PORTFOLIO_2: Reflective Writing (5 marks)
Requirements
Think about a negative experience you have had in the past, for example at a job interview, conflict in a work situation or a disagreement with a friend or family member. Choose an experience where the skills learnt in COIT20249 would have helped you. Reflect back on that one specific experience and write a short reflective analysis about how you would handle that experience differently now by using skills you have learnt this term. Your response must clearly consider if any of the skills you have learnt from COIT20249 would have helped if you had those skills at the time, or if you can use those skills in future for a different outcome if you have a similar experience. Clearly identify the skill/s from COIT20249 you have considered. For example, identify a Unit Learning Outcome.
If the soft skills covered in COIT20249 would not have been helpful, reflect on what other soft skills would have been helpful or if you did not have to improve your soft skills (clearly explain the reasons in that case).
Note if you are repeating COIT20249 you cannot reuse your reflective writing submission from a previous term. Please discuss with your local lecturer before the deadline if there is any problem with this requirement.
Students discuss this portfolio item in Week 7 but, most probably, will write it later. However, all students must plan to submit the assessment at the end of Week 12 as required.
Describe the experience including your exact contribution for the outcome. Demonstrate what you have learnt from the experience, describe how you would handle a similar situation differently in the future, and evaluate the positives and negatives of the experience.
Your submission should cover the three key points on reflective writing (see below). This should be approximately 450 words in length.
The key points to consider when writing reflectively are:
1. You need to demonstrate what you have learned from a particular experience not just describe what happened.
2. There is no right or wrong answer—reflective writing is about what you learned from the experience.
3. Ask yourself the following questions and give your responses in your writing: Why did X happen? What did I do in X situation? What were the positive and negative outcomes in the situation? How might I do things differently next time? What have I learnt and how does this knowledge contribute to my development?
(McCulloch & Reid, 2015, p. 131)
Note 1: You should re-read pages XXXXXXXXXXof the textbook to confirm your knowledge about the technique of reflective writing.
Note 2: This assessment is about evaluating yourself and your experience; it is NOT about evaluating others. Make sure you have an active role in the experience you are using for this reflection.
Note 3: Write this assessment from the first person perspective. You do not need to provide any references for this portfolio item.
Marking Criteria
Your submission will be marked as follows. Write under the relevant headings (separate paragraph) per each section as given below.
i. Reflection (4.5 marks):
1. Include a brief description of the negative experience you had in the past (0.5 mark).
2. Reflect on how you contributed to cause the experience; i.e. what exactly did you do? What aspects of your behaviour made this situation better or worse? Were your action/s positive or negative? This is not about what any others did but what you did (1 mark).
3. Demonstrate what you learned from the experience (1 mark).
4. Describe what you would do to handle the experience differently in the future using any of the skills you learnt in COIT20249 or if these skills wouldn’t help, what other skills would be useful. Otherwise, write why you may not have to do anything different (1 mark)
Note: You have to focus on only one of the requirements in point 4 (whichever is applicable to your experience).
5. Evaluate both the positive and negatives impacts of your overall experience (1 mark).
Note: This is about the overall lesson learnt from the experience and not about what you did as per point 2 above.
Use the three key points listed above to check that you have written reflectively about your experience. Ensure that you have addressed all 5 points.
ii. Common criteria (0.5 marks)
o Grammatically correct with no spelling mistakes,
o Well-structured reflection, written under separate headings and paragraphs for each of the five points above. Easy to read and understand,
o Within the recommended length (400 – 500 words) and submitted as an MS-Word file.
PORTFOLIO_3: Responding to an Ethical Scenario (5 marks)
Requirements
In week 9 you learnt about making decisions in various ethical situations, about the Australian Computer Society (ACS), and its Code of Ethics and the Code of Professional Conduct. Understanding who you are and how you relate to others in both your personal and work life can make you aware of the values that are important to you as well as the values that you may need to work on to improve your professional standing. This portfolio item is designed to make you think about how to respond to an ethical scenario as a good ICT professional. As you are training to be an ICT professional you should refer to the ACS Code of Ethics and/or ACS Code of Professional Conduct in your response (referred below as ACS documents). Your response should be approximately 400 words.
Scenario:
Ghost writing is a term used to describe a situation where students submit work for assessment that was written by someone else. The original author is not mentioned and the student claims that they wrote it themselves. This is a very serious form of academic misconduct.
You are a student at Central Queensland University. Getting your degree is important to you as you want to get good grades so that you can get a good job. It is imperative to you that you work hard to create all the assessment submissions yourself except when it is a group assessment. It is by working hard to achieve good grades that you will ensure that you are best-placed to successfully apply for a good job. Recently you heard that some students in your class who you are friendly with are paying Ghost writers to complete their assessment items. This concerns you as you think they will get good grades for their assessment items when they have not written the assessment themselves. This is not fair to all those students who wrote the assessment themselves. You feel that you should tell the lecturer what your friends are doing but you are scared of losing your friends.
Task:
Write about 400 words (in 2 – 3 paragraphs) outlining how you will respond to this ethical dilemma – do not explain the situation again. Consider your options in this hypothetical scenario. What will you do in this situation? Will you tell the lecturer or someone else at CQU or will you decide not to tell anyone because you do not want to lose your friends? Or will you take any other actions? Explain what you will do and the reasons for your actions, referring to the ACS Code of Ethics and/or the ACS Code of Professional Conduct (aCS documents). You must correctly reference the document/s using the CQU APA style and cite them in-text.
Note that you should not use any other references for this assessment item than the ACS documents. If you use different references, it will not increase your marks. If you do not use the ACS document/s as your reference/s or do not refer to them, you will lose marks. You do not need to refer to the all ethical elements and sub-elements in these documents. Select only the element/s relevant to your answer.
Note: Write this assessment from the first person perspective.
Marking Criteria
The submission must address on the correct scenario and the task for this Term to be considered for marking and feedback. It must be submitted as a Word Document with text. Otherwise it will receive 0 marks and no feedback.
Your response should include the following:
1. What will you do in this situation in the case scenario and why? (2 marks)
2. What elements from the ACS document/s would you consider as the basis for your actions and why? Indicate the particular element/s in the document/s you are referencing. (1 mark)
3. Referencing – cited and listed the relevant ACS document/s as per the requirements; and complied with the correct citation and reference list formatting according to CQU APA referencing style (1.5 marks)
Note: Referencing format should be based on the Other Electronic Sources format in the CQU APA guidelines pages 43 – 44 (Document on the World Wide Web – author/sponsor given, either dated or not dated as per the reference you use).
4. Grammatically correct, well-structured with separate paragraphs and easy to read and understand, within 350 – 450 words, and submitted as an MS Word file (0.5 marks).
PORTFOLIO_4: Successful Completion of COIT XXXXXXXXXXmarks)
Requirements
This portfolio item requires you to justify that you have successfully achieved the Unit Learning Outcomes, and to provide feedback about your experiences with the Unit. The response should have two parts and the total length should not be longer than 2 A4 pages.
Part A – Justification
The Unit Profile provides a list of Learning Outcomes you are expected to have achieved after completing this Unit.
From the Unit Profile:
On successful completion of this Unit, you will be able to:
1. Describe the basic principles and importance of effective interpersonal communication, active listening and reading for meaning.
2. Demonstrate teamwork skills.
3. Communicate ideas effectively both verbally and in written form using appropriate language.
4. Create and deliver effective oral presentations.
5. Argue the importance of ethics, codes of behaviour, and societal, privacy and legal issues within the ICT industry.
6. Demonstrate an understanding of common work practices and values operating in the Australian workplace.
7. Assess how ICT can be used to improve organisational processes.
8. Evaluate the application of emerging technologies to communication and collaboration.
Task for Part A
Write a reflective analysis that demonstrates you have satisfied all eight (8) learning outcomes that are listed in the Unit Profile for COIT20249 Professional Skills in ICT (they are listed above). Justify how the work you have completed this term has satisfied all eight (8) Unit Learning Outcomes. Please note it is important that you JUSTIFY how you have satisfied the Unit Learning Outcomes with examples. Do NOT just summarise the Unit content and/or assessment items OR define the Unit Learning Outcomes.
In short paragraphs, respond under the following themes (use relevant headings) and refer to relevant Learning Outcome/s from the above list. Use examples from the COIT20249 unit content, assessments and class activities that you have completed in this Unit and/or the competencies you have achieved after completing the Unit. You might refer to some Unit Learning Outcomes and assessments/activities more than once in your response.
All examples MUST be related to the current term of COIT20249. An assessment, a weekly topic or a class activity must be evident in your responses. Identify the relevant Unit Learning Outcome (ULO) as needed – you may refer to the ULO number as in the previous page.
1. Describe an example where you used listening and verbal communication skills effectively (1 mark).
2. How did you use reading skills to effectively develop an academic document? Provide an example (1 mark).
3. Provide an example of using your teamwork skills and interpersonal skills in this unit. Provide specific examples for each skill set. (1 mark).
4. Provide an example of an assessment task or an activity in this unit that helped you to understand ethical behaviours, and/or social, privacy and legal aspects within the ICT domain. (1 mark).
5. How did you use the diversity and intercultural competency skills to work with staff and/or students from different cultures? Use an example from COIT20249 (1 mark).
6. Describe an example of a communication and collaboration technology you learnt in COIT20249. Briefly explain how your selection could be used in an organisation (1 mark).
7. Describe how you learnt to evaluate ICT technologies to improve organisational communication processes. Give an example of an assignment/topic and the technology from COIT20249 (1 mark).
Part A should be 1 to 1.5 A4 pages long (approximate guideline).
Part B – Feedback (Task)
· In Part B of your PA1 assessment, you were asked to a write about which COIT20249 Unit Learning Outcome (ULO) you thought would be most helpful for you when you graduate as an ICT professional. What was that ULO and how did you think it help you as an ICT professional? Briefly reflect on if you still feel the same or have your thoughts changed during the term? Is there another ULO that you feel would be more helpful to you in your career as an ICT Professional? Make sure you provide your reasons (1.5 marks).
· Write one example of what you liked best about this Unit and provide the reason or reasons you liked them (0. 5 marks).
· Suggest one improvement to the Unit and justify why/how your suggestion would improve the Unit (0.5 marks).
Part B should be around half an A4 page long (approximate guideline).
Upload the Successful Completion document into Moodle.
Marking Criteria
To achieve full marks, the submission must focus on the current term of COIT20249 and its learning outcomes, unit content, assessments, and class activities.
Part A: Justification (7 marks)
Justify with examples from COIT20249 that you have successfully achieved all eight (8) Unit Learning Outcomes (1 mark per each of the points – see criteria in the previous page).
Please note that a summary of the Unit content and/or assessment items or defining the Unit Learning Outcomes will receive a maximum of ONE mark only for the entire section as you will not have addressed the assessment criteria.
Part B: Feedback (2.5 marks)
· Brief reflection which COIT20249 Unit Learning Outcome (ULO) you thought would be most helpful for you when you graduate as an ICT professional as discussed in Part B of your PA1 assessment.
o Name the ULO and brief description of how you thought it would help you as an ICT professional (0.5 marks).
o Brief reflection on how you feel now – do you still feel the same or have your thoughts changed during the term whether your skill has improved? If the same, must have explanation of why you feel the same. If you have changed your mind, must state the new ULO and describe why you feel it would be more helpful to you in your career as an ICT Professional (1 mark).
· One thing you liked about this Unit plus reasons (0.5 marks).
· One suggested improvement to the Unit plus justification (0.5 marks).
Common criteria (0.5 marks)
· Grammatically correct responses with no spelling mistakes.
· Well-structured responses - written under separate headings and paragraphs for each of the responses in each section.
· Easy to read and understand.
· Within the recommended length (no longer than 2 A4 pages) and submitted as an MS-Word file.
Note 1: If you are a repeating student who may need to use any previous assessment materials, you will need to follow self-referencing guidelines in some sections of this assessment. However, repeating students are encouraged to use new examples where possible to avoid self-plagiarism issues.
Note 2: If you did not submit PA 1 assessment or incorrectly responded to Part B in that assessment, consider a ULO that you have achieved from the ULO list.
Note 3: Write this assessment from the first person perspective. You do not need to provide any references for this portfolio item.