September 30, 2008

CECS 5210 - Project Analysis and Planning

Weeks 5 & 6 of Project -- Analysis, Design, and Development...

-Collected Requirements from Primary Client and Secondary Client.
-Met with SMEs regarding administrative procedures.
-Met with Student Services to gain Campus Tour script.
-Spent hours on Campus Website collecting URLs.
-Reviewed Staff Employee and Faculty Handbooks.
-Designed "Surviving your First Two Weeks" presentation
-Used Metaphor of Children's Programming to address categories of needs
* Mr Rogers Neighborhood -- people you need to know
* The Electric Company -- essential tasks
* School House Rock -- Academic specific info (grades, courses, textbooks)
* Sesame Street -- Important places on campus
* Where in the World is Carmen SanDiego? -- Putting the department in context
within UNT and the City of Denton
-Designed "Surviving your First Two Weeks" checklist
-Used Timeline structure -- Day one, day two, day three...
-Scheduled meeting with client

New Client - Learning Technologies Department

Originally, for my CECS5210 class, I was going to work with a professor to redesign and enhance her Blackboard course shell. Unfortunately, after the analysis phase, this project did not materialize. So, 3 weeks into the project timeline, I found myself starting from scratch, looking for a client. I made my way to the professor's office to explain my situation and hoped that it wasn't too late to still pull out a decent grade in the class.

What transpired next was a boon of fortune. My professor became my client. Before I had time to really think about the implications of having the person grading me also being my client, we were off and running. It appears that much like other places on campus, their department has little in the way of formal instruction for new faculty members. Most of what is learned by a faculty member in their first two weeks has come through finding the right person to talk to, asking questions of several people, wandering around aimlessly on campus being redirected to various locations, and shear luck. (Ok, there is also the official Faculty Handbook of the University but that doesn't address those "where is the library, how do I get email, what classes am I teaching, who's in those classes, and do I have wireless access" questions.)

My new project is "to create a learning tools to help new faculty members survive their first two weeks on campus".