To be honest I started a week early, I knew I was going to have a busy week with mahi so I thought I’d get a head start. The week leading up to the 24th I was just in preparation mode, making sure my laptop was all set-up for the work ahead. During that week, final week of Boot camp for our in campus students. This is generally one of the busier weeks as we prepare for student showcase and try finish of marking students assessments. This time there were looooads of students yet to complete work. It’s ok tho, we manage to get everyone through. Day of the showcase is usually long, prep the space, students prep themselves for their presentations to family and friends and speeches. What a drag. Overall it was a good evening. Next day could sleep in a bit as I was heading to Gisborne with Caro and Dougal to meet Kane and Renee at the Tairāwhiti start up weekend event, each evening when we return to our motel I’d spend a couple hours doing Sprint-1 work. Run it past Dougal to see if it’s good. Monday first day of PTBC and I was already well prepared. I’d finished most of my reflections and created my html file to begin my blog. I had to slow down a bit as there were tasks that needed the help of my fellow Pikopiko whānau. Caught up with Lani and John, they are our facilitators, Lani had asked to wait until atleast Friday to make a pull-request as my mates were still in set-up mode. We had our first home group hui on the 26th, I was meant to be in Wellington but had missed my flight. My fault I didn’t grab my guitar the day before. Anyway, it’s been a good week, half way through Sprint-2 just messing around with CSS a bit too much I think. I’m gonna look in to that log in Sarah from Harakeke cohort sent me and try practice some JavaScript.
Anyway that’s it from me for this week.
Logging off.....
This week was cool. We’ve had a couple more people join us throughout the week. I’ve been working through Sprint-2 which I should be able to send for marking this week. It’s been good fun working through Sprint-2 activities and completing my reflections. I should finish this by Wednesday at the latest. Getting loads of help from everyone and it’s been pretty cool connecting with the other students and trying to help them out or just talk with them. JG is crack up and homegroups have been cool. It’s sik that things are connecting all goods, I mean concepts. I want to try some stretch material. I’ve been adding extra pages to my home page and everyday I get a little better at reviewing my own code lol it’s crazy learning that Whiti is learning Python at kura I wonder how Ahmad will feel when it let him know. I still want to use Sarah’s log in to practice some JavaScript. The language is getting easier every day.
Anyway that’s it from me for this week.
Logging off.....
This week has been a lot of fun and a whole lot of reading, watching YouTube, connecting with facilitators who have been such a massive help with everything. Lani has helped soo much with my code with code reviews and such valuable feedback. In this Sprint the biggest thing that I wanted to work on was making my whole blog responsive. Without the help of Lani I think I would've been hitting my head on my desk or something LOL but even she acknowledge that some of my initial bits of code was given her a sore brain but she was determined. Big week with mahi as well. Had a big staff meeting which I reckon ruffled some feathers and then Auckland was hit with another emergency alert due to heavy rain, Auckland under water again. The next day it was gone, worked from my apartment that day due to staff parking situation, worked on some bits for our students they can do Human Skills reflections easier. Thursday was our first Deep Dive for this cohort which I felt went really well apart from a bit of a hiccup towards the end. I swear the notes were just not making any sense. At the end of the Deep Dive one of the students asked if they could look at my notes and even they said it was confusing, I believe it may have been because that section of the Deep Dive is a bit of dialogue between myself and my ol work mate. Anyway I just winged it and it was sweet. Students went for a walk and talk which I think is a really cool finisher to Depp Dives. Friday was chill, we did Friday check-ins with students after mindfulness and everyone contributed which was sik! Anyway I will ask Lani to check my sprint 2 mahi tomorrow and see what she thinks of the work I have done this weekend.
Anyway that’s it from me for this week.
Logging off.....
It has been a fun week this week. Work and Foundations have been enjoyable. This week after handing in my Sprint 2 work I went and started on some introductions to JS, wow! Now why I said it’s been fun is because of a couple reasons,
1. It’s been a challenge comprehending what the live tests are asking for and,
2. I found myself in a code flow for the first time,
The challenge, some of the tests are asking for hypothetical answers, where I was trying to give the test exactly what it was asking for which was not actually what the test wanted! Big f’n LOOOOL but thank you to the bro Jared for clarifying this and walking me through the challenge, the flow was a combination of a couple things. Having fun with the intro to js and getting stuck! I was trying to sort myself out but getting nowhere but that was ok, it’s all learning. At work I have started doing 1 on 1 catch ups (check-ins) with students in the current cohort and the messages currently are coming across as a they commonly would. Things like self doubt, not understanding concepts, not asking for help, and the most common of all comparing themselves to others. Since doing this type of work for nearly over a year it’s something that I have seen or heard quite regularly. I try not to advise the students as much as I can but just a kind reminder to ‘be kind to yourself’, some have fixed mindsets and some growth but in the end this is an intense journey for the students and they eventually work it out. Deep Dives have been good and the whole thing which is what I really wanted to test for myself was balancing work and PTBC. At this stage it’s pretty smooth but who knows what will come up next? Only time can tell. Anyway on to Sprint 3 next week. Omg can’t forget lol Lani was in the space on Friday and we had a good catch up, we had a face to face feedback session and it was really cool! I believe it was a first for her even hehehe soo spoilt I am. Hopefully we get to do this again sometime. Thank you Lani for all your great feedback, support and tips.Anyway that’s it from me for this week.
Logging off.....
There were a few challenges this week with work and I wasn't able to make as much commits to my studies as I usually would, even so I was still able to complete challenges. I completed the intro to JS, Variables, Functions, Objects and Arrays were pretty straight forward. As for Loops and Conditionals OMG! There were a couple instances where I found myself stuck for long periods of time during the last two exercises. In these instances I asked my colleagues if they could assist me as I was getting a liiiittle bit frustrated, if I can be honest LOL I made my way onto a video call on Discord as I was working from my apartment on this day. Jared said to me 'I can't see your code, can you zoom in for me? and just as I was zooming in I had to stop and say 'WAIT! I can see the stupid typo' What else can you do but laugh at the situation right! the same happened another time but this time I was in the office and Johnny was helping me this time, as I zoomed in on my code suite for Johnny I was able to notice the typo! WTAF!!! Hahaha all my hold ups were dumb single letter typos! I want to say that I am getting better at noticing them now but that would be a lie.
A couple other things happened during the week with our current Tāmaki cohort and I feel like the team really wrapped around and supported each other. With these kinds of things I feel like we learn a lot about how to manage things in the future, everything is a lesson big or small. This I feel is a better way to see things rather then stress over it. Proud of the team.
It is now that time of the year where friendships are divided in a fun way, where we support for a team that is not even from our own country. The Gold & Maroon vs that Ugly Baby Blue colour HAHAHAHA This year will be fun! A new young team for the state of the Maroon & Gold. UP THE MAROONS!!!
Anyway that’s it from me for this week.
Logging off.....
Not much has changed in the past week, I feel like I have been challenging myself pretty well throughout the challenges and learning JavaScript has been a challenge on its own. At the end of Foundations I want to dive into some js courses online as I know this will come in handy for when we begin Bootcamp. I have noticed that my conversations or conversations I hear are becoming a little bit more familiar every week. I have been sitting in on the current Bootcamps recap sessions in the mornings, sometimes these create more questions and sometimes I will spot something familiar. I completed Sprint 3 on Wednesday which was handy as I had Human Skills Deep Dive the next morning. It was a good distraction from the craziness that comes with learning how to code, the rabbit holes were getting deeper! I swear I nearly made it to Wonderland HAHAHA! This weekend I just wanted to chill and give a couple of the stretch goals a go for the JavaScript Cafe challenge. On Saturday I went to WinterGEDDON with my sister, WOW! I got my nerd on but damn there was soo much people. I spent money that I should not have on top of that this pay week there were a lot of things that came up that needed to be paid (hand to my forehead). Other than that it was a good day, even though I only lasted 2 hours plus. Cosplay everywhere, people just put in soo much effort it was amazing. Sunday completed two stretch challenges but I wasn’t really satisfied with the way it went. I see why students question their abilities when it comes to learning a new thing. This week for sprint 4 we will be learning about Neuroplasticity and Growth Mindset, I feel I will need some of these tools in my belt for foundations. Lets see how it goes.
Anyway that’s it from me for this week.
Logging off.....
This week was full of learning, lately the core content I have been reading and learning about in foundations has been aligning with the content I share in my Human Skills Deep Dives. I have been making the most of this awesome opportunity by getting students from the current Full time cohort to reflect on these learnings and basing questions and mahi around their discussions. Recently I helped the cohort understand a little more about Te Whare Tapa Whā and revisiting the cohorts well-being plans. I let them reflect and make any necessary changes to their plans. I feel like this was helpful to them.
Also this weeks core we covered Neuroplasticity and Growth and Fixed mindsets. Even though I have witnessed how much this impacts students who come into the full time intense programme, it was still a good reminder from one of my fellow colleagues that 'even though we can find it easy to teach these concepts to students it is sometimes harder to put it into practice ourselves because we feel it should come naturally'and don't get caught in that trap. Lately I have been finding that I am missing co-facilitation, and how lonely it can be even though I have plenty of friends and support around me, I really enjoy co-facilitation and bouncing of my friends when doing Deep dives, but! I don't let this affect my mahi, I just get my shit done. Focus has been good and I am really enjoying my students weekly reflections. Very insightful and a lot of growth from all of them.
This week I felt it important to take a well-being day for myself. I felt like I was getting sick, thankfully I didn't get sick. I just had a really good rest from my laptop for 3 days, this is why my post is going live on my page on Monday and not Sunday hahaha but you won't notice that if you are reading this.
Anyway that’s it from me for this week.
Logging off.....
This week was tough, I come across some preeetty tricxy little challenges. I got myself caught up in a challenge that I didn't necessarily need to spend so much time on. But it's ok it all worked out. I actually leant some cool little techniques that I want to start implementing into my daily routine. One of these is the Rubber Ducky Method, yeah I know right!? I was confused too until I asked a fellow colleague what they meant by this? Basically he picked up this little toy car off my desk, placed it in front of me and said 'talk to it!' I was confused lol trust me I thought he was being cheeky about it hahahaha but he spoke about the concept of speaking out loud when you are feeling stuck, hmmmm sounds funny but I said I'd give it a go. So now I have this cool little figurine of Sasuke from Naruto sitting on my desk at my apartment. We will see if he can help me out when I get stuck. Other than that its been really cool speaking with the students from the current Auckland cohort and hearing their point of view on things, lean in to not being able to understand everything has been the messages that have been coming from them. Something I would have to try remember.
Anyway that's it from me for this week.
Logging off.....
The first week of sprint 5, it took me a couple days to actually get into the challenges. I feel at the time I wanted to complete all my Human Skills check-in's and marking the students trello boards. It hasn't worked out that way at all. The last phase of bootcamp gets really busy and I find it hard disrupting students while they are working through big challenges like Multi-days and preparing for Final Group Projects. Also during this time they work on other things like Personal Projects and other challenges that personally I am looking forward to doing myself.
Over the weekend I worked on the Sprint 5 challenges, I watched a couple videos and done some research while doing the challenge like tic-tact-toe which was fun. I changed the HTML from using a table and changed it to div tags. In the whack-a-mole challenge I noticed we use a table anyway hahaha but that's cool. I stayed up late completing my reflections for sprint 5 but I still have a couple things need completion, one of those tasks is to update my Learning Plan
Anyway that's it from me for this week. One week to go :(
Logging off.....
Link to my final reflection here
it's hard to believe that it is the end of Foundations but I look forward to the next 20 or so weeks. But that clown was still giving me grief lol JUST DRESS UP CLOWN hahahaha but keen for the future.