Assignment 3 reflection

Blue_team – assignment 3

What’s the hardest part of a internet team based project? Conflicting schedules will be the answer. Project 3 had a team of three members propose a research paper to an existing company. The key word there would be 3, as one of our members had to drop the class due to personal issues.

Problems aside, the initial meeting/forum discussions pushed forward rapidly. Two members (including myself) knew of the concept of gaining money from crowd sourcing for products to a point where we felt comfortable going forward as that as our proposal.Plenty of companies, even established ones, could easily benefit from crowdsourcing to pitch a concept that may not fly at a business meeting. So our path was chosen, but obviously questions that would be answered were next.

For the record, Google docs saved the groups issue of working together in real time. Originally, we used the forums, but that deemed too slow for 1 on 1 conversing. The next step was a no registration chat room that only involves making a room name, user name and password for the room. That also deemed too slow. The google doc program lets people edit files in real time, even conversing as they do so. Typing a placeholder soon became someone typing in whats needed in that area. Once a time was established and seeing the person online within the file, it became easy to ensure everything that was needed was accomplished.

Internet

Show me how to do something

Video 1

Video 2

So, assignment 2 had us teach the audience something using something visual and audio as a method. Instantly i thought “Hey, i’ll do something with websites and graphic making!”. What i did not know was doing two pieces would make a very long video.

The program i used to capture my screen and record my audio was limited to 5 minutes per video (free version). After starting with the idea of doing both a Div only website layout and a photoshopped banner, it became apparent it would run well over 20 minutes. I decided to remove the photoshop banner part and stick with the website layout.

Another issue became the 5 minute cut off. The first run through was interrupted by the time limit. In the middle of talking, it just cut off. I had to set a timer next to me to ensure i would stop talking before the video stopped recording. I believe the final version ended up being the 5th “take” of doing the assignment. After it was said and done, i thought why not do another but show the website layout before i start to teach the audience how to do it? Within 3 minutes of that, my dog started barking and i called it quits.

Overall, an entertaining assignment to do. The only drawback? that weird feeling from hearing your own voice and asking “do i really sound like that?”. Still don’t think i do!

The dreaded Resume (dun dun…DUUUN)

Resume_Gabe

Putting your skills on paper can be a lot tougher than it seems. Thinking of the ways to phrase it without sounding too technical, trying to keep the focus on a certain job criteria or simply trying to remember what you’ve done can get rough.

Some of the issues i faced were basically all of the above. Technically, the only stuff from my time in the military that needed to be in this was leadership/team work skills. If i was applying to be a bodyguard or any job that requires a weapon, however, this would easily look a heck of a lot different. Trying to focus in on the skill set i learned in the Army and phrasing it in a friendly resume was easily the toughest part of this assignment.

While i did receive negative feedback concerning the format i chose (a modified template), i personally try to avoid the bland paperwork look. I figure if i put myself on paper with the hopes of getting a job/internship that involves visual/coding stuff, it better visually stand out. I think the original template had much more flair, but i switched out and removed things that were too much.

While i do not have access to my original resume (lost somewhere in my pages of e-mail) it looked slightly different with it geared towards applying for the police department (for a prior class). If i had the original at hand, it literally looks like night and day for my skill set.

The best part of writing a resume? When you finish, save, and close the document.