Project Update: Challenges and Problem-Solving

As I near the date for submitting my first draft of my final project, the challenges make their appearances in various ways (like they always do at this stage). As mentioned last time, my goal was to focus on the creation of my activities to best facilitate the teaching of the content I am presenting on Indigenous methodologies.

I am still working on this goal as the challenge is how to best convey this information for my target audience (upper divisional undergrad students) without overwhelming them with knowledge that is often covered throughout a year or even in graduate studies. To resolve this, I am making sure to check my progress with family and friends, people who do not have the same background as I do. By getting this kind of feedback, I should be able to critique my activities so they are understandable even to someone without the background of my desired audience. I will also want to get feedback from those of my target audience so I can gauge if I have drifted too far off base or if I am staying on target with what they feel like they should be learning at target stage of their education.

Another challenge I am facing in how to best present my site and content. Although I went with a WordPress blog site, I am starting to think I should conduct a limited experiment with Omeka to see if that can accomplish what I am hoping to see with the appearance of the site. My storyboard idea has helped guide what I initially wanted, but platform restrictions can certainly change plans. Fortunately, I am experienced with Omeka enough to be able to set up a quick test site to see if I can accomplish what I want with that platform while maintaining my current work on the WordPress site. I will also solicit feedback from others to gauge the direction my work should go.

A final challenge is one that I’m sure my fellow students are also encountering. Particularly when there is a need to lay down important foundational information, the advice of keeping the project small rings louder. A project like this can get big. And while big isn’t bad, per se, it isn’t appropriate at this time (for it can always be expanded later). I am working on maintaining my focus for a small but quality type of project. To do this, I am constantly reflecting on the previous projects produced by students of this program to see where they could’ve expanded, but made clear decisions to limit their scope so as to keep the project within acceptable bounds.

The first draft is due soon. We shall see how it goes!

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Kyle

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