I feel like my biggest success in this course was creating a newsfeed for our app. I had never used dart before this course, and have really learned a lot as I worked on this app. It took me a long time to understand how to create object in dart. The syntax also took me awhile to get used to. After much time and learning, I felt like I got a much better grasp on how to use dart. Finally, I was able to create a fully functioning newsfeed for our app! This newsfeed uses a photo proxy that I created to retrieve photos from google cloud, and uses an API to fetch news stories from. It really turned out to be something I could be proud of. By the end of it, I felt like I really had learned a lot about creating objects in dart. I also feel like I gained a new confidence when using new technologies. I was a little nervous to use dart for our senior assignment since I had never used it before. But after this class, I feel more confident in my ability to use and learn new technologies.
SWOT Analysis of this course:
Strengths: One of the biggest strengths of this course is the level of projects required. This was by far the largest and most difficult project that I have ever worked on. I think this is a big strength for this course because it really pushes us to learn to use new technologies, and better understand what it takes to create a full stack application. Another strength this class has is the team factor. Working on an application of this size with a team has definitely been a great learning experience. I became much more familiar with GitHub and how to merge code with others. I also became much better at communication. I didn’t realize how much communication went into working on a project of this size.
Weaknesses: Truthfully I felt like there weren’t many weaknesses with this course. One potential weakness that one could experience is if a person were to get bad group members. This could be in the form of bad communication, lack of contributions, or completing work in an untimely fashion. Thankfully, I had a really good group for this class. I could see how one would be frustrated if they experienced any of the group issues mentioned above though.
Opportunities: I truthfully feel like this course is really good. As previously mentioned, I felt like the caliber of project really pushed me to learn more and get better at programming. It also taught me a lot about what goes into making a full stack application. I also think that the group structure is good for this class. I definitely learned a lot about teamwork and communication that I would not have learned if this class did not implement group work. I guess the only real opportunity I could suggest for this class is a larger variety of projects. I think there was a pretty good selection to choose from, but there could definitely be more. I also think students should get to choose which project they work on, rather than hoping they get their top selections from the survey. I don’t really see an issue with 2 different groups working on the same project, so not sure why we could not just choose our own. Other than that, I do not have many recommendations for improvement, as I felt the class was a great learning experience.
Threats: As previously stated, I do not have many negative things to say about this course. I believe the only real threat to this course would be if you were to get paired up with group members who did not meet basic expectations. If this were to happen, it would definitely affect the quality of the course for the group members who are doing what they are supposed to, and trying to pick up the slack for the underperforming team members. Again, I had really great team members so this was not an issue for me, but I do really think that it could make this class really frustrating and stressful if one were to be placed in an uncooperative group.
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