As we really begin moving forward with this project, I’m beginning to feel more and more anxious. I’m incredibly excited about my groups topic, and I think that in the end we’ll produce a wonderful work, but as of right now I’m feeling a little bit uneasy. The main source of anxiety however comes from my own individual contribution to the group and not to the group itself. So far the team has been amazing, the process of choosing our topic went smoothly and everyone seemed excited to be coming up with the topic together. The topic grew pretty organically amongst our group(which is ironic because were team earth) and there was \u00a0a lot of excitement and initial research being done right away within the team.
\nAs I stated earlier, my anxiety has come from my own personal role in the research project and how I will go about doing my work. Originally I was very excited to work on the irrigation and agricultural structure portion of the project, but seeing Austin’s excitement about the project I was more than happy to have him specialize in that section. Currently I am focusing on the actual crops that were grown using the agricultural techniques and how the trade with these cities affected larger nations. While I’m excited about my section I can’t help but think that I will have a difficult time uncovering enough resources for my piece of the project.
\nSam and Austin both have sub topics that are much broader and have multiple facets to them and so I worry that my portion of the website will be significantly lacking in comparison to theirs. Right now this is just in my head though, as I have worked very hard on the project to date, and have contributed a lot along with all of the members of my team. I just worry that this project will become more stressful then interesting as my subsection is not something I know anything about and am worried that there won’t be enough resources to help me find my footing. Aside from my personal anxieties however, the research project is going great so far. Our team has a large amount of broad resources already to begin diving into our topic and possibly refining it more, and I love my other team members and our silk worm.
\nOne of my biggest hopes for this project right now, is that our final result will be more than just text on a page. There are a lot of great resources on the web and tools we can use to make our page really stand out and I hope that we get to utilize them and really make our website our own. I want the digital silk road to be something that anyone can stumble upon and be captivated by, I want it to be accessible to someone who hasn’t already taken multiple history or religion sources and most importantly I want it to be fun. My goal for this project is to help build and create a website that people want to look at, Ideally the reaction to showing it to others would be the polar opposite of when you ask a classmate to proofread your final paper. \u00a0I want to help create something engaging and exciting and all together beautiful.
\nAlong with these hopes however come some of my biggest worries about the projects, and the obstacles we may run into as we work. I’m worried about our final result being too dense and academic. Were doing immense levels of research and readings, in groups full of strongly academic and well educated people and I’m worried that our output may be too academically driven. While this is a website that is built on research and academic work, I think it’s important that we maintain something that isn’t only accessible to the people whose research we used to help get us there. If we create a website that is page after page of text about the silk road we haven’t really started anything new. If we fall into that trap, we end up just creating an online pool of resources for anyone who want’s to do something with that information, which while valuable isn’t what we set out to do with this project.
\nI do however still maintain a lot of faith in this group, I think we are a class of highly creative, intelligent people who with unique backgrounds and understandings of the world can come together to create a project that is truly new and wonderful. I am confident that as a team and a larger class we will overcome any small barriers that get in our way. I don’t foresee technology or group dynamics becoming anything larger then a minor interruption in the larger project. I believe that we have a class of highly resourceful students and that issues regarding the actual construction of the website will not be a problem. I think if we face any challenges as a group \u00a0they will be on a larger scale, about what the final project will look like. That being said however, I don’t think it will be because of a lack of ideas or a clash of ideologies but simply because we have so many unique and creative minds in our class that everyones aspirations for the final project may not be represented in the way that they want them to be.
\nOverall I am incredibly excited to be part of both my team and the silk road project as a whole. I think what we have before us is an incredible educational experience and a chance to work on a research project that involves much more than restating other authors work. This is a project that really calls the people working on it to be innovators, and to dig deep and create something new and unique. Although the only research project work I have done so far was on the proposal for our ideas and working as the recorder, that alone has been a wonderful experience. Getting to see the blueprints for my teams project and looking at the goal and seeing the kind of awesome research work we’ll get to be doing is frankly pretty exciting. Despite any anxiety I have or worries I have for myself in this project I think the Silk Road Research project will be like nothing I have ever done before, and I couldn’t be more excited to see how it turns out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As we really begin moving forward with this project, I’m beginning to feel more and more anxious. I’m incredibly excited about my groups topic, and I think that in the end we’ll produce a wonderful work, but as of right now I’m feeling a little bit uneasy. The main source of anxiety however comes from … Continue reading Initial Reflective Blog Post -Jake<\/span>