End of Year Report
May 12, 2010
We’re almost done! These are my last office hours of the year, so I’m spending them on a short report. Here’s where I think I made progress this year:
- I did a better job of teaching technology. I got better at explaining complex tools, and better at demonstrating the relevance and the possibilities of each new cool toy. The spring tech fair and the workshop I gave for some visiting high schoolers really helped me grow in this respect. I think that every year in the fellowship I get better at judging how best to connect with a given audience.
- I learned a lot, skills-wise. I am a lot better with video in all respects than I was before. I am better with photography, too, and GIMP. All things visual got bumped up this year. I’m hoping to really see more skill development next year on the code end of things.
- I thought more about group dynamics and group work. This, I mostly got through watching others—I think my own efforts were sometimes ill-advised. But I spent a lot of time watching how other people negotiated group dynamics, and I think I’ll have ample opportunity to apply what I’ve learned in the coming year. I also feel like I was able to position myself as a resource—something I want to do next year as well.
- I gained faith in myself as a budding expert. Now, obviously, I have far to go on many fronts. That said, I had some productive one-on-one sessions with other ITFs, especially this spring. And the lesson I taught for the thesis colloquium showed me (perhaps more than anyone) just how much I have to teach.
- I didn’t let my attitude get me down too much. In past years, it was pretty easy to get extremely upset and frustrated with my job—enough so that for weeks at a time I’d check out, mentally if not physically. This year, well, I’m fighting that attitude, these last few weeks, but this really is the first time it’s shown up (probably due to our impending furloughs, as well as personal stressors).
Here’s where I want to make progress next year:
- Group work. Trying to develop one’s own leadership skills while still remaining part of a group is a tricky business. I’m not always striking the best balance that I could.
- Interactivity in technical instruction. I got started on this, this year, but I want to make my workshops and time with students even more dynamic and energetic. I stepped back from it this year, for a bit, in order to focus on clarity. Now I want to make the clarity I have found even more exciting.
- Networking, networking, networking. Not just past ITFs and others with similar jobs across the University, either—I think we need to get beyond the CUNY bubble and talk to other universities, as well as the private sector. (For instance, I would love to talk to those folks at Stanford who kind of do a similar job, but all have doctorates and stuff already. Could we get together and do a Skype roundtable?)
- Techie stuff. I want to get back to the excitement of learning new (computer) languages again. I want to learn server admin stuff, and I want to see if I, too, can learn to build a WordPress plug-in, or possibly a custom template. And I should probably mess around with Drupal some more, too.
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