Progress

The journey map my classmates and I have been working on this semester is getting really close to being completed. There has been a lot of work put into this project and I am really glad to see where the development of a relatively simple idea we all had a few months ago is going in the next few weeks. I have really enjoyed working with this group of people on this project and I am going to miss working with them, but this project is something that we can all walk away from knowing that each of us has contributed a lot of energy into so we could help other people and make the process of coming to college easier.

In just a few weeks, we are going to be presenting our work on this project at the Student Showcase of Research & Engagement here on campus. This is an event that allows students to show the public that attends the work and research they have done. I can’t speak for everyone else in the group, but I think this will be an interesting experience for myself. I have never been to an event like this because I have never done work that I felt qualified for it. Going to this event will be something that I also never thought that I would do before. i am looking forward to this, but I think it will be a learning experience for myself. I am hoping that this will also inspire other people to be interested in our project and possibly take on some of the future work we are anticipating for this project, such as working to get a fully functional and accessible version of the journey map onto the Plymouth State website.

A major aspect of working towards being ready for this showcase is reflecting on the things that we have learned from this project. In the moments while we’re working on it, I don’t find myself thinking a lot about what I am learning from contributing to this project; I am focused on working on my part of the project and being able to have it make sense to everyone who might use it. Now, I have been taking a lot of time to think about the things I have learned from this class.

One of the biggest things has been making myself motivated to learn new things beyond what needs to be done. For example, we were working on the poster for the showcase, and we decided to map out the process we went through to make this project. I took the initiative to create a diagram of the process we went through. I have never made a diagram to layout the process of a project before, so I needed to learn a new program that created diagrams. Then, I needed to go back into my notes and see the unfolding and development of this project so I would be able to articulate our work on this project in the diagram. In the end, I ended up having too much information in the diagram to have on the poster, which was okay because we decided to keep that version of the diagram for all of us to refer to when we needed a reminder of all the work we have done. It is things like that I have learned to do from this project: taking on work that you don’t have any prior knowledge about can be intimidating, but it’s not a bad thing. It will help you grow and learn new things that you can take with you into the future.

The project is in its final stages of being completed. We are adding some final touch ups on it, such as grammar, spell check and CSS errors we’re running into. As the year comes closer and closer to the end, I find myself looking back on the beginning of this semester. Working on the journey map project for IS4220 has been a great experience and I have been learning a lot of things I didn’t think I would by taking this class.

I have always wanted to do something that would positively impact this school, and doing this project is exactly that. Every time Cathie talks about how different people from PSU are interested in the work that we are doing on this project, it actually makes me really happy to be a part of this process. It’s taken a lot of work between learning the Twine program, doing research on different aspects of the application process for coming to PSU, and communicating with different people across campus, but it has really developed my learning and enhanced the experience I have had at Plymouth State. I truly believe this class is unlike any other class at another university.