I just had a look back through my blog, to find some key “light bulb” moments for this post, and I came to the realisation that I had indeed both grown and learnt throughout the semester. So what have I learned? One major aspect of this course which I have learned from is how to discuss medias/mediums within certain frames. For example in week two, after doing some of the weekly readings, I started looking at media outlets through the lens of power and control. I wrote a blog about how media outlets have the power to either disclose or reveal certain bits of information and how this can be used to control or to liberate. Another example is some class notes on the discussion around the broadcasting/post-broadcasting model, in which I have depicted the change in perception of how media is conceptualised. Towards the end of the semester I started l started linking readings, lectures and personal findings with theories, for example in this blog I theorise about the impacts of the internet as a medium.
I have not only grown as a learner, but have become more comfortable with consciously analysing my own learning style. Take the very first blog I wrote, for example. I discuss learning from failure and learning through metaphor. I think this blog was a good start on the path of open self reflection about learning. There were moments when I struggled with new ways of learning, especially uniting creativity and academia. There were some notes I took on board when learning about how to make and create.
My biggest learning curve this semester was learning how to use programs I had never even opened before. This was my most valued part of this course as well. Here is an example of the first thing I made on Premier Pro. Re-watching this, I remember how I felt when I first opened the program and had no idea what to do, compared to now. I’m still learning with Premier, and I may not be doing things the most parsimonious way, but I have come far from were I started. Here is another example, the first time I ever used Audition. Listening to this reminds me of how it started my appreciation of listening carefully to sounds, and thinking about how you can tell a story using only sounds. As well as this, we were required to improve our audio/visual recording skills in a self directed manner.
This semester was also a journey of solo creative choices and discoveries. Project brief two, for example, was a purely solo project and the task involved a large amount of self reflection on identity. This was a hard assignment for me. With this project I made symbolic, abstract creative choices. There were also a variety of group creative decisions to be made though out the semester. This was an interesting learning curve for me, because I got to see how other people work creatively. One thing I discovered about working creatively as a group is that you cannot make instantaneous creative decisions, as they need to me be made as a group. Here is an example of our group creative process. It exemplifies how as a group we decided to do one thing, then unitedly decided to change to something else, only to realise that wasn’t going to work and went back to our original idea. This, of cause, is a totally different process to the process that might go through ones head as they make a solo creative decision. It is more time consuming, but it is also beneficial because discussing something as a group means hearing a range of perspectives on the matter that you may not have thought of on your own. The creative process is about receiving feedback and taking it onboard. I wrote this blog and this blog on receiving feedback. Here is a final blog about our creative processes making PB4 as a group.
Here is my learning graph. I felt like my biggest learning curve was surrounding learning technologies, craft/skills and programs. I felt I plateaued a little in other aspects of my learning, such as professionalism.
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