Since being in this class I feel as if a majority of my work has changed.  This class has forced me to increase my critical thinking and I also have found myself thinking more visually.  Being a science student, I often am not required to make things look pretty and put together and this is one of the first classes where I have had to make a visual project.  I would say the most obvious change between my first, second, and third hypertext is my increased attention to the visual aspect of my pages.  Instead of just trying to slap words on a page and call it good I've been paying attention to how the colors compliment each other and how the images are placed on the page. I also started trying different layouts, fonts, and designs.  My lack of knowledge about Dreamweaver at the beginning of this quarter was discouraging to me in creating these websites but after all my time just playing around with the program I feel a lot more comfortable and am able to push myself more.

I did most of my writing for the websites within Dreamweaver, I felt as if it was less constricting in my thoughts and I was able to write more loosely.  I found that this was easier for me in the long run to write a paper because I wasn't so constricted by the "traditional rules" of writing a paper.  I didn't spend my whole time trying to support a thesis and I didn't feel stressed or pressured if I didn't have an opening or closing sentence.  While sometimes there were a few issues putting the entire hypertext into a linear version I felt as though I had brainstormed more for these assignments then a standard paper I may have written.  I felt these were more creative and included more of my thoughts.  I think only once did I add WebPages because of something that happened while I was adapting my linear version but sometimes I re-ordered my hypertext to encourage people to go through it in a different order because of something that came up while I was editing the final version. 

While making the hypertexts I have been trying to make people understand what I believe and why I believe it and as a result I have been trying to make my wording and passages as clear as possible. I feel by making my pages as user friendly as possible they will be more conducive to the everyday public.  I think critical thinking should be used for a purpose.  Critical thinking should be used to "increase the probability of a desired outcome" and this is ideally what I'm trying to do with my hypertexts.  I think it is also "directed thinking" because with each hypertext I am going into them with a desired goal or outcome.

Besides the obvious, learning how to use Dreamweaver and Second Life, this class has helped contribute to my desire and motivation for critical thinking.  I find it is easy to get stuck in the everyday routine of classes, homework, extracurricular, sleep, eat, etc. This class, for the first time since I’ve been at Santa Clara, has actually forced me to think out of the box.  It has forced me to think of different ways of learning and teaching.

If I had tons of time to continue working on my projects I would try to make them more visually appealing.  Little changes such as different colors for the linked sites or making a link bold when it is clicked on, I feel, make a site easier to navigate. I would also spend time trying to spread my writing out on more pages.  I found myself putting a lot of writing on a few pages because that is the way I think.  I think in themes, so when I was putting together these sites I wanted everything that related to each other on one page, but that was not always the purpose of the assignment.

My final project was my favorite project I have done thus far at Santa Clara.  For one of the first times I was able to take an issue I was passionate about and turn in into a project where I can help educate others.  Sometimes I feel students at this school get so wrapped up in their individual lives that they forget to take a step back and look at the greater picture.  Looking at other final projects has helped open my eyes to issues I have never thought about and hopefully my project did the same thing for others.

I feel fortunate to have been able to take this class while at Santa Clara.  I think as a whole it helped increase my critical thinking skills and made me remember to continue to look at the big picture.