User:Syd steck

Week 1: (May 29th 2023 - June 2nd 2023)

Tuesday (5/30)

• REU introduction meeting
• Decided on a topic and started preliminary research

Wednesday (5/31)

• Attended REU meeting on how to conduct research effectively
• Communicated with other professors to determine a good starting point
• Began reading a master's thesis related to the topic and took notes

Thursday (6/1)

• Met with Dr. Kaczmarek via teams to discuss Splunk and possible avenues of research
• Finished reading the thesis from the day prior
• Started Splunk online training

Friday (6/2)

• Continued Splunk online training videos
• Looked for potential research articles and took note of a few different articles of interest
• Read a research article about implementing Splunk Phantom and took notes
  • Link to article: https://0-ieeexplore-ieee-org.libus.csd.mu.edu/document/9698447
  • Entitled "Methods for Automating Threat Hunting and Response"
  • Results of research were not very helpful at all

Week 2: (June 5th 2023 - June 9th 2023)

Monday (6/5)

• Attended the RCR Training meeting

Tuesday (6/6)

• Met with other REU researchers during the collaboration time in the morning
• Created the mini presentation for the research paper I read last Friday
• Listened to other's present their research findings
• Presented mini presentation to the others in my lab group
• Researched Bee-Bots and how they are used in computer science education
  • Began creating the short presentation for this

Wednesday (6/7)

• Finished Bee-Bots presentation and research
• Attended the Technical Writing / Good Presentations meeting
• Was able to log onto Marquette's Splunk site
  • I was able to explore the site and see how it operated
  • Also continued to do research into how to best navigate the site
• Started to read another research paper (that is hopefully more useful than the last)
  • Link to article: https://0-ieeexplore-ieee-org.libus.csd.mu.edu/document/9800787
  • Entitled "Threat Modeling and Threat Intelligence System for Cloud using Splunk"
  • Seems somewhat helpful, uses Splunk was as a plugin to create something that combines threat modeling and threat intelligence

Thursday (6/8)

• Attended a meeting with everyone in my lab group
  • Presented my Bee-Bots research
  • Listened to other lab member's presentations
  • As a group we discussed how we can effectively use what we found in this research to help the teacher's come up with lesson plans to utilize these computer science education tools
• Trying to get the free eLearning classes for Splunk
  • Just does not want to seem to want to work for me yet, still trying to sort that out
• Began looking for more research papers that could potentially be useful

Friday (6/9)

• Started reading another research paper
  • Link to article: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9752323
  • Entitled "Efficient Brute-force handling methodology using Indexed-Cluster Architecture of Splunk"
  • Article is fairly useful, and it talks about the capabilities of Splunk and how to perform effective searches
• Still trying to figure out how to access the Splunk eLearning classes
  • Have been in contact with Marquette's Splunk representative, and it should be sorted out soon

Week 3: (June 12th 2023 - June 16th 2023)

Monday (6/12)

• Re-read parts of the research paper I found last week
• Created a power point for the short presentation about the research paper tomorrow
• Splunk training courses are still not working properly
  • Still trying to sort out the problem with Splunk representative
  • The issue is that it is not allowing me to access the Splunk eLearning courses with Marquette's access
• Continued looking for more academic articles relating to Splunk's cybersecurity capabilities
• Explored Marquette's Splunk page
  • Read through a few of the suggested readings linked in one of the apps on the Splunk site

Tuesday (6/13)

• Met with my lab group for a few hours
  • Presented my research findings from the last week
  • Listened and engaged with my peer's presentations
  • Discussed what was going to happen for the next couple weeks and what needs to be prepared for next week
• Continued trying to make Splunk work, but the Splunk representatives are seemingly nonrespondent at the moment :(
• Explored Marquette's Splunk page
  • Looked into the different apps, and read a few short articles on how to use them

Wednesday (6/14)

• Attended weekly meeting
  • Shared what I have been researching the past week to the group
  • Watched a sample presentation for how our first mini presentation should go
• Communicated with some of my lab group
  • Talked over ideas for how to present the robots and other technologies to the teachers for next week
• Looked for more research papers

Thursday (6/15)

• Finally got into the Splunk training courses
  • Completed the first course about how to best utilize the search app on Splunk
• Brainstormed other purposes for BeeBots in a classroom
• Began reading another research paper

Friday (6/16)

• Continued Splunk training courses
  • Completed the course on creating alerts
  • Completed the course on visualizing the data
• Played around with a BeeBot
  • Worked on my BeeBot slides for Monday
• Met with my lab group
  • Talked about the plans for Connecticut

Week 4: (June 19th 2023 - June 23rd 2023)

Monday (6/19)

• Worked on creating my BeeBot mat
  • Drew a few different "obstacles" for my BeeBot mat
• Met with the teachers
  • Presented my slides on BeeBots
  • Showcased a demo of a BeeBot in action using the mat that I had created earlier
  • Engaged with the group and answered questions that they had about what I presented
• Met with my lab group
  • Discussed how the rest of the week was going to go

Tuesday (6/20)

• Worked on Splunk for a bit (more training courses)
• Met with lab group
• Met with one teacher to demonstrate how BeeBots and BlueBots are used

Wednesday (6/21)

• Attended weekly REU meeting
  • Listened to a sample mini presentation
• Met with my lab group and discussed what was happening that day
• Met with teachers to discuss what they want to incorporate into their classroom
  • Then worked on one of the requests that the teachers' had

Thursday (6/22)

Friday (6/23)

• Met with the teachers again
  • Showed the demo projects that we had created during the week
• Met with lab group
  • Discussed travel plans for the next day

Week 5: (June 26th 2023 - June 30th 2023)

Week Recap

• I travelled to Connecticut along with a large portion of my lab group to conduct the same type of meetings that we had with the Milwaukee school teachers the week previous but with the Connecticut teachers
• On the first day, we gave the same presentation of current computer science tools that have been used in classrooms
  • Showcased what each object was, and how they were commonly used
  • I showed off Beebot again
• Spoke with many different groups of teachers, each with really creative ideas on how to incorporate computer science into their classrooms
  • One of the groups had a really interesting idea of a web-based platform to intertwine basic block coding along with teaching the kids what erosion is and how it impacts the environment
  • Another group wanted to incorporate block coding into creating visuals to tell stories
• Something I found interesting about this experience was the strict regulations that Connecticut has with privacy when using the internet in schools
  • It was intriguing how Scratch seemed to be illegal in classrooms because it chose not to comply with the strict rules

Week 6: (July 3rd 2023 - July 7th 2023)

Monday (7/3)

• Created the slides for my presentation for this Wednesday

Tuesday (7/4)

• Fourth of July!

Wednesday (7/5)

• Attended the weekly REU meeting
• Gave my presentation about what I have been working on so far this summer
  • Focused more on Splunk
• Continued Splunk trainings

Thursday (7/6)

• Attended the REU social at the museum
• Worked on Splunk

Friday (7/7)

• Met with lab group to discuss what the plans are for the next few weeks

Week 7: (July 10th 2023 - July 14th 2023)

Monday (7/10)

• Met with lab group
• Started helping Sam with his ECS project
  • Began to read through the curriculum and make notes for possible edits
  • Started going through each lesson on his website and completing them

Tuesday (7/11)

• Continued helping out with the ECS project I had mentioned yesterday

Wednesday (7/12)

• Attended the weekly REU meeting
• Met with lab group to discuss updates
• Continued helping with ECS project
  • Met with a couple others to discuss changes to the curriculum

Thursday (7/13)

• Met with Sam and Mary to work on ECS curriculum
  • Read through curriculum and made necessary changes
  • I researched what computer science educational standards were being utilized in each lesson and made notes of it
• Was supposed to meet to talk about Splunk but meeting got cancelled

Friday (7/14)

• Splunk meeting
• Lab meeting
  • Discussed updates
• Worked on ECS stuff still

Week 8: (July 17th 2023 - July 21st 2023)

Week Recap

• I attended the teacher ECS curriculum meetings throughout the week with Sam and Mary
• I was able to gain valuable teacher insight about their perspective on the curriculum
• I worked on recreating the "Muddy City" problem that is currently used in ECS curriculum
  • This is essentially a minimum spanning tree problem with nice visuals associated with it, and helps high school students understand the topic
  • I am recreating this because the solution to the current one can be found very easily on the internet, causing many students to cheat
  • During this week I mostly completed it, with just a few more pieces to add
• Attended the weekly REU meeting
• Met with lab group a couple times to discuss updates

Week 9: (July 24th 2023 - July 28th 2023)

Monday (7/24)

• Continued designing the revised Muddy City problem
• Worked on testing Sam's ECS website
  • Tested by creating HTML pages for each assignment

Tuesday (7/25)

• Continued reviewing and revising the ECS curriculum with Sam and Mary
  • Still working on the Unit 3 curriculum that is used on the ECS website
• Continued working on Muddy City problem
• Started working on REU poster

Wednesday (7/26)

• Attended weekly REU meeting
• Continued working on Muddy City problem
• Continued working on REU poster
• Started rough draft for REU paper