Birthdays and Projects

Yesterday I celebrated my 26th birthday, which was a lot of fun. I was happy so many of my friends were able to make it out to celebrate with me. We went to Tasty Burger in Harvard Square. It was great to be able to relax and catch up with my classmates, some of which I haven’t been able to see as much do to our crazy schedules.

I’m also so happy about the nicer weather. It’s starting to finally feel like spring. The sun is out, the grass is turning green, and flowers are starting to bloom. I had never experienced a “true” winter like I had this year, and I definitely noticed a shift in my feelings once spring came around. I just feel so much happier. I notice it in other people as well when I’m walking outside – everyone is smiling and looks so happy.

There are only 2 weeks left of classes, which I find incredibly crazy. Time has passed incredibly quickly.

I’m really excited about the projects I’m working on. In my Advanced Design Studio course, I’ve been learning Bootstrap and responsive web design. I know so much more HTML and CSS now, and have even learned a bit of JavaScript. For my group project in that class, we are building a website that aims to connect educators and developers in order to promote the creation of quality educational technology products. It’s really awesome to see how much our design has changed over the course of the semester, and how great it is to see our initial sketches finally coming together.

In my Universal Design for Learning class, my group has been working on making a working prototype of UpTell, a project I worked on at the HGSE Hackathon last semester. I’m the media person, so I’ve learned a lot about putting together creative briefs to guide marketing and promotion efforts. I’ve also had a blast learning new video editing programs like Premiere Pro and After Effects. I’m creating a video that showcases our site’s features, as well as other mini videos aimed at creating awareness about our site.

In my Entrepreneurship in the Education Marketplace class, I’ve been learning how to take an idea and create a business plan for it. My partner and I came up with an idea for a math technology product that uses student interests to generate individualized math content. So, basically if a child was really interested in sports, he or she would receive practice problems and simulations about sports. In a couple of weeks we’ll be pitching our product idea to our class at the Harvard iLab!

Finally, in my Transforming Education through Emerging Technologies class, I have been working with my friend Nick to create an augmented reality game for EcoMOBILE. We were able to field test our initial game a few weeks ago, and now we are in the process of revising it to create a finalized version.

Needless to say, this semester has been incredibly busy with projects in addition to searching and applying for jobs – which is why I have been so bad about updating this blog regularly.

I’m feeling so many emotions lately – excitement, nervousness, happiness, sadness – I’ve had such an incredible time here, have met so many amazing people, and now this experience is approaching its end. It’s so surreal!

I’m so incredibly grateful for the opportunities I’ve had here. It’s been such an awesome year, and I can’t wait to see what the future holds.