Category: Training Posts

I just had my final mock consultation! I think it went quite well, I was able to figure out most of the troubleshooting issues myself, minus the one about block themes (thanks Adi!). I felt like this time around I was most prepared and therefore most confident. I felt like I communicated well, although the first time around I could have asked more questions at the beginning. I feel like my next step is to allow the student to drive the consultation a bit more. I also think playing around with WordPress more will help me in the sense that I will just be overall more knowledgeable.

It is crazy to think that my next consultation will be real, it’s also a bit scary. But I do feel I have been prepared well and will be able to do a good job. As of now I am just two studio trainings away from being a full-time consultant, so I will update you then!

And finally, my sign off that I forgot to keep doing like 3 blog posts in. See you later, and as always, stay creative.

I finally completed my nametag! I had a lot of fun in Tinkercad, I found it easy to use while still allowing for a wide range of creations. At first, I did not like how you had to grab the little cube in the top left corner to navigate around the space, but once I found the shortcut of holding control and grabbing the screen, my navigation became much more efficient. Although I did not use it for my final design, I had a lot of fun with the draw tool. Here are some of the other nametags I brainstormed using the draw tool:

Eventually I landed on a clapperboard for my nametag, and I created that in Tinkercad. I was of course inspired by my love for horror movies and wanted to make something to honor that. I wanted to use a more interesting font than what they had to offer so I had to do some research on how to import fonts into Tinkercad. At first the sites I was looking at were telling me to use these other installed applications but that got supper complicated. I ended up finding a site called text2STL that allowed you to type something, chose a font, and then download that as an STL file to upload to Tinkercad. They even had an option to upload your own font, so I found a horror movie looking font that was still readable and translatable into 3D and uploaded it. I was happy with the results and that I was able to find a way to customize the font on my own. Here was the final design:

Next it was time to print. I did my 3D printing training with Rusul and felt pretty confident, but I was still a bit nervous going in. I was kind of worried I would like break the printer somehow or mess up my whole thing and not be able to complete it. Luckily, neither of those happened, and my print I was able to print successfully! I had to add stops on mine to change the colors and I was able to do that, but it was kind of a tedious process, I am maybe wondering if there is a quicker way to determine where you want your print to pause. I also added supports, but I think my design definitely did not need them, so it just made it kind of difficult to clean up at the end. Overall, I am super happy with the final print, it is the perfect size, and I think it looks really cool. Here is the final name tag!!!!:

I surprised myself with how quickly I was able to fix my site, and it was mostly because I found a very useful article. I started by breaking my site which led me to this page:

I started by kind of scoping it out, I found that if I retyped in my url it would correct it to the broken one. I also found that I could still acess my cpanel just not wordpress. I figured I needed to rechange the url, but would need some back way to get there. I looked around the applications on cpanel but did not really find anything that seemed obvious.

I decided it was time to start looking on google, at first, I found an article, but it was assuming you still had access to wordpress which I did not. I then used the words “can’t access wordpress dashboard because wordpress url does not match subdomain”. This led me to the following article: https://wp-me.com/cant-access-wordpress-after-changing-site-url/. It gave me two options, one, edit the code, although it generally advised against that, or to edit it through php admin. I followed the five simple steps and got my site up and running again in no time. All in all, I was able to complete the activity in less than 15 minuets which I am pretty proud of, but most of the thanks goes to the article which was super helpful. I was also proud that I had deducted I would have to edit the url through another application in cpanel, I just needed help with the specifics. I also did not read the blog post instructions and did not take a screenshot of my broken site, so I re-did all of it and fixed the problem by memory this time.

My most recent project consisted of making a graphic and video of a fake workshop for April fools. I started out with the graphic, taking the template for DKC workshops, and designed it to advertise “printing anti-dkc propaganda in sticker form!” The graphic was fairly simple to make, and I had lots of fun with it. I tried to get creative with it and add some cool effects. I think it turned out well.

Next, I was tasked to make a short trailer for this workshop. I started with a story board. My aim was to make it short and sweet as my last video was quite a bit longer than it was supposed to be.

Next, I had to make some props. The easier part was drawing a bunch of “anti-dkc propaganda” with markers and notebook paper. However, to make my propaganda stickers I needed to use the Cricut, and so I got trained. I was happy to learn how to use another resource here in the DKC, and I was able to create my stickers for my video! (The design was hand drawn on procreate and then imported to Canva)

Finally, I was ready to record! I got Addi to be the star of my video, and we shot relatively quickly, then I used the mics to record a separate voiceover audio. I feel like I better understand how to use the audio sets now which I am happy about. I used Clipchamp to edit my video and found it easy to use and more advanced than Canva which was nice. I finished up my video and uploaded it to YouTube for the captions. Here is my final product!

Overall, I found this project very fun, I was glad I got to use the video and audio kits more, I feel like I have a better handle on that now. I am especially glad I got trained on the Cricut because I like knowing how to use more of the technology we offer around here.

I completed my first video editing project! For this project I decided to make a mini guide comprised of some horror movie recommendations. Due to the nature of this project, I did not really use any filmed videos, but used recorded audio, sound effects, music, images, and graphics to create my final product.

I actually really enjoyed using Canva editor. I was surprised with the amount of features they had, and I liked the ability to build almost google slide like animated graphics and screens. I also liked the animation effects they had, although I wish you could make an item enter and exit with different effects. The customizability for all visual related things was great, but I would have appreciated some more editability for sound. Some video editing software’s that I have used before allow certain effects for audio, as well as have correctors to fix background noise, among other features. I also wish they had a more efficient way to make the editing bar with all the video splices larger so it would be easier to cut things more precisely.

The background graphic I used was from Canva. I got the Psycho sound effect in the beginning from https://archive.org/, originally from the Psycho Original Soundtrack by Bernard Herrmann, Released in 1976. The music is by Universfield from Pixabay. The images were retrieved from The Poster Database.

Without further ado, here is my video!

This consultation was quite tricky, I was faced with problems that I had not yet learned the answers to, in fact I had to ask for help with each one. However, I am taking it as a learning experience, because now I know how to add color to text, use columns for advanced formatting, and how to use the classic block.

Although I did not feel super confident in this consultation, I was confident in the way I directed the conversation. I think I did a good job of understanding the student’s project and providing appropriate advice. I learned through this consultation that my consulting style involves a lot of trial and error and experimentation.

Next time I would just try and be more friendly and talkative. It is not like I was unfriendly this time, but I was very focused on the tasks since I did not know how to do them, and less focused on communicating clearly.

I was overall pretty confident with this consultation, I was most prepared for it, and I feel like I communicated well and provided lots of useful advice. I remembered to mention things like accessibility which is important when website building. Something I had trouble with a bit was where to start when I was explaining how to make a website. I started at posts and pages, but I should have started with themes. Next time I would introduce themes first because I think it would make more sense to people who do not know anything about WordPress.

I think I did a good job about figuring out what the student needed, I honestly just asked a lot of questions. I think this aligns with my consulting style; I think I definitely am not afraid to ask questions. Overall, I was proud of this consultation, next time I would just maybe reorder the subjects I introduced a bit, and also talk a little louder, I have noticed I am quite quiet and trail off a lot.

I have gone through my website and tried to make sure it is as accessible as possible. Firstly, I went through all the images and added alt text, then I adjusted my colors and gradient type to make sure the color contrast was stark enough. I also went through and deleted any empty textbox’s that I had left around, and finally, I changed my main font to be more easily legible. I also downloaded an accessibility plug-in to check all of my work, and good thing I did because I had missed putting alt text for an image!

One thing I still need to do for my site is add a light mode setting, but I had a hard time finding a plug-in that would allow color customization for free. The colors to my site are quite specific and add to the mood, so it is important to me that both dark and light modes reflect that. I also did not change my header font for the sake of maintaining the theme of the site, I had trouble finding a way to check of fonts are accessible, but I do not think it is too hard to read. Either way I’ll find some time to ask about it and maybe fix it.

This is the link to my Bad Example Site. For this I started off by adding some random empty text boxes, adding an image with important information with no alt text, and a random suspicious link. I then went in and made the font tiny, way too close to the background color, and in the most illegible font I could find. I cannot even read it, so I think this is a successful bad example.

That is all for today, and as always, stay creative!

Teagan Stacy

I created a lion socialization website called Lion’s Den using UMW Sites, here is the link to it: https://teagandkc.umwsites.net/

To explain the difference between DoOO and UMW Sites, I would say the UMW Sites is a simplified version of DoOO, with limited themes, plug-ins, and features, that is best utilized for small projects meant for only one class. Because of Sites limited themes and plug-in’s, customization and creativity are stunted significantly. Additionally, it is limited in the sense that you do not get a domain or neighborhood, you only get one house, so it is harder to expand if you want to pursue multiple projects. Because of these reasons, I would recommend Sites if someone had only one class that they anticipated needing a site for and would not mind the limited customization. Because it is simpler, it could be more useful for people who want something more user-friendly.

I just watched the Office of Disability Resources video on accessibility and accommodations at UMW. I think it is so cool that our school has such a high population of students with disabilities, it shows that our school values accessibility, possibly more than other schools around Virginia. The video introduced me to the idea of digital accessibility, which is not something that I had really heard of before. I had heard of adding closed captions before but not much about things like using specific fonts and headers. I am going to look at the WCAG website to learn more about that.

The difference between accessibility and accommodations is that accessibility is a broader goal that encompasses many disabilities being accommodated for as a baseline in society. Accommodations are more personal and given out on a case-by-case basis. For example, an accessible classroom would already have seating, technology, and a layout that was able to be used by people of many disabilities. An example of an accommodation would be a student recording lectures to help with their ADHD. I feel like an accommodation request I could encounter could in fact be recording, as stuff I would be consulting on is often complicated and some students might have trouble remembering all the steps.

I think it is important in this line of work to make sure your instructional time is delivered alongside any accommodations an individual may need. If the person you are helping does not have a chance to fully be present because of a need of theirs not being met, they will not be able to fully take away information from your appointment. This includes making sure you are sitting in an area that is comfortable for the client, speaking clearly and loudly so they can hear and understand you, and any other request they might disclose to you. The most important part is to be flexible and understanding, so that even if you do not know how to accommodate someone at first, you can quickly adapt.

I think this lesson was valuable especially at our school with a high rate of students with disabilities. Tune in next time to see what I am up to, and as always, stay creative.

Teagan Stacy