Openlog - A Uni Blog

REFLECTION


Something ...


a) learned
Well, I learned the accurate method of determining the reliability of a resource. Although usually similar steps are taken to ensure that a source seems reliable, often there are steps missed, such a checking the date perhaps, and simplifications of steps, such as merely checking that an author seems to have credentials, or that a resource from the web is from an educational institution rather than checking both of these and considering if there would have been an editing/checking process to it's publication. I felt this was good so that I realised what I was doing wrong/was not doing, and could use this process to better determine if the resources I'd collected could be trusted (and not mislead me!).


b) found useful.
Determining reliability? Useful for determining if a text we select can be trusted, and therefore also useful in terms of gathering resources for our assignment(s). (What I mentioned previously as well) My dad also mentioned to me previously about the slide thing, that you only had to have enough data in a presentation to guide your presentation, but the information is coming from you yourself. I actually asked him though, since I was looking over his should at a presentation he was working on, and noticed the presentation was quite simplistic. This is a point which has stuck with me (although I haven't really used it before)... However, I agreed completely that this is a highly effective way of presenting, and I'm certain the class will see this as useful too.


c) found difficult.
Merely some of the sample text assessments, where it asked 'Completeness' and we could only reply with a 'assumedly'/'apparently' as we're not experts on the subject, and would not really know if anything was omitted or not. However assumedly if the source was an unbiased one, it would be complete... Otherwise the lesson was good, and having a look at the TED video was good. My father visits the website and downloads videos and we watch the talks on new innovations and so on. There was nothing particularly difficult about the lesson itself however.


How was your participation in today's class? Give yourself a score out of 5. Write your reasons for that score.
4? I did not keep quiet in class, even though I am more of the shy type, unless I'm around people I'm quite familiar with (is 4 weeks enough?). I talked with the group, gave my ideas, worked together with everyone, so I believe I acted like a good team member. However, I could have gotten more courage and volunteered to get up and present, perhaps. However, Alex volunteered. Although I gave her my booklet to bring up to the projector....

(I took some pictures of the pages we completed in the booklet for Su to see what we did that day, as she was sick)

And... since I am here...

Kirishima Ayama = 霧島綾真

霧 = Kiri (mist)
島 = Shima (island)
綾 = Aya (figure/design/twill weave)
真 = Ma (just, right, pure, genuine)
Ayama is styled on my last name, which in Kanji is 謝, and read as Ayama in some ways. (also read Shya)


EDIT: Email by Friday? ARGH I'm so very sorry. >_< I wrote down the questions, so I didn't read the email properly. D:

To show just how lax I've been over the past week, I have not written on any of the days. Argh. Well, this means I better get to it now, of course. ... Before next week comes along and I still haven't done it. But this is only going to be a short summary ...

Monday = CITP

Looking at sources and seeing if they are reliable, unreliable. We started off talking about what makes a document reliable. And afterwards we moved on to.. an example, I suppose you could call it, in the lecture notes booklet. At first I was wondering if I was doing the right thing there in the table which was given.

We were meant to work as a group, but I ended up just kind of working with Julie again. xD The width of the tables (as in, a physical table in this sense) made it a little hard to talk with the people opposite, I suppose, although it seemed alright later on when we were deciding a team charter. Perhaps we just needed time to warm up....

Er, after the example, we did a whole LOT of other samples, which we then had to present. Thanks to my perfectionist trait, my booklet got hauled up to be displayed from the projector.

(All the links above are images I scanned for Su, who was sick and thus, away.)

I'm not sure if I was very thorough with mine, but at least it was pretty detailed to the extent that I could make it, so I was pretty pleased with the work I did .... We had to form groups afterwards for our assignment. This is where the team charter comes in. We have to make a set of rules for us to obey, and then all sign it. As well  fill in a form that says that we have someone to interview.

It was all in all a pretty enjoyable lesson as always. Hehe. We had to make some name cards at the beginning of the lesson too, and me and Julie wrote Japanese on ours just because... well, we could. It was amusing. xD We used the leftover paper and made two cranes too...

Then I met Sebastian for a while... went to Karebear, he got a KHR ring, I gave him some stuff... we had the sponsor meeting... not much else I want to report here.

Tuesday = IIS

I... am not sure what happened here this day. IIS and I don't really directly connect. But I met up with my team for the assignment (though Sean was missing) and we tried to work on some questions and a video store. At the very least we decided on a video store, and Amy did good work making up questions, but ... I wonder how well this is going to go.

We were meant to have a surprise quiz during IIS, but once again, the tutor decided he'd just do what he liked (I know he has our best interests in mind, but I would at least like to know what I'm missing out on from the other classes...) and although we did do the roleplaying like the tutorial sheet said, we spend the latter half of the tute drawing diagrams of the system in the roleplay. Although it was potentially helpful... all the diagrams looked remarkably similar, AND the writing was bad and small so I couldn't even read it, and thusly could not focus.

I'm sorry, don't blame me.
This subject I admit is not going that well...

Wednesday = Programming Fundamentals

Also one of those subjects in which I scream and die.The lecture was alright, although I did drop my Netbook on the floor accidentally. O_O At least it's alright. I recorded what Ryan did during the lecture although not sure how much of it was processed. I guess this reflected in the lab. Although I did alright in the tutorial, always manage to do alright in that, actually, but I had a hard time during the lab, and Joel helped me out a lot (THANK YOU SO MUCH IF YOU EVER READ THIS). I think I better go back and do all the examples and that again to try and get a better grasp of programming.

We also got our assignment. This is slaughtering me. :P
I do believe something happened before I went to the tute and lab, but my memory fails me at this moment...

Thursday  = No Class

Tried to make a start on the assignment. What a miserable failure it was. I wasted a lot of time, and ended up switching to trying to complete some LinuxGym instead since I find UNIX much nicer for me. T_T

Friday = Web Systems

Great. :D This was pretty much HTML day and I was quite happy about that - it was like visiting an old friend. Ah the good old days of HTML coding in Year 10. Soo fun ('cos Dreamweaver is such a .... ok... hehe) In any case, I figured out the problem I had yesterday with Linuxgym Chapter 7. It was because you had to set the folder permissions, and anyone who had read everything properly would have realised. I'm not 100% sure how I missed it, because I did (attempt) to read everything on the front!! But I fixed it... Yay, and fixed it for Julie too... who had also not read the first page, obviously. xDD; Whoops...

OH RIGHT, yes, first off on Friday, I volunteered for Bandaged Bear Day with erm, people from my course, but I only ended up working with Bianca, Alex and Alex's boyfriend. We wandered around Central going, asking 'Would you like to support Bandaged Bear Day?' 'Would you like to buy a Bandaged Bear?' Bianca had to leave about... 10? So then I worked by myself. We were supposed to be on shift from 9-10, really, but we ended up working from about 8.45-10.45 (at least I did).

That meant that I was late for the CITP meeting we were meant to have... urgh. In any case, when Alex finally arrived at the First Years' Lounge, we organised a few things, but we still couldn't get that much done...

Saturday

==> Had a msn conference with group members of CITP assignment. James shall be flogged for not turning up!

Haha. Well... I might as well. This way I can look back too, and I won't lose it.

REFLECTIONS

a) What I learned ...
... useful?
About what people felt were ethical and unethical? During the Case Studies where we voted, I found it useful to see what professionals had to think, even though I had my own strong views and code of ethics.

...interesting?
The Code of Ethics for the ACS? We had such trouble trying to come up with our Codes because they were so specific, however, the Code of Ethics for the ACS is simply written and covers a large amount of aspects. Although it allows interpretation in different ways, it's still fascinating how it can be so simply worded and yet apply to so many situations. (I feel that useful and interesting really do cross over however.... Both this and the point mentioned before are both interesting and possibly will influence our professional behaviour.)


... good?
Can I be general and say everything? Everything is very relevant to what skills we will need in order to be a professional IT person, and therefore good for me and my future. There was nothing I learnt during the lesson which I would define as 'bad'.

b) One thing I found ...
... useful?
I think this appeared mostly in the form of the video. I reflected on the way I present and decided that perhaps there are things I need to work on too, as ... scornful as we may have seemed about the man's presentation. That's not to say anyone performed badly however, since I watched everyone presenting their case studies and they were all very good.

...interesting?

Monday = Communications for IT Professionals

Well, it was to the workshops this week, and I think I was looking forward to this a lot more than the 3-hour lectures (although 3 hour workshop also is a bit =A= by the time you're finished, heh). It also helped that I was relieved that I was in a Band 1 workshop of course.

The tutor introduced herself, and I remember the first reaction I had was to look at Julie next to me and exchange glances. Her surname sounded very Japanese. She did an example of how she wanted us to introduce ourselves also and ... well I guess we found out we were (somewhat) right. (Though to what degree I have no idea, of course....) I'm such a Japanophile. Or I just like Asian things, really.

We then tried to define ethics with the person next to us/the people around us.

Ethics:

"Morality and actions, What we perceive to be right or wrong, Sense of personal responsibility - consequences of actions, Personal conduct based on respect for others, Principles and values you choose to live by."

We also talked a little about Ethical Dilemmas and moved onto the case studies. I found myself pretty opinionated on this topic. I think I have a strong code of ethics... sometimes. I'm not really sure. I feel these things are wrong, but when push comes to shove, I think sometimes these things get ignored. By not having this kind of real life experience, I suppose we can't really know. However, from experience from my own projects, say in HSC Year, I'm quite a perfectionist and will try to make the system as good as I can get it - so I think I can uphold my personal code of ethics well enough.

We tried to come up with codes of ethics afterwards and although our codes were a lot different to other peoples', I felt they were rather valid. Although our group was the only group that presented with only three codes, I had six written down in actuality, however, we kept arguing that it could already be explained by another dot point and thus we were only left with three. I felt some of the other people's points seemed perhaps a little too general, however maybe we were the ones thinking too specifically? I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, however.

We had a short break then watched a segment of a Youtube video where we were supposed to look carefully and pick out what we felt was good and bad about his presentation. My whole group agreed wholeheartedly that his presentation overall was pretty bad, but probably definitely in stronger words. It was true however, overall he was uninspiring, looked confined and bored... I think it's alright to be informal in your presentations sometimes, depending on who you are presenting to, and depending on what kind of message you are trying to present (you want to create a relaxed interested interactive air, right?), so it's not necessarily a bad thing he said 'Hey, guys', but his lack of enthusiasm was the real problem.

We looked at presentations skills and worked on Case Studies then, and each of us picked a 'role' in the group for the presentation and tried to build up our points. I don't think I did too badly, though I could have gestured more, I suppose. The thing is that I'm not necessarily bad at presenting, I just don't like to volunteer myself up for it. At High School, generally I'd be with people who'd rather not have to present, so the responsibility would fall with me (Sorry if anyone is reading this....). While I can't say I was magnificent at it either, at least I do have experience with it and am willing to present if no one else is? Or at least I find myself a lot of enthusiastic now unless I'm feeling unwell ... like somewhat recently...

Afterwards I had to go meet sponsors for lunch. We went to that cafe in the UTS building that's next to the ABC (oh I forget all the numbers and everything, yikes).Luckily I didn't have to pay I guess, since I don't have a lot of money these days. We chatted with the sponsors while eating. Felt like some of it was going over the top of my head. I should look up more on stuff - but I'm not really that much into the business side of this course. Perhaps that's not a good thing to say. I acknowledge that no matter what I do, it will have something to do with business, of course, however, if possible would like to do more programming related work,  or the like, depending on how everything goes - and depending on what Masters I might decide to do later?

I still want to work at the ABC eventually. My dad works there, and I really enjoyed work experience there, but I still don't know what I could do there. Perhaps I could work on the web stuff or their TV stuff, but I don't really know if I'm in the right course for those occupations. So I need to find out more about the jobs availiable at the ABC then, I suppose.

Went with my dad to a move after everything. He got free tickets from work so we watched The Last Station. It was quite interesting. ^_^

Monday = Communications for IT Professionals.

Agenda:
- ACS Foundation ... talk
- Library talk on Online Resources
- Language Task

I did somewhat find the talk by the ACS Foundation quite intriguing, since halfway throughout that er... talk, I suppose it was (lecture? Not really) I realised that perhaps even though I'm in a course which is largely focused on programming and business, this doesn't mean I can't still be creative. I think what spurred this was probably when they were discussing the internships with different companies (which despite my Industry Study semester, I think I would be very interested to participate in, if possible!), and I saw the Adobe logo amongst the ones of the other participating companies.

This reminded me of the Refresh Roadshow day that happened a fortnight ago. I admit quite freely, I haven't really used my CS4 much, so I was quite stumped by half the things that were going on there, however their presentation of some of the new features of CS5 were fascinating .... and yet, this is going sadly off-topic. *coughs slightly* (What? I had a cold! xD) In any case, they had several mentions that developers and designers work together and sometimes their roles would have to overlap somewhat - although this was actually them developing tools so that they could work together without dispute (You didn't code it how I designed it! But this design is completely ludicrous and impossible!) - but any rate, this caused a sudden epiphany, so to speak, as I realised I don't just have to be a programmer, I can be a designer and a programmer!

And work for Adobe!

Kidding. (I think.) But maybe this was obvious to others, but not to me. I don't mean just designer in the sense of designing a piece of software for a purpose, yet designing it ... in the way people create programs like Photoshop, for lack of a better example. I'm not absolutely certain how to explain it - the idea is still somewhat hazy even within my mind, but I do have an aim of making things aesthetically pleasing, so perhaps this is what I have in mind.

In any case, they continued on to the Online Library Resources after that previous talk (which I covered extremely badly) and went through things which I had been shown when I went to library training during O-Week. I kind of felt I wasted my time going to the O-Week one now... Oh well.

And then came the Language Task. That kind of worried me. On the first page, it asked to put down my first language, which I think is actually Chinese. But I do much better at English than I do at Chinese (I can't write much in Chinese, I'm not kidding), so I really wouldn't say that I'm an ESL or anything. I do recall they put me in an ESL class when I was little, but I really doubted that I needed it. It was completely useless and I didn't even understand the reason I was there in the first place (sopleasedon'tthinkI'manELS pleasepleaseplease).....

In any case (-still groaning from despair over my own demise-), the task was simply a graph with statistics about smokers in Japan, China, USA and Europe and we were supposed to describe it - in simple terms. I hope I did a good job, but as always, think I probably made a grave error somewhere along that line. The last   section of it was perhaps a little weak.... I tried my best, right? -worry-

That was pretty much it. Hung around in the FEIT First Years Lounge for a while until it was 1pm and time for the BIT Information Session (hp decided to reschedule?) and we talked about camp and future sponsor visits, and so on with Des. It was quite enjoyable overall.

/End longwinded day recount and rant.

01/03/2010 - 05/03/2010 + (07/08 Activities)

This is only to make a small recount of the first week. The order of my subjects is as follows:
- Communications for IT Professionals (Monday)
- Introduction to Information Systems (Tuesday)
- Programming Fundamentals/Object-Orientated Programming (Wednesday)
- Web Systems (Friday)

CITP::
To say the least, this subject doesn't exactly cover something I don't know, but I suppose it's a good idea to try and develop my communications skills further, for all that the subject appears to be like English for Uni. I admit that my oral skills could do with a polish, however. Even so, an upside of day one was being let out early. ^^

IIS::