Week 1

Of course, this was the easiest week of the semester! Looking back retrospectively, this course seemed intimidating; it seemed that it was going to involve a lot of effort and hard work … I was not wrong, but I am also not intimidated anymore. The class projects do involve a lot of planning and revision, but the way the course is set up allows you to put in as much effort as you need (or want to). That means, if you fall behind in one area (be it reading annotations, participation, class preparation) you can still gain points (or make up points) in another area (reflection posts, taking tutorials, going to office hours, etc.). For week one, I did lose 10 points in class preparation — this made me realize that I needed to pay more attention to the weekly overview section on the website! I created my blog website, customized it, and submitted my first post “Syllabus Quiz” during this week.

Week 2

This is when the Unit 1 work began for the course. I feel like I did an average job at keeping up with the work during this week; I submitted questions via hypothesis, began reading our textbook for the course, and submitted two blog posts–an example of multimodal communication and a reflection on multimodal communication. I did not complete anything for extra points, other than the reflection post I submitted.

Week 3

Like week 2, I kept up with the work for this week; I submitted the class preparation assignments and reading annotations 1&2 on time (including drafts before the final submission). I did not complete anything for extra points for this week.

Results of reading annotations 1&2:

I felt pretty satisfied with the points I received on this project. My second set of reading annotations was lacking on multimodality, which could have been fixed by adding more images or links to different articles and relating material. I also liked the content of article 1 more than article 2, and I feel like this “bias” influenced my work input into each set of annotations, as my annotations for article 2 were not as substantive as the annotations for article 1.

Week 4

This was a difficult week. My group for the service learning project had their initial client meeting with Whitefoord, Inc.; however, I was not able to attend the meeting. I did complete extra research and developed questions for my team to ask on my behalf (in order to hopefully make up for me not being able to attend. See posts:

My team was able to get feedback from Whitefoord, Inc. that helped us to begin our first drafting phase for the SLC project, and prepare for the pitch presentation project.

Week 5

I sent in two drafts of my pitch presentation deliverables. The second draft was because I was initially confused about what portion of the project I was going to complete. My group decided to create a presentation that would be cohesive — we collaborated and decided which person would be in charge of what deliverable our client wanted based off of the initial client meeting memo. Initially I thought I was going to work on some of the google forms for applications; however, my main focus (and what was included in my second draft) included a welcome packet for new members of Whitefoord’s young professional program, and an automated email response. Both of these were rough drafts of what the final deliverable would look like. Reading our textbook for the course helped to prepare during this pitch presentation process.

Week 6

This was the week that my team presented our pitch presentations. I felt pretty prepared after my work during week 5.

Results of pitch presentation:

I feel okay with how it turned out; I could have done better on the awareness/maturity (of audiences) and originality (being more persuasive and linking more insight into the presentation). To address these weaknesses, moving forward in the SLC project is going to involve more research to see what the client likes and dislikes. This research will involve seeing what young professionals like/what other organizations have done to increase memberships in  similar organizations. My group and I will also need to meet with the client again to discuss this research.

Week 7

Admittedly, I fell a little behind on class preparation for this week and week 8. My time management for this class faulted  a little bit as I had a midterm and paper due in other classes. Moving forward, time management is something I need to work on.  I plan to do some extra work to make up for points I missed out.

On a more positive note, I had my midterm conference this week. The conference made me feel more confident in my abilities for the class. I went into the meeting with a couple of questions, and they were all answered. Here are my notes:

midnotes

My main concern was the service learning project — there was a miscommunication between us and our client, but after the meeting I felt less concerned. I was also able to learn about more resources that are available to use, like as students we have free access to certain programs that would usually be expensive to use (we can access adobe software through certain places on campus, and there is a list of services and software available to us as students: http://technology.gsu.edu/technology-services/it-services/software-computer-purchase/software-download-and-purchase/).

Week 8

Like the previous week, I came into this week less prepared than usual. I submitted my reading annotations 3&4 on time, but I was unable to previously submit drafts for the project. In class, we discussed how to prepare for our next phase of our SLC project, and the difference between plagiarism and copyright. https://sites.gsu.edu/acampbell30/2016/10/15/class-notes-10-13-16/

Looking Ahead:

Week 9

This week is going to involve a lot of class preparation as we move into our next phase of our SLC project and continue Unit 2. Last Thursday, I was able to meet with my project team at the end of class and we discussed our goals and projected schedule for deadlines.

In general, I plan to do some additional reading annotations for Unit 2 and a couple more reflection posts (and to stay on top of class preparation assignments!).