Final blog

Experiential Learning and Technology was first recommended to me from a friend who explained how they loved the class. I was looking to switch out of my C block class and it seemed to fit in my schedule quite nicely. I had no idea what this class would do for me until the very end of my journey. At the beginning of the course I had no idea what I wanted to do for my project. I knew I wanted to do something with food because I love to cook and bake etc. It was decided that I would express my food in a food blog although I was still searching for my own twist to it. After many classes of trying to figure out my twist it came to me, my blog would have themes to it such as a food theme would break off into a sweet item and savoy item for an example one week’s theme would be breads and I would make a sweet bread and a savory bread. A short time later I ended up transferring from C block to F block with TJ and Lindsay. I felt more comfortable in this class and more productive. In class I created an outline of what the themes would be and the food items I would make and tried to follow it throughout the semester, changing a few things here and there.  I created videos and took pictures for most of the recipes I made. Another use piece of this was the website, I had no idea how to build a website forget about making it look professional, but Wix really was a good website that provided templates and backgrounds and guidelines that made creating a website easily but professional looking. I struggled with getting my blog posts in on time and sticking to the date that I planned to cook my planned food items. Towards the end of the semester I was really stressing out because we started using planners to create plans for our project dates when certain things would be submitted, and, on the planner, I planned for my project to be done by the 29th of December, two weeks before the fair, incase I wanted to clean anything up or fix something. Thank god Lindsay’s project was not going in the right directions she wanted so she hopped on my project and baked a few things and helped with the website which was so helpful. We made a 4th project presentation a week before the complete due date and stuck to it till the end and proved we could do it. My result was not as great as I envisioned it, but it looked good compared to what I thought it would look like in my little time crunch situation I had going on. I faced quite a few struggles in completing my propjet. My main struggle was having the things I needed to be on time, be on time. I proved to not manage my time good and accordingly and how I should have. Another problem I faced was managing my time. If I just stuck to the date when things were due, then everything would have evenly spaced out perfectly taking a load of stress off my chest and allowing me to have more free time instead of feeling like there was a weight on me the whole time. Some strengths I brought to the project completion were my baking skills and cooking skills. It was so nice to do a project on something that I enjoyed doing in my free time and applying it to a school related topic. The fact that we got to basically run the class and create our own plan and project was an amazing opportunity and I loved having the class be student run. Another thing I believe I brought to my project completion was producing my product under pressure. I honestly feel like I do better in stressful situations where I know I must do something because there is no way out of it, otherwise I really have no other motivation unless I enjoy what I must do. This project has taught me that what you up in you will get out. The amount of effort that I put in was the amount of presentation I got out and that was an ok amount. If I managed my time better from the start, then I would have been able to have gotten better result. Again though, under pressure I was able to complete my website with pictures and the recipes and a nice-looking home page. I wish that it could have been more complex and professional but of that time I limited myself to have I would day it was a good product. During the project I did not really discover any strengths that I was unaware of. Some real-world strengths that I believe I gained from this class were communication skills. I like conversing with people even about the smallest tiniest things, but I just think I’m a people person. I know that honesty sound weird, but I really do enjoy talking to people and being friendly with people. I gained people person skills from this experience. I also gained time management skills. Me not getting my work done when it was due showed me that if I got it done when it was supposed to be done then I would have had more free time to do what I wanted or take more breaks without having the website in the back go my mind. The website really haunted me from the beginning. I had no idea what I was doing or how to builds a website whatsoever but again under stress I feel like I figured it out better because I felt like it needed to get done. Experiential Learning and Tech was and will be one of my favorite courses I have ever take and am so excited that I am back in class with Mr. Harkins and Ms. McLaughlin and can’t wait to finish out the year with them and TJ again in Leadership program