e9 Semester 2 Final

     During this last quarter of e9, we have been working on a project with a group of four people that may not have been in our original class. Our groups were created based on our personality tests that we took at the end of third quarter. On the first day we were told to brainstorm a problem that we have or see in our world, or seek similarities among our different personalities that we could build a project off of. From there we made a team/company name and a product that we were going to spend the next four weeks making graphics, animations, a commercial, and a website for. Our product was the Tele-Pack, a backpack that is enhanced with teleportation. The Tele-Pack is both voice activated and works with your phone. We thought that the Tele-Pack would be the perfect solution to students' aching backs and air pollution by other transportation machines. Below I have included the material included on our website:

Our company logo:

Our product logo:

Our ad:

Our coupon:

Our web banner:

Our 2-D company animation:

                                     

Our 3-D product animation/demonstration:

            

Our commercial:

            

     The main challenge in this project was our personality differences. Some of us were more outgoing than others so we had to make way for each other to be able to receive input from all of us. However, I liked this challenge. It gave me an opportunity to collaborate with all different people and see how the different personality types can benefit and counter each other at times. I learned that this is an important thing to remember even outside of this class, you may not always agree with everyone, but that is because everyone is different in their own way. Sometimes you will have to work harder to get along but once you get through the hard part of getting to know each other, things might not be as bad. I also got a little stressed when we started getting to the last few days and still had work to do. I took too much on to my plate when what I really needed was help. Then, we talked as a team and spread out the work evenly between us an everything turned out fine.

     During this project, we all gave each other feedback on our work. I learned that we needed to speak up and show more confidence. We also found some flaws in our website that we promptly fixed and resulted in a really successful presentation.

     My overall opinion of this projects that it was a great learning experience but also a lot of fun. I learned teamwork values that I will continue to apply to my life. I really enjoyed using all of the computer skills we learned this year to make one big project it was very rewarding to finally see it all at once during our presentation and see what others thought of our product.

     We made pretty good use of our time during class on this project. In the beginning, we decided as a team that we would still continue working even if we were missing a team member or two. We agreed that if we didn't get everything done in class that day that we would schedule a before of after school time to come in and finish up. This plan worked well and we only had to come in early to tweak small things on the last few days. On days where we finished early, we checked and double-checked that everything on the website was working smoothly and that we had all of our requirements.

     My strength as an e-Communication student is that I am open to ideas. I really like to collaborate with others to see how their mind works compared to mine and how we can incorporate our ideas together to make something truly creative. It is fun for me to try multiple approaches to a concept and select from the group which one fits all the needs. I strive to give everyone an equal chance while working in a project. I really want to hear what everyone has to say, I don't want anyone to feel uncomfortable around me, just to feel like they can share their deepest, richest ideas. That is how I contribute to making a team what it is. An area where I need to improve is being more vocal. While my teammates give their input, I need to give mine back. However, while I do this I have to remind myself not to overpower the others. During this project I improved on this by remembering that my team members wouldn't judge me because they wanted to hear my thoughts as much as I wanted to hear theirs.

     This semester I loved seeing what the other teams in first hour e9 came up with and how they wanted to change the world. I especially liked seeing how everyone grew together and became friends over this whole year. The only part I would change is just getting a few more minutes to practice our presentation individually in our teams so we really know what everyone is sharing. My goal for next year is to produce even better work, and strive to make more friends and stronger relationships.