Sunday, December 12, 2010

CCA DR Blog Post #13

Final Blog Entry: Likes and Dislikes about Design Research.

Despite how frustrating and difficult group work can be, I appreciated the opportunity to work with strong personalities and am beginning to understand my own strengths and weaknesses within a group dynamic as well as the benefit of having different opinions and perspectives brought to the table. While I didn't always love working in a group, it is a like because it is important and in a way it's like exercising. Sometimes it's hard to motivate yourself to exercise, but in the end you know you'll be stronger for it. Sometimes group work was painful, but I know I'll be a stronger designer/professional because of it.

Another like is the final presentation. It was really fun to have a big night where our work was presented in a professional manner. It added an element of drama to the class that was really enjoyable and it was great to see how hard everyone had worked. Honestly, everyone did such a great job. And having a panel of outside judges was helpful, insightful, and interesting. I do think that those groups who maybe ran over by a minute or two could have been allowed to finish their presentation. This is a learning environment after all, and even if they get penalized in their final grade for running past ten minutes, they should have been allowed to finish presenting to the class something they had been working on all semester. I do understand that in real life you will have time limits and people will not always be so kind about overstepping them, but we are in school and I personally would like to see my classmates work presented to completion.

As far as dislikes go, there's the banality of saying group work can really suck at times, but I felt like for the most part, my group worked well and expediently together. Obviously this class takes up a lot of time but again, that's the nature of the class and it is twice as many credits as our other ones. In general, I don't have any incredibly strong dislikes but something that was definitely not my favorite was this blog. Maybe it's my misconception to think that everyone in the world has a blog so if it is something that you practice in your daily life, it seems redundant to have assigned blogging. It always felt like busy work. What I think would be more interesting is to discuss and provide opportunities about how to take your blog to another level~how to get people outside of the class to take note of what you're saying~how to contribute to already existing blogs/websites on the topics you are exploring~maybe how to get more traffic on your blog. Writing is something I believe most of us are probably pretty good at~taking it to another level and giving it visibility is something I'm sure we could all use advice on. I guess my main point is that this blog felt pretty stagnant particularly when you consider that a lot of the students are probably already fairly savvy when it comes to the world of blogs, websites, twitter, etc. If you are going to maintain the personal blog as part of the class, I think you need to find a more creative ways to take advantage of the medium.

That being said, on my personal blog, which is not particularly unique or extraordinary, I posted a bunch of the TED talks and interesting websites we were exposed to during this class. Thanks so much for those:)

Happy Holidays!
Best, K.

Monday, December 6, 2010

CCA DR Blog Post #12

Apprehensions and Concerns about the Final Presentation:

Overall, I think that my group has been pretty strong and I trust in our choice for our presenter and the value of the material that we are presenting.
My obvious concerns are:
1. Will we get asked a question that will completely stump us?
2. Will the audience think that our video is boring?
3. Will our presentation not be clear to those unfamiliar with our topic?
4. Will someone snooze off during our presentation?
5. Will our presenter break his leg the morning of our presentation? (just kidding about that one. you can't be a worry~wart about everything!)

At this point, I think I have few real concerns and apprehensions about tomorrow. What will be will be and you can't control everything. It also eases anxiety that it's for a class and it is ultimately meant to be a learning experience. I'd rather make mistakes here than in a presentation I'm being paid to make.

Brene Brown's discussion of vulnerability was inspiring and extremely applicable to working in a group situation. A lot of hesitation, miscommunication, and bad ideas probably came out of team members not being vulnerable and not being willing to share one's true thoughts during group work. Or be willing to be criticized or told that an idea you have might not be the best or could use some work. I definitely at times would not share my true opinion for one reason or another. Maybe to create less work or to avoid the mental exhaustion of working in a team of strong personalities. But I'm becoming more aware of group dynamics and am now less willing to go along with the flow if I think something could be stronger. I know this class is definitely going to make me a better team member next semester.