Reflective Practice in Information Technology - Essay Example

Reflective Essay By Student name Date Introduction: Reflective Practice in Information Technology was a very interesting subject, which allowed me to get thoughtfulness, information and expertise that can help build and improve my IT skills and experiences. Additionally, this subject allowed me to enthusiastically get engaged in making selection regarding field of interest which is related to my own interests and match my skills and abilities so that it could help me develop my professional career. In addition, this subject allowed me to establish connections between the theoretical frameworks and practical demonstration of that theory, teamwork, reflection and self-governing education. Moreover, this subject has provided me with an opportunity to make use of diverse tools, methods and techniques that can be studied and utilized in IT field, with focusing on those which are normally utilized in professional scenarios. Furthermore, this course helped me to get involved in study related activities which were aimed at improving their knowledge and skills regarding major elements of professional career comprising an independent and self-governing education agreement, how to write professional reports on IT related topics, conducting research effectively, team presentations, group or peer assessment, self assessment and a reflective portfolio. Learning contract plan and deliverable: A learning contract is a working agreement which outlines the ways a student will complete his work or learning activity. From the learning contract, I learned how to find my interest area which is e-commerce. This was the first time that I came know about the learning contract. So this course was also helpful to me in knowing about some innovative terms related to the education. At this stage I learned how to write learning contract. It also taught me what would I study in my course and how would I complete it. For this purpose I developed a learning plan which was an amazing experience for me. My Experiences: In this essay I will describe my experiences and knowledge I gained from the research undertaken on the information technology subject. For completing my research on an information technology topic I preferred to choose e-commerce. E-commerce is an emerging trend of information technology which deals with buying and selling products and services on internet. It is an interesting topic. The reason of choosing this topic was that this trend is emerging day by day and more and more organizations are attempting to implement this latest trend for their businesses. This emerging though regarding E-commerce is getting popularity not only in Europe and United States but as well as in middle east especially Saudi Arabia. In the starting I would like to discuss my learning capabilities and experiences regarding my topic which was on e-commerce. E-commerce is a process of conducting business activities using internet. It is a really a massive field of study. This area of knowledge is based on a variety of artifacts and aspects of information technology. In my research I have analyzed the different trends and forms of e-commerce and how organizations make use of this latest trend to compete in this ever-increasing competitive world. My experience with this overall analysis was very good. For this assignment, I have done a lot of research that will be further explored in this essay. It was an extremely exciting chance for me to write a long report on the topic of my choice. For completing this report I have conducted a deep research on my chosen topic. For this purpose I have collected a lot of research papers and material from different digital libraries. That was really a high level experience for me. I have spent a lot of time in studying different ideas from different authors. It was a very critical matter to choose related and most appropriate data and information regarding my topic. In this scenario, I have analyzed different approaches of different authors and used those papers which were related to my research interest. In addition, for completing this research I have downloaded and studied more than fifteen research papers. This research was very helpful to me because it has offered me and chance to learn how to analyze and understand the work of others. It was also very helpful to me in improving my researching and analytical skills. This research process taught me how to find out the necessary data and information, analyze and make use of it according to my research needs and requirements. There are different ways of research for instance, qualitative and quantitative research. For my research I have chosen qualitative research method. In this method we collect the data through research. We can use internet and books to collect data. After that I will process that data for the enhanced quality of data. Here we will extract the effective data parameters for the better analysis of data. In case of any data collection process sometimes we are having some dirty data entries. For the effective analysis of the data, data need for the purified for the better results. After purification of that data we will process the data through some intelligent data modeling tool for overall data results analysis. This will lead to overall predation of some generic hypothesis for the establishment of significant data prediction. For the overall research citations I have analyzed some of the main information referencing methods. For this purpose I have researched the web and assessed some of high level research citation methods. In this scenario I have found the Harvard referencing style more suitable as compared to others. I have used this method due to its overall simplicity. In this style we can have a better overview of some of main research aspects in a quick manner. This will be very helpful in achieving high quality results of analysis and understanding. This offers us a better overview of some of the main aspects of main sources of data from which we have gathered the material. After that there is a most important factor and that is presentation. Here main problem was how to present collected data, information and ideas. There are different approaches for presenting ideas. For instance, research paper, article, report and a lot of others. But the way that I have chosen to present my ideas and thoughts is report. I have used the report style to present my ideas and thoughts. There are different ways and approaches to write a report. I have used standard format for writing a report. Next thing I learned from this research was about report writing. This was also a great opportunity for me. Before it I never experienced of writing a report. Thus, it was very difficult for me to write a report on a new topic. For this purpose I have researched a lot. I spent a lot of time on finding the help and ideas on the internet. There I found a lot of tips and samples of reports. I used various ideas from the tips and samples, for instance, how to insert headings, abstract and introduction in the report. So this experience would also be helpful in my IT profession. Next thing that this course has taught me is how to complete a task in teams. Working in form of a team or group was a wonderful experience for me I have learned a lot from it. I have learned how to communicate with other group members while working on a project. During this project my group members have collaborated with each other and shared their ideas with me in this way I have improved my communication skills. We worked in collaboration. Thus, it was very helpful to me in learning how to communicate with other people regarding a project. It will be helpful in my professional career. When I would be assigned a project and a project team then I would be able to apply my theoretical knowledge there. I would be able to communicate and share my ideas with other members regarding that project. Problem solving is a process of analyzing, understanding and solving problems. It is a process which tells us how we can solve different problems. It depends on our mentality for instance how we think of a problem. And the mental power of each person is different from another thus accordingly he researches to the solution of a specific problem. Luckily, I have good problem solving skill which helped me a lot in my research. In this scenario, first of all I thought about the problem which I had to research about. My research topic was “e-commerce”. Then I analyzed different approaches to e-commerce. After that my major job was to search for the solutions about this problem. Thus, throughout my whole research I have utilized my problem solving skills. My presentation: The topic of my presentation was Oral Communication. Oral communication plays a very important role in IT profession. Since it produced confidence in me and now I can communicate with other people with much confidence. Other students’ presentations: In this course I got a chance to attend the presentations of my other class fellows. There I attended a lot of interesting presentations. These presentations helped me a lot to learn how various aspects play an important role in IT professionalism. These important aspects include creativity, Critical Thinking, Ethics & Professionalism, Life-Long Learning, Leadership, Multi-media Literacy, Multi-modal and Trans-Literacy, Planning & Organizing, Problem Solving, Research, Self-Management, Teamwork, and Technology Literacy. All these aspects are related to the information technology. IT professionals use these aspects at different levels. For instance, I learned what is ethical and legal in information technology. Meeting with Mentor: During my course I regularly visited my Mentor’s office. I always took guidelines from him. For instance, I took a lot of ideas from him regarding my research. I learned from him how to organize contents of the report and what should be included and what should be excluded from the report. He gave me a lot of tips regarding this course particularly on report writing. How this course affected me and the changing I will apply in my future: This course was a full package comprising a lot of activities and knowledge areas. This course has taught me how to become a good IT professional. I learned dealing with other with respect. I learned how to work in teams and communicate with team members. I learned what is ethics and how is it implemented in the IT organizations. I leaned about creativity and how this could be created in IT products. I learned a lot of presentation skills which helped me build confidence in my personality. This course has given me a lot of IT skills which will be very helpful to me in future. Read More