Introduction
Over the course of the semester, I have learned quite a few new skills. Firstly, I was able to apply some of the techniques in my ECE classes to products that I worked on. This taught me that the material I’m learning in other classes goes through a much larger lens than I thought, and now I’m better prepared to have my mind opened to other opportunities to share my own skills. I, along with the other members of the team, have also learned how to work with each other without the use of a faculty member to moderate. This is particularly important because this can be carried to any circumstance where teamwork is needed. Since this was the last semester of our research in CODES, I also learned how to effectively communicate the findings of research to a target audience, which will also help later on in my career. Overall, I have had the most engaging and successful semester so far, both in CODES, and in other classes as well.
Goal 1 (15%)
Demonstrates a thorough understanding of context, audience, and purpose.
For this goal, I chose to show the digital storytelling guide that Stevo and I made to demonstrate progress in this goal because it hits all the points that the goal specifies. I needed to have context, audience, and purpose at the forefront of my mind when I was writing my section. I wanted to create a clear guide for digital storytelling for anyone working with youth, and I believe that I succeeded in my goal.
Goal 2 (20%)
Skillfully represents quantitative information
This artifact was probably the most fun one to obtain out of any I’ve done, particularly because the process of obtaining it required a skill set that I have more confidence in. Although I have programmed before, this was the first time that I’ve actually made a physical product using that skill. The best part about this product was that it got me to think of other ways to use skills of mine that I hadn’t thought about before.
Goal 3 (10%)
Systematically analyzes assumptions to develop logical plans to solve problems.
For this goal, I chose to include the final website. This is because of one particular problem that our group had, which was the dissemination plan, we had to think for quite a while about where we wanted to distribute our products, I believe that I contributed a fair amount to the discussion, which shows progress towards the goal.
Goal 4 (30%)
Connects and extends knowledge from academic study to civic engagement.
This is some of the raw code that was used to create the crime map shown above. This was a new learning experience for me as well because the coding language was one that I had no experience with, so I got to learn how it worked. A lot of the code for the main section was from a GitHub repository, however, all of the process for turning the data that Madison found into a relevant CSV section was my work.
Goal 5 (25%)
Helps collaboration move forward by articulating the merits of alternative ideas.
For this goal, I also decided on putting the final website as the product because it really is the culmination of our different ideas coming into fruition. Another way of saying this is that the website doesn’t just belong to one of us, but to all of us. I think that reading the different sections will also give this feeling of all of our alternative ideas coming together to form a good, cohesive product.