Personal+Reflections

Personal Reflections:

Drew Whitaker:

For this project my group (myself, Max Brown, and Justin McKenzie) created a wiki for the protests that occurred in the late 1960’s at the University of Minnesota. Originally we planned on making a clay-mation video, but due to time constraints and the difficulty of drawing meaning we changed our project to a wiki space website. The hardest part of this project was getting an idea for due to the endless possibilities, but once we decided upon a wiki and the protests the process started going much smoother. We planned out what information we wanted to convey and assigned tasks to members of the group. My assignment was to create an overview page for a description of the events leading up to the protests as well as what was happening in the rest of the US. I also wrote the about the aftermath of the protests, how they connect to the books we read, and how they portray and add to the legacy of the 1960’s. Everyone also had the task of doing am annotated works consulted and this reflection, which I completed as well. Max and I also formatted the wiki and created its design. After starting all my tasks I offered help to people for ideas and suggestions on their tasks, and I feel like Max also reached out and offered his help and services to Justin and myself. The main challenges I personally faced were finding resources, mainly primary, to use for evidence in my writing. I was able to overcome that challenge though, and once I had my resources collected I was able to start writing and the whole process in general went much smoother. Personally I am pleased with the product that I created. I feel like I have good evidence for my claims. I am most proud of the conclusion I wrote as well as what I wrote for the legacy of the 60’s. I was able to find a very good quote from one of the books to use in my assessment of how these protests fit in and help define the legacy of the 60’s. I am not as pleased with the complete group product though. I know that I did more than my fair share of the work, and think that Max did too. I also extended a helping hand to anyone in the group and tried to make sure everyone was on task. I was disappointed that when a group meeting was called for Tuesday (14th) to make sure that everyone was ready to finish our project that night and talk about possible ways to present our wiki, Max and I were the only ones there. The only thing that I would change about our project is the group cohesion. Although we started out on the same page the deeper we got into the project the less communication was made. Which I feel is not that big of a deal due to us all being high school students, we should be able to make sure we do our specific tasks and have them completed by the deadline, as well as be able to seek our for help when its needed. Nearing the deadline although, it became apparent that that was not the case. I could justify that trying to make more communication within the group would be what I would change at the end, but I think that enough attempts at group communication were made to where at the end of the project everyone should be held accountable to their direct contributions to the wiki, and that's what the majority of our grades should based upon.

(580 Words)

Max Brown:

In our (me, Drew, and Justin) final project on the Vietnam protests at the University of Minnesota I feel that some things went quite well, while other floundered like a fish out of water. Overall I feel that the project went fairly well. I am quite content with my work in the group. I feel that I was able to accomplish a good interview (even though my interviewee was convinced he didn’t remember anything); I thought I did a good job on the wiki too – I think I did my share of the work. I think that the thing that was hardest for me was really getting started. We were first really liking our claymation idea, but due to the short amount of time we had, we realized it wasn’t going to be in our best interests. So, we decided on doing a wiki. The other thing that was difficult for me was finding sources. I already had one primary source with my interview, but it was difficult, especially as Drew had taken the one good link I was able to easily find. For our group overall, I feel we had several shortcomings. In the beginning, we were working out well together, Drew and I easily designed the wiki in a class period, and we were all supposed to meet at the history center over Thanksgiving break, however, that fell through due to time conflicts, and the possible impending snowstorm. After that, the whole thing disintegrated a bit. I did try to reach out Drew and Justin, which was partially successful at times. With this disintegration, I feel that the work load became unevenly divided. The manner the wiki was updated was also haphazard as well, which managed to cause a kerfuffle at times, and I think it would have helped if we had made some sort of schedule perhaps, with general due dates to finish things by. Also, On the Tuesday after the History exam, there was a meeting, although only Drew and I were present, it still was quite helpful in what it accomplished. Drew and I were able to figure out a game plan for presenting the project, as well as what needed to be done that night before the presentation. Overall, I think our project went well, although there are two things I would change about it. One would be us having more time. I think if we were allotted a little more time, and we were also better at getting going, I feel that we would have been able to do a good claymation. I also feel that we could have been more connected as a group. It seems that our plan was basically “here’s the wiki, write your stuff on it”. I think we could have made a list of things each of us had to do, and also create a schedule. It also would have helped if we collaborated more on our pages, instead of going lone wolf on them. I feel it would have created a better overall value to our project, and it would give us a chance to proofread as well. However, I feel that both Drew and I especially made efforts to contact one another, whether it be on the phone, facebook, or just finding each other in the halls. I think this shows that we really were not able to connect very well as a group, and that it strayed from group work at times, and more towards solo contributions on the wiki. However, I think that we did a fairly good job, compared to what some other groups struggled through.

(605 Words)

Justin McKenzie:

This project felt like a struggle for me and I feel like I held the group down by not having as much connection as Drew and Max did. The first problem was our change in subject, we revamped the project from a claymation short into a wiki that would be allowable in the time we had left. We had a clear idea, we would make a wiki with different pages related to the protest and its connection to the decade and the ideas at that time. I chose to look for police reports on the protests as police/national guard action was taken against the protesters when things started to go out of hand. The problem was after hours upon hours of searching google there were no records that I could find. From here on I felt lost on what to do. I met with Max before the end of week and came up with a plan that I would search for the paper archives of the protest and connect to those to how the media would show or spin the events of the time. Another round of roadblocks had this idea stopped in its tracks. After doing more online research there were only newspaper archives in Minnesota dating back to the late 80's. The next step for me was to go to the Minnesota Historical Society and to look for physical copies of the articles. Then the storm hit and it was impossible to leave Hastings and get to St. Paul. (Trust me I tried). Luckily when me and Max met earlier we discussed a fall back plan in case records could not be found for police files. Though I had it added at the last minute because me and Max were discussing ideas earlier I had something to contribute to the group. What we could have done as a group to improve the project was make a written plan somewhere on the specifics on who would be doing what. What we did was not really known by each other until it was up and when it was up we didn't really make edits to each others pages. Communication was a little tough for me as I do not use facebook and am not in the same grade. We had a meeting set up to make sure we would be completely ready for the project but due to conflicting times it had to be called off. There was another meeting on the 14th to touch up on the project but I didn't know about it and was not there. It sounds like I'm being completely negative but I think the project turned out really well. We have a nice little website that sums up the events and the connections to the time period in a variety of ways. It's a very clean-cut easy to understand way of explaining our subject. We will be meeting in the morning tomorrow to make sure everything is completely thought over and the entire group knows what to present. We had a lot of bumps along the road but we still made this happen.

(519 Words)