I genuinely feel like I’ve come a long way throughout this semester, both in understanding the way that the course operates and how I operate. I’ve learnt a lot about media and communication practices, theories and approaches just as much as I’ve learnt how to better conduct my personal approach to learning.

I have to admit that I experienced a somewhat clumsy beginning to the course, I wasn’t really engaging with the ideas as well as I should have been and was foolishly circumventing the tasks at hand, regardless of how simple or non-time-consuming they were. I feel like this was because I was so fixated on what I predicted the course to be and wasn’t allowing myself to accept a process of learning that didn’t strictly abide to that preconception. As time went on and as I was forced to put more and more work into the project briefs, however, I began to realise the value in the course.

I’ve learnt that being honest, open and communicative is absolutely essential to a course like this – there were too many instances where I should have bitten the bullet and asked for help as soon as possible to greaten my chances of better results. This became clear to me in the Project Brief #4 process, where through legitimate and rich collaboration I endured a totally comfortable and natural working process which resulted in a product that I am proud of and don’t feel as though it was a chore to produce.

I realised that I learn really effectively through consistent reflection on ideas, simply writing about something after experiencing it I find to be an awesome way to draw my own understanding from what has been presented to me and to clearly engage with the ideas at hand. As a result, I feel like I finally understand the value in the blog, and in hindsight wish that I had maintained it on a consistent, regular basis, as a lot of the key concepts within the course would have resonated with me far more effectively.

So I suppose I would say that I found understanding this way of approaching learning to be the most challenging aspect of the course, it took me pretty much the whole semester to really grasp. Typically I learn from practice, and I initially felt that I was robbed of enough hands-on content. I really do feel now though that I can accept this newfound approach to learning and benefit from it greatly.

I am proud of the majority of material that I have produced this semester, although I can’t say I was reaching my full potential in producing it. I compromised my creative ability by delaying the effort out of laziness, and in reflecting on the work that I did end up putting together, it is generally of a great quality, but I really do have a lot more potential that I’m going to explore as the course continues.

I’ve met some great people, have had some great experiences, and have learnt a lot more about myself than I particularly thought I would. Keen to see what the rest of the course brings!

Bless, Timp out. xx

PS: See below – Learning Graph, a visual representation of what I was saying above however I think since doing it I’ve begun to understand some things better than I did even in week 12 (I would suggest that the blog curve would take a much more positive incline at the end than is depicted).