And the Awesomeness Shall be Ours! And We Shall Share it with the World!

Yep, the Awesome seniors in Felipe and Eliza's room got right to work. We had one student still lagging a little behind and he FINALLY chose a topic today (O frabjous day! Callooh Callay!). April's tatoo designs are lookin' good and Laura's Latino Nation project is really taking shape. I can't wait to see Antonio's website and Briana's portfolio. Everyone is cooking along and you can just hear those keyboards clacking and the mice clicking.

After break, everyone just kept working, working! We met with groups working on similar projects and talked about what our projects are. It was helpful and everyone learned a lot.

I can honestly say that this was the best day of Senior Capstone EVER!

Session 5 - Senior Capstone Class (Ryan/Ann)

Today was fun - recaps:

Amanda and Letara: AHANA Pre-Health Society

Both of the students are working on the AHANA website. Proposal is satisfactory. They need to elaborate a little more about first drafts of portfolio. Letara is currently working on an AHANA brochure. She is using the organization's already-made website design elements in Illustrator to design the brochure. Then she will add the illustrator images for the brochure into Microsoft Word to type in the text. Amanda will be adding contact groups in the Gmail account. She is also researching other promotional videos as an inspiration for the AHANA video. By November 21^st they will have a rough draft script.

Brenda, Alex, and Pari: Allied Welness Co-Op

Brenda, Alex and Pari’s proposal is adequate. The students need to think one step further by breaking down when the logo, web design, website clickable, HTML/CSS, brochure draft dates. Their proposal will need to be rechecked next session. The students communicated with Susan, the non-profit coordinator, and set up a date to meet next ITA session on November 21st. Pari and Brenda also read through documents about the organization’s mission statement and purpose. From this information, they made a basic map of the category of links.

Williams: MEDiC/ITA design work

Williams proposal needed some work at first, but mainly this was because he was unsure what his official responsibilities would be for the project. Especially since some things are still unclear with him in regards to what he'll be doing. One of his assignments due in two weeks (hopefully done in the first), is to establish some official communication with people in ITA and MEDiC who can specify his role working for them. In addition, his assignment is to create three new ITA logos and three new MEDiC logos.

Mr. Tenzin: ACT game in Flash

Tenzin's proposal was a little thin in content, but again I believe this was because he was unsure of his official role with the Capstone. Now that it has been established that he wants to develop a game in Flash to help with ACT vocabulary, he is looking at using the "Memory Game" theme with ACT vocabulary. I stressed that he definitely needs to come up with some variation that will make the game his own, not just mirroring a memory game with flashcards. Therefore, I asked Tenzin to make up a mock playable demo in two weeks. In addition, I asked that he look for some educational flash games online to play, and briefly list things that did or did not work with those games.

Tenzin: SFT website

Tenzin's proposal was very solid, so therefore there was not a lot of need for revision. She has remained in active communication with the group based in Madison, and is going to speak with them soon about what they want their website to look like. With that said, I assigned her to use those suggestions for the website from SFT to make a mock website, and to be prepared to explain the rationale behind her layout design.

Pa Ying: ITA Yearbook

Pa Ying's progress on the yearbook has been a little slow, but she picked up the pace this session by snapping photos of 2 of the 4 classes in ITA. She has a general idea of the yearbook, but now she has a ton of content to go with which she will need to edit using Photoshop. I asked that by next time, she come forward with finished photos from at least one class in addition to making up a mock yearbook and to be ready to explain her rational behind the layout design.

puttin on the Capstone

In Felipe and Eliza's room everyone was hard at work: polishing proposals, drafting ideas, brainstorming things for the next step. Everyone made progress on his or her project. We spent most of today on work time, while the instructors circulated and helped when necessary.

Beauty Pagents, Wigs, and . . . Senior Capstone Projects!

Another exciting day of senior capstone projects commenced! The class began a little late, but Ann soon got things rolling easily with a learn@UW quiz. She went through the questions afterwards plummeting the students into the apparently foreign land of peer review (at least, that's what you would guess by the apathetic, confused responses to the question, "you guys have done peer review before, right?") They warmed up a little bit when Ann mentioned that this is the same kind of thing one does in an English class.

Though some peer-reviewing ended up happening, there were a lot of other enjoyable activities, if not completely productive. Just a glance around the room in real time: Pari shows Jesus a computer that he apparently built himself - a laptop! Wow, go Pari! Kiki and Jesus discover that some of the chairs are creaky - like Pari's! Pari, after hearing about Kiki's decision to enter the ELF modeling contest, declared he wanted to win a modeling contest . . . to win makeup! He seemed excited. Kiki had everyone in the class vote for her on the website - she had quite a beautiful picture!

This is Kiki's profile picture for the contest!

Peer reviews sort of happened . . . Jesus eventually looked at Pari's proposal, reluctantly. Elizabeth's reliant K music provided a satisfying backdrop for the general murmur of conversation. We Americans are rather monotonous in our speech style - we must seem so boring to the rolling of the British or the lilt of the Irish! But we know how to have a good time - Pari was designing a photoshopped image of himself in a BLUE wig, that turned out to have NOTHING to do with his project, so Elizabeth made him stop! Elizabeth offered to review college entrance essays, and Jesus promptly turned one over to her critically encouraging eye (hopefully!)



Ann all the while met with each individual student to discuss their ideas. Elizabeth met with some of them a second time towards the end of class. Here's the basic gyst of it:

Pari - has a good idea - He's redesigning a website for a wellness center. He needed a little more direction with deadlines/goals etc - I think we got him straightened out there. Now he has a list of clear objectives and will be meeting with his group members regularly to accomplish his goals. Next session we need to check in with him, Alex, and Laura.

Kiki - She's working for the student organization Students for a Free Tibet. I'm excited about her work - she'll have to be more self-initiated as it's more 'they'll tell me what they want as I go'. She has some good ideas - I told her to be keeping an inventory of everything she'll be doing, so she'll have a clear record by the end of the year. I also helped her set up a few more specific deadlines for the projects she does have notice for.

Jesus- He is creating ITA 30 second commercials for 4 different units. He is working with Marc Pedone and Jesus. After sitting down and talking with him, he now has a clear plan of his due dates. All of the commercials will be due by the holiday luncheon. They are to have their scripts done today and begin filming next session. They are supposed to have draft one of their videos done by Novemeber 21st and will continue editing December 5th. Ann suggested to the students that they should individually edit a different software to be most productive and then give each other feedback. Currently, each of them are writting a separate script.

Williams - He is doing an ITA logo redesign. His tasks will include a new logo, t-shirt options to vote for during the winter luncheon, an ITA powerpoint background, and a new brochure. Ann tried to explain to him that this new logo is going to stay and needs to be professional. By next session he should have 4-5 different logo options. Williams needs to be pushed him with due dates to get him to work .

Tenzin- He is doing a Flash animation for something medical. The details are unclear, and he needs to talk to Ryan. Tenzin e-mailed Ryan today. Then he is going to start his flashcard simulation. Tenzin talked to AJ, but the details are unknown and an instructor needs to check in on him.

Peer editing for fun and profit, staring the senior class

In Felipe's and Eliza's class, we spent a large part of today doing peer editing for our proposals. Everyone was incredibly focused and was able to read at least two other student's proposals. We talked about why peer editing is useful: not only can you really help out the other person, but you can get good ideas for your own work when you see a variety of examples.

After peer editing, everyone incorporated the changes suggested and then began actually working on their projects. Some students have a pretty clear vision already and were able to dive right in and begin working. Others needed some more coaching and guidance, but everyone made at least some progress. Most of the period, everyone was working on various aspects of the projects.

Speaking strictly for me, I am really excited to see what the students are going to do.

• April is making a tattoo portfolio.
  
• Marc P. and Danny want to make commercials for ITA programs.
  
• Briana is going to make a personal website.
  
• Antonio would like to create a website to highlight his professional modeling.
  
• Ruben and Mark T. want to make a creative video that demonstrates what might happen to the Earth if the sun and the moon disappeared.
• Pao and Tenzin T are working on designing an informative website about the H1N1 virus.
• Sheng is making a personal portfolio website.
• Gabriella is working on a website to display the artwork a local artist.

It should be quite an adventure to see what happens between now and the end of the school year!

Session 3 - Proposals a Million

A lot of what we're trying to stress during the Senior Capstone sessions is that the students' perception of what ITA was to them will no longer work for their individual projects. They are used to a system where we lecture to the students, the students explore, and we quiz them. What we are trying to demonstrate is that they now have to take their skills and show independent drive via projects that will demonstrate to others their growth both as an ITA graduate and as a person. Our role as their capstone advisers is to help them troubleshoot any problems that will come up during the cultivation of their project and to help them become more attractive candidates for any sort of employment in the future.

Many of the projects currently being undertaken by the students heavily feature web design for local non-profit community groups. Many of our students feel the most comfortable with with their skills using dreamweaver and photoshop, not so many with flash. However, one student would like to use flash skills to help design an educational game. In general, our students have been largely self-sufficient by doing their proposals and portfolios on their own time.

It becomes hard to accurately blog what happens in our class as our time is spent largely as an independent study group. As the students start to progress further with their proposals and projects, and better yet, develop more content, these updates will get more exciting. Some questions to take away as instructors for this session:

1. How best to modify the "class" to offer the most help to the students, while preserving their sense of independence as capstone students.
2. What sorts of assignments, or landmarks should be placed for the students to respect their different projects, yet keep everyone on the same page of progress.

We're Cool (and, we are also really HOT) Like That! 10-10-09

Today was a very productive day in Felipe and Eliza's room. The first thing we did was to ATTACK the Learn@UW Quiz. Then we downloaded our portfolios from the web and worked on them for the first hour. Everyone was working on different projects for their portfolio. We all worked on various parts of our portfolios until about 1:45 and then A.J. and Felipe talked about goals for working on the Capstone project at home.

A.J. told us about how he started recording music in high school and how that eventually led him to be working for ITA. He also shared an analogy to help everyone get motivated: ITA is like water in a pot and each student is like an electric burner on the stove. At ITA, the instructors can make sure that the pot is there, that is doesn't have holes in it, and that it is full of water, but only the students can turn on the heat and make the water boil (and then make spaghetti or rice or something else wonderful)-- which means that only the students can take advantage of this opportunity and use it to its full potential. Everyone then blogged about the analogy that A.J. shared.



The very last thing everyone did was to finish their proposal and email it to the course instructors. It seems like everyone is getting interested in their projects and we are all excited to see what everyone does.