Narrowing it Down

Hey! I would like to dedicate the next couple of blog posts to talk about how I narrowed my project down from Learning Management Systems and eLearning techniques to sorting algorithms and To-Do Lists.

I came into this research project knowing I wanted to do something with technology and coding. I wanted to do something where I could learn new programming concepts, but not just from a book. I made a goal for myself that by the end of the project I would have a running program of something. This something has evolved significantly over the past four months.

At first, I thought I would be able to make my own Learning Management System (LMS), which is an educational platform to share learning material. I was inspired to do when I saw my 11th grade Economics teacher make an effort to use Edmodo, a popular LMS. He tried communicating with students using this platform, but realized it was not really working. So I decided to map out several similar products and came up with a list of ten features that each product shared. For example, products like Blackboard, Moodle, and Canvas all have a calendar page where students and teachers can schedule tasks and assignments.

After a solid two months of going between different products, I never really accomplished anything. I still had no clue as to how to actually program one of these platforms and realized that making an entire platform was a bit too ambitious. So I met several times with my advisor and he helped me narrow down my goal. He asked me to select my favorite and most efficient feature out of the lot of ten steps I found. Then I decided to narrow it down to creating a simple To-Do List which would be able to notify the user about upcoming events and tasks.

However, I was not satisfied with creating a simple To-Do List, I wanted it to be able to do something more efficient and important. The question I wanted to answer is if I could create software which would could serve a real purpose and make a task more efficient. So I decided to evolve my To-Do List into an intelligent process which would be able to hunt through a series of messages using sorting algorithms to set up meetings, reminders, and tasks.

Watch this space for updates. Thanks for reading!