This week we worked with HTML and CSS, but Git was also a topic again. From - I think - the second day onwards, we had to divide into teams to work on a collaborative website project. The website was to be static and built in HTML and CSS, using Git. There was a layout that we were supposed to follow and we started off very loosely.
My team actually consisted of four members, but due to personal circumstances, one member was absent for most of the week and there were only three of us. In addition, one member had to bring her son to class from time to time, as there is currently no all-day care for him. That was a bit difficult at times, especially for the mother.
There was supposed to be a test at the end of the week, but then the plan was changed at short notice: now the website project was to be presented and assessed instead of writing a test. By the time we found out, it was already Wednesday. If I had known this from the beginning, I wouldn’t have approached it so casually and would have planned and structured it more clearly instead.
Our project process
We hadn’t really thought about exactly what the site should look like and who would take on which tasks. We had assumed that we would have time to try things out and play around, as we weren’t told when we had to be finished. That was a big misunderstanding.
Since I already know HTML and CSS, I didn’t want to take on this task, or at least not primarily. I thought of the learning factor and that it would help others more than me. But then we suddenly had to hurry and the CSS was largely left to me to finish on time. That was often chaotic too, because everyone was tinkering around somewhere in the CSS, sometimes undoing or changing what I had already implemented through additonal code. It felt like I was just on the lookout for mysterious changes and lines of code that interfered with each other. New things were often added and suddenly there were unknown classes and IDs.
Unfortunately, not everyone was able to keep up. I would have liked to have been able to explain a few things if needed. There wasn’t much time (if any) for such explanations or discussions, but we agreed to at least provide the code with explanatory comments.
We finished on time. Or finished enough. Unfortunately, there were things that we could no longer devote ourselves to. For example, since Wednesday there has been a request for ten pages of “news articles”. We didn’t manage to format our article pages properly because we followed my suggestion to concentrate on the main page first, so that at least it looks good for presentation. Another requirement was to make the site responsive. We managed that, but given more time I would have worked with more breakpoints than just two. There was also no time for a more elegant adaptation of the footer in the mobile view. The links in the footer only break, but are simply left-aligned with far too much line spacing.
Presentation and reflection
Our presentation was also a bit chaotic, but okay. We received praise from the other participants for the appearance of our page. I felt bad at first because, as the second group to present, we were much more chaotic than the first group. But with the other presentations, I then realized that there was also a lot of chaos with the others and that the first group simply worked particularly well together in an exemplary way. We also all reflected on what went well and what we would do better next time during our respective presentations in front of everyone. In this sense: as I said, we definitely need to plan better next time and distribute the tasks clearly. But what was good in our group (and that wasn’t the case for every group) was our open communication, the good atmosphere and that we always helped and supported each other.
Afterwards, there was a reflection round with the whole class in which each individual had their say. The lecturer and the person in charge of the class then explained that this task was primarily about learning how to work and communicate in a team. We were deliberately thrown in at the deep end so that we could make these mistakes and learn from them.
Prospects
The grading of the project work is still pending, as the code will be checked beforehand. Another requirement was that the code should be clean and structured. Personally, I try to keep my code structured, but I know from our general chaos that it could be better. If we have another similar project in the same constellation, I will volunteer to be the project manager.
We now have a week off before continuing next week with a different lecturer and a new topic. I’m planning to just enjoy this free time and cycle or play some games. I’ll write about how that went by next weekend.
