We got so engrossed in the production of WIRES that it is only now that we are able to breathe and reflect upon what we have learned and how we have grown through the completion of this project. Yes, we learned about how the Internet works, and some of us learned Hyperstudio or sharpened our editing or technical writing or graphics development or HTML skills. While these skills are valuable, and we can take them with us to future endeavors, we are realizing that the peripheral skills we gained are much more meaningful and valuable.
On the mundane level, we realized that any big project must be divided by roles. We realized, perhaps late in the game, but not too late to recover, that big group meetings are the proper time to delegate and get feedback on accomplishments rather than being the time to actually accomplish. Additionally, we learned the value of style guides and establishing standards for both style and form early on, as a way to save tons of editing time later on when everything has been done three different ways in different parts of the project.
We learned that high schoolers don't read directions, no matter how large or clear or prominently-placed you think the directions are, and what this really translates into is that usability testing is important. No matter how close you are in age or experience or world view to your user population, users are generally not software engineers or designers, and by that token, you are too far removed from their world and too engrossed in your own to accurately project the user experience. There is absolutely no substitute for getting your target users thinking aloud in front of your program.
Most importantly, we learned a lot about group dynamics, about balancing personal goals with the goals of others in the group with group goals. Everything takes ten times longer than one would expect, and everyone has to compromise, and there is no way to do everything you had hoped to do, but if the group is careful to ensure everyone a voice, what you do get to accomplish is amazing. And if you manage it right, which we eventually did, everyone in the group is still talking to each other when you're done.
In a lot of ways, it would be fun to start over, to take what we've learned and apply it again, and build on it further. Two of us are graduating, so this is not to be, but there is a lot we will take from this course, a lot of valuable experiences and understandings which will guide and shape us regardless of whether we continue on in educational software, and even regardless of whether we continue in CS.