Portfolio: Weekly Blogging

Each week we want you to spend some time reflecting and helping others.

1. Reflect

Create a post on the forum with a brief reflection on this week of the course (see below for prompts/topics for each week)

You will be doing this each week and this forms essentially a learning diary for the course, which is part of the assessment in your portfolio evidence of the effort you have put into the course.

Some students find it helpful to make small/micro blog entries each time they do some time on the course, others just make a single larger weekly entry which they add to over the week.

It is useful to blog about anything you are thinking or doing which has some relation to the key course skills of teamwork, project/time management and artisanship.

If you don’t feel comfortable making the post public, you can make a private post on the forum. If you don’t wish for tutors to see it, you can write it in a private platform - however this will need to be made accessible to your marker via a link when you submit your portfolio, and the platform must have version history.

2. Help Others

Go to the Course Forum (linked in the course navigation on the left and filter by blog posts) and read three or more blog posts by other students and on each make a brief comment on your thoughts.

Be supportive and be helpful. You are not marking the blog posts - you are just commenting on the thoughts you have as you read their thoughts. Try to read at least two posts which have not yet been commented on by anyone, and give a like to the first (non trivial) comment by a fellow student on your own blog posts.

Tip: Encourage students to be reflective not just descriptive, and be personal (talk about themselves) and be specific (give concrete details and examples not just speak in generalisations).

Example Feedback on a Blog Post

(by an awesomly organised and up-to-date student)

you could make this blog post even better by having it be more reflective (rather than descriptive)
one way of helping yourself do this is to use I rather than we and talk about yourself.
e.g.
> learned about microproccesors and the machine code which programs
what did you learn about them which you found most novel and new? what was the most important new understanding that you got?

> although i only figured out the add function after a long period of time it seemed more rewardingafter finally getting it.
this has more detail which is good. you could also reflect on things like:

why did it take so long to figure out how to do the add function ?
what was the hardest part of the problem?
what led you to the solution?
what was your initial approach and why did it not work?
why did you find it rewarding?
were you tempted to give up at any time? did you? how did you manage to persist when you were finding it not working?
what was your approach - repeated trial and error? - researching it or solo? taking breaks? revising notes? asking for help on open learning?
etc

The weekly blogging comprises 35% of the portfolio mark.

Weekly Blogging Topics

You don’t have to write on these topics specifically, they are just prompts if you’re not sure where to start. You can blog about anything!!

Week 1

Class Activity

What did you learn or find insightful during your discussions on Software Engineering topics during the Week 1 tutorial?
Briefly write about your answers to one or more of the questions discussed in the class.

Goals

What do you want to get out of this course?
What skills do you want to develop and improve?
What do you think will be the biggest challenge of the course?

Week 2

How is Sprint 1 going? Have you run into any challenges or learning opportunities so far?

Week 3

How do you think Sprint 1 went - what did you bring up in your team’s Sprint Retrospective that was good, and that you want to improve on for Sprint 2?
How are you feeling about Sprint 2 / how is it going?
What element of the project are you most excited / interested to be working on this Sprint?
It’s often nice to have a visual memory of something in the moment. Share a picture of you and your team in a meeting (can be online or in-person).

Week 4

How is Sprint 2 progressing? As a team how are you functioning now you have a scope and deadline?
How well do you think you planned for this sprint? What hasn’t gone to plan, and why?
With all this rain it’s easy to forget that the sun and blue sky are still there hidden away! Share a nice photo of a sunrise or sunset from your camera roll. Here is Nick’s one - a photo of a sunset in Broome, WA.

Week 5

No blogging this week since the portfolios are due!

Week 6 - Wordless Blog

Since it’s flexibility week, rather than asking you to write, the blog post for this week will be slightly different.

A picture tells a thousand words. Share a picture or series of pictures that encapsulate your week’s reflection. (You are welcome to do a written post as well if you want of course)

Week 7

How is Sprint 3 progressing? How are you finding learning new technical skills and creating an application?
Do you feel you’ve improved as a team from Sprint 2 and learned from your previous mistakes?
If you had 24 hours left to complete the Sprint, what would the thing you focus on be?

Week 8

In the final Sprint, what are you most looking forward to achieving or working on?
What is one thing you want to change between now and the end of the project? (Can be about yourself, your team, how work is done)
Which team role are you? (see the lecture slides on Team Dynamics)

Week 9

This is the last blog post for the course!! (you don’t have to do a blog in Week 10 since the portfolios are due)

Reflect on the goals you set out to achieve in Week 1. Have you worked towards achieved them? How did they change as the course progressed?
Look back on what you thought the biggest challenge would be - was it that or something else?
What have you learned from the course? Pick 2 or 3 key things to talk about.
What are you most excited to continue learning about in future courses?
Include a picture of something - can be anything.

Well done on making it to the end of Week 9 - we’re almost there!!