OLI - Module 6 & 7 - Conflict

Modules 6 & 7 were all about conflict.  How to recognize conflict early on in order to help keep issues from escalating.  How to approach resolving a conflict, utilizing different strategies.  Understanding the advantages and disadvantages of each of those strategies and how they can effect the relationship between the two sides after the resolution.  

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OLI - Module 4 & 5 - Team Makeup

This weeks OLI entry was the wrap up of the first Unit, Introduction and Getting to Know Your Team.  It gave a good exercise to fill in all the things you learned about yourself, what time of work style you like, your social sensitivity, and wrap up and recap the unit.  Also going the the Get to Know Your Team exercise was an interesting way to learn more about our team members.

We then got a quick introduction into the next unit, Basic Conflict Communication.  This unit will be helpful in navigation both our team work for the CS Online program, but also for our future work outside of school

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Course 1 - Week 4

Set Your Educational Goals

I've set two educational goals for myself going through the CS Online program

1. To feel more confident as in my own capabilities and using that to be able to advocate for myself.  As I am older and already in the work place some of my goals may differ.  I'm a very capable and skilled programmer, but often times I feel like I can't advocate for apply for myself because I didn't have the formal training that most coworkers have
2. Complete my BS.  I started my collegiate education journey a long time ago and part of me has always felt the need to complete that journey.  I want to learn the things I might have missed out on.

Set Your Career Goals

I'm already in the middle of my career, but I feel as though it's important to continue to learn and grow yourself, your aspirations.  With that in mind, I'd like to contribute to a project that has more of a direct impact with the way an end user interacts and experiences the product.

Take a wild guess of your percentile of the ETS Computer Science test

I feel like there's a lot of ground to cover between now and 18 months, but at the same time I feel comfortable that passing the ETS is an attainable goal and that the next 18 months will help reenforce a lot of the knowledge needed to pass the test.  I feel I'd fall somewhere in the 80-90th percentile.  That's mostly due to feeling as though at the end of the CS Online program I'll have the knowledge needed for the test, but taking a test I can tend to second guess myself and make careless mistakes

Keep Up With Your Learning Journal

This week was a lot of time spent researching our ethics topic and putting together an outline for our essay.  There was a lot of researching into the actual chosen topic (whether cars should have autonomous driving systems), but also into learning more about ethical frameworks and how to apply them to sides of an argument in order to have a compelling case.  

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Course 1 - Week 3

Part 1

Note Taking Techniques

There were a couple of good techniques noted in the academictips.org site that I feel I could benefit from.  Using different methods for taking notes, for example, by breaking up the page I'm taking notes on, one side for headings/important points, the other side for more detailed information.  Or using colors to highlight different subject matter so it's easy to parse.

Part 2

This week's big topic was ethics and specifically how ethics is important with the realm of computer science.  It's not typically what one thinks about when they hear computer science, but ethics is a very real concern for computer science students.  The tools and software we make as computer scientist have a very really effect on not only the people who use them directly, but on the people who are affected by the information they generate.  I've come to understand that when designing a system, I'll need to not only think of the immediate issue of how to solve this problem, but how my solution will effect others or the environment.

Part 3

What every computer science major should know was a fun and interesting read.  It's full of advice across a wide spectrum of topics, that ultimately is about being a knowledge computer scientist, that might not know everything, but knows how to go about figuring things out.  It's full of recommendations from what programing languages (or types of programming languages) one should know, to why you should have a portfolio versus a resume.  Overall, it's great information to have at any stage of your learning, to help you understand what's important and why.

Part 4

The Code of Integrity is important for myself and other students in the CS Online program, for multiple reasons.

1. By agreeing and abiding by the Code of Integrity it's instilling in us to become better, more ethical contributors to projects.  By asking us to cite our sources and those who've helped us solve a problem.  By asking us to not plagiarize, to make sure we're learning the work we're solving.
2. At the end of the day, it's us who's paying money to be here, learning and growing.  If you're going to plagiarize and not contribute, you're only cheating yourself in the long run

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OLI - Module 3 - Team Makeup

This weeks OLI module was all about discovering what type of team member you are and how that works within a team environment.  It also covered how to work with team members of different team member types.  Each team member type can have positive traits and negative traits.  The important thing is realizing this within your team makeup and being able to help each other over come the negative traits of each type, and maximize the usefulness of the positive traits.  

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Course 1 - Week 2

Review and Reflect Learning Strategy

Top 3:

1. Study scheduling - In the past I've gotten into a routine for each course of when I study.  Having a dedicated time helps not only me, but also others in my family, and thus allows me to really focus on my work.  Also, after a short while with the schedule, I start studying/working a lot more effortlessly.
2. Reading - I feel I'm fairly good about reading efficiently and learning and understanding as I read
3. Surveying on exams and answering easy questions first - This strategy is very efficient for me on exams.  It allows me to focus and spend more relaxed time on harder questions

Bottom 3:

1. Note taking consistently is hard for me.  I seem to fluctuate from actively taking notes to not taking notes.  I think I definitely feel I'm more apt to take notes properly when I'm less stressed and feel as though I have more time
2. Using index cards.  I've always found it frustrating to create and use index cards as a study tool.  I find I might use them once, but have a hard time going back to them
3. Study location.  I often end up studying on the couch after kids are asleep, but it's still easy to get distracted by other things going on around the home.

Preview Time Management Skills

Project Management Basics

The videos presented in the project management basics section were all about projects and how to manage projects.  

The first video defined what exactly a project is, an endeavor which can be broken up into cycles, that has a defined beginning and end.  It also went over things that can cause a project to fail, such as mismanagement of time, money, scope, and quality.  The role of the project manger is to help solve these problems and keep the project on track.

The second video was an overview on the work breakdown structure.  It showed how to break down a project into deliverables that a team can execute on.  Which is the point of a project, to produce a deliverable.  Overall, the key is to break down work into smaller and smaller 'work packages' as to keep individuals and teams focused on things that need to get done.

The third video covered Gantt charts, a type of bar chart that is a visualization of project management.  It helps illustrate a projects schedule with start and end dates of individual task or efforts.

Check Out Previous Capstones

Pick at least three presentations, and keep an entry in your learning journal on your reflection, such as (but not limited to) what was type of the project?  was the project well done?  how do you like the presentation?  can the project and presentation be improved?   

Mirrored Fantasy

Mirrored Fantasy is a multiplayer online battle area type game.  It's a video game designed to be played by multiple people over the internet against one another.  The project was well done, especially for a single developer.  The presentation was great, they went into a lot of detail about how and why they made choices they did.  Not only that, but they also discussed issues that came up and how they resolved them. 

Like a Camera

Like a Camera is a teaching website using interactive tools to teach users about different photography topics such as aperture, shutter speed, ISO, and how control of them helps to take a great photo.  The project was very well done, it was a great interface to give live feedback on how adjustments to those photography settings will effect the photo.  The presentation was clear and they did a good job explaining the learning process they went through.  I thought it was also interesting they included feedback they've gotten about Like a Camera and how the content on it was helpful.

Share Moor

Share Moor is a service that allows individual to share photos with one another without the need for third party applications.  A host would run the Share Moor server and ask attendees to contribute photos they'd like to share so that others at the same event can have them.  The project was well done, but I felt that it didn't cover all aspects of the taking and sharing photos problem scenario.  For example, After sharing photos you've taken with Share Moor, you can then download photos that others have taken, but there's seemingly no way to exclude the photos you've contributed, so you'd get double images.  Small issues like that cause end users to not want to use the solution, even if overall it provides a good service.  The presentation was clear, easy to understand, and well done.

Week 2 Recap

This week's been a lot of work between finishing our essay draft, to reviewing 2 other essays.  But, it's helped reinforce what makes a good essay, and how to help structure our own work.  I think seeing previous student's capstone project presentations was a big help to understand how efforts in these CS online course build together to enable you to create such a project and presentation.

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OLI - Module 2 - Team Ingredients

This week was module #2 in the OLI.  It covered what makes up a good team, aspects of teams that help people succeed, and why it's important to be able to work in a team after school.

The first half of the module was about research done by Anita Woolley, Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior at Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University.  She showed research that having more women (>50% membership), equal participation by all, and the ability to read social queues, greatly increase the overall capabilities and abilities a team can accomplish.

The middle part of the module was a quiz on how well you could read a person's expression just from their eyes.  It was an interesting experience only being shown a person's eyes, trying to judge what mood or state they where in.  I got 28 out of 36 correct (64%) which apparently is above average

The last part of the module, was videos from recent graduates who have experienced working in the work force and how team work is an important ability of an individual.

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Course 1 - Week 1

First official week of the first course has wrapped up.  The first week focused a lot on getting to work with our team, knowledgable about the ins and outs of some basic group work, and how that might work over the course of a larger project.  We also got started on our outlines for our industry analysis paper.

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