21st April - Final evaluation

Here is my evaluation for the extended project.

How well does it meet your original intentions?

The newspaper met my original intentions to an extent. We planned as a class to have articles related to the media critical perspectives exam and for them to be helpful and informative, with statistics and facts towards the exam, which students could quote or use to back up any points they made. Looking at the newspaper as a whole, most of the articles addressed these, especially Matt and my article, which I am pleased with for the original aim we wanted. We have clear facts and statistics to use, especially relating to the Media in the online age section of the exam. We had key questions to think about for the exam and key topics which could be raised. Some statistics from our article are shown below:

However, some articles did not relate to the exam at all and some thought that they were writing articles from their own personal view, which would not help anyone in the exam, because it was only one person's view. Alot of people wrote in a style where 'I think that.. 'coming from my experience of..' and this would not help students in the exam. Therefore, some students had to rush to change their articles so they could actually get them in the newspaper, and some decided to just have them online instead.

One thing I am dissapointed about is the fact that we didn't address question 1A of the exam very much at all, everybody wrote articles about the other aspect of the exam, for question 1B. We only addressed 1B after teacher feedback and someone actually being assigned to write about 1B, which is dissapointing. I think that nobody wanted to write about it because it wasn't as exciting as the other aspect. Nonetheless, we should have wrote about question 1B from the start and then we wouldn't have had to rush more near the end of the project. Overall however I am pleased with the finished project.

How does it look?

I think that the newspaper looks very efficient, and very much like a student newspaper which I am pleased about. We did not want the newspaper to look too business like, so we aimed at making it colourful and vibrant, with formal language to a lesser extent than a business newspaper such as The Guardian.

I like the look of the newspaper and think the articles are colouirful and attractive which make you want to read them. I think the activities page and everything looks interesting and am pleased to say the newspaper is something I would sit down and read, so am pleased with the finished outcome.

How pleased are you with your contributions?

I am very pleased with the contributions I made towards the newspaper and think that I did as much work as I personally could towards the project. My first job was the quality control team job of ensuring people had evidence on their blogs of work, this included a whole Flickr account with 70 odd pictures all showing people working, which could be easily added to the blogs. I also sent reminder emails ensuring everyone used pictures on their blogs, and made sure everyone knew the sign in for the Flickr account.

My second job was to write an article with Matt L about media in the online age, we chose to write about the abolishment of TV in the household due to new TV streaming websites such as BBC Iplayer and ITV player, 4OD and TV Catchup. I chose this job personally to do because I also wanted to have an article in the newspaper, as it would be good for experience. Therefore, I think that I did as much work for the project as I could handle, and I thought I worked effectively at this. Although I may have chosen another job to do as well, I think this did not distract me from anything because the article was made collectively with Matt L and therefore I did not have to write as much as I would have. Below is a picture of the finished article.

I originally wanted to be a part of a team creating a page for the newspaper, so the quality control team job was a good step up for me and I felt I did a lot more work than I would have done if I had just been assigned the job of a team member.

How effectively do you think you worked in your role and others in theirs?

I think I worked very effectively in my role, and I don't think my added job of writing an article distracted me from my main job, I thought that this gave me more to do which I liked because I like a challenge in terms of work, and I like to have a lot to do. I think the rest of the quality control team worked well in their roles, especially Kirk who monitored everyone's progress, and made clear schedules for days, activities and ensured everyone stayed working. Mike also worked well, creating as blog for feedback for everyone, and giving clear instructions on what else to add to their blogs, and what things were missing.

I also think the team leaders worked well, managing their teams effectively, although there was some tension because some other people like to take control, the team leaders worked well and managed their teams effectively, despite the fact they were sometimes not there and team members were confused about what to do - they overall worked well in managing their teams.

Team members worked well too, and mainly all made a page or article for the newspaper. Some articles did not really realte to our original aim which I was dissapointed about, but once getting on with their work after clear instruction most were able to change and edit their articles so they could fit in the newspaper. Most team members showed clear effort, despite the fact they do not like writing academically.

What could be learnt from this experience?

A lot of considerable points can be learnt from this experience, especially the fact that it shows we can work well as a class when given the correct roles. Another clear thing to learn is that most people need clear instructions in order to complete work but once they do, they work effectively as a team. We need an aim from the start so we can stick to the objective, but as a class we work well.

Another main point is that despite some of the class not meeting deadlines individually, we can all meet deadlines as a team and this is a good achievement. We met the print deadline effectively, although some people were left with more work to do than others, for example I came into the lesson to work on unfinished pages despite finishing my own page already, but I didn't mind this as I knew we needed to meet the deadline effectively.

What has been learnt from previous experience?

From previous experience, we can learn that despite some projects where we did not work as a team effectively, for example the SHOW project, this project showed that we could work collectively as a team when we are assigned the correct roles - and can create an effective extended project and also meet the deadlines.

Previous experience showed us who could work in what roles effectively and who struggled when given managerial roles - and this helped us when choosing roles for the class.

Nonetheless overall, I think myself and the class worked extremely well in terms of meeting the deadlines, in terms of creating an effective newspaper which meets our original intentions, and also in terms of working as a team, which it showed we can do when we put our minds to a project. I think I worked very well in terms of following my role, despite also doing additional work of writing an article with Matt L. I think the extended project went well and I have monitored my progress effectively, keeping a work blog of what I did each day, what I thought about it and what else I needed to do.