Interview of current high school student who is interested in learning computer science:
Q: Do you think my website achieves the goal of gathering learning resources to facilitate the process high school students go through in learning about computer science? A: Yes! I can see that the bottom three resources tiles are very helpful in providing outside resources to any high schoolers that is interested in learning about or expanding their knowledge in computer science. I could only imagine how long it would take someone to search through the web to find all these information! The variety of information available is definitely very nice too, since people may have differing interests in how they want to extend their knowledge in computer science. Q: What do you think my website does well? What improvements and adjustments should I have? A: I think your website really achieved your goal of being easy to understand. Like you described, I agree that the communicative way of conveying information throughout your website with simple and informal language really makes the information easy to understand. When I read through the top three categories, I surprisingly didn't struggle with understanding at all -- as I expected them to be rather complicated concepts -- and even felt engaged as though someone was talking to me! As for improvements, I think you could make the topics covered a bit more introductory, since the website is designed for high school students, many of which probably won't have much experience with computer science; at least personally, reading about AI and machine learning was pretty good, while the neural networks topic was a bit hard for me to grasp as it builds on the info from AI/ML, which I don't think I have a full and thorough understanding of. Q: Do you feel engaged while going through my website? What would make it more engaging? A: Like I said earlier, I think the communicative way of conveying information makes it a lot more engaging. However, because everything is mostly reading, it can get a bit dull or hard to stay attentive at times. I think adding more interactive components throughout the website -- like you mentioned earlier -- would definitely make it more engaging. I like the idea of linking to external websites, since you said Weebly has technological restrictions in what you can create in the website itself. I would also suggest linking to some videos, perhaps, as visuals are always very engaging and interesting to watch! Q: How do you think I should proceed with my project? Adding more details into each category or expanding into new topics? A: I think both are plausible! However, I would suggest to add more information into each category. I personally believe it's better to have a more thorough introduction to the three subfields, along with more information in the resources tiles. They're all very informative as is but I think especially adding more interactive components like we discussed will be extremely beneficial.
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Throughout this month, I spent a lot of time preparing for the second ACSL contest. I have also uploaded the lessons into the corresponding topics' categories. However, I'm looking into a way to facilitate the process of accessing the lessons as it seems hard to download them currently; I've been experimenting with how I can link to other places such as Google Drive.
After interviewing another student about my project, I've determined what I should keep doing and ways I could improve (the interview post will be up shortly). The biggest change we discussed was switching out one of the three modules I have, from neural networks to human-computer interaction (HCI). This is due to how neural networks isn't typically discussed at an introductory level, and because HCI is a boarder field of study encompassing more sub fields and is becoming more relevant nowadays. As I worked on adding competition information into the website, I realized that putting it in the Emma Codes section makes it less accessible since it's hidden within so many layers. After reconsidering the layout, I decided to change the "clubs" category to "extracurriculars" so it would be more broad. This would allow me to put the competitions as a separate section within the extracurriculars page, and making it comparatively more accessible.
I will continue to add more information regarding ACSL into the website, as I believe the practice problems were very helpful for my club members and I in preparing for the contest. I was able to score 10/10, and my school overall is tied for number one in the classroom 3 division, which I think is pretty good as it's our first time competing! With the first ACSL contest completed, my coding club advisor and I are now working to prepare lessons for topics covered on the second contest. They will be added into the Emma Codes page and linked here as well when they're ready. I spent a lot of time this month brainstorming ideas for how to make my website more interaction, as most of the pages are informational and purely reading based. Due to restrictions from a technological perspective in incorporating interactive component into the website, I've only been able to come up with the idea so far of linking external websites. Some websites I have found are very interesting and interactive, and is appropriate for all different levels of experience with computer science. The ones I have been able to test so far are coding related, and I have yet to test some that could extend beyond coding (such as image processing). I have and will continue to discuss ideas with advisors and peers for how to make my website interactive, so the information are being discussed and shown to the audience in a more engaging way.
Throughout this month, I prepared and added all the lessons that cover topics for the first ACSL contest into the Emma Codes page, including both the handout version and answer key for reference. More resources for practicing are also being put into the club page, including practice problems for the ACSL exams.
I have also been adding information into the courses category, more specifically the contests high school students can participate in to explore or expand their interest in computer science. Due to COVID-19, some of the annual competitions are adapting changes to an online format or postponed. Links to these competitions and updates is detailed here. More summer program descriptions have also been added to the summer programs category, and I will continue to add more options for individuals with different interests or experiences in computer science. A lot of coding lessons have been adding to the Emma Codes page throughout this month!
After seeing the majority of the club members are interested in participating in the ACSL (American Computer Science League) Competition, we have decided to focus on this competition for this year. In preparation for the first upcoming contest in December, lessons will focus on the Number System, Recursion, and What Does This Program Do . Lessons on the first two topics has been put up already and the answer keys will be up shortly. I hope these resources will not only be helpful for individuals involved in the club, but also to people who are interested in participating in these competitions to explore or extend their knowledge in computer science. There is a range of level for this competition, and more information regarding it will be linked here. Since there is a variety of coding experience for individuals in my club, the lessons we're starting with are very introductory -- hopefully it will be easy for everyone to understand! Changes to the "Resources" section--
Previously, I had planned to have Robotics as one of my main resources categories. However, due to COVID-19, the VEX season has been postponed, which means that I won't have as much assess to building/coding material to record videos and competition information to put into the robotics section. With the help of my robotics advisor, we decided to have a new club in our school that primarily focuses on coding, which would fit very well with our online format and limited in-person contact. Due to this change, I have combined the robotics resource category with this coding club to form a new Clubs category in the resources section on my Explore page. After working with the club members to see which competition everyone is most interested in and deciding which one we will primarily focus on, I expect to have lots of useful coding videos/lesson material in that section for not only people in my school, but everyone interested in learning more about coding! Throughout the past two month, I have been very occupied by the six-week summer program (BU RISE) I was enrolled in. Although very time-consuming and rigorous, I'm very glad it was able to go into online format and not be canceled, as it was a fascinating program that I absolutely loved and allowed me to still meet new people from around the country even when restricted by the pandemic. I learned so much about the intersection of neuroscience and computer science, and all the helpful resources/info I've learned will be put up into the modules and resources categories on my Explore page shortly. I will also be putting up the information about this summer program when I get a chance to -- it will be linked here when it's ready! :)
Throughout the six weeks, I also participated in a MIT program (Summer HSSP) simultaneously as it was on Saturday's and didn't conflict with my Monday to Friday schedule for the BU program. It was a much less intense program, with one hour classes from 12pm - 4pm. The program is open to students in 7th to 12th grade, and there is a variety of classes offered on a range of topics. More information will also be included in summer program section! This month I began wrapping up this website, finishing up the neural networks section and adding more information into the resources sections for courses and summer programs. For my robotics section, I'm not sure when I would be able to complete the section since I don't have access to the build materials due to our school closing, also because VEX just announced new AI VEX parts that I don't yet have experience with. However, I do think this would be very helpful in connecting robotics to my website, since the new parts and technology added to VEX this year is powered by AI. I have also started working on my presentation for my school's Signature day, where all students in this program would present their projects and what they have been working on throughout the year. Click here for my presentation! This would conclude my first year of researching and working on this website, but I will definitely continue to work on this over the summer and next year, adding more information into each section :)
This month I put a lot of the information that I have gathered over the past months into the website. The format I have decided to use is first clarifying any misconceptions people could have about regarding each topic, then defining it more broadly, and finally diving into details such as types of each category. Check out my AI explore page that I have mostly set up for an example! The machine learning page is also almost complete, and I am currently working on the neural networks page. On another note, I have decided to write all my information in a communicative and informal way. I was inspired to do this after reading a recent SAT prep book I got; the author teaches us all the techniques, strategies, and important lessons to remember all through a communicative way as if he's speaking to us, which I found very helpful and engaging. So in everything I wrote, I tried to make to make all my language very simplified so it's easy to understand for everyone :)
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Carol WHello! Welcome to my portfolio :) Archives
January 2021
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