This week I was able to dive into researching different ways that grief and bereavement impact people’s lives. Anna gave me articles that stretched over a wide range of topics associated with grief. As someone who has never lost a loved one (thankfully), I felt that the articles have helped me to gain a better understanding of some of the difficulties associated with grief and the loss of a loved one. While it did seem tedious at times to read so many articles, I know that reading other researcher’s work will benefit me as we dive further into our own project.
One thing that I struggled with this week was trying to keep all of my readings organized. It almost seemed like reading overload at times, but I definitely thing that writing summaries was helpful. Printing the articles also helped me because I had physical copies that I could move around and put into different group. I could also highlight and write on them.
Unfortunately James was out of the office for the majority of the week so we did not get a chance to meet with him, but Meagan and I met with Anna everyday. I really appreciate that Anna is so willing to help us and give us support in any way she can. She has answered all of my questions.
After talking with Anna we have decided that for our project it will be best to plan things out two weeks in advance instead of planning out the rest of the REU. Our current timeline for the next two weeks is to begin recruiting for our in person study, meet with James, work with coding in dedoose, possibly do follow up interviews, discuss our themes, and have an intro to prototyping. I feel like our meetings with Anna are super productive because we have a great dialogue where we let Anna know what we are doing and she lets us know what she’s doing.
Our ultimate deliverable would be to create a prototype of a technology that grievers can use for support through their grief journey. We do not have a clear idea of what this technology will be since interviews still need to be conducted. The answers we get form these interviews will help us figure out that services we may be able to create to support our target population.
Luckily Anna had an abundance of resources on the box for us to read. She prioritized the articles for us. Two articles were very useful in helping to paint a better picture of how we may want to conduct our study. Other articles investigated key components surrounding grief. Meagan and I were able to find three important themes in many of the readings that Anna believes are strong categories to start with. We came up with digital memorials/social media, normalizing grief, and asymmetrical relationships as our three categories. Anna really enjoyed work done by Massimi so we read a few of his articles as well. I primarily used the digital library from the ACM to find additional resources, especially Massimis’s since his work is included there.
My notes for the past week can be found at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oZ8E6yOiGTROVpJPTGdd_n9ebccPp9YU-wVUxkP_7T0/edit?usp=sharing
Fun highlights of the week:
Saturday: I went to the farmers market with a bunch of other REU students. It was my first time at a farmers market and it was so cool. I bought some strawberries, broccoli, and local honey which is out of this world good.
Tuesday: Meagan and I saw a fox on our way to the gym before work.
I began decorating my cubicle.
Meagan and I went out for Thai food with Anna. We went to a place called Do. It was my first time trying Thai and it was pretty good. The service was super fast and their sweet potato fries are amazing. https://www.visitbloomington.com/listing/do-asian-fusion-cuisine/1211/
Thursday: I sat in the awesome meeting room (which is much warmer than by my desk). It was such a beautiful day out and it was nice to be able to look outside for a bit.
Friday: I was able to use the laser cutter to make my name tag which was so cool. My mind is still blown over how it only takes a few seconds to make a name tag. It was really fun to learn about the 3-D printer as well because I’ve never used one.