Change of Plans

As most projects go as you dive deeper into a project you see what will work and what wont work. We found that the better bet for us to get the 10 hours fulfilled would be by changing our project to focus on Linux terminal. Currently we are exploring the different ways to teach Linux and the benefits to using a Linux operating system over other systems. The system we plan to teach on is Ubuntu and we will go from installing the system to basics uses and then if we have time move into advanced uses of Ubuntu and the Linux terminal.

Learning Module Project: Update 1

So we've gotten the most critical step done in our project, picking our topic. We decided on University of Reddit. It is a free website on Reddit that lets people teach whomever is interested about anything. Its actually pretty interesting to see all the different topics that are available to people. They expand into everything from science to history to music and everything under the rainbow. Its a good way for people to get solid knowledge for free its just to bad that the world only cares about degrees from schools that you pay for. Regardless I think it is going to make a pretty good project.

Learning Module Project

So this week we started a project for the semester. We have to design an online learning module. This is going to be interesting, last semester we had to teach a computer seminar for the first level of the class. Now though changing it to online is going to be a challenge to format it in such a way that it is useful and easy to understand to whomever wants to use our module. I guess we'll see how it turns out in a few months.

Working Together

In class this week the topic has been brainstorming. As individuals and as groups, we worked on the best possible ways to come up with the best ideas. Although not the first time we've done these types of activities it does transfer over to over classes. Many of my other classes this semester are group project oriented and we use these approaches everyday in class. So although an old sometimes forgotten skill it is still a useful one.

Career Fair Time

Today the business and technology career fair was held at the Columbia Convention Center. There was tons of fun and interesting employers like intel, BMW, and a particularly interesting one called cube. They are a company that does 3d printing and they had a bunch of models on the display. Ive read about the 3d printers before on the internet but this was the first time I've seen them in person. Overall a good career fair!

The Modern iClicker

In class 544 today we did something fun I've never done in any of my other classes. Something that id like to see implemented into all of my classes. It's like a modern iclicker, my teacher used to this site that let her create polls and let us text in our answers to the site. It anonymously created a live view of peoples interests and answers to the polls created. It was nice because it let you send in an answer in many different ways. From your computer, your phone, even twitter and for once it worked unlike many other technologies like it. It was fun and it kept everyone in the class participating in the conversation and I think if more teachers did something like this they would get the students to gather more information.

Entry One - Me!

My name is Mike Armstrong currently I am a Junior at the University of South Carolina. I major in Integrated Information Technology and plan to graduate in the spring of 2014.

I created this blog as part of an assignment for one of my college courses. Throughout the semester I will be posting entries of things I find interesting that are related to the material in my course.

My college career had been pretty typical for about the first year and a half. Going to class, hanging out with friends...you know college things. Then in the spring of last year I was bored and my parents told me I should look into study abroad. Luckily for me if they hadn't said it when they did  I wouldn't have been able to fit it into my course load. Living in Rome, Italy was the best six months of my life. Up's and down's traveling with friends getting stuck in foreign countries I couldn't have asked for a better experience. After this life changing period I gained a second love. First had always been technology, its the reason I got into information technology in the first place. Second is traveling after that time I got the travel bug and its all I want to do now. Which has pushed me into the direction I am now; Back at the University of South Carolina working on finishing my degree I was able to attain in Internship that combines my two loves in life! This summer I will be interning with State Department working at the Consulate of Naples in Italy.

Well thats just a little bit about me for now. There will be more in the next few weeks and months as the semester progresses.