DECO1800 Course reflection 

Meeting expectations:

From first blog 

Based on what I know of this course, I expect to be doing advanced website design and construction(advanced javascript and php) this semester.
I want to learn/experience/do more complex website that involves using multiple functions that can fetch data from database and also more functionality with javascript and php.
I’m worried about being weak at coding with javascript.
I hope that I can improve my javascript and gain heaps of new knowledge ad advanced features of the website coding languages.
What are your expectations for this course?

I'm expecting to meet new people in the course while completing the task with a group of people, which means cooperation skills and at the same time, develop great coding skills and being able to create advanced featured web page.
Frankly speaking, after finishing DECO1400 last semester, i found that i am capable of coding some basic website and understand most of the website that's available. But this semester, i'm hoping to be able to construct really useful and 'more-function' website.

My current thoughts

I really did advanced javascript this semester and started learning php. However, as php is not the focus of this course and it’s not required to be used in our project, frankly speaking I did not learn much about php. But my javascript coding ability has been a giant leap from last semester. I successfully retrieved data from databases (with the help from tutors) and more vigorously I have them displayed on screen accordingly and based on google map API, which I could not really imagine back to the start of the semester. Also, another expectation met is working in a team to develop website. It has been a really painful process when you realise you are the only person in the group that take the project seriously. And after all these process, not only did I managed to finish the project nicely, but also I managed to motivate everyone else in the group to work too. Plus, my css skill improved heaps when designing my own portfolio. We cannot use templates for portfolio, so developing our own portfolio structure and style take ages, but rewarding in terms of enhancement of css coding ability. 

I did not revised my expectation during the process of taking this course, because I do not even know what lays ahead of me and how could I overcome them. But by the end, everything just worked out and it had been dreadful but I gained a lot. 

Learning across the course:

During the 13 weeks study, I studied mostly on workshops and it covered pretty board content: JavaScript data retrieval code, use of api, setting up and accessing personal zone & group zone, use of photoshop & illustrator and more design principles and so on. 

But what I really get out of this experience is JavaScript coding (data retrieval), understanding of API as well as how to use it, setting up and make use of my personal zone and group zone. For photoshop and illustrator, interestingly, I did not learn much from my workshop session but I learned to use Photoshop during my group project, when I have to use it to create interactive user instruction. And I realised that it is not always what is taught that goes in my mind but the things that I have used. 

My team project was not as smooth at the start, people are not working on the tasks they should be working on, which made me pretty frustrated. However, after my building up all the basic website frame work and essential data retrieval task, they gradually joined me, coder helped me with coding and non-coder helped with documentation. This experience has been really helpful and important as this is exactly how I motivate my teammates and push my group project onto a higher level. 

Changes to improve your experience of the course (both internal & external, personal & institutional):

The assessment of major project part A and B are not as good as expected and I accepted that as one result of my group not cooperating well. But major project part C is expected to be better as we worked and cooperated better at the final stage. However, all the results of assessments are not as important as what this experience has provided me with. And I am grateful for this experience and my teammates and most importantly my tutors and lecturer. 

DECO1800 has been a good course, however, it can be improved by constructing a peer review session as a differences in mark within a team so that people get scaled to different level according to their contribution. Also, the lectures are not always relevant to the project we are doing, making it pointless because we are not going to memorise the things that we do not use. For workshops, I believe it’d be better if we can have more compulsory of doing tasks that are relevant to the learning objects.