1. Overview of the Practicum Engagement

Following an unexpected premature conclusion to my initial practicum assignment, I was reassigned by the school (MCL-CCIS) to complete a hybrid learning path and project-based practicum. This remote work from home assignment, was conducted from April 29, 2024 to June 28, 2024, required me to fulfill the mandated 324 hours. My work involved successfully completing the required default learning modules and independently developing a Kahoot-style quiz system for future institutional use.

2. Presentation of Output

Learning Path - This consisted of the required learning path modules, namely: Design Thinking, Project Management, and Workplace Management. These were all on the LinkedIn learning website where the courses took the form of prerecorded video courses followed by small quizzes at the end. Some of them were groups of courses called learning paths that awarded the required certificate at the end. I accomplished all of these in May, preventing burnout in myself by varying and bouncing between courses between the day as I finished each required one. Which meant I also accumulated a couple of extra certificates from my variety learning. The relevant certificates are in the certificates tab on this website

Project - This consisted of developing a project based on given requirements, creating a project proposal based off those requirements, then actually coding a project and creating documentation based off that proposal. I accomplished this via creating the project in angular and firebase, using angular as a framework to create the various components and services needed to fulfill the needed modules. For where the code is implemented, please visit https://github.com/Aswerty12/itquizshow to see the documentation, or read the full report tab in order to see the full output screenshots.

3. Synthesis of the Practicum Engagement

Learning Path - The three modules of Design Thinking, Project Management, and Workplace Management all had very relevant learning that I think will help me in the future.

Design Thinking Learning Module consisted of one course, and two learning paths. Learning Design Thinking: Lead Change in Your Organization made me think about how to design things better and how to implement them at an organizational level. Develop Your Creative Thinking and Innovation Skills helped with thinking more creatively as it applies to problem at work and how to think of a way out of them. Finally, Develop Critical Thinking, Decision-Making, and Problem-Solving Skills helped me with thinking through problems and solving them with a critical eye.

Project Management Learning Module consisted of one course and a big learning path. Project Management Foundations gave me a cursory look into how project management is done from a high level alongside the software used that project managers use to manage projects. Getting Started as an Agile Project Manager (Which is what’s replaced Become an Agile Project Manager on the website) was a very extensive learning path. It started at explaining what Agile is, then through many following it explained how to implement Agile at work, from a high-level and from a low-level. From concepts to showing how to do it from the Scrum framework; this learning path gave me everything I need to understand the Agile mindset.

Workplace Management Learning Module consisted of four courses and a learning path all of which I enjoyed going through. Develop Your Communication Skills and Interpersonal Influence was a great learning path, helped me understand how to communicate better and how to apply that skill in my future work. 5S Workplace Productivity helped me understand 5S better despite it being focused on more industrial applications rather than for software. Time Management Fundamentals taught me some key lessons that helped me manage the stress of going through the course. Time Management: Working from Home taught me how to better manage working from home, which I applied immediately given that this practicum was done entirely from home. Business Etiquette: Phone, Email, and Text taught me some valuable lessons about how communication is done within the workplace which will surely help me in when I have to work with others at my future work.

Alongside this I also did some nonessential learning paths that I found interesting in order to vary up my learning and avoid burnout.

Overall, I enjoyed my experience with this learning path as I believe it taught some valuable lessons that I can easily apply to my future work. These modules taught me soft skills that aren't directly within my degree but I believe will all be helpful to me as I apply their lessons into my career.

Project - During the course of developing the program I gained three key insights.

One, AngularJS is not the same thing as modern Angular. I had initially settled on using Angular and Firebase as I had found a tutorial that used AngularJS and Firebase to create a kahoot clone like what I was supposed to make. In retrospect this was a bad idea, as the difference between modern Angular and AngularJS meant I couldn't really pull code or even use the tutorial outside of ideas. Still, it did provide the initial seed idea that let me create the two sides of the project. Still, this did mean I essentially had to start from scratch and research the necessary frameworks for the project within the time I was developing it.

Two, I should not have gotten tempted to join the Microsoft ASEAN AI for Accessibility Hackathon 2024 Philippines. During June I participated in the hackathon on June 13, but this also necessitated me to devote days to research time and preparation for the hackathon that could have been used to accomplish the project earlier. Especially since I was learning the framework from scratch. It didn't take up all of my days during the first two weeks but it certainly didn't make me work faster.

Three, Generative AI is a very good tool for accelerating development. I used Gemini 1.5 Flash via Google's ai studio, Claude Sonnet 3 and GPT 4o via ChatGPT. All of them were very useful both as conversational partners to help turn the ideas of the modules into a plan for the angular components and services, for actual code generation when it came to turning planned modules into code, and for debugging the code. Of course, as of now AI wasn't fully capable of generating the project on its own and needed me to direct and figure out problems within the code to get the work done. Still, the use of AI made sure I could develop the project within the few weeks I had instead of having an incomplete project to showcase.

Conclusion - I learned a lot of soft skills from my learning path that I believe will be very useful in my future career. Meanwhile, the project taught me a lot about web development and how to use a modern JavaScript framework alongside a cloud hosting service like Firebase. Another thing I learned was in how to use Generative AI for development as a way to speed up development, and to assist in planning out what to do.