CST 300 - Module 2

Hello everyone,

    This week was comprised of continuing work in OLI, working on the Industry Analysis draft and peer review, and watching a few videos on project management. We also were to reflect on our learning strategies and time management skills, and check out some of the capstone projects from previous years.

OLI Module 2

    The content in the OLI module focused more on what makes a successful team, with specifics and data to support their statements. It has been found that teams that have more women, equal participation, and members who have high social sensitivity tend to be more successful than those that don't. We participated in the test, "Reading the Mind in the Eyes", which helped gauge how well we perceive others' emotions when looking at only a picture of their eyes. I did better on this than I would have expected, as I generally don't consider myself naturally adept when it comes to social situations. The module also discussed the reasoning for utilizing teams, which considers higher job satisfaction, better problem solutions, and faster innovation.

Industry Analysis Draft and Peer Review

    The hardest part of this week for me was working on the first draft for the Industry Analysis paper. I don't consider myself a writer and it's difficult for me to stay focused on researching a single topic without falling down every rabbit hole nearby. My team and I stayed in touch via Discord to support each other through it and answer any questions about formatting and the like.

Project Management Videos

    The videos on project management were short and basically served as an introduction to what goes into project management and how projects differ from day-to-day operations. The first video defined a "work breakdown structure" as the "hierarchal decomposition of the work to be executed by the team to accomplish project objectives and create the required deliverables." The structure is used to organize the project and define its scope to keep people aware of why they're working on what they're working on. The second video talks about the difference between projects and operations and defines the phases of project management, or the project life cycle, as initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and control process, and closing. It also talks about the reasons some project fail, like time management. In the third video, we learn about the Gantt Chart which visualizes the project schedule. They help to illustrate start and end dates, and sometimes include dependencies. They are a visual representation of complex data that can serve as both a guide and a proof of your project's efficiency.

Learning Strategies & Time Management

    After reading the document on learning strategies, I have considered my greatest strengths and weaknesses when it comes to studying. I'm very good at surveying all the work that needs to be done and creating an efficient schedule, making every hour count, and surveying what work needs to be done before I start. I'm weak at asking questions, reviewing what I have learned, and taking notes. I tend to take things at face value, which doesn't allow for getting deeper into understand of a topic. I also generally don't take notes and find myself having to re-visit content to remind myself of certain points. We also read an advisory document on time management and broke down our week into a log to consider how we were managing our own study time.

Capstone Projects

    Watching the video of previous capstone projects was really interesting. One of the more interesting projects for me was the Mirrored Fantasy game by Andrew Bell. It is a web-based game inspired by traditional lane games, but with a fun race-against-the-other-player twist. I think the project video was well done and explained the stages of the game development well. It also reflected on things that the developer would have done differently, which demonstrates a great ability to learn from one's work. Another project that stood out was FantaSheets by Mikie Reed, which was a web app created in Python that allows a user to track fantasy league statistics with custom league specifications. This appealed to me as I constantly listen to my husband talk about the pros and cons of different fantasy league apps, so it's nice that this app allows for so much customization. The project direction was clear and concise, but I wish the video presentation itself showed more of the backend process. Culture Connect by George Blombach was the next presentation that caught my eye. I found it really cool that he created an app in line with technologies we are used to using, but that fills in a gap in their utility and focuses on the cultural content of a city. The video was well done and easy to understand and I love that he actually uses his app to benefit his own travels.