The Web Club Goes on an EPIC Trip

Some of the Web Developer Club members at MPTC before leaving to visit EPIC Creative

A local company graciously opened their doors for us during our spring break so we could learn from them about the “real world.” We are very thankful they didn’t mind taking all 15 of us on a tour through their facilities and answering the many questions we had for them.

EPIC Creative is an ad agency that specializes in a little bit of everything from web design, to video, to social media and much, much more. For the Web Club members, both consisting of web design and interactive media program students, it was an opportunity to find out the tools, both physical and intellectual, needed to succeed in this kind of business.

Our guide gave us some great advice about working with clients. You should never forget that they are the boss, and the reason you get to do what you love to do is because they are paying for it. He also stressed the importance of planning, lots of planning, before doing anything.

An EPIC Creative postcard

Since most of us in the club are in the IT-Web Designer/Developer program, he spoke to us about web trends. It’s nice to know that the things we learn and discuss in class and at club meetings, like PHP, responsive design, JavaScript, and Facebook, are the kinds of tools we need to be focusing on.

After the tour, the club members stopped for a bite to eat and to discuss what we enjoyed most from our visit to EPIC Creative. We got into a discussion about technology, all the things we should know, and how it’s always changing. It’s a bit daunting, but our club advisor used an analogy to explain this situation. Web design is like designing a car. There’s always going to be something new and the cars will look different, but it’s still going to have the same basic parts. At its foundation it will still be a car. If you have a good foundation and keep learning, you’ll be able to build it.

On behalf of the Web Developer Club of MPTC, I’d like to thank EPIC Creative again for taking time out of their busy schedule. Thank you!

The Last Week Before Spring Break

Week in Review: A Reflection of March 11 – 17

Despite the snow and cold temperatures, last week really was the final week before spring break. I’m jealous that a handful of MPTC students probably spent their week packing for spring break in London, but I’m also happy for them since it’s an awesome opportunity to travel and learn.

I had to stay focused on my classes, because we are in the middle of lots of important material. In our current learning plan for Computer Essentials, we’re learning the real nuts and bolts of computer technology. I know a lot about computers, but I didn’t really know how they worked. I have a better sense of what a processor does, how RAM works, and what it takes for the parts of the computer to communicate with each other. I’m in awe of what humans were able to create. I’m hoping that since I know more about how a computer works that I’ll be able to better troubleshoot and fix my own problems.

Speaking of problems, in my Team Building and Problem Solving class, I was chosen to be team leader. I’m responsible for setting the agenda and distributing it before meetings and facilitating meetings. I’m pretty excited about our real world problem in which we will try to solve the issue of emergency drill participation.

During spring break, I’ll be meeting up with the Web Developer Club for a trip to a local business for a tour. After the tour, we’re going out to dinner and having an informal meeting.

Even though I won’t be leaving town for spring break, I am looking forward to going to Minnesota in April for the NACA conference. In some way, it feels like it’ll be my spring break. Maybe it’ll feel like spring by then?

Learning Technology and Problem Solving Through Hands-On Learning

I’ve been so focused on the routine of going to class and doing homework that the weeks are just flying by. I realized how fast time is going when I looked at my calendar and saw that it will be spring break soon. That means we’re near the halfway point of the spring semester.

During last week’s Document Management class, we got some hands-on time with a pretty cool scanner located in our classroom. It’s very user friendly and has a lot of nice features, like scanning multiple documents at once and automatically saving them as individual documents. We each took a turn experimenting with the settings.

Since my Document Management class is small, as an activity, we created an online file structure that is password protected that only we can access. We had to draw up the file structure before we created the folders, and we had to come up with file naming rules. We put class-related PDFs into those folders. It was a pretty good simulation of what it would be like to work in an office where you use a shared network.

Our class file structure on a shared network

In my Team Building and Problem Solving class, we are starting to incorporate what we’ve learned about teams and what we’ve learned about problem solving. In our groups, we’re creating agendas, meeting minutes, and ground rules. We’re also researching, writing problem statements, and doing root cause analyses. It’s a systematic way to problem solving I’ve never learned before. I can see how it’s helpful, especially for businesses that need to deal with complex issues.

How is your semester going? What do you have planned for spring break?

Finished With February

Week in Review: A Reflection of February 25 – March 3

February is such a short month. When I looked at my calendar I first thought I was missing a few days. Nope. We’re finished with February and moving into, hopefully, the spring months.

Snow got in the way of plans again this past week. One of my classes was canceled. However, since so many things can be done using e-mail and eCollege, we were still able to move along with some of the material.

Our instructor sent us an e-mail notifying us that class was canceled. She gave us a list of activities we could find on eCollege to complete. Some of the things we were to talk about in class she had us post to the discussion boards on eCollege. A discussion board is kind of like a forum. The instructor posts a question or task and the students respond to the question. Students can respond to other students’ postings. I’ve used the discussion board in nearly most, if not all, of my classes, especially the online classes.

I hope that the weather conditions are better this month so I don’t have any more cancelations. What do you think the weather will be like this March?

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.