The Group Project Has Begun

Week in Review: A Reflection of February 18 -24

We were put into team this past week in my Team Building and Problem Solving class. We started to bounce some ideas around about what problem we’d like to address. The semester-long project is to come up with a solution to a real world problem. We get to choose the problem. My group thinks we’d like to do something along the lines of safety procedures. I’m curious to see what other groups will come up with.

In my Document Management class, we’ve moved on to electronic filing. We’ll be learning about folder hierarchy structure, backing up files, storing files on a network and online, and how to store and organize e-mails; all really important stuff!

I dressed up on Sunday for my friend’s second annual Oscar party. She laid a red carpet down her hallway for us to walk on. We filled out Oscar ballots before the awards started. I got 10 out of 24, which I think is pretty good. If you don’t see the nominated documentaries and foreign films, it’s hard to judge those categories.

My favorite part of the night was when Jennifer Lawrence won Best Actress. What was your favorite?

The Web Developer Club’s Plans for This Semester

The Web Developer Club finally had its first meeting of the semester this past week. We meet the third Thursday of every month when school is in session. Since the semester started the fourth week of January, we didn’t have one last month.

As a student club, we do at least one service project each year like toy drives or blood drives or anything that makes a positive impact on others in the community. We’ve narrowed down our community service project options to three choices. Some of the members are going to get more details on each of them, and we’ll be voting during our next meeting

Next month we will most likely be visiting a business in the West Bend area for a tour. This is a great way to learn how businesses in our field function and to meet professionals. All the club members that went on the tour to SparkNET last year really enjoyed the experience.

In the future, maybe even this semester, we’d like to bring in a guest speaker to talk about mobile application development. Since it’s such an important topic in the technology field right now, we want to open it up to the entire campus, not just the club members.

A Slow Week

Week in Review: A Reflection of February 11 – 17

I was able to multitask last Thursday. I needed to observe a meeting for my Team Building and Problem Solving class. Luckily, we had a student senate meeting so I was able to fill out a sheet we were given in class to evaluate meetings. These questions included things like: did the meeting start and end on time? Were the ground rules stated and followed? Was the agenda followed? Was the desired outcome of the meeting achieved?

Besides classes, homework, and the meeting, it was a pretty slow week. The weather has canceled a lot of my plans recently. I was suppose to get a free massage at school sponsored by the West Bend Student Senate, but I wasn’t able to go for the day I signed up due to the weather. Luckily, I was able to reschedule for next week.

I’ll be working on my next assignment for Computer Essentials, which is to research an Internet-related topic and write an Internet press release. I haven’t picked a topic yet. There’s a lot to choose from. Last week I found and read an article for class about the history of Web browsers. I learned about the Web browsers that came before Internet Explorer took over in popularity.

What’s your favorite Web browser and why? Do you think Internet Explorer will loose its appeal to the majority of the public as new browsers are created?

Inside Information: Interviewing Professionals

Week in Review: A Reflection of February 4 – 10

Somehow I was assigned to conduct interviews for all my classes at the same time, even though I’m taking three different classes this semester.

I interviewed a quality inspector in manufacturing about his computer usage in the workplace. I was surprised to find that he spends 70 percent of his time using computers to look up parts in databases, upload photos, create reports, and communicate with people inside the company through e-mail.

I learned how teams work in the corporate world through another interview for my Team Building & Problem Solving class. Long-standing teams can experience change quite often as new employees are introduced to the team.

My Document Management class required me to interview someone who works with documents. The woman I interviewed works at a non-profit. File management gets complicated when you have different departments that are funded differently. They all have different rules about document management. Some departments need to keep certain documents longer than other departments.

Interviewing professionals is a great way to learn about real workplaces, and I think that’s why our instructors ask us to do them. It’s not based on theory or scenarios in a book; it’s real life, real people, and real companies. They can give you insight on what to expect when you enter the workforce or a new field for the first time.

What’s your dream job? Contact someone in the field and ask them a few informational questions. If you are genuinely interested in what the professional has to say and are grateful, you may be surprised how willing they are to help students like you.

Team Building and Problem Solving

Through the years I’ve learned about working in teams the hard way. I’ve been on teams where nothing got done because there weren’t any action steps to follow. I’ve been on teams so disorganized that no one was really sure what we were supposed to be doing. I’ve been on teams where one person made all the decisions. If you’ve had experience working on teams you probably can relate. If only I had learned then what I am learning now in my Team Building and Problem Solving class, some of those team experiences could have been salvaged.

I am enjoying this class much more than I thought I would. I thought that’d we’d be put into teams on the first day and set off to do a project, but that’s not how this class has started. We do a wide variety of activities in class, so it’s never a three-hour lecture. We’ve watched videos, had discussions, and worked in small teams to do some troubleshooting scenarios. We also do a lot of icebreakers, which sometimes include getting up and moving around.

In our last class session, we talked about what it means to be a leader on a team. You’re responsible for more than just keeping the team on task. You’re also in charge of keeping every team member engaged. You can do this through eye contact and giving everyone a chance to speak within a certain time frame.

Later on we discussed a few problems that occur often on teams including cliques forming within a group, someone dominating the discussions, someone making and acting on decisions that the group didn’t vote on. Much of these issues can be reduced or eradicated by setting ground rules. Most of the teams I’ve been on didn’t have ground rules. I wonder now how that would have changed the experiences that I’ve had.

Trading the Books for the Shovel

Week in Review: A Reflection of January 28 – February 3

Shoveling is an unexpected and unwelcomed responsibility during the winter (and sometimes fall and spring) months. But, it’s something that you’ve got to do if you live in Wisconsin, so I put down the books this past week for a little while and picked up a shovel. I can’t wait for spring.

Thursday was the first West Bend Student Senate meeting of the semester. We needed to elect a new vice president since the seat was open. One of my friends, who is also in the Web Developer Club, was nominated and elected for the position. Congratulations, Jane! During the meeting we talked about Relay for Life, which is in August. We may be getting a MPTC team together for the cause. Later this month two Student Senate members are going the Wisconsin Student Government (WSG) legislative seminar in Madison. They will be meeting with legislators to address the concerns of Wisconsin technical colleges. What an amazing opportunity!