Week 7 Learning Journal

Part One: Team Video Project Planning

We met on Discord the same day Module 7 opened to divide the work, and we captured everyone’s role in a shared Google Doc, then followed up in our Discord chat. For the next project, I want to organize more deliberately: we’ll turn the Google Doc into a lightweight project brief with a one-page overview (goal, audience, success criteria), a task table with owners, due dates, and links. I’d like a simple two-milestone timeline (draft and final) with intermediate check-ins, and a Kanban board (To Do / In Progress / Review / Done) so progress is visible at a glance. We’ll pin a Discord thread for quick updates and decisions, and create weekly standups (three prompts: what I did, what’s next, blockers). File hygiene will be clearer: a Google Drive folder with subfolders for sources, images, audio, footage, and exports. For collaboration, we’ll use comment-only sharing on scripts/slides and track changes before merging. Our workflow stays the same—outline → script → slide storyboard → record audio → assemble and review—but we’ll add a review checklist (facts cited, alt text, audio levels, captions) and a final retrospective to note what to keep, fix, or drop. This structure keeps ownership clear, reduces overlap, and makes it easy to spot risks early.

Part Two

The lessons from this week really clicked. Those TED Talks brought to mind how worthwhile technology projects begin – fueled by wonder, communicated simply. Truly sticking ideas weren’t complicated; instead, they circled back to people’s troubles, unfolded like a clear story – grabbing attention, revealing something new, then delivering results – while brimming with drive. So, for our team video? Nail down one key issue, demonstrate its importance, ensure viewers get the point.

Listening to Harvard’s discussion about the upsides - speeding up tasks like research, finding insights, noticing trends - alongside the downsides - unfairness, security risks, over-reliance, lost jobs - led me to a simple idea. Leverage AI to do more, yet always involve people. Demand transparency regarding where information comes from alongside acknowledgement of unknowns. Check results carefully for prejudice. Protect delicate info with firm rules. This approach allows hopefulness tempered by realism.

I gleaned some useful techniques from that presentation advice – beginning with a defined goal ("You will learn..."), using transitions to guide listeners, crafting slides as backups to my speaking (a single point per slide, big fonts, relevant images). To put this into practice, I’m building a run-through list (timing, speed, relevance for each slide) alongside a source citation slide, culminating in suggested follow-up steps. Consequently, I feel better equipped to tell stories effectively, handle AI thoughtfully, and deliver presentations focused on those watching.