CST 361S Technology Tutors

Update your learning journal from what you experienced this week with class/with your community partner.

How many hours have you completed to date? 

Include a 1 paragraph reflection on the Black Girls Code video.

This week, I was able to get to my volunteer site. I have about 26 hours as of tonight. My assignment was the same, repairing Chromebooks. I took some time on the first one, where I was taking some time to relearn the process. We were running out of spare parts for the model I am familiar with, the 11e. About a hundred Chromebooks were recently donated and some of those were being taken apart for spare parts. I am not familiar with the model they were taking apart. Chromebooks don’t all take the same parts, unfortunately. I want to continue volunteering while I look for entry level tech positions at schools and internships. I might even apply to do research at CSUMB, but I want to improve and rewrite my projects first. 

I met some students from CSU Monterey Bay who were siblings. I believe it is currently their summer break so they have a lot of spare time to do what they want. I asked the lady what she was studying, and she said Computer Science but she was planning on changing her major because she didn’t want that career. I didn’t ask specifically why, but kind of wish I did. I talked briefly with another student who was back to Salinas for summer from a college in North Carolina. I asked him how it was, and he said the college is fine but he’s experienced blatant racism in the town. If I got a job in the South, I would probably not be happy experiencing casual racism like that. Being called names and treated differently feels very bad to me, but I know its just words. It still hurts though, I think everyone has a similar feeling. 

The TedxKC talk by Kimberly Bryant was informative. I knew of other groups like Girls Who Code, Kode with Klossy, and Code2040 but I have not heard of Black Girls Code. I thought that it was a great program that can keep giving when its students can go on to teach and inspire others. I know some critics would say that it's divisive to make race-specific clubs and exclude others but this group is trying to remedy a specific problem, increasing the numbers of black women in tech. If the group was open to all races but only girls, it might not seem as welcoming to black girls if there are a lot of non-black girls there. Joining a group seems less scary if there are similar faces around. There are groups who cater to all races of girls like Girls Who Code. It's also possible to start your own program for a school if you want. It might take some time and patience though. When I was in high school, one of my underclassmen's engineering dad taught a Robotics 7th period course. 

CST 361S Technology Tutors

This week, I was unable to volunteer due to a wedding I had to attend. Our team moderated the forum this week. We learned about the difference between helping, fixing, and serving. The questions that were chosen mostly had answers on one side or the other. I was surprised at the results of question 3 where many students said that others should be called out when a person has the wrong motivations for helping others. I did not expect anyone to agree with that line of thought. It is a hard action to take if people are being hurt or underserved from a person volunteering and doing what they think is right.

CST 361S Technology Tutors

This week, I volunteered with LFC on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. I couldn’t keep track of my hours this week but it's around 5,5 and 4 I believe. So, a total of maybe 14 this week. This week, I learned how to repair Chromebooks, which was not something I knew how to do before. I learned how to do simple repairs like replacing a trackpad, then moved onto replacing screens, the tops, and bottoms of the case, the keyboard, and the motherboard. I enjoyed doing that work this week. I learned a lot and they were always simple repairs. Hopefully, I do something harder when I come back from my cousin’s wedding in San Diego in 2 weeks.

I talked with another volunteer who was from Monterey Peninsula College, who was finishing up his Computer Networking degree and studying for the A+ certification. I talked with my Chromebook supervisor who had some computer experience a long time ago but didn’t pursue it further. I told him about the different certifications he could take like the A+, CCNA, and Security+ after learning more about them from the volunteer from MPC. The owner of the computer store was waiting for a meeting to start in the same room and told us about the free computer classes that are offered to low-income residents.  

On Friday, I talked to another volunteer from MPC, a young Latina woman majoring in Computer Science and Engineering. I asked her why she thinks Hispanics and African Americans don’t usually major in Computer Science and she told me she thought they don’t because of discrimination in the workplace which affects their ability to get promoted. I thought it was an interesting answer. I believe motivation and what a person likes about their job/programming will explain why people major in what they major in. I asked my boyfriend’s parents who are both software managers why they liked programming. His dad liked programming because you can solve problems with very creative solutions that no one has ever thought of before. His mom liked programming because she could make useful tools for herself like calendars. Another volunteer I asked this same question to said that he liked that when he fixed computers, he could see tangible results and make people happy by fixing something important to them.

CST 361S Technology Tutors

Update your learning journal from what you experienced this week with class/with your community partner. 

How many hours have you completed to date?

On Tuesday and Wednesday, I did about 8 hours. Today, I volunteered around 5 hours. In total, I spent 13 hours volunteering. Today, I was waiting around for the site manager to tell me what to do and another person needed help with replacing         Chromebook parts. I told him that I don’t know how to do it, but he still wanted me to help. I was nervous because I didn’t know if he assumed I knew how to do this or not. He showed me what parts to remove and which screws to take out. I started on very easy tasks like removing a touchpad, and putting a new keyboard in. Later, I learned how to replace a monitor which was harder. Lastly, I learned how to replace the front cover and motherboard both of which include removing everything from the Chromebook to access the very bottom where the front cover and motherboard lie.

I felt proud of myself when he told me that other students shy away from harder challenges like replacing a motherboard on their first day doing repairs but I was able to do it in like 20 minutes.

On my last hour volunteering, I did some hard troubleshooting on a device that wouldn’t turn on. The issue could have come from a number of broken parts. I plugged it in, and tried to turn it on. Then I replaced the battery with a new one. Nothing happened. I replaced the monitor with a new one in case that was the issue. It wasn’t. Lastly, I replaced the entire motherboard with a new one. I connected everything and turned it on. That was the thing that was broken. I put the old battery and monitor back in and made sure they were working properly. Everything was fine after that. The only new piece was the motherboard and no new parts were wasted on it.

What images, videos, and/or information about your service learning site are you thinking of including in your documentary?

I have a few pictures of the back room and the computers I was working on today. In the future, I would like to ask a few other volunteers if I could get photos of them to put in my documentary. I think some interesting parts of my volunteering site are the giant parts room and the snack room. They receive donations of snacks and food so the volunteers can eat Hot Pockets or get coffee whenever they want. Of all the other places I have volunteered at for High School and College, I have never had free unlimited snacks and coffee.

CST 361S Technology Tutors

This week, I volunteered 4 hours at my service learning site. Last Thursday, I had an interview and orientation with my supervisor and was introduced to everyone in every room of the site. Today, I did my first 4 hours at Loaves, Fishes, and Computers. I started out removing RAM, CPU, monitors, and Wifi-adapter cards from the laptops. Some of them were older computers that had Windows Vista and were very heavy. For the second half of my volunteer hours, I erased and checked various parts of Chrome books. I learned how to check the battery life percent and use a website called keyboardchecker.com to see if every key worked. I was in a group of 4 at large tables so I was able to ask another volunteer easily for help when I needed it. Overall, I had a great time volunteering today. I am ready to learn more things tomorrow.

W8 CST 338 Software Design

They say hindsight is 20/20, what advice would you give to the next cohort regarding this course?

How much do you envision using the skills you gained in this course in your career?

Good job this session!  You are well on your way to finishing your degree!

Update your learning journal from what you experienced this week with class. 

I would tell the next cohort to keep up with your assignments. Its best to start the final project after Java swing is learned if you’re going to do your project or after Android Studio is learned. If you’re going to do Android Studio, do the tutorials on the website so you can familiarize yourself with it. I had trouble with the assignment from last week so it affected the amount of time I could spend on this assignment since the Final is worth more points. It’s good to meet up with your group on Wednesday or Thursday so everyone can get started early.

I learned how to use GitHub better and Android Studio much better than before. I will always use GitHub because it has all my files saved in one place since I am often between my desktop and laptop am interested in App development so I will probably use that one a lot.

W7 CST 338 Software Design

Have you ever created an app before, either for Android or iPhone?  How did it go?

Do you have any ideas for apps that you could create for recreation?  What about business?

Update your learning journal from what you experienced this week with class. 

I have made a basic app for a mini-hackathon using Android Studio about a year ago. At the time, I was using my laptop which is decent for most computer science homework but bad at running Android Studio smoothly or doing that database assignment that had like 10k data points to compile every time. I had major problems working with the constraints. I had never dealt with constraints in Eclipse window builder so this was entirely new. In the end, I think I only got a button to go to the next page with icons that were not yet implemented. I did meet some interesting people who went to the local UC here and have gone on to work at one of like two tech companies in Modesto.

I would like to eventually create an app that is like a Tamogotchi where it needs to be fed and played with or it will die. I also want to make a study app that I started at the previously mentioned mini-hack. The idea is that it gives you study and memorization related tasks and when you get a 7 day streak, you can buy your reward that you specify at the beginning of the week. In the end, you would learn many study skills and techniques like flash cards, flash cards using spaced repetition, Cornell notes, blank document technique, cheat sheet planning, and doing book problems even if they weren’t assigned. When students first get to college, many are not sure how to study after cruising effortlessly through High School, this would aid those students. Many other study apps rely on an hours over results mentality in an effort to make it a roleplaying game.