This week was all about presenting our hard work from the whole semester. We had presentations in front of professional urban planners on Monday and Tuesday, a work day on Wednesday, and then exhibtion on Thursday. I felt the presentations went very well, even though one of the days hit us with a bit of a set back by not having one of our knowledgable presenters. Personally I wish there were more questions asked so my group members could test their understanding of the project, considering that is where I saw a lot of room for improvement within my group. Although we only had a day to improve based on suggestions from the first presentation, I think our group really excelled in the presentation aspect of this project because of the personalities within the group: lots of the outspoken type. Although exhibition didn't go quite as planned, it still bad. Some things were unchangable with the time given. Something I was really proud of, besides the presentation, was the fact sheet. Lauren, a very great group member, made it, along with images that Colby, a very strong tech group member, made. I think it lays out our idea beautifully. To me the best part of this project was getting to draw out my idea for the whole semester and showing my groups members the place I grew up and really diving deep into the different perspectives, which is always interesting.
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This week was all about preparing for our final presentations and exhibtion. The beginning of the week was mostly indivual work on each of the products that needed to be done. Thursday and Friday were all about coming together as a group to work on our presentation that woudl soon be shown to the professional urban planners. The practice runs of our presentation went really well. One thing that I think some people in my group struggled with was knowing the idea, which honestly was very irrating to me and Lauren (another person in my group who knew the idea) because we had been living it for the past semester. The fact that we had been doing this project for almost the whole semester and my group members didn't even know the idea well enough to just talk about it with no script. Personally I feel like that's what the presentation should have been about, talking from knowledge and experience. However, my group members did not seem to be as involved with the ideas of the project than Lauren and I were.
This week we were given a layout of howthe last few weeks of the semester will go. Seeing this schedule definitely improved the quality of work because there were so many deadlines that had to be met, and not a lot of time. I think it kept all of the groups more on task and more focused on the end goal. To achieve all of these benchmarks, we split up, by skills, on who would work on what. A problem my gorup found outselves running into was that there was a lot of tech products that neeeded to be finsihed but not enough people who knew how to use the technology. Also, the the tech products take a long time and as you can tell, time was not on our side. Another problem with online work in general is that it is hard for more than one perosn to work on it because the work is not shared equally. Despite this, I thnk we handled it well by challenging those who were the best at photoshop and iMovie to create to the bets of their ability. This week we needed to wrap up the research we had done and start relating it to our own idea, by creating the fact sheet and tweeking our idea based on the places it was previsouly done. We also had a very good presenter come to our class and talk about what he has been working on. I think a big takeaway form his presentation was the slides and how just a little movement can engage the audince's imaginations. With a lto of visuals, it helps the suidence understand the idea better and creates that future vision. Another thing I noticed wihtin the presentaton was that you need balance in your plan. Some ideas require taking out some parts of the community so you need to ensure that whatever you add in place of that will benefit the community more so than whatever you took out.
This week was short yet eventful. The election took place on Tuesday and a big portion of Wednesday was discussing the results, not just in school, but at my practice, and at home for sure. This election has definitely had a split reaction throughout America, and I've been able to see those affects take place in my life already. A lot of the school had a fearful and anger expression when they came to school on Wednesday, while only about 2 or 3 of the students seemed generally happy with the results. That goes to show the main views of High Tech High, and obviously California in general. Speaking of, on Thursday we had our annual college day trip with our advisory. My advisory and 2 others, went on a bus up to UCLA for a few hours. While there, we attended a peaceful protest where many students and teachers got to speak their minds about the elections, telling everyone who attended to not just accept it and acknowledge it affects more than just themselves. Even though the empathy of people usually tends to come from personal experiences, many people seem to forget that everyone is affected by this presidency in some way. Here is a video of the UCLA protest or rally with a political science professor speaking : This week was essential to the project and personally, a very engaging learning experience. My group took our questions and interviewed locals, homeless, vacationers, and business owners in Ocean Beach. For me, it was like a look into different lifestyles and perspectives in a way that also related to a community feeling. We took in the area for more than just the stereotype that is passed around, and looked deeper into our main focus which is inclusion for homeless population in Ocean Beach. I felt a connection to the people when they spoke so passionately about the area, especially our first interviewee, who was a homeless man who "is just trying to get back on his feet." I really felt his words and his story in what he was saying and wish I could've interviewed him for longer. Week 8 ReflectionThese weeks were the true beginning of our project. We took a field trip to Balboa Park to go in the Spanish House. A very knowledgeable man who was actually from Spain talked to us about the history of Spain within the USA, which I learned a lot from. The most interesting thing to me was the currency that the Spanish used when they came to America. They had a coin and if thy wanted a half or quarter of a coin, they would cut it in half or fourths. Week 9 ReflectionAlong with a field trip to the Spanish house in Balboa Park, we pitched our ideas for how to improve our neighborhood. These 30 second pitches gave everyone a chance to see which ideas would be most affective. From there we chose our 7 favorites pitches which would be the driving idea for the 7 different groups. My idea idea was one of the 7. My pitch was "How might we generate a more inclusive feeling without destroying the culture/inner beauty of the neighborhood?" Originally, my idea was to open the community of Ocean Beach more to non-locals, but there seemed to be a bigger problem with exclusion in the community within the locals. Homelessness is a big population in OB and is essentially a part of the culture. However, they aren't very included in the community and most locals choose to not interact with them. The motive then became a way to include them in the community without making them feel at a different social status then home-owners. After knowing I would be a leader, I had to pick my group based on skill sets. My group is definitely a mix of different skills and different interests so it is very diverse. We have some challenges to overcome but hopefully we can come together to produce beautiful quality work.
In week 6, we did a scavenger hunt with a group of 4 around Old Town/Little Italy/ Downtown/The Embarcadero. We got to see the city and the communities as well as become more knowledgable within the areas. We were challenged to problem solve and collaborate with our group, with the competitive factor included as well. This taught the class a lot about teamwork, while also preparing us for a product that we will create during the semester. As far as teamwork goes, spending a whole day with the same people, in a semi-familiar area, being tasked with challenges, becomes tiring and overwhelming. You learn a lot about the people you are in a group with, as well as yourself. Something that went well with our group was that we all felt comfortable enough to say what we were really thinking because we are all good friends. If I was in a group with unfamiliar people, I feel like we wouldn't be as successful. A problem we did encounter was the balance of fun and competitiveness. Time wasn't as big of a factor as we played it to be, and we didn't take many breaks for ourselves to get food or just rest, so we were all pretty tired and annoyed by the end. We finished in first as far as time, but as far as points, we didn't do as well. This was one of the maps we used to help around Old Town, while also using the people who worked there as resources.
This week we went to the San Diego Historical Center and the Archives of San Diego. The achieves were very interesting to me and it was hard to only have about an hour to look in there because I felt like I could read the old articles for hours. The pictures were fascinating as well. Looking at the changes and putting together the differences in buildings, helps develop a sense for what the community would be like then, and what it is like now. In addition to learning about our community, we were able to appreciate the area of Balboa Park for it's history and for what it has become. Something that really struck me was an article I found in the archives called "Ocean Beach: elitism in tie-dye". It was about something that I have definitely noticed within Ocean Beach, which is that it is not the most popular beach in San Diego. This article kind of gave me an idea of why. The locals of OB wanted to preserve the area, while business owners wanted a better way to attract more population for the business's benefits. It was proposed to build a boardwalk so OB would be more appealing. The home owners wanted to keep it as a gem, so to be seen as a work in progress to outsiders. Reading this helped me get a better understanding for the culture the OB has today and how that may have been established and built upon.
This week we delved deeper into our neighborhood and the facts behind the members of said community. We researched the races/income/education/housing. We looked at our community as well as the one we explored the first week. Mine was Philadelphia. Something I would be interested in looking more into is the ages of people in the community, as well as more about the families, such as single parenting, amount of children, people who live alone. This assignment was really interesting to see the difference between two different cities, as well as compare the communities just within a city. Something I felt went well this week was the trip to the library. I liked seeing the environment of the library as well as the outside environment. The experience was very eye opening to how the expanding of downtown will easily affect the small neighborhoods and communities. I felt I was able to connect my senses and surrounds well to the project and the possible solutions.
This week felt very accomplishing and I didn't really find an area of growth related to this week. I think as long as I stay on track and engaged in conversations/assignments, I will continue to build knowledge and thinking skills. |
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