Wrapping Things Up

Project three turned out to be a success in the fact that we all came together in the end. Some of the group members cut it a little close and did not compile their information till closer to the due date, but overall we met together and did our 10 page paper, power point, and our pamphlet. In addition to project three, project four also turned out to be an accomplishment. Because our group put in the time and the work for project three it made project four a little easier. For project four it was mostly getting together the work from the entire semester and putting it into an organized binder. Also included in the binder we had the group’s reflective essays and also the final group paper. For our presentation we decided not to use the power point that we had used in project three, even though it was important, due to the fact that it did not emphasize the points that we wanted to get across. We mostly wanted and needed to talk about the progress, problems, obstacles, status, and overall view of our project, which we did not cover in the project three power point. So we decided to make our power point for project four simple and to the point. I had made a power point before that was more in detail and had more information but that power point was not used in the final presentation. Although the power point in our final presentation did not have much information on the slides our group knew what we were talking about and did not need additional aid in that sense. I feel that overall the project four presentation and the gathering of our material was a success and we did come together as a group and got the work done.

In addition I think that all of the work done this semester was a success, even though the road to success definitely had many ups and downs. Even though there was a lot of work put into this semester I believe that it was very worthwhile and taught everyone a little more about creativity, and also getting our their and getting a goal accomplished that is worth fighting for.

Bringing together project 3/working on project

Since it is the end of the semester our group is in the process of wrapping everything up. For project three, as previously stated, we ran into the issue of not having enough money to have the pizza party. The ideas that Dr. Morris gave about having a fundraiser was good but it is so close to the end of the semester that it seems like there will not be enough time to put it together. In addition to that there is just too much going on at the end of the year, such as finals and projects to start on making a successful fundraiser. Our group still feels like we did a good job and tried to accomplish the goal of making the bathroom a cleaner place. Although we were not successful in the final push we needed for the project, we hope that in the future maybe someone will try to finish what we started. 

In addition to project three, we are also taking what we learned from the semester long project and using it for our ideas for the fourth project. Our group decided to write a 10 page long paper, splitting it up into each person in the group writing two pages. Each person is taking an idea that relates to cleanliness in the bathroom and using research components to write their part of the paper. We are then putting everyone's main ideas from their section of the paper and putting in into a PowerPoint, which we are using as our creativity component. We felt that this would be a good idea so that we can use the PowerPoint to aid our presentation at the end of the semester and it would also be a good visual representation of what we have been working on. In addition to the PowerPoint we are making a pamphlet, which again will mostly be based off of the 10-page paper that our group has written. Our group thought it would be a good idea to have two visual aids represented in different ways. I am excited to be wrapping everything up, but the process has been worthwhile.

Project 1 Update

The project has been going well, for the most part, after we took some necessary changes in our project. We have stayed on the concept of throwing a pizza party for the hall who has the cleanest bathroom. Our group still likes this idea and want to continue with it, but there has been a minor roadblock in this plan. Last Tuesday Carly and myself went to hall council to give the idea about the pizza party. Carly, who is the treasurer, is in charge of all the costs and accounts that hall council has. The problem was that there was not enough money in the account that we needed in order to the throw the pizza party. This definitely posed a problem for our pizza party idea. Carly also talked to the building director about this idea once we had found out that there was not enough money in the account to have this party. We have not gotten much feedback yet but we are still set on this idea and will do what we can to go through with it. I feel that something we could do in order to get enough money for the pizza party could be to just come up with the money ourselves amongst our group. I feel that at most every person in our group would have to contribute $5 or more. Another idea that was brought up was to try to have the pizza party for the cleanest hall in another dorm. Since there are three people in our group from the same dorm, Cathy brought it upon herself to mention the idea of the party at her next hall council in her dorm. Once again we have not heard back yet about if it is a possibility or not but hopefully this can be our alternative plan. Our group is hoping for the best and we are trying to take the necessary steps in making our goal of the pizza party a reality. This project has definitely taught me a lesson in that it takes a lot of hard work to get any goal accomplished, no matter how big or small it is. I am just hoping that the efforts that our group has made will be appreciated and hopefully will be continued in the future.

Project 1 Update

From the last blog entry a couple of new changes have taken place in our project. Our main purpose is still to make the bathroom a cleaner environment. Instead of just putting various amounts of posters up and hoping that the students comply, and also conducting surveys, we came up with a better more concrete plan. Our new plan is to still conduct simple tasks to remind the students to keep the bathroom in better shape but we have also come up with a goal for the dorm halls. We have now gotten the janitors more involved. The janitors keep a tab on the events that happen in the bathroom. Whether it is cleaning up throw up or any other messes that is not in their daily routines. We have made a plan to check with the janitors every so often to see if anything, like cleaning up throw up has been reported. We will ask them about which halls have done what and see who has been the cleanest. The hall that has the best reports of the cleanliness of their bathroom at the end of the year will be given a pizza party. The pizza party idea came about after talking about what we have done so far in front of our comp class. Once we took that idea and made it our own we talked with the building director in our hall and started the process in making the pizza party a possibility. With the help of our building director and with the help of the money compiled by our hall council the possibility of having the pizza party was made a reality. Our group changed up our plans a little because we felt that the students have already been told to keep the bathrooms cleaned and have not responded to that kind of reinforcement. We felt that we needed to take it a step further and take a different approach to get a better response from the student body. With the perk of a pizza party we figured that there would be a better possibility that they would try to abide by the rules of keeping the bathroom cleaner. Also giving the hall with the cleanest bathroom a pizza party should be seen as a reward and maybe in the next years they could keep this contest a tradition. Hopefully this new approach will have a better affect on the student body.  

Photographic evidence/ Updates

Although many people did go home last weekend our group still did get the chance to collect some of our photographic evidence. Our evidence is compiled from two different dorms, but the mess and grime are still the same from whichever bathroom. We feel that we collected pretty good evidence of the points that we are trying to get across. The photos do a nice job of illustrating the points we have been addressing. It was good to have a meeting today with Dr. Morris so we could see what else we needed to add or what else was missing from our proposal. Our biggest issue was not really having a body for our proposal. 

Although we did take out a part of our proposal that we thought was not as relevant or as important as the other issues were dealing with. We took out our issue of the quiet hours. Our group felt that, for one, the two issues do not really relate or go together. Also we figured that the bathrooms are a way bigger issue compared to the quiet hours. Quiet hours have been an issue for so long that it seems like it will never be solved, it is college and people are never going stop being loud. We figured that this issue has already tried to be solved either by the building directors, public safety, or CA's and those attempts have not been successful. We feel that the bathrooms are something that we could make at least a difference in. 

Hopefully we can make our body of our proposal better by adding our evidence and what we have done so far, as in the conversations that we've had with some of the staff. Both of these suggestions by Dr. Morris really helped us figure out exactly what we needed in order to make sure we have all the pieces to our proposal and to make sure that we still have a chance to make a change on this issue. Our hope is to get the proposal done over the weekend or early in the following week.

New Ideas for Project 1/ Weekend activities

After reading over the first draft of our proposal we figured out some new things that we may need to revise or some more things that we could do for this project. A minor component was making our proposal a little stronger in some areas, but we ran into a more important problem. After talking with Dr. Morris we realized that we do not have any evidence. Without evidence to show how shockingly disgusting the bathrooms are all we have is our word against theirs. The people we are trying to persuade are not going to think too much of this issue if they do not realize how bad the situation is.

Our solution to this problem is to take pictures of the bathrooms over the weekend. The weekend is when the bathrooms are at their worst. They not only have residue of the things that are dealt with during the week, they also have throw up in some cases, backed- up toilets, and overflowing trash everywhere. Our group believes that if we have evidence of things such as this action will most certainly have to be taken. 

Along with the picture evidence of the bathrooms we still want to get the other points across of how gross it is to deal with issues in the bathroom such as this. Waking up on a Saturday or Sunday morning and having to either smell the trash or in some cases different substances is not fun. Also dealing with clogged or un-flushed toilets is another issue. In addition to that the showers get very unsanitary to say the least over the weekend. Our group still wants to keep these issues fresh and in the minds of the people we need to persuade.

Also on the weekends, as stated before, noise is a huge issue. People running up and down the hallways, jumping, yelling, screaming are all normal on the weekend, especially in the night hours. As much as this is expected during this time of the week we still feel that at least something or some effort should still be done. 

In conclusion, these issues are definitely prominent during the week, but I feel that on the weekends these issues are taken to the next level and get more extreme. I'm very excited and ready to start making our surveys and signs and getting our ideas out there!

Library/ Progress on Project 1

After meeting in the library today I definitely feel like I have all the tools I need in order to back up our group’s thoughts on why certain things need to change. It was very helpful today to learn more about how to navigate around the schools library website. Our group also found some very useful information that we could use to back up some of our leading arguments. We found "set in stone" rules for the university dorm policies. I felt that this would be good to have so that either our group can look back and refer to it or we could use it in order to show someone the official rules and how people are abusing them. 

In addition to finding some useful information online it was also very beneficial to talk to the librarian and get some ideas from her to see where she thinks we could take the project. She gave us some specific ideas; for example she told us that we could recommend bigger and more trashcans for our issue with the overflowing trashcans. She also told us that we need to really direct the concerns not only to the staff and the people in charge, but also to the student body. I totally agree with this statement since it is the student body that is causing most of these problems. Also Dr. Morris gave us some ideas of things that we could start doing to get a better start on the project. I thought her idea to count the number of stalls, showers, and toilets and compare that number to the number of custodians was a great idea. I was thinking that if we presented these numbers to the right people they might realize that the number is a little ridiculous and unrealistic for only a couple of custodians to clean these bathrooms every day.

After hearing some more ideas that we could use for our project we started to really buckle down on starting our proposal. Our group feels that in order to start working on some of our issues we need to get the basic things done, like starting our proposal. During our class period today we assigned different parts of the proposal to people in the group. In addition to getting a start on our proposal we are trying to set up a meeting next week with our building director. We made a list of concerns and questions to talk to her about and to see where to go from there.

Group project 1: Proposal/Setting due dates

First off I like the idea that we as a class get to pick our own due dates. I like this way better because sometimes you don't agree with the due date set by the teacher for various reasons. It could be because it might seem like there is not enough time, or it might just be unattainable. I think when the class gets to pick the due dates their can't really be any controversy because everybody knows about it and agreed on the dates in the first place. 

In addition, coming to the conclusion for the due dates was easier said than done in class today. I thought that the controversy about the due dates in class was harder to come up with because everyone has a different opinion about how fast they think things can get done. Also there is an issue of how long some of the tasks will take in order to finish the project. Some people may have more things that need accomplished compared to another group. There are just so many factors to consider when trying to agree on a due date. But I think that everyone had good ideas and had good contributions to why they thought their dates were best. I personally like the due dates that are now set in stone. I thought that it was a good idea to converse with the whole class because it made me think of some factors that I was not considering. Something that I was not considering was the more spaced out you make the due dates the better chance there is to procrastinate. Our groups original due dates were pretty spaced apart. I first thought that I needed all the time in between but I figured it is a good idea to have the due dates a little closer in order to get things done instead of waiting.

The first project, which is the proposal itself, definitely needs to be worked on until it fits the ideas exactly of what we are trying to accomplish. I think that in order to get this proposal the way we want it before the due date we as a group have to start working hard on these issues. I feel that in order to get this done we have to start talking to the right people as soon as possible. Overall, I think that our group is going in the right direction and we feel strongly about our issues so I think that we will accomplish at least some of the goals.

Project 1

After today's class I felt better about our first project. I wasn't completely sure what we had to do for the project and now it's very clear to me that it is more than just a paper to write, it's something bigger. This project will hopefully help us better our community on the Kutztown University campus by solving problems that are issues for more than just the people in our English class. Our class had some pretty good ideas for solving some issues that we felt were significant on campus. I felt the strongest about the topic of issues in the dorm, most specifically in the bathroom.

The first point that we came up with as a group was enforcing the quite hours in the dorm. We agreed that a big problem was the yelling and running around through all the hours of the night. In order to do something about this issue we figured that we could talk to our building director, the CA in our hall, or the people at the front desk. Another alternative was talking to the person that is making the noise and confronting them about the problem.

Another big issue in the dorms is the bathrooms and showers. The main issue that we had with this was how messy the sinks are and how they have food, hair, etc in them. Also the toilets are a big issue in the bathroom because they end up not being flushed and also have things on them that should not be on a toilet seat. The final issue in the bathroom is the showers. All of us agreed that the showers have hair, feminine products, etc in them. Also in my specific dorm you get burned if someone flushes the toilet, so the people in our dorm are supposed to yell "shower" but usually people do not. To deal with these issues we again thought that we could talk to the building director, CA, or the front desk. Another idea we had was to talk to the custodian and see if they had any ideas for solving some of these issues.

Our final complaint about the dorms is the trash and how it is overflowing and there is nowhere to go with it. Some ideas we had for solving this problem was taking some of the trash out to the dumpster, and once again talking the important people associated with our dorm to brainstorm some solutions for this problem.

I am very excited to get this project going and to talk to some people about these issues and hopefully get some changes for the better.

Baby monkey vs. Kitten - Thinkertoys: The Second Edition

To start off I thought it was very interesting that the first thing I read from the book Thinkertoys was "Warning...This book is for monkeys." In the introduction it talks about the difference between being a "kitten" and being a "baby monkey.” When we first went over the concept of the difference between a baby monkey and a kitten I thought it was a cool and creative way of thinking. I learned from Dr. Morris and the reading that a kitten is "confused or in danger, it will do nothing but mew until its mother comes and carries it to safety." On the other hand the baby monkey "will run to its mother and jump on her back at the first sign of trouble." As mentioned in class the baby monkey will do something active about the situation instead of just letting it happen like the kitten. I am sad to admit that I was in fact a kitten instead of a baby monkey. When Dr. Morris asked us what we would do if things happened such as your significant other breaking up with you, failing a course, etc. I answered that I would probably either cry or call my parents. While reading the introduction to this book I learned that through doing the exercises I could become a baby monkey. In addition to the differences between the baby monkey and the kitten I thought some of the exercises from the book Thinkertoys were very productive. The first exercise that I read about was "The Barking Cat." The demonstration that they showed was a word activity. I liked how it made you really look at the word to see another hidden word that you didn’t see the first time. I think this is a great way to incorporate creativity. Aside from that I thought the "tick tock" activity was very useful. I liked how this activity brought out the negatives in a person but then it overpowered those negatives with more positive reinforcements. I think that the "tick tock" exercise could make a person feel better about themselves and help them achieve their goals, whatever their goals may be. Sometimes its good to reassure yourself and I feel that this exercise definitely does that. Overall, I liked the readings and thought they were interesting. I'm very excited to hopefully gain some more creativity through this class.