sdolgino's blog

 

1. The final project and presentation turned out great. I learned a lot from the project as a whole, and our presentation went well. The presentation made me wonder what other solutions could be created. I also wondered what the implications of our solutions could be. The cost of these solutions could also be a problem, and the safety and security of them could be, as well. I wondered what could happen if someone stole a bike from the city’s bike program, for example. The current feelings/thoughts about my problem are that there are many issues and that it needs to be looked at thoroughly. I think that the issues are hard to solve due to the many different issues people in our community face. My group did a great job with our research, interviews, and visual aids. I made the brochure, and everyone really liked it. We also came up with a lot of good solutions, and we were able to affectively inform the people who came to see our project during the presentation day. We were also able to answer people’s questions, and people asked questions during the presentation that we hadn’t yet thought about. This experience really made us think about the different ways transportation affects those in our community. It also made others think about that when they came to view our presentation. I also gained a lot of new insights by looking at the other projects people in the class had made.

Our group did a lot of the planning for what we want to end up doing for our final project and presentation. We also shared what we found during our interviews. We completed the worksheet, as well. We talked about possible solutions to the transportation problems Austin faces. Our plan is to make a trifold display board that shows different parts of our wicked problem. We might also make a brochure or large note-card to pass out to people. I gained some new insights from our meeting, as well. This includes the fact that many of the residents of Austin have cars, but choose to walk or bike to work because it’s actually faster than driving due to the insane traffic. Also, traffic varies throughout the day, but it can even get bad between midnight and three in the morning. These problems made me wonder how the city could hurry up and expand roads without taking years doing construction and clogging up the roads in the meantime. I also wonder if the city can make new roads to help ease congestion. It’s possible the city is already too full to make a lot of new roads, though. I think the WiP has been going great and that my group has gained a lot of new insights into some of the problems that face Austin residents every day.

My interview went great. I learned a lot about the struggles of many UT students and Austin residents who don’t have a reliable mode of transportation. This makes it harder to get to class, work, the grocery store, or a friend’s place to hang out. I realized how much I take having a car as a college student for granted. I have my car here at St. Eds, so it’s easy to get everywhere. The only problem for me is parking. My interview brought up some more questions. These include my thoughts about how people get around if they don’t have enough money for a car, but they also don’t have enough money to pay for a Fasten all the time. This includes homeless people and the struggles they might have getting to a homeless shelter or food bank. I also wonder what struggles people who are extremely overweight or in poor health might face in Austin. They would have to have a car to get around, but some homeless people are also overweight. My thoughts about my wicked problem are that it’s a multi-faceted issue that doesn’t have any easy solutions. Austin has so many residents that need to get places every day, and they can’t all afford transportation.

This series of images is called “Post-TX/OU” because it shows a made up series of events after Texas lost this year. This story shows my friend opening his decorated cooler post-game, getting drunk, and sulking while thinking about the game. The third picture shows his view when he looks up, and I purposely made it blurry cause he’s drunk. I’m extremely happy with the images and the story they tell. One thing I don’t like is the fact that he was supposed to be laying down (passed out) on the floor in the last picture, but he didn’t want to get his shirt dirty. If I could do it again I would’ve had a friend actually lay on the floor for the last picture.

My thematic series of pictures is titled “Election 2016” because of what the pictures represent. The concept is that the election is dirty and cluttered. The first picture shows some dirty mop buckets. The pictures show me getting closer and cleaning. After I get involved, I get dirty (my shoes). The series ends with a picture of a toilet, symbolizing the election as a whole. I wish my reflection wasn’t in some of the pictures. I am happy with the images, though. I think it’s cool how they don’t make the theme obvious without it being explained. If a viewer is only given the title of the series, they would think of cool explanations, as well. If I did it again I would use different places to symbolize the dirt and clutter of this election. THE WEBSITE IS ONLY LETTING ME PUT 5 OF THE 7 PHOTOS ON. I’LL SHOW YOU THE OTHER 2 PICTURES IN PERSON.

Dr. Kennedy’s talk was awesome. It was extremely interesting and thought-provoking. I’m in his class, The Problem with Photography, and I love it. I thought that he was the best speaker so far. He says that photography is a wicked problem in a multitude of ways. One way is in the fact that a photography does not always tell the whole story. A photograph also doesn’t tell the truth. They can be edited or changed, as well. Some photographs can be staged to look like something they’re not. Additionally, the photographer can struggle to create the exact image he wants. I was surprised by the fact that he will sometimes spend days doing an entire set of photographs that all have one theme or message, and then he’ll just throw them away if he isn’t satisfied with the results. It was also crazy how he was able to take something as simple as a “meat-beater” (he said that, I don’t know what it’s actually called) and turn it into a crazy image of weird shapes and colors. This shows the power of photography, and how powerful the affect on someone’s perspective of something can be. He was also able to take simple pictures of running water and turn them into colorful swirls and dots.

This week, we explored the background of our problem in Austin. I created my visual representation to help make sense of the system we are exploring. Here is an explanation of what I created: Our Austin-based problem is transportation. Currently, the problem we are investigating is the broad topic of transportation. We may decide to focus on one part of this issue, however. I made my visual representation in the form of a web. My web has a circle in the middle that’s called “minor traffic accident.” From this center point, I made six surrounding circles that contained more specific issues that this one major issue could cause. I then made more circles that branched off of these secondary ones. Finally, I made lines that connected the circles on the outside to each other where applicable. We are going to use methods like this to narrow in on specific problems within our broad topic, and we will then examine these specific portion of the issue to look for possible causes and solutions. Additionally, we will work individually to research specific problems relating to transportation, and then we’ll combine our research to create a final project.

 

My group is doing transportation for our wicked problem topic. My specific class that I’m in is the problems with photography. I’m learning a lot about the history and uses for photography, and I know that this can be used to help in my group because I can look at the situation from the perspective of one individual second. A picture is only one frame within an event, but it doesn’t necessarily tell the whole story. This is why if you see one traffic jam, for example, it doesn’t have to represent the usual circumstances in the area. If we see a ton of traffic around five o’clock, my partners might say that traffic is always terrible on the highway in Austin. I would know that the single second doesn’t represent the whole story, and maybe if we looked again at a different time there wouldn’t be any traffic.

The presentation was very interesting. I think it’s cool how the speaker came to talk to us about some wicked problems. It’s important to be aware of problems in your area, and it’s even more important to find solutions to these problems (or at least to try to solve them). His story was interesting, and he did a good job at keeping the audience engaged. I was surprised by some of the issues that our own community faces. His organization is doing a lot to help raise awareness for some of these issues. It’s important to explore wicked problems locally because awareness is the first step to finding solutions to a problem. This helps us learn more about ourselves and our world because knowing the problems that surround us keeps us aware of the needs of our community.

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