Where's My Doctor?

This week, we made an app called, "Where's My Doctor?"  The 'Where's My Doctor' app lets you find you doctors in an efficient way. You are able you look up their address and their name to see where they are on a map.  You can also store your doctors and later pick them from a list.  

This was a difficult app.  I used code blocks that I haven't used before and I didn't really know their functions, but then I got to know what their functions were. At first, I had no confidence in myself to do this hard app but when I paired up with my friend, she really did help me and give me the courage to do my best in this app. As I began to work on it, I immediately figured out that reading the instructions more than one time is key.  With a more complex app, if you make a tiny mistake while coding, it can affect the whole app experience. Even though the app may look simple, there is a lot that goes into coding an efficient app. Compared to a game, it requires more blocks, variables, and procedures. One of the biggest components is Google Maps, which requires advanced code and made our app feel more like a real app. It's a mature app which could be used in the real world.  

Building the Where’s My Doctor app was really important to me because it felt like I was doing something productive and that was going to help someone else. As opposed to a game, I felt like it was more fun because it was me, a normal 13 year old, adding complicated and complex parts that most adults do not recognize.  That was super awesome.

Career Exploration #1: Healthcare

Startup Tech is not just about building apps.  It's also about researching career fields so we can build real apps for those fields, and also to decide if we want to go into those fields when we grow up.  This week, we researched healthcare and did presentations about what it was like to work in the healthcare field.  

When you work in healthcare, unless you are a doctor or a nurse, your work can go unnoticed. Each health career requires different skill sets and personality traits. Most roles require excellent interpersonal and communication skills, some level of technical or mathematic capacity, and a strong work ethic. Additionally, most medical jobs require a great deal of responsibility and maturity. Your patient’s well-being, and even their live, could depend on the quality of your work.  A high school diploma or a general education degree (or the equivalent) is often necessary. Training and education programs are available to get you started, help improve your skills and advance your career. You might work in an HMO, community health center, mobile clinic, long-term care facility, private practice office, or a patient’s home. You might also be part of a small staff or a huge organization, working at the national, regional, state or local level in a corporate, non-profit or government office. The possibilities in this field are almost endless.

The medical field seems very complex as well as tiring.  You have to be very flexible.  A doctor can be called in to work at any time.  You could never plan anything and be sure it would not be canceled.  But you get the reward of helping people and making them smile and making a lot of money.

Congratulations!

At Memphis Street Academy, students are required to read for 1 hour per day - half an hour in school and half an hour at home.  However, Startup Tech meets during independent reading.  That means that Startup Tech students must do all their reading at home, with no teacher reminding them or making sure they fill out their reading logs.  This requires a great deal of self-motivation and mutual support among classmates.

Not only is Startup Tech the only classroom in the building in which every student is current on reading, we were the first class to have everyone at 100 steps for the year (25 hours of reading) and the first class to have everyone at 200 steps for the year (50 hours of reading).  On Friday, we were recognized with a banner and a parade around the school. Later, we will get free books and a field trip to reward our accomplishment.

Great job, Startup Tech!