Today’s Plan:
- Review Project One: Answer Questions
- Discuss Herrick: Survey Your Questions
- Homework
Project One Questions
Your questions. My answers.
Dowe pick all one job category type (like 15-20 TW/E jobs) or do we try to pick 15-20 that look interesting and that we would realistically apply for?
In my head I would pick two categories of jobs that you would realistically apply for–say 7 of one category and 8 of another. That will give you some overlap, so hopefully there’s patterning in your data, but also some measure of breadth.
Will we workshop our data as a class or should we compile that on our own?
Can we have someone else look over our findings about the job ads to see if we missed anything?
Here’s the (new) plan: on Thursday, I am going to give you 2/3 of the class period to get work done. I’ll come around and ask everyone how they are doing. On next Tuesday, we will peer review projects in class. Projects will be due next Thursday.
I expect everyone to produce their own data on 15 jobs. You are free to use the data for any job in the google doc. Think of the google doc as sharing labor. I am also ok with you teaming up with someone to produce one table. Collaboration is good.
What sort of numerical data should appear in the table? The number of times each skill pops up?
Yes! I would think the table might report the top 10 skills that appear in your ads. You might break it down further: what are the top 3 technologies, professional capacities, and personal characteristics that appear in ads?
So this is a project proposal on “how to learn a skill in 3 weeks,” right? To apply our own experience in learning it in less time, to teach someone else?
Does the skill we pick have to be from the coding scheme, or can it be more specific?
This upcoming project has two major purposes: first, to share the research I’ve outlined above (what skills appear most in a sample of 15 job ads?). You will then use that research to justify the proposal–the skill you want to learn in three weeks. In our next project–project 2–you are going to evaluate the tutorials you use to learn that skill, and then write up your own tutorials (potentially–we’ll see how much time we have).
Let me talk a bit about what I mean by “skill”–this doesn’t necessarily have to be a technological skill. Let’s say that a lot of the jobs you are interested in require you have Organization skills and Time Management skills. Ok. How can you *document* you have those skills? What professional technologies and tools are used in those skills? (This reminds me that I meant to teach this course using Slack for all communication). What kind of deliverables can you produce to show that you have mastered those skills? Perhaps you could write a medium.com article on how a time management tool helped change your life. I think it is harder to show that you have excellent time management than it is to show that you know how to use Photoshop. BUT maybe you want to do a bunch of Photoshop tutorials. Your deliverables could include finished tutorial pieces. And, maybe on top of those, you end up using Photoshop to (re)design a poster (well, you’d probably use InDesign for that, but whatever).
What type of language should our proposal consist of (i.e., professional, conversational, etc)?
Hmm. This is a difficult one to answer. For some reason, the first thing I thought of was that scene in Pretty Woman in which the hotel maitre’d asks Julia Roberts’ character “who are you?” and she responds “who do you want me to be?” Honestly, I’m not sure who I am in this scenario.
My second thought was to say “use a professional tone.” But is that helpful? What is a professional tone?
Herrick’s “An Overview of Rhetoric”
I am interested in hearing your response to the question: what is rhetoric? I have my own response to this question.
Homework
Let’s talk.
