Last Blog Post

Out of all the projects done in CST 101 this year, I enjoyed making me ePortfolio on Google Sites the most. I found that it was fun to play with design, and it was rewarding to see almost everything I learned and accomplished in this class. On Google Sites, I decided to organize the assignments I posted up based on the category they fell under (Images, Links, Videos, and Written Assignments). Then I made each page on my site look nice. Before working on my ePortfolio, the class did a few assignments in MS Excel in order to become more proficient in creating spreadsheets and using formulas. I wasn't very comfortable in Excel before, so it was good to do some of those exercises. Out of everything I accomplished this year, I believe that the most fun (and somewhat challenging) thing to learn was the basic html code, and the most useful thing I learned was how to use Google Sites and how to make videos. Blogging is honestly something I do on a regular basis on my own, so I must say that blogging has felt more or less like a waste of time. I also think the ethics portion is a little unnecessary, since we're already required to take an ethics class in order to graduate. Anyway, all in all, I must say that CST 101 this time (and last time, thank goodness) has been much better and more conducive to my life than the last time I took the class.

About the Ethics Essay

This week my team had to write a collaborative analysis on an essay of our choice regarding a topic in information technology ethics. Searching for and finding an article wasn't a problem at all. We just went into a search for "information ethics" in a couple journals and waded through the results until we found one we liked. Well, I found one I liked, and I suggested to my group that we use that one. I found it difficult to communicate and collaborate with teammates on the rest of this assignment, though. I think it's mainly just the timing of the semester; everyone is scrambling to finish all their projects in other classes and leaving an ethics essay until last minute. I won't lie. I'm one of those procrastinators. At any rate, four of us didn't post up our portions of the analysis to Google Docs until a day or two before the due date/time, and one of us didn't do anything at all. So, here we all were, waiting for each other to write our parts. Finally, it's too late to wait anymore, so what we have is what we have. Google Docs, by the way, was a great way to collaborate on an assignment like this one. We didn't get a chance to talk about who would put it all into a Word document and create a title page, etc. So, it's now four hours before the assignment is due, and it looks like I'm the last person who is going to add anything. I guess it's up to me to compile it all. I really wish I hadn't procrastinated so much.