concrete.

"Did you know....Shift Happens?"

"Shift Happens" presents a mind-boggling collection of numbers and facts on the information age. I am surprised to find out how fast, far, and wide technology is moving, or exploding, even. It really makes me wonder what will happen to the human race when the capabilities of the mentioned technology surpass human capabilities to process information. Are we in danger? Will robots take over? I am doubtful. We are capable of adapting to so many new things, and have been doing so for thousands of years (i.e. fire, the wheel, electricity, oil, computers, fiber optics). Although somewhat frightening, our exponentially growing civilization is becoming more and more tightly woven. Cultures are coming together in amazing ways, making the near impossible possible.

"Rhetorical Analysis" & Chapter 1 "What is service-learning?" in "Service-Learning in Technical and Professional Communication

I really enjoyed the article on rhetorical analysis, appreciating the fact that it broke down the idea of communication to, simply, why we use words. I especially liked the essay by Jason Thompson. His essay made rhetorical analysis much easier to understand, causing some kind of a light bulb effect in my head about the first part of the article. At first, I felt somewhat insecure, reading and thinking to myself that I should be understanding this concept. When I finished the article, I realized that I have used some of the methods mentioned, only in slightly different ways and contexts. Although I am still notcompletely confident in my analyical capabilities, I am satisfied knowing that I will be given the chance to sharpen my skills as a writer through the course of this class.
As Dr. McCracken had noted it would, reading the article first helped with the book reading and many of the concepts and terms used within the first chapter.
I am very much looking forward to working within the community for non-profit organizations, but am still unsure on how we will be going about finding organizations to work with.

First day...

What does the word technical mean? To me, the word is definitely multifaceted, obviously having to do with technology, computers, electronics, information systems, artificial intelligence, but also meaning something that is in-depth, concise, with many details, complicated, representing the progress of humankind.
Communication, in comparison to technical, seems to be a much simpler thing. One small idea comes to my mind when thinking about what communication is, words. Words in so many forms- handwritten, telegraphed, e-mailed, typed, spoken, signed, digitally recorded, sang, and in any language. Communication is personal, customized to connect two people.
Technical communication involves connecting the technical things in the world with the people who live in it, spanning many forms of communication.
I would like to be a translator of sorts between different groups using the technical communication skills I learn in my courses and work at USF. I want to go beyond the world of computers and microchips to connect those who would otherwise be anonymous and/or unknown to one another through the careful use of words.