Week 7 Blog Post - My Personal Retrospective
My Personal Retrospective
What was the build that you are most proud of and why?
As I look back through the exciting weeks of this makerspaces course, I have learned a lot, despite feeling uncomfortable a few weeks before class started when our professor sent us a welcome-to-class email asking us to purchase the Arduino starter kit. To be honest, I contemplated dropping the course, but I am happy that I didn’t after all. Working in technology for the majority of my career in education, I knew just enough about coding to be nervous. I know that coding is a language, and colleagues at work program various software applications to suit our academic institution’s needs. If I had to pick one build that I am most proud of, it would be the first one, the blinking led. It would be the one that I am most proud of because it was the first challenge, and I had a choice to get out of my personal comfort zone and follow through with the course, thus, learning the Arduino circuit, components, and associated Arduino IDE coding software, or to give up. I knew that I didn’t want to give up, so I chose to do it and do it afraid, no matter what. Also, our professor permitted us to fail forward through these challenges. I know I was never raised to give up, and I wasn’t going to begin quitting now.Go back to your first week and read each submission with an eye for personal growth. Where were you when you started, and where did you end up?
As I progressed, the weekly challenges got more difficult as the weeks went; initially, I was very nervous and uncomfortable. Once I completed week one, and despite numerous issues and troubleshooting with the circuit, breadboard, and coding, I completed the challenge. I learned that I could do anything that I set my mind to do. I felt elated to meet the challenge and with success! The second week, I went into the challenge with fewer butterflies than I had the week before, which made me feel good. My greatest challenge learning the Arduino was with the circuit, the breadboard, and the many tiny components we were challenged to work with each week. My nerves settled down each week, and my comfort levels increased with each build. By the time we entered last week’s challenge, the Iron Chef challenge completing a circuit with motors, I had felt very comfortable and eager for the challenge.What did you learn that you didn't know before?
I learned that I have fears and disappointments, but not of failure. I always learn from my mistakes and have throughout my life, no matter what I am doing. The fear that I experienced at the beginning of this course was the fear of not knowing what I was getting myself into (if you will), even though I felt that I was safe in this learning environment. I also feared that I would discover that this learning concept would be one that I would not be capable of comprehending fully how to manipulate and configure the electronic components of the Arduino. Ultimately, I learned that I could understand almost anything I work at learning. Sometimes, despite being a slower learner than others, I am capable of achieving most goals I set out to achieve. Failure, to me, is not trying at all. In the end, I completed each challenge, and I learned from each challenge through this course that I enjoy the challenge of learning new things.How did you actually come to learn this new knowledge?
I came to learn new knowledge by believing in myself, reading the material necessary to complete the builds, and researching additional terms I did not fully understand through the initial learning material. I even went online each week and used Google and YouTube to read about the topic I was challenged with learning for that week and watch videos of others completing the challenges. Additionally, I communicated with classmates throughout the week’s build to discuss potential obstacles we may be encountering. A time or two, I felt like I assisted classmates with the challenges they were experiencing during that week’s challenge build. I found throughout the semester and working through these challenge builds that I enjoy using all materials, tools, and resources for learning. I enjoy learning, and I enjoy using the number of resources and tools that, earlier in my life, weren’t available to use to learn new things. Additionally, in my young life, much different from learning today, learning was one way, and it was not fun, and I would struggle and fail often. Years later, we have all learned that there is more than one way to learn things, there is more than one way to teach others to learn something, and that learning can be fun!What did you learn about yourself?
I learned that even though I’m afraid, it is best for me to “do it afraid.” Learning more about something increases your understanding and knowledge and eases your comfort levels in the process. I knew that if I used all of the resources, materials, and tools available to me, along with a positive can-do attitude, I would be able to learn and succeed at things I set my mind to learn and achieve, which is far from where I came from learning as a child many years ago. Learning used to be a huge struggle, it was in one direction only from the teacher to the child, and it was not intended to be fun. In addition, previously, it was thought that if you were slow to catch on to the subject being learned, you were the problem and couldn’t achieve much in life. Thankfully, I’m glad I didn’t believe it when teachers, nuns, and other educators told me (and many others in life, too) that I wouldn’t amount to much because I wasn’t learning how they chose to teach. I’m also glad that many other people didn’t agree with or believe it and realized there are many ways to teach and many ways to learn things. We are all better and more knowledgeable because of it today!Look at your words for each week and see how they might read if one of your students turned in that submission. What were you telling yourself about yourself?
As I read through my weekly blogs and reflections from our challenge builds each week, I can see where this student struggled. However, it is difficult to separate myself from the situation to completely state that I would otherwise understand this student’s particular struggle. I want to think that this struggle is unique. Still, I know that since learning has continued throughout time in addition to knowledge, skills, teaching styles, and student learning styles, among many other factors, there are young learners today that have not experienced the learning experiences that I and many others before 1980, thankfully. In addition, because I learned at a very young age that there are differences in how people learn, I am very mindful of the specifics and details of learning. I knew that I was struggling with the parts’ appearance and the pieces’ images as they related to my perspective. This incidental learning observation that I had at a very young age helped me identify struggles I would face moving forward through my experiences in the classroom until I graduated high school.Where did you say your challenges were?
Throughout the past six weeks of this seven-week course and working through the weekly Arduino builds, I identified my challenges with manipulating and assembling the circuit and breadboard parts. I had the issues primarily with my setup and electronic assembly because I am left-handed, and I view things and details angles backward often. The easiest way I explain this struggle to others is when sometimes, as drivers, some people identify themselves as directionally challenged. They struggle to read maps and directions and comprehend north, south, west, and east instructions. When I look at parts assembly directions, they are primarily instructions from a right-handed person’s perspective, which I am aware of. However, I still struggle with reading those images in instruction booklets. I learned this about myself from a very young age.I am an identical mirror twin; my twin is right-handed, and I am left-handed. In kindergarten, they were teaching me to use scissors right-handed and write right-handed. My parents and teachers couldn’t figure out why I struggled so much to learn those things. Again, this was in the early 1970s when there was only one way to know everything, and it was further complicated because I was taught at a catholic primary school by nuns and priests. My parents and the nuns kept justifying everything by stating that my twin sister wasn’t struggling to learn those same skills. I then told them that I didn’t want to hold my pencil with my right hand like the nuns/teachers or my twin sister everyone else was instructed. The nuns would even hit me with a ruler on my left hand on the knuckles every time I attempted to write with my left hand until one day; finally, my dad told the nuns that I was going to learn those skills with my left hand that I felt most comfortable with holding and using those types of utensils. From that moment on, I learned and knew that I would be additionally challenged at times to learn new skills due to that factor. So, when I opened up those tiny Arduino electronic parts and the positions of the led pins being a positive end and a negative end, and the way they appeared in the instruction images with the breadboard and Arduino circuit being positive and negative and the way that they appear on the pages, or nowadays computer screens, leads me to become specifically aware of the appearance of items and parts in relation to the way that I am viewing them. This is a struggle for me, and it continues to this day, but I am somewhat better with it these days because I learned that at a very young age, and I have never forgotten it. The struggle is still at times there, but the reason for the struggle isn’t always new to me.
Did these challenges change over time in the class?
These challenges did change somewhat over time throughout the duration of this course because I was aware of the struggles I have directionally as I learn to assemble parts, and they appear directionally one way in the instructions compared to the way I perceive the image object appearances even reading instructions on how to assemble furniture, for example, it adversely affects my assembly of the final product. So, having this foresight as I enter occasions in life where I am asked, tasked, or challenged with assembling parts for any such large or small building. The work of these weekly builds continued despite my personal comfort level increasing and my understanding of the processes. Either way, the struggle is real!As you entered the world of the maker, what do you see as your next adventure in the world of making? Is it to expand your abilities to work with microprocessors and move from prototype to the production of something fun and useful? Is it to see what you can learn about the world of 3D design and printing? Is it to see what aspects of making can be used with the younger children? It is to see what you need to do to bring your vision of a maker space to life in the real world? It can be anything.
As I entered the world of the maker through the gift of learning in this makerspaces course, I have learned that I enjoy coding and the challenges associated with Arduino circuits, so I see myself continuing to learn more about coding, programming, and how they relate to technology and educational technology in my current profession. I would love to challenge myself and my skills and expand my knowledge of microprocessors from the world of learning and fun to that of real-life production and useful applications in life. I would love to learn about 3D printing and design as I know those are the new and upcoming technology that go to areas in the field. In my career, I do not work directly with young children, but I would really enjoy sharing my knowledge and skills with my young nieces and nephews as they teach me things each day I’m with them. The things I have learned throughout this seven-week makerspaces course have better equipped me to share my vision of a makerspace with the field of higher education, where I teach and learn every day!
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