Extra Credit Blog - The end of the chapter.

So, I am on the last stretch before I actually graduate with my Masters Degree! HOW FREAKING CRAZY! I thought a perfect blog idea to summarize this chapter of my life would be to compare my 4 years at a NAIA Division II school to my experience at this NCAA Division I school. Obviously the first difference was coming here and taking online classes. I had never taken an online class before so that was a huge transition to be. Having to relearn a new system and understanding expectations from different teachers was well we will just leave it at that and say it was interesting as I learned the difference between using the word largest and biggest! The second difference was seeing how much harder it was to make friends here! Obviously working in the dome my boss had a strict no hanging out/going out with athletes policy, so check off the students that I actually did see on a regular basis. It's obvious that at my undergrad I was thrown with the same group of people when I was awkward and 18 so it was much easier to make friends especially since I was on a sports team. Now don't get me wrong, I am now 23, but still awkward. My friends became the coaches of the teams, the people in the athletic offices, and a special shout out to my roommate, Alexa, what a life saver she was getting me adjusted to such a big scary place. Overall, I must admit, the town of Vermillion grew on me a little bit, and so did the friends I made. With that being said, Happy Graduation to those of you who are graduating with me, may we find a job that makes us happy....and rich. To those of you with a few classes left- Good luck with the rest of your classes!!!

18" Hole Podcast

Sports Video

The viral sports video that I have chose to share with you all is the video Kevin Ware breaking his leg during a March Madness game. I picked this video because not only did it capture over 61,000 views on Youtube, but also had many hits on Twitter, Vine, and Facebook. It was an injury that was talked about for days after it happened. In basketball we don't usually see injuries to this caliber and the fact that this happened during one of the most watched tournaments was amazing. As you watch the video, you will notice that most of the duration of the video is simply the reaction of his teammates yet; still the title of the video has brought in viewers to watch the video still to this day.

Just for kicks and giggles I typed in Kevin Ware to Twitter today, August 3, 2014. Kevin Ware broke his leg on March 31, 2014, so over 4 months ago. When I searched this what came up was a tweet from 36 minutes ago that said, "after finally watching the footage of Kevin Ware, I have decided to never jump again." In addition there were also numerous tweets comparing Kevin Ware to recently injured Paul George; both athletes suffered from the same injury. In the past 24 hours, 19 tweets showed up

that included both Kevin Ware’s and Paul George’s names. Searching #kevinwareinjury on Instagram there are 2,695 public posts with the most recent one being 23 hours ago.

Overall, I think these numbers go to show how long people will talk about a video that is released on the Internet. People are still watching a video that lasts 1 minute and 30 seconds 4 months later. Social media plays a big role in the viral spreading of videos. Today, videos put out on Youtube, they are then being talked about over social media for months and months. 

Blog #4

I have always been a firm believer in the fact that every experience good or bad should be a learning experience. College athletics is no different. Four years of your life you will be asked to balance 6am weights, 1:30pm volunteer opportunity, 3pm practice, 8pm study hall, a personal life, and 4-class load. You will be told your game is 4 hours away and we will arrive home at approximately 2am when you have a 8am test the next day. College athletics are a learning opportunity. Everything you do in athletics can be related to real life. I learned three main lessons through college athletics.

1. Big fish small pond - small fish big pond.

Coming from a school with 20 kids I was always considered to be athletically inclined. Sports were easy; being good sometimes took little to no effort. The move to college athletics was rough. All of a sudden, there were 20 people all athletic. I learned that I was no longer the star. Its important to understand at college athletics you will play a specific roll. You must use you're strengths as an advantage. Work on your weaknesses hard to improve. If you're a great defender, but an average shooter you need to understand that. Play great defense. Let your best shooter take the shots.

2. Your team becomes your family

In college athletics you will more than likely be spending more time with your team than with your actual family. Between playing games, practicing, lifting at 6am, traveling to games, study halls, volunteer work, you will be with the team constantly. Don't be afraid to lean on your teammates. Understand you will probably have a fight with a teammate, but just like a family does, you will get over it.

3. Never take anything for granite.

Its only 4 years you get to travel with you best friends. Your food and gas is paid for. Yes, it takes a lot of time, but I guarantee that once your time is over and you enter your sport retirement, you will be wishing you could go back. Celebrate every win, on and off the field. Each game, each trip, each practice is a memory. As days go by be thankful that you are having the opportunity to play a sport. Furthermore, be thankful you are having the opportunity to probably pay for your school by simply playing a game. You can’t ever forget how blessed you are to play a sport you love.

Looking back at my college career these are three things that we must understand as we give all of our blood, sweat, and tears. As an athlete will you remember every detail of every game you won? No, but you will remember the little things that happened during your college career. 

World Cup and Twitter

Over the past couple weeks we have talked about the new technology the World Cup is implementing. However, I am just completely mind blown about how much Twitter is cover the World Cup. It's almost like if you don't have direct access to the T.V. you can follow the game completely on Twitter. Lets take the last U.S.A. game for example. As I was watching the game I was checking my twitter account and everything was spot on. You didn't have to watch the game to know that one of the reasons U.S.A. struggle so badly was because there was horrific passing or the fact that Howard was a complete beast defending the goal.

Earlier we talked about how Twitter is becoming the go to place for sports. I completely agree that Twitter is making a strong campaign. Not only are you able to get professional updates about a game or event from Twitter, but also it is also like watching the game with 200 of your friends and maybe even a few enemies. Each person is able to tweet his or her own opinion before, during, and after the game. There is no “and that concludes our show today.”  This is something that is not possible with any other sports broadcasting website or show. Three days after the U.S.A. game I still saw tweets about Howard’s spectacular performance. Twitter's sports coverage is so quick and easy! 

Overall the amount of sports information one gains from simply logging on their Twitter is astronomical. After the World Cup is over it will be interesting to see where Twitter takes their sports coverage. I personally hope that they continue to cover sports in this way. I understand that it may be extremely difficult to customize each and ever twitter account to different sports, as sports are completely different across the world. But, if twitter could find a way to allow users to select their favorite NFL team during football season or even have updates about March Madness like they did for the World Cup I think it could possibly create a Twitter sports craze. I think it could be done. It would take time of course as covering sports across the entire world would take a tremendous amount of organization. Think about it though – Twitter Sports, your worldwide sports information place. Imagine the possibilities! 

Website Evaluation

The website that I was assigned to evaluate was www.royalchallengers.com. The Royal Challengers are a cricket team. 

Ease of Accessibility: The website was extremely accessible. When you get to the home page you can see at the top of the page tabs for the team, IPL 2014, News, Fan Club, and Multi media. Looking at the right side of the page there are links that will lead you to the teams Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram pages. Also, one of the first things you notice is their advertisement for what I believe is an mobile app called RCB Live. The slogan for RCB Live is "catch the pulse and feel every beat of Team RCB. As soon as you get to the page, you are bombarded with information. 

Ease of Navigation: With all the tabs that I just mentioned, it was super easy to navigate the website. However, looking around the home page, the top stories were a bit cluttered. Also, It took me a while to notice that the schedule tab was just in the mix of the clutter. Overall, a person could easily get where they needed to. 

Use of Interactivity: As I mentioned earlier, the website has full interaction with the teams social media. Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram were all on there allowing fans to interact with social media. Also, RBC Live was another way teams could interact.  

Use of Media: At the top of the page, there is a multi media tab- photos, download, and video were all included.  First there are photos from matches and practices.  Next, there is a downloads page, this gives fans the opportunity to set their desktop or phone home screen to a wallpaper of the team or an action shot from a game. 

Video: Under the same multi media tab there was a section titled video. I think the video section was the most informal. Not only did the video cover highlights of practices, but it also covered players talking about injuries and coaches talking about challenges. I thought that this section could make fans feel like they were apart of the team and were given the opportunity to really see and understand what the coaches and players were thinking. 

Summary: Not knowing anything about cricket made this evaluation tricky. I was however able to compare it to sport teams in which I did know. I think this website was very informative. There was a lot of information not only in the news section, but in the multi media section. One who is involved in social media would be able to follow their social media networks easily since the tabs were right there. 

Technology Deprivation

As I went to sleep Sunday night, I said to myself "tomorrow is the day that I will go without technology." In the middle of the night, I woke up, out of habit, the first thing I did was check the time...on my phone. Now that I was already on my phone, I saw notifications for Snapchat, text messages, and a Twitter interaction. Without even thinking about it I checked all three. Technology -1 Jenna - 0.

As my alarm went off at 9AM I woke up, saw another message, this one from Facebook. The message was from my best friend, who is in Europe for a month studying abroad. Since we only get to chat once in a blue moon, I had to reply back. She told me she had time to Skype if I wanted to because she had a story to tell me.  For a split second I thought, "I can't on Skype because of this challenge, but when one tells me they have a story to tell, curiosity killed the cat, or shall i say challenge. Technology 2 Jenna -0.

11AM rolled around, I had gone without my phone for about a hour and a half. Now comes the easy part of my day, 7 hour shift at Ace Hardware. The employee handbook at Ace Hardware instructs us that personal cell phones are off limits when clocked in. Therefore, not only was I under oath for this challenge, but also prohibited to use my phone by my employer. When I get off of work at 6PM however, I had Snapchats and a few texts asking if I wanted to go to the casino! I then called my friend to discuss this matter. I'm gonna mark that one down as a win for me as I used my phone as an actual phone. Technology-2 Jenna -1.

On my way to my friends house I got a bit lost. Had to pull out the GPS on my phone, I view this as a life or death situation as my gas tank was starting to dip downwards towards the E mark. Without my phone and the GPS, I would have not been able to find my way to her house, and might have ended up walking to find a gas station. Nevertheless, Technology 3 Jenna -1

After figuring out the plan and arriving at the casino, it became easy once again to stay off my phone as the Grand Falls Casino doesn't allow you to be on your phone while sitting at any table. Since I sat at the Blackjack Table for 3 hours the temptation of being on my phone was once again eliminated. Also, I was surrounded by all my friends that I usually communicate with on social media. Again, I am going to say that I won this portion of the night. Technology -3 Jenna -2.

By the time we left the casino, the 24 hour challenge was over, I was able to text my mom about the $25 and able to finally check Instagram my and Twitter feeds. Usually by this time of night my phone is completely dead, yet that day, I had more than 50% battery left on my phone. 

Although the score indicates a win for technology, I think overall I did pretty well with this challenge. What I learned was how much easier and faster it was to plan something. With a 2 minute phone call we established what time we were going to the casino, what we were wearing, and the fact that we weren't going to leave without winning. The second thing that I learned was the pure impulses that I have to simply look at my phone to Snapchat, text, or check twitter. 

I realize that nearly half of my day was spent doing things or at places where the use of my phone was prohibited. Also, the fact that I spent 3 hours with my friends who I normally communicate with helped with keeping me off my phone. 

My struggle with this was the urge to interact, with the feeling that if I wasn't texting or on social media I was going to miss out on something. Although this challenge taught me a lot about myself, I do not think it is something I want to do again.