Hello World! The time has come to write my reflection and create my presentation video, thus ending my senior project experience. While this was not the usual senior project that I’ve witnessed the seniors undergo every year, I still believe that was a very valuable project to be able to make the most of. I was lucky enough to be able to host one of my community service outreach events and have pictures and information from it; most of my friends had not even started their 20 hours of community service! I am proud of what I was able to accomplish with the new project guidelines, I got to teach kids how to program with Scratch, interviewed two experts in my future career field, and wrote a research paper about what I love: programming. Not being able to do a real presentation is both great and disappointing for me. I love being able to dress up and get up in front of people and speak about all of the work I put into my project, but I also am so nervous about public speaking. I tend to speak too fast because of it as well. The presentation video is the best of both worlds in a sense. Nevertheless, I enjoyed my senior project experience thoroughly and am grateful for the knowledge I gained along the way.
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Hello World! Quarantine is a very interesting experience. I am finding it difficult to motivate myself to complete all of my school work while not being at school. The days blend together and it even seems like time does not exist anymore! My parents work from home now and I feel like I’ve never spent this much time in the house when we are all together. It is taking a lot of getting used to, and I am constantly mourning the loss of my senior events. It just never seems like there is any good news anymore. It is very comforting to see my teachers try so hard to give out their assignments and adjust to this unpredictable situation. Their consistency and new sense of increased understanding for their students is one of the things I am most grateful for. It allows for me to keep some sense of sanity and normalcy in this somewhat apocalyptic world. I empathize with my teachers as well, it must be so difficult to switch all of their lesson plans to fit the new digital methods of teaching. I hope this ends soon! I want life to go back to normal, yet I also know that there will be a new “normal.” such sudden changes on a global scale is bound to create some new trends and cultures that will stick with us for the long run. All in all, I hope everyone is safe!
Hello World! I have completed the draft of my research paper. I am truly proud of the work I’ve accomplished and the extensive research and knowledge that I expressed in my paper. Some of my paragraphs are very long and seem to just run on and on with information but I could not figure out how to best split it up! I think I split up the other paragraphs well, however. The last paragraph was supposed to be “the answer to our research question,” but the results I got were confusing. While it is true that learning to code improves cognition in children, even learning to code requires a certain level of cognitive and logical understanding. Consequently, that got me thinking; does learning to code help your logic skills or does learning logic skills help you become a better coder? I actually brought up this question with my interviewee, Sunil Gopala. He thought about it and came to the conclusion that it was both, and related it to the “chicken and the egg” question. Discussing with him about this seemingly catch 22 situation gave me new insight on how nitpicky the world of coding really is. Programs can be broken down to the absolute specifics and even the tiniest blocks of code can create the biggest changes, and I find that so fascinating.
Hello World! Unfortunately, Covid-19 took over and forced us to cancel all of our events that we had planned. They are releasing more information about our situation as it arises but as of now, all gatherings must be cancelled, and our senior project events fall under that category. School has also been cancelled for a few weeks, but the uncertainty of even that situation is definitely the worst part. I was actually really looking forward to being able to teach students more difficult aspects about coding, such as html, CSS, JavaScript, and Python, and I was especially excited about hosting the hack-day event for the students to present their projects. Now that the stay at home order has been issued, there cannot possibly be a way to fulfill our community service requirement for our projects but I am sure that the teachers will be able to come up with some compensation and salvage the most we can out of this project. For now, I will focus on writing my paper and having my mentor and peers proofread and edit it and having it be the best it could be. I am truly disappointed with our current situation but the world is being taken over by a deadly virus and we all must do our part. Hopefully there is good news to come soon!
Hello World! I conducted my second interview today with Sunil Gopala, a software engineer working for the local government in Pittsburgh, California. He moved to The United States from India in 2002 and because of this has extensive knowledge on STEM college experiences and career experiences and how they differ between the two countries. He elaborated on how different resources and platforms can change a coding experience and the skills needed to execute the program. His interview and the information he provided really opened my eyes to how large the world of coding truly is. I plan on utilizing his interview in my essay in the paragraph discussing how university STEM classes can better prepare their students for the workforce due to the extensive resources they have available to help their students. The senior project was the first time that I had to conduct actual interviews to use as sources in a paper. I find this method so interesting and helpful! You are able to create questions that directly tie to your topic and gain information so much easier and quicker than spending hours researching about one small detail. Talking to experts in the field of study that I have chosen for myself gave me valuable information on what my future as a computer programmer could look like.
Hello World! My partner, Jocelyn Thai, and I hosted our first coding lesson community service outreach this weekend! We were joined by our mentor, Mr. Kell, and his son Jacob Kell. The focus of the lesson was Scratch Programming.I was surprised at the turnout, all 20 participants who signed up showed up! It was fantastic to see the children (and some of their parents) work to learn how to use scratch, follow the tutorials, and really express their creativity with the almost unlimited features of Scratch. Throughout the lesson, I helped several of the children and was able to gain a small insight into their thoughts and how they understand things. They asked me questions about how to do certain things with their block code on Scratch and explained to me their ideas for their projects and I was impressed by the level of complexity and creativity they were expressing. This led me to think about the articles I read and how Scratch was a helpful introduction into computer science at a young age. We asked the participants a couple questions at the end of the session, asking them to reflect on the lesson and if they would continue to practice and explore Scratch and programming at home, and their responses were promising! I cannot wait to continue teaching kids to code and watching them learn and grow.
Hello World! I have begun the search for my research sources! Turns out, my topic is a lot broader than I anticipated, and it is difficult to find articles that target exactly what I want to target. I am currently reading and annotating “A Theory of the Relationships between Cognitive Requirements of Computer Programming Languages and Programmers’ Cognitive Characteristics,” which is written by a group of Phd level computer scientists from the Department of Computer Information Systems at the Southwest Texas State University. Their article delves into the several types of programming languages there are and how each affects the brain and the level of cognition required to learn and fully understand each type of language. Another useful article I found was “A Study of the Effect of Block Programming on Students’ Logical Reasoning, Computer Attitudes and Programming Achievement,” by a few computer science researchers from the Department. of Computer Science at the University of Taipei. Their article explores how Scratch and Code.org, coding platforms for children, affect the way children think and understand basic computer science principles and their interfaces. Both of the articles seem extremely beneficial to use in my paper because of the vast amount of information they contained that tied directly to my topic.
Hello World! After a few hiccups with my mentor situation, I found James Kell, a computer scientist who works at the Health Plan of San Joaquin. He was very knowledgeable about coding, programming languages, and the growing technology of the world. I conducted my first interview with him on February 27, 2020, and I asked him several questions along the lines of “how did you first get into coding and programming,” “how much of your daily job involves coding,” and “how were your logical thinking abilities affected?” etc. He gave me very valuable information about programming and the skills needed to learn it. I am unsure of how I want to fit in his interview into my research paper, however. I have not really thought about how I want to structure my paper and the different topics I want to cover. Computer Science is an extensively large field with several different branches and occupations, but my research question focuses on programming languages and applications to learn computer science principles at young ages, so that focuses me in the direction of computer programmers and certain languages and their effects on a child’s cognitive development. I can’t wait to start writing after a bit more planning!
Hello World! I have completed the letter of intent and have gotten it signed by my teacher of choice, Mr. McGill. My letter of intent took me much longer to write than I originally expected — I was not expecting it to be so difficult to explain my project to someone else in a clear and concise manner. I knew that I understood my project perfectly and believed I had accounted for every requirement, but I needed to demonstrate my plan to the approval committee. After getting my letter approved, I knew I had to start thinking about my research paper. Although I have not found any articles or sources to look into yet, I believe that looking into the program called Scratch (a gaming program that teaches coding to children), and their reasons for creating the program will help. Their program and games and lessons are geared towards children, so I feel that research done for their company and the development of their program will be contributable to my own research paper. I know that the research paper is going to take a long time and much more effort than I can fathom at the moment, but I cannot wait to do it and overcome it successfully.
Hello world! This is my first work log of my senior project. I am super excited to get started on the paper, and especially the project. Although my partner and I seem to have everything worked and planned out, there are a few issues that did not cross our mind during the brainstorming process. As a result, we still have some kinks to work out and some more things to finalize and then we should be well on our way to a successful project. My project and paper focuses on this main question: How does early exposure to coding and computer science affect students’ abilities to critically think and influence the choice of going into the STEM field? I picked this topic and question because I started coding when I was young and I have noticed a difference in my problem solving skills, and I am very interested to see if Computer Science has helped anyone else! My question is not currently worded and phrased the way I want it to be, but I think I can refine the question and narrow down the focus as I complete the paper and plan the project. I am extremely excited to plunge right into all of the work!
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