Paola Ortiz’s website, https://pocketpail.com/, is genuinely spectacular. Her ability to engage with various subjects as she continues to try items that she has been putting off or willing to learn new may intimidate her. It’s entertaining to engage and read with. Her blog post regarding her time during the Arctic Monkeys concert ‘Close Encounters of the Monkey Kind’ truly demonstrates the voice she is developing throughout her website while pushing herself to engage in different activities. For example, in this post, Paola tried to make friends at the Arctic Monkeys concert, a band whom she is a fan of. This activity showed the courage that she’s willing to put in her craft for doing new activities each week. This action by Paola reminded me of what Gardner said regarding building cyberinfrastructure. As Gardner says
“In building that personal cyberinfrastructure, students not only would acquire crucial technical skills for their digital lives but also would engage in work that provides richly teachable moments ranging from multimodal writing to information science, knowledge management, bibliographic instruction, and social networking” (Gardener, 2009,58).
This activity has to do with social networking, as she was working to build a relationship with a stranger that could eventually lead to content for her website while also developing her ability to interact with strangers, which would ultimately lead to her developing a more substantial online presence and a better ability to engage with strangers. Hamblin states in his article, “Figure out what makes you uncomfortable, and target ways to get over those” (Hamblin, the Atlantic, August 24, 2016). This action by Paola will inevitably make her online presence and ability to engage with online strangers much greater.
Her other blogs also display a strong voice that is coming into its own. Her ability to engage with new activities is awe-inspiring and has led to great content.
Labeling each section allows readers to see how each new activity has been done and how it made her feel. This emotional conversation regarding how the activity made her feel can enable her audience to empathize with the various activities she’s engaging in with these new endeavors. Overall, her content allows readers to develop a solid connection to her work due to the emotional aspect associated with this work. Thus, making her decision regarding the subject around her blog to try new activities is genuinely brilliant.
The aesthetic choices associated with this blog are also highly thoughtful and well done. The font and color of web pages are done in a manner that is very calming and aesthetically pleasing for new audience members. Making her website highly engaged for a new audience, which ultimately will attract more viewers to her website.
My one negative critique of the website is maybe shortening blog posts to about three minutes of reading so that more people can engage with the weekly blogs and be more accessible. Overall, this is a minor critique, and the content you are developing shows a superb voice and a true blog genius.
I enjoyed engaging with this blog and examining all aspects of the content. Paola Ortiz is truly a rising superstar in the blog game and should be recognized for her work and beautifully aesthetic website.
Citations;
Gardner Campbell. (2009). “A Personal Cyberinfrastructure”. EDUCAUSE Review 44 (5).
Hamblin, James. (2016). “How to Talk to Strangers.” The Atlantic.