ALC708 - Assessment Portfolio part 2

ALC708 – Assessment Portfolio part 2

CRITICAL REFLECTION

by

Samuel Byrnand (217604105)

The research for this video was relatively simple to come by. In fact, one paper alone provided all the bibliographic ammunition I needed to build the topic, and I must commend Inoue-Smith for her excellent and informative reference list, which led me to the bulk of my research. I started by using seven peer reviewed articles and one journalistic article in the original edit of the video, but these references took up too much time and several had to be cut. In the end, I chose the four most relevant peer reviewed articles and stuck with them to build my narrative. This is a shame because Forbes published an article last year, stating that the use of Powerpoint in the boardroom and as a pitching device was considered brand damaging in the corporate world. I would have loved to have teased this out a little more, but it was too far off topic to be considered relevant.

The physical video capture was simple enough: my android phone and a $10 tripod were employed in the production, and I edited and rendered the final cut in Adobe Premiere. I would have loved to have played around with After Effects to really put some punchy spectacle into this video, but as my contract has recently kicked in again, and the fact that I am adjusting to a new medication, I just didn’t have time or energy.

One major issue I came up against was the importing of Quicktime screen video captures into Premiere. The QT .mov files would not play the game no matter what I tried, and I burned through a lot of time simply troubleshooting this issue... to no effect. The plan was to record parts of my own educational Powerpoints that I use in class, to show what an effective multimedia presentation can look like (especially in landscape design and political philosophy units). Powerpoint can be used as a simple CAD application and can produce some excellent 3D builds and deconstructions of various component structures. But in the end I just had to take a couple of screenshots and rethink most of the video plan. This is a new problem that really threw a spanner in the works, as I have used Quicktimes in Premiere previously and never had this particular issue before. 

Gremlins, eh?

Choosing from the available topics was tough as I had already podcasted the one that interested me the most. I vacillated for way too long before I settled on a topic for this video, and as a result, was left less time than I would have liked to create a fun video. You can tell by my reaction partway through the video that I realise I landed on the “wrong” topic, boring even myself in process! All I can do now is cross my fingers and pray that I have satisfied the criteria well enough to keep my assessors out of a coma…

As I was choosing between the topics provided I did catch myself dreaming of being able to choose our own topics for this assessment. I just did not click with any of the selection provided and this caused much anxiety in process, and left me with what I would describe as a flat and uninteresting video. I ensured to cover all of the criteria and to inject a little of my own personality into it, but by the time principal photography was complete there was not enough time to start again and make it awesome.

In all, this video did not come out to a standard that satisfies my personal criteria, and it certainly should not be taken as a general example of my production abilities. But it is what it is, and I hope my audience can get a little chuckle out it here and there.

"Powerpoint" is a trademark of the Microsoft Corporation.

"Keynote" is a trademark of the Apple Corporation.

REFERENCES                                                                          

Inoue-Smith, Y., 2016. College-based case studies in using PowerPoint effectively. Cogent Education, vol. 3, no. 1, doi: 10.1080/2331186x.2015.1127745  

Jones, A M 2003, The use and abuse of PowerPoint in Teaching and Learning in the Life Sciences: A Personal Overview. Bioscience Education, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 1-13, doi: 10.3108/beej.2003.02000004

Signor, D 2009, Comparison analysis of the online lecture formats of PowerPoint and Webpage for online students, Same places, different spaces. Proceedings ascilite Auckland 2009, retrieved 25 January 2018, <https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Daniela_Signor/publication/237683676_Comparison_analysis_of_the_online_lecture_formats_of_PowerPoint_and_Webpage_for_online_students/links/550a171d0cf20f127f90d3a3/Comparison-analysis-of-the-online-lecture-formats-of-PowerPoint-and-Webpage-for-online-students.pdf >.

Young, J., 2004. When good technology means bad teaching: Giving professors gadgets without training can do more harm than good in the classroom, students say. The Chronicle of Higher Education, vol. 51, no. 12, pp. A31-A37.