Week Twelve

Today we presented our final posters.
It was very interesting to see what some of the other groups came up with.
Some of the other groups had thought through very good ideas while others didnt know what they were talking about.

Im not sure ill be able to remember all the different posters, but i will comment on the ones i do.

Alcohol lock - they had a very nice idea, not nz specific though. however they didnt develope their idea enough. it would be too easy to just bypass the lock. if it worked at all (the sensor is too far away from your breath, and if it had increased sensitivity it would pick up everyones breath.)

Long life laminates - not new and inovative. was there idea 'the laminate', because there is nothing new about it, or using the solar panels to power the boat (also not new). they also didnt think their idea though enough, was the gel coat blocking the light like they said? which wud just make the solar panels useless! or letting the light though and just protecting the panels from the weather. which would make more sense. the specifics were not fully described in their poster.

burnout paradise - i dont really know what they were trying to do, besides create a place to mess around and just have fun. it is in no way eco friendly.

water powered car - i think the only reason their final product had water in is is because they said they were gonna make a water powered car. if they remove the water and just power the motors straight from the solar panels they would loose much less energy. they really didnt seem to know what they were talking about... compressing water...

air powered car - this was not a bad idea, the only thing they might have trouble with is making enough space to store enough compressed air.

e-cat - this is probably one of the better ideas/posters. Im not sure their calculations are correct because only the first few minutes will be affected by their pre heating, once the engine is heated their product is no longer in use. not a bad idea though.

beanstalk - this is very much impractical. the technology for this will only be available in the next 10-20 years. they mostly know what they were talking about in their final presentation and they had a nice poster! im not sure exactaly why they specificaly have to aim the projectiles at the sun, if they just shoot it out into space it will keep going away from earth, its good enough for us.

crc (fibreglass recycling, our poster) - we didnt have many questions, this could mean 2 things; it way very easy to understand, or no one cared. i hope it was the former. aparently we spoke well answering our few questions. i know we didnt get totally confused by any of the questions which was good. we did try to keep our poster simple and to the point, i think it did work...

Week 11

Last week we didnt make a presentation.
We just worked on our posters.

This week we did a presentation on maori culture.
because it is the due date of our assessment we didnt have a full class.
there was only one other group in our class who did any presenting besides us.

Week Nine

Today we had a scenario that we were supposed to solve the problem by giving multiple answers about ethics.

aparently our code of ethics was too vague, but i think writing more is not always the best solution. our code could be applied to practically any situation. i didnt want to go into great detail because it would have just taken up space and not provided any more info. next week we are going to look at some past posters to get an understanding of what is expected of ours, that will be handy.

In looking for a trade related article to write on i think i will look for idea that is being presented.

Week 8

Today we are presenting on customer service and the importance of it.
I was very disappointing in my assessment result, but I realized that I didn't put in as much effort as I should have. For the next assessment I will try to put more effort.

I received feedback on my rating of this course via email, and explained some of my complaints.
I am still disapointed in the lack of teaching the lecturers are doing, even the amount of feedback we get form our presentations is minimal.

I hope this will improve in future...

Week 7

Last week (first week back from break) we didnt have our H&S class due to a public holiday.

So this week we are doing a presentation on sustainability, and how our company is going to be sustainable.
I find it rather difficult because i have never had to consider sustainability in terms of a company issue.
I dont know if i fully understand the drill down template, because to me it doesnt really fit into our presentation in all cases.
it seems like a very broad template that can be used in all sorts of different situations, however it wont work perfectly for any of them.

the lecture today was alright. however i dont really agree with everything that was said. (i wont go into details)

other than that, i look forward to getting my assignment one results back.

Week Six

The last week before the mid semester break.

Nothing particularly exiting happened today.
Instead of going to the 'booked' computer lab (that we have been kicked out of twice already) we just went straight to the open computer lab and did our research and made our presentation there.
It is very convenient having a memory stick now, I can just stick it into the computer, copy our presentation across, and I don't have to worry about finding it on the H drive or logging into my email and emailing it to myself.

One other thing mention-able was that John was sick, so he didn't come to uni today, which left us with only four people in our group, but it was no inconvenience.

Week Five

First of all we were kicked out of the computer lab that was booked for us, which was very annoying because we had to go off and find another computer to work on. However before that we managed to sort out why the lecturers were unable to view my blog. For some weird reason when they clicked on my profile it would not show my links (blogs), it only showed the blogs i was following. I solved the problem by just following my own blog so they can now view it with no problems.

The presentation was alright, once again we didnt have any time available after we finished making the power point to practice it, however we presented it reasonably well anyway.

Week Four

So This week was not nearly as helpful as I thought it would be.

For starters the library workshop which was supposed to specifically help us with our assignments/essays/H&S case study was rather useless! All the librarian did was show us how to search for different cases and the Health and Safety Act in Employment. Its not that he didnt know what he was doing, its just that he hadnt really planned anything, so some of us asked him some things and he would search them up. Overall I think this workshop only helped a few of the students, and not nearly to the extent that we thought it would. :(

The referencing workshop was much better, But personally I think just giving us the power point and notes and making us read them for H/W would have nearly as good (for me at least), other than that, Wednesday was a rather boring day for me. I didnt even get a chance to catch up on some of my other work because after lunch I wasnt feeling great, so I had to go home.

Week Three

Im not sure what was going on, but apparently Sylila and Rashika are unable to view and comment on my blog. That explains why they had not yet commented on it. It sounds like my profile doesnt show a link to the blog, not actually disallowing them access.

I checked in the settings and confirmed that my blog wasnt banning anyone from viewing it, which is what I suspected.

OK.

So we got our first presentation today, to do with communication. Not my favorite topic...
I did most of the research and made the power point because the others in my group were not putting much effort in.

We had totally forgotten that it had to relate to our group idea. mostly because we hadn't really discussed or come up with one. so some of the time was spent brainstorming that. We managed to finish (only just) our power point, and we rushed off to class.

We had forgotten to do any sort of practice or organizing who was talking on which slides so we just assigned one of us to a slide and went from there. We managed alright even without a run through before hand but we could have done a bit better if the others had actually had more input into the power point and understood what we were talking about (a bit more). It was nice that we were only presenting to half the class, way more relaxed, a lot less pressure on us.

It is slightly annoying that we have to keep moving around to different rooms, but I doubt there is anything we can do about that.

Week Two

So, last week we were told to look at the posters and try to figure out which 'step' we think we are on.
Well I figured I was around 5 or 6. Today when we did the NAT (national assessment tool) I found some of the questions very hard. (One of them even so ambiguous that I thought it was a spelling error. Either that or the person who wrote the question was assuming WAY too much...).

Well I am at step 6. XD

I did answer 3 questions incorrectly, which is not too bad I suppose.


I have never been one for writing essays. I just cannot understand what obsession schools and universities have with essay writing! The longest essays I had to write at school were about 500 words, NOW I am supposed to write 1000 words on one topic! This course is going to be tough, but if I just work on it slowly over time, and don't leave it all to the last minute I think I will be alright. (hopefully...)


I was slightly disappointed when I checked my blog the other day and there were no comments, because Sylila said they were going to check and comment on our blog posts.
But I was even more disappointed when I check them again (still no comment) even after Sylila said she had commented on our blogs...

Week One

I must admit standing at the back of the class and introducing themselves was different. It definitely made the first lecture more interesting.
It is nice to know that the lectures are not going to be boring but more interactive/group discussions/tasks/etc...

However It was kinda funny that after the introductions, Sylila and Rashika did mostly stand at the front and talk. (I guess because this was the first lecture and they were only explaining the overview of the course. The first day or few days are always an exception)

I have NEVER been one excessive amounts of study, or rather going out of my way to do research, or group assignments. Being a bit of an introvert I would much prefer to sit in my room and do all of my assignments alone, however I suppose this course will help me improve my collaboration skills. (which is a good thing, even though I view it as not particularly important)

Obstacles like going out of my comfort zone will be difficult for me to overcome but its all part of the learning experience.

I fell a lot more comfortable when I just need to rely on my own skills, because I know how well I perform and if I mess up I just have myself to blame, but as soon as I have to rely on someone else (in team environments/group work) I find it very difficult because I am no longer in control.