The beginning of class was a usual beginning to the class with a little talk about the project and the issues everyone seems to have with the project. I think this could have been avoided if we would have started the project ahead of time to help weed out some cobwebs. Everyone also sucked at the requirements analysis, oh I wonder why, that is because the Wikipedia page sucked. No one in my group could make a clear decision as to which “Requirements Analysis” section we needed to complete.
This project has been more of a pain in the ass than I originally thought it would be. I just wish we would have discussed the project more throughout the semester about what the report will look like, what does it need to have in it, and so on. Before class a few of us were outside the classroom discussing our individual team’s feedback.
The speaker we had come speak to us today was very interesting. He was from the Department of Geography at Penn State University. He works in the GeoVISTA part of the Department of Geography at Penn State University also. He looks at geography in text, which is a very interesting topic in my opinion. He showed us a program called SensePlace2 which is a cool looking program that takes all the tweets about a certain query you place in the search box and then it shows a map from all over the world looking at that certain query.
Check out the video on this site about SensePlace2 to see how it works. I think that PSU should publish this program to the public or figure out what they want to do with it and who they want their end users to be.
Like your group, my group sucked at the “requirements analysis” and was even more confused once I read the example on Wikipedia. I also felt like it should have been discussed more in class. As for the speaker we had on Monday, I thought Dr. Robinson was one of the more interesting speakers we have had all semester. The GeoVISTA lab he does research for sounds pretty interesting. The sensePlace2 was a cool technology; I would mind seeing how it turns out in the future. Seeing what the pros and cons come out of it- Whether or not it goes public or in only for private users, or maybe one for Penn State University. I feel like this technology could have a real big impact in the future. For example, he said he knows someone in the FDA that has about two hours to make a decision on which food shipments to search. With the SensePlace2, his job would be much easier and hopefully save a lot of people from getting sick or food poisoning. I could also see the SensePlace2 not going anywhere, like Dr. Robinson said himself, he does not care what it does he is simply developing it for science.
ReplyDeleteI definitely can understand your frustration because our group has been dealing with very similar issues. Discussing the project earlier in the semester would definitely have helped minimize many of the problems we are currently dealing with. However, we probably should have expected that things would not run as smoothly as we may have liked, considering this is a brand-new class. Regardless, I think it is important that we keep in mind that advancements need to be made in the humanitarian system, and we have the opportunity to help positively impact those changes.
ReplyDeleteInstead of approaching this project as individual teams focusing on individual technologies, I think it may have made more sense approaching the project as one large team. This would most likely increase the chances of an idea actually coming to fruition. Essentially, we would be substituting quantity for quality. If our class had a single goal in mind, different teams within the class could work on pulling the various pieces together.
As for the last presentation, I also found the application, SensePlace2 to be quite awesome. It was pretty interesting to hear that Penn State officials have already asked if they could use the app. I think this kind of addresses your last point about who they want their end users to be. The thing is, in many cases, we can only really predict who are end users will be.
When it comes to our project, for example, talking to people about our ideas is important to do. However, just because who we see as our intended users, do not think our idea will help, does not mean the idea is not worth pursuing. Our intended users may simply be thinking differently or incorrectly comparing our idea to existing technology. I mean, if we are truly suppose to make something “new,” how can anyone really know if it will or will not have a beneficial impact?
Evan, I know exactly what you are talking about with the project. I feel as though this entire project process has been very disorganized and none of the students never really knew what to expect from this entire project until a few days ago. I don’t like how any of this was set up, but thank God we had to start the project early and do it in sections because if not we would have waited till later and been boned. We basically are at the stage now where we interviewed a professional in the field and are now attempting to expand the project in a new direction because we are a little stuck with what already exists and what is currently in effect.
ReplyDeleteI actually came into class an hour late that night because I was getting x-rays done on my broken finger. So I basically missed most of what the speaker said, but from what I have heard from other blog posts he had some very interesting things to say. I am still not feeling very good about this project and I hope we get some sort of extension for Thanksgiving break because I am out of school mode already.
Evan, your blog post was as usual very informative and interesting. I am pretty sure that I agreed with you on most of the things that occurred during last week’s class. The video that you posted on you blog was also very interesting and I also think it should be made into something useful for Penn State students. Overall, I thought you blog post was pretty solid this week buddy. You told it how it is and that is all there is to it my friend. Let us crush this project this weekend. Nighthawk over and out brother.
Evan,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your up-fronted-ness (uh, don’t think that’s a word, but still) about this project. It really is frustrating and it seems as if all ideas my group is having are either adding to the noise of the hundreds of other tools out there or just plain useless. I agree that perhaps we should have spent more time discussing ideas and purposes for the tools we’re creating so we would’ve had a clear vision by now, because everything is still quite murky. I think we also tend to focus on more global problems (i.e., will the UN ever use this??) versus more relevant, realistic issues like is this something that people will want and need. We are the guinea pigs for this class, so perhaps for the next SRA397A, there could be more of an integration of reading scholarly materials and discussing project ideas *as a class* along the way. It’s a lot to deal with all at once near the end of the semester.