Category: Blog Posts

My View of the final project:

This has been one of the most useful courses and final project I have taken. I can’t believe I now have a website to give me online presence of what I am very passionate about. Helping families pursue healthy relationships for them to enjoy their lives.

Accessibility:

I initially planned to build the website using the free domain from HOSTINGER but I later realized that the free domain actually comes with 48 months-term contract and have to pay over $100 for that so I used the Canva web publishing services. I created the website from a template and changed them with images and text for 6 pages content on 1. About us, 2. What we do, 3. Our Services, 4. Our Resources, 5. Family Forever School project and 6. Our contact. I included page 5 because it tells a great story of the journey to online services and the vision that became realized as a result of getting the skills to have online presence to do what I like doing. Canva provided the opportunity to publish the website

There is opportunity to migrate the website from Canva to HOSTINGER and I will allocate some funds later to sign up for the 48 months term contract with HOSTINGER so that I can get a domain name as Forever-Family.org

Media:

I created audio visual materials with Canva because it has the capabilities for voice over and caption all built in. I already have the introduction which is on Introduction to Resolving Family Conflicts created for project 8. I created the series on Healthy Family Relationships with voice over and captions. I realized that 15 minutes video will be too long and also difficult to upload so I limited the duration of the videos to 10 minutes. For the infographic, I researched the web for data and information on for example unhealthy family relationships and mental health, emotional and behavioral risks of toxic family relationships, risks and rate of suicide as a result of unhealthy family relationships.

All the elements that are used are supposed to be free without the “crown” which are premium elements, and one has to have subscription to use them. However, I encountered some difficulties when I tried to download them to a google drive to provide a link for access at the website. For the infographic, I provided the works cited in order to acknowledge the sources or provide credits for the sources. I did not use any copyright materials and did not use any AI for the web design or the media. I have not gotten there yet. I will later learn how I could use AI to make the experience better.

I used Canva to create the website all the videos, voiceover, pictures are from Canva. For more information here is the link.

Forever as Family

The infographics is attached

Process:

I used Canva to create the infographic. I used a template with font, color, style and format that I wanted and replaced the information on the template with the information on mediation, counselling, family domestic violence and suicide. I downloaded the infographic in a pdf format.

Sources:

I used Canva to create infographics voiceover and videos for my final project.

1. Family Relationships and Well-Being

10 Importance of Having Good Family Relationship

Canva.com

Summary

For my final project, I decided to make a portfolio with my writing projects. I created three different projects pages; one for poetry, one for long essays, and one for recordings of poetry readings. Building this portfolio is so important as a writer because it acts as a collection of my work accessible for future employers and publishers. I was also hoping the multi-media and multi-medium aspects of the website would make it more accessible and enjoyable for website visitors.

Accessibility

To make this project more accessible, I added subtitles to the recording of the reading, created headers to make screen reading easier, and added alt text to the pictures.

Media Credit

While most of the pictures were taken by me or a friend of mine at an event, I gave credit to Reshot in accordance with their copyright restrictions, which was to attribute them to their images with otherwise no restrictions on the image’s use. The rest of the media was attributed to me. The site favicon and header were both created by me using templates found in Canva.

Information Accuracy

Since the content I posted for the website was creative and advertised as creative, I made sure the information was accurate by editing the creative works and only using my original work.

Copyright Licensing

I chose to use the same copyright licensing for this website and the work published on this website as I did for this website because it gives people the opportunity to creatively use and distribute the content posted while still attributing my original work to me.

AI Use

AI was not used to create this project at any point.

Why I want to have the final project on family conflict resolution:

I will build a new subdomain for the website to share information on Family Conflict Resolution. I will use HOSTINGER for the domain name TogetherAsFamilyForever.org. I have been providing counseling and support to families to resolve conflicts in real life. I was doing this for my church, external family members and colleagues at work who needed my help. This course opened my eyes to reach a wider audience to help families reduce and or resolve conflicts. From experience, conflicts could destroy husband and wife relationship, parent(s) and child/children’s relationships and even relationships with in-laws, friends and external family members of the couples. Family conflicts could lead to physical, emotional and psychological abuse, separation or divorce. It could destroy self-esteem, cause depression and even lead to suicide. Helping families avoid these potential effects of conflicts brings some satisfaction to me and I would like to use the skills I have gotten from this course to help more people with an online presence. Attached is the Final Project Proposal

What are the objectives?

The objectives for focusing on Family Conflict Resolution are therefore (i) To provide relevant information to families on how to resolve family conflicts and maintain healthy family relationships and (ii) Provide practical role plays, counseling sessions, conflict negotiation and mediation to resolve family conflicts.

What are the episodes, their format and duration?

I have been working on family conflict resolution for some of my projects and I would like to continue on to focus on this topic which is very important and dear to my heart. For the first episode, I will use the introduction I created with audio and video for projects 7 and 8. For the second episode, I will talk about why healthy family relationships are important. This will be in the form of 15 minutes video presentation with voice over and closed captions. For the third episode, I will research the web for data and information on for example, divorce rate, physical and emotional abuse, and suicide rates associated with family conflicts and create an infographic based on that data. For the fourth episode, I will have a 15-minute video presentation with voice over and closed captions on some of the main reasons conflict happens. Episode five will also use video with voice over and closed captions to talk about some of the ways to resolve family conflicts.

Who are the audience:

My audience for the project will be my colleagues, family members and community who are the immediate target audience. I will be sharing the media on WhatsApp, Facebook, TikTok and YouTube to reach a wider audience. I will offer the audience the opportunity to have zoom counseling, role play, conflict negotiation and mediation to help resolve family conflict if that is requested. For the second phase, I will have Spanish versions of the audio, video and infographics. The practical counseling, negotiation and mediation will be done only in English for now until I get a Spanish partner who has similar commitment to help to collaborate on this.

Overview

For my final project for Intro to Digital Studies, I have decided to make a portfolio for my creations as a writer. The site will adopt several different media types and represent my scope both as a writer and digital creator.

Media Types

In this project, I want to create three sections within the website: one for my poetry, one for my long creative essays, and one for videos/audios that correlate to my poetry (ex. readings, videos that go along with narration, etc.). This domain will reflect who I am professionally, so I want it to be as creative and true to myself as I can make it. Through WordPress functions and customization options, I hope to be able to make it more of a domain of my own I can use even after college. I also believe that this website will truly culminate what I have learned this semester through the use of different media types embedded into the website.

Interactive Infographic

Visit this link for an interactive version of this graph.

Background

Diving Into the Data

In this project, I sought to investigate the enrollment of students in the UMW education department and examine if/how the number of students changed as the teachers shortage evolved in the US. By examining this data, taken from the annual Grade Distribution Report from UMW’s Institutional Analysis and Effectiveness department, I found a story surrounding curriculum education at UMW that was much different than I expected. Although the number of students enrolled in education classes was not the highest out of the departments at UMW, it was not the lowest either. In fact, the department did not only decrease in the number of students enrolled in education classes, as I had deduced due to the national teachers shortage, but had rather increased or remained stable as a whole. While COVID caused the loss of data for the Spring 2020 and smaller numbers in the Fall 2020 semester, the department was able to recover from COVID, initially growing in the number of students enrolled and eventually leveling off to stable enrollment numbers higher than the Fall 2017 students the data set began with. For more information, check out this Excel Sheet with the data on the number of education students each semester.

What Does This Mean?

While the nation faces a national teachers shortage, the number of students interested in entering the education field, while decreasing initially, has grown to stable, relatively high numbers of enrolled students. This proves that an interest in working in education field remains. Examining data sets and stories such as this one is so important because it allows federal, state, and local education officials to source the problems of the teachers shortage. This data set proves that there is not a decreasing interest in the education field, but rather other factors, such as poor working conditions and pay, that may be causing the teachers shortage. As the child of teachers, the importance of examining the causes and effects of the teachers shortage is important for keeping schools a safe space for learning for all children, with all the necessary resources for learning.

Software and Processes

To make this infographic, I used Excel to decipher the data and create a clean and effective table. This data was then imputed into a Google Sheets form that was used to create an infographic through Storyline’s system.

Credits and AI

AI was not used at all in the creation of this project. All media was created through the Excel or Storyline programs.

Data:

I used the dataset from data.org. Based on the preliminary findings from the pivot data project last week, I used time series data on percent of adults with less than high school diploma in 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, 2008 to 2012 and 2018 to 2022. The trend showed that although percent of adult with less then high school diploma has declined from over 80% in 1970 to about 26% in 2022, it’s still higher than National and State averages and over 9 times of Falls Church city. With this information I wanted to find out how the county with the more adults without high school diploma will do relative to the county with the less adults without high school diploma in terms of employment, household income and poverty. I compared the time series data on unemployment rate from 2000 to 2022 for the Nation, Virginia, Buchanan County and Falls Church City, the median household income in 2021 as a percentage of Virginia’s total for Buchanan County and Falls Church City and percentage of population classified as living in poverty in 2021.

The dataset for the analyses is attached.

Media:

I chose to communicate the story of potential relationships between having a high school diploma and chances of poverty by using infographics. The reasons behind this choice are as follows: (i) I have already done previous projects using audio and video and wanted to learn how to show information in infographics. (ii) I realized that the 1-pager infographics will be more effective in communicating the story and (iii) I can use infographics to simplify complex data and concepts, and make them easy to understand at a glance (Geeks for Geeks, 2024) Sharing the 1-pager infographics story in pdf format with friends and colleagues for them to consider the value of at least high school diploma would be faster for downloading and reshare than audio and video format that may have larger file sizes.

The infographics is attached

Process:

I used Canva to create the infographic. Because this is my first time creating infographic, I used a template with font, color, style and format that I want and replaced the information on the template with the information on diploma and poverty. I downloaded the infographic in a pdf format.

Story from the Data-Diploma and Poverty:

Will having a high school diploma improve the chances of avoiding unemployment, increasing household income and reducing poverty? Analyses of the data on adults with high school diploma, unemployment, household income and poverty indicate that having at least high school diploma could help you reduce the chances of poverty.

Figure 1

Figure 1 shows that the percentage of adults without high school diploma in Buchanan County is above the National and State averages and on average about 9 times that of Falls Church City from 1970 to 2022.

Figure 2

Figure 2 shows that the rate of unemployment from 2000 to 2022 was higher in
Buchanan County with more adults without high school diploma.

Figure 3

Figure 3 shows that the median household income as percentage of the VA total in 2021 for Falls Church City with less adults without diploma is about 3x that of Buchanan County. In the infographic this chart is replaced with graphics that communicates the information better. This is one of the usefulness of infographics

Figure 4

Figure 4 shows that Buchanan County with more adults without high school diploma has over 5 times poverty rate in 2021 than Falls Church City.

There may be great benefits to earning a diploma
However, more analysis would be needed to model the relationship between having a diploma and chances of reducing poverty. In the infographic this chart is replaced with graphics that communicates the information better.

Sources:

1) Data on Adults with less than High School Diploma: USDA, Economic Research Service using data from U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000 Censuses of Population, and 2008–12 and 2018–22 American Community Survey 5-year period county-level estimates. Data are as of June 20, 2024.

2) Data on Unemployment and Median Household Income: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS); median household income: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates (SAIPE) Program.

(3) Data on Poverty Rates: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates (SAIPE) Program.

(4) Geeks for Geeks (2024). What is an Infographic? 10 Jul, 2024. Geeks for Geeks

Selection of Data Set

I got the data of education, unemployment, poverty and population from data.org. I downloaded the data in an excel format. The data covers all the States including Puerto Rico. The data for education, unemployment and population have time series.

Cleaning the Data

I wanted to focus on Virginia so I deleted the data for the States that are not needed. I also deleted other columns such that have values and not rates. This is because due to difference in for example size, economic activities, etc., I wanted to focus on rates which may be comparable. I used the Microsoft Excel software to clean the data format the table and to do the pivot table.

Formatting the Data as Table

In order to prepare the data to be used for the pivot table, I have to summarize the time series by finding and using the averages. I used data on average percent of adults with less than high school diploma, average unemployment rate, average household median income as percentage of State median household income and poverty rate for 132 counties and cities in Virginia. I have to take out Clifton Forge City and Bedford City because they do not have values for the variables above with the exception of education.

Pivot Table

I did the pivot table based on the counties and cities data on average percent of adults with less than high school diploma, average unemployment rate, average household median income as percentage of State median household income and poverty rate. I used the pivot table to find the average , minimum value and maximum value for the variable. For education Buchanan County has about 52% of adults with less than high school diploma from the estimated average with data from 1970 to 2022. Falls Church City has a minimum percent (9.5%) of adults with less than high school diploma. Attached is the excel document with the data for the pivot table, and the data for the pivot chart.

Preliminary Findings

Education may have some effect on unemployment, household income and poverty. The pivot table shows that Buchanan County with the percent of adults without high school diploma has an unemployment rate higher than than Virginia unemployment rate, a median household income that is about half of the Virginia average and a poverty rate which is about 10% higher than Virginia average.

Image

This is the image chart trend of the percentage of adults with less than high school diploma in the US, Virginia, Buchanan County and Falls Church City from 1970 to 2022.

Topic and Trend

For the data trend project, I decided to examine the number of declared education majors at UMW compared to the whole student body. The United States is going through a teachers crisis, and I was hoping that examining the number of students majoring in education might explain a trend that mirrors the number of current teachers in the US to try to identify what is causing the shortage in teachers in America today. Examining the data through the table and chart revealed that while the number of students at UMW studying education remained relatively low, the number of education majors remained steady even increased after COVID, though decreased in the the most recent years. I found this data set through the UMW Grade Distribution Report. The full data set can be found through this Excel Sheet.

Process

The trend of the number of declared education majors at UMW decreasing and then steadily increasing overtime was found through Excel. After looking at the Grade Distribution Report, I copied the number of total declared education majors for each semester onto an Excel sheet (excluding Spring 2020, which did not have any data due to the change in grading systems as a result of the COVID outbreak. After creating a table, I copied the data into a pivot table, which helped me create a more visual line graph to represent the changes in the number of declared education majors and total undergraduate students with declared majors. Through the chart, I was able to identify that the data first decreased, increased, and then decreased overtime. The steady decrease in the years after COVID may represent a possible trend in teaching conditions after COVID, though the data resembled pre-COVID data closely.

Video

Video Transcript

My is Meaghan Van Dyke and I’m the host of Heavy is the Hand That Holds the Spoon, a look into the Mary Washington college dining experience. Welcome to our first and only episode.

For many students, college is their first experience of true Independence and the first time that they are relied upon to make meals for themselves. The question remains, how did students actually use the kitchens that are given to them in their University accommodations? To find out, we interviewed Eagle Landing residents and sophomore University of Washington, Riley Munford

I’m here with Mary Washington sophomore Riley Munford, who is a first-time apartment resident. Riley, would you mind telling me a little bit about what you like to cook in the apartment and where did you learn to cook that?

“Tonight for my friends, I am making a recipe that my aunt actually got in Europe when she was traveling abroad, and I think my family took took it and adapted it to an American sense of the meal. But I learned to cook it like growing up in my house with my mom, and we have this whole process of like all of these specific steps that we have to take. I’ve always had people tell me that there’s a more efficient way to do it but there’s like just a tradition of the specific, like way to make it that makes it homey.” “Yes!”

For University officials, understanding students eating habits is an important way to make sure that all students are accounted for and cared for. This has been Meaghan Van Dyke and this is been the first and only episode of Heavy is the Hand That Holds the Spoon, a look the Mary Washington dining experience.

Behind the Scenes

About

This video follows the experience of learning to cook in a college environment. In the podcast specifically, I interview my friend Riley, a sophomore at UMW and a first time apartment resident. While Riley talks about her experience cooking a very yummy tomato basil pasta meal, the video features me trying my best to recreate the meal under Riley’s instruction. To learn more about helpful cooking tips for beginners, visit this Kroger page on ways to improve your cooking methods. For a recipe specifically similar to Riley’s tomato pasta recipe, check out this tomato and garlic pasta recipe!

Editing and Recording

To record this video, I rented a tripod from the HCC and used the camera on my phone. The tripod with my phone proved to be the most efficient recording method with the best quality. I chose Canva for my video editing software, as I could both easily create my video’s logo through Canva and arrange and crop the videos faster. Finally, YouTube allowed me to edit my captions and control how I shared my video more clearly, prompting me to chose the streaming service for my project.

Attributions

While I recorded the videos myself, the graphic I created for the video’s logo was developed using the “Modern Minimalist Skincare Blog” template on Canva. A special thank you goes out to my roommates for helping me set up and eat the meal I prepared in this video, and for Riley for allowing me to interview her/film her welcoming me into the apartment

The Title and Script

I used the same title and script about resolving family conflict. I got the shots using my phone camera with voice recorder. I modified the script to match the shots.

Video Lists

As I indicated in project 8.6, It is difficult to get real family in conflict to record, so I made a video shot and added modified video clips to help convey the message. Attached is the lists.

Recording

I have to use phone camera because I don’t have actual digital camera and the tripod. I am not in Virginia so I was not able to use the equipment at the Convergence Center. I used my phone camera to take the shots and I used Canva to edit the graphic, the video clips and the shots. Attached is the video shots with the clips and the graphics.

Visual Materials

I modified graphics and videos form Canva and took video shots with the phone camera.

Video Topic

The topic of the video is about how family members can resolve conflict.

Family conflict is normal it’s the repair that matters. For more information, click on the link: (Diana Divecha. Family Conflict Is Normal; It’s the Repair That Matters).

The video also goes over dealing with difficult family relationships. Click the link for information: Sheldon Reid. Dealing with Difficult Family Relationships)