Danielle's Blog

Greetings, everyone! There was a time when I didn't think too much about the inconvenience of desktop browser interfaces on a mobile device. In fact, I still have to resort to them today because many sites don't allow certain functions to be performed on their mobile friendly pages. LS560, information technology, has me thinking about all of the opportunities that await us if all websites can bring mobile-friendly features to their sites. It may take developers time to make changes, but now is the perfect time to jump into the world of usability for mobile devices. During the past few weeks I have been all consumed with working on my group's usability project. Throughout our examination of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art [LACMA] website, I have learned that while web developers may intend for something to show up a certain way on a mobile device, it might not happen. LACMA recently launched a new website with features that would reduce battery use and allow mobile ...

Hi, Everyone! So after seeing the high demand for coding in my library, I decided to host a monthly teen coding club. Our first meeting was last week, and it was amazing! When I first proposed the idea, my supervisor immediately told me to go for it. While the club has only met once, I had 16 in attendance. I had a variety of coding activities, but I had no idea what to expect beforehand. Was I going to be running around trying to explain code to everyone? Would I have enough laptops? Was this program lame? Honestly, I expected to have half of the teens on the registration list not show up. In reality, out of all those that registered, only two didn't attend. And the teens? Well, they surprised me. Instead of me running around trying to help teens piece together their code, they were working together to solve their problems. In fact, very few teens actually asked for assistance from me. Of course, I was constantly walking around showing them some interesting pieces of code and ...

Hi everyone! As you are all aware if you have been reading my posts, I went into my Information Technologies class thinking that it was going to be a piece of cake. After all, if I can host coding programs and understand it enough to teach teens it should be a piece of cake--I was severely mistaken. Instead of going through the class with ease, I have had quite a few hiccups--and frustrations--along the way. Did you know that coding is not as simple as codecademy and w3schools makes it out to be? Well I didn't, but I do now. Did you know that you could spend five hours coding and have nothing to show for it? Guilty as charged. In fact, over the past week, I have dedicated around ten hours to one lowly aspect of my website--making my social media buttons go in an evenly spaced horizontal line along the bottom of my web page. You might wonder why this was so difficult... well, it was all because of one little error. One little error that had me check out EVERY SINGLE cod...

The world of technology is rapidly progressing, and those of us who use it on a daily basis don't think about how difficult it is to become IT literate. With the hope of better understanding the Information Technology (IT) fluency of others, I decided to interview an individual that only recently began using technology so that I could better understand the information gap.  To further prove this point, I am posting my interview for others to reflect upon. USER PROFILE INTERVIEW General Information Gender:  Male Age:  72 How long have you been using technology?  I have been using technology for a few years now as far as a cellphone goes, but I just recently purchased a home computer. Honestly, if it weren't because of my nieces and nephews, I wouldn't be using it now... but they insist that this is the best way to keep track of one another. What was your first interaction with technology?  Well, I would have to say my first interaction would ...

Hi, everyone! My name is Danielle, and I'm currently a graduate student at the University of Alabama enrolled in the Library and Information Studies program. I live in the Charlotte, NC region, and I work full time in the Union County Public Library system. While my job title is library assistant, like any library position, I wear many hats. When I am not at work or drowning in my studies, I enjoy hanging out with friends, reading non-fiction books, and traveling. I LOVE TRAVELING! Sitting on the edge of the Grand Canyon. In fact, I am actually going to the U.K. this semester! If you don't know me already, I am a big Harry Potter fan, so this trip is going to be amazing. Outside of all of that, I am really into Myers-Briggs (MBTI), and I love learning about the personality types of others. If you are as well, I am an ISFJ so that should explain everything you need to know about me. Anyway, that's really all I have to say about myself; now, to the true reason for my...