Building and Texts
Alex and I finally have something to show for all our work! We built the document model for Prism that allows us to add new texts to the database! It even passes the tests we built! We’re putting the...
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Teaching CoffeeScript
As the Prism project has progressed, one of the technologies we kept pushing off teaching was JavaScript. We knew this is one of the core languages that they would need to learn to actually work with...
View ArticleThe Models are Done!
Great news! All parts of our data model are now in Rails! We used the Ruby gem Devise for the user model, and Prism now has user account capabilities (and the links for “sign in,” “sign out,” and...
View ArticleSpreading the Light: Prism Development is Almost DONE!
It’s been a busy few weeks in Prism, which means that we have some exciting updates for highlighting, visualizations, and the sandbox! Our visualizations now display with the correct colors! This...
View ArticlePrism and Praxis Reflections
It’s been a whirlwind of a year, but we finally made it! We have a fully functional tool, we’ve fulfilled our goals from our charter, and we can all look back on everything we’ve learned this year and...
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Images in Prism
One thing we have thought about in recent weeks is the role of Prism in our goals for the semester. As part of this brainstorming I wanted to share some of my thoughts about a potential future for...
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Teaching Git
In Praxis, we just finished covering Git. Everyone seemed to catch on pretty well, so I thought I’d write a bit about my thought process as I was planning the sessions. There were a few principles I...
View ArticleRuby Cat Poem
AA line tabbed mmmmmmmmmmmmm nononono mmmmmmmmmmmmm m doof cat Cat a in Catnip Grass I llllllllllllllllllll split a tsil do II...
View ArticleDancing with Ruby
As the Praxis Team grapples with the necessity of making decisions (difficult decisions!) about our priorities when it comes to creating at tangible product between now and May, I continue to find new...
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Prism on Spring Break
Last week I was in Little Rock, Arkansas for the Society for American Music conference, but Prism seemed to be following me: peerless rainbow logo This logo looks uncannily like one of our sketches for...
View ArticleOut on a (Small) Limb
In writing the following post, I was struck by how close it felt to one Alex Gil wrote last year about a similar Prism disaster that he called the herokulypse. Alex wrote his post on April 23 of last...
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Random Skills: Check
This week Cecilia and took a few hours and completed one of our goals for this semester: creating a tutorial video for using Prism. Not only did this turn out to be surprisingly fun (due mostly to...
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Drum Roll Please…..
After many months of brainstorming, debating, dreaming big, getting down to business, panicking, refocusing, programming, and fine tuning, Prism is here! It has been a great journey, and I think my...
View ArticleReflections on Project Management I
At our final official Praxis meeting, I shared an overview of my experience as project manager with the rest of the team, and I thought I would share some of those same reflections in a short series of...
View ArticleReflections on Project Management II: Know your Team
In my last post, I talked through some of my experiences with the organizational aspects of project management. Here, I want to talk about one of the aspects of project management which can be more...
View ArticleReflections on Project Management III: It Is All About Communication
I have saved the discussion of my biggest struggle with Project Management for my final post in this miniseries. Much to my surprise, communication with the rest of the team was one of the more...
View ArticleChart(er)ing Our Project
This post is a couple weeks late, but I would still like to share a few thoughts on the process of drawing up our 2013-14 Praxis charter. Though we had the eloquent and insightful charters of the...
View ArticleMore Musings on Tuckman…
Last week Francesca posted on Bruce Tuckman’s model of group work on a collaborative project. To recap, a group passes through four phases: Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, and Adjourning. I...
View ArticleThinking Through Doing While Losing My Marbles
Last Monday, at the suggestion of our Scholars’ Lab mentors, the Praxis cohort divided into two teams to start wire-framing some of our ideas for the Ivanhoe Game. The initial thought was to divide...
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