I am very excited that we are now starting our personal projects! As we have begun to make progress in our project, we have already had to make some changes and adjustments to our original proposal idea. Very early on in the project, Andrew and I realized that presenting our video to our class may not be too effective, as many people in the class know the topic of our project. This awareness might bring some bias while we are showing the video to the class. We made the decision to present to another class instead, as they will not have the previous knowledge that may make them more easily aware that the video is a propaganda. To recap on our progress thus far, we have completed our research and have moved on to the planning stage of the video that we will be creating.
We are currently ahead of schedule, as the research on propaganda did not take the 7 days that we had planned for. We did allow seven days to leave room for error as well as to make sure our research is thorough and extensive. However, I think that the main reason why we are ahead is mostly because of the overestimation of how long it would take for us to research rather than our own efficiency. In the future, I will take more care to make more realistic projections of a timeline for my projects. Nonetheless, we do have more time than we had thought we would. This is allowing us to put further care and details into the planning of our video.
When Andrew and I first started planning our video, we didn't have many concrete ideas as to what we were going to do. The ideas that we had were pretty vague and broad. We had ideas such as "make a commercial" or "make a documentary", so although we did have ideas, they weren't very concrete or complete. In retrospect though, I am glad that we got some ideas down instead of waiting for the perfect one to come, as I have done in the past. My frame of mind that tells me that everything needs to be perfect is something that I have been working on overcoming. Not to say that having high standards is a bad thing, but not progressing because I am too focused on the tiny details can hinder my performance in the long run.
During the brainstorming days, some lack of focus occurred for various reasons. Sometimes, I find that I can be easily distracted, especially when I have other things going on in my life (eg. tests, clubs etc.) . It can be difficult to focus when I have other things to think about, but I need to remember to remind myself that thinking about upcoming things too much can keep me from getting things done in the present.
Once we had a little bit more time to think about what we wanted to do with the video, we were able to narrow it down some more. We have decided to do a documentary-style video based on a fake news article that we read. We plan to utilize some of the techniques that are used in propaganda in our video. One of these techniques is getting a testimony fro a "trustworthy" source. In today's media, these sources are generally celebrities, but we are planning on using a teacher for our video. This will hopefully help us to demonstrate that even the things that "trustworthy" people say aren't always completely true.
Our current plans are to finalize the details of the video, such as the software that we will use to create it and finding appropriate places to film. We have already talked to some teachers about being in our video and presenting to their class when the video is finished. So far, the teachers have been very willing to help. We have discussed the fact that I will not be in class next week and have decided that Andrew will work on our presentation after the video and we will start filming when I get back. We have found ways to communicate while I am away as well so that I can be updated on the progress of the project and I can have some input as well.
In general, I am pleased with how our project is going. There were some challenges that we had to overcome, but they help us to not make the same mistakes in the future. I am looking forward to filming our video and am excited to see the outcome of it.
Hi Talissa
ReplyDeleteExcept for the fact that you should be getting more sleep (1:10 am!!!) I am finding your Weekly reflections to be very thoughtful and detailed particularly where you are trying to connect what you are learning, your stumbling blocks, successes to you past and future learning. I am impressed that you are doing this extra step without much prompting from me. Acknowledging how our own communication styles and/or assumptions can affect our progress is important and being more conscious of it should serve you well in the future.
On a side note: you may want to tag a few of these reflections in a place on your blog that you may wish to revisit as you near your senior years. Applications for other opportunities like scholarships or colleges often ask you to speak of specific times where you collaborated or learned in a collaborative environment. (Just an idea - you may be able to link to this blog in the future). Keep up the good work. To help you continue to improve your reflections - how about links and or other visual evidence of your individual/ collaborative work. Eg. Maybe screenshots of conversations, photos, storyboarding for your video,… Research notes / links, brainstorm webs,… What every you have would be great to see as evidence.