Group 7’s feedback to Group 1

Members of Group 7

Despite a lot of fallen comrades to sickness, Group 7 joined forces on Friday morning to give feedback to Group 1. Due to technical difficulties, we were secretly cackling and rubbing our hands together, thinking we would be allowed to have more time to prepare for feedback. But in the end it would be unfair to Group 1, who had so little time to prepare their presentation. If you think that two weeks to prepare a presentation for the hardest subject would hinder them, then we can say that was not the case, and that Group 1 really set the bar high for the upcoming groups.

The presentation started with a video showing snippets of Media in everyday life. With just a few images of familiar signs, logos, etc. it was clear to us that Media surrounds us and is part of our life. Following that, they interviewed people on the street about their definition of Media, Art, etc. which was a very nice way to introduce the topic and arise curiosity to those very same questions.

The theory part was only seven minutes long but still managed to cover the most important topics found on the book. The Social Media game was very fun, especially with the topics they chose. It also allowed us to have a glimpse of an aspect of professional life, that is problem solving in a group to cater to a target audience. The debate at the end of the class also raised interesting questions to something very actual, which is Social Media. It was also a good idea to explore it’s pros and cons.

Downsides: Considering the topic is “The Designs of Media” we believe Group 1 should have varied the theme a little bit more and not focus so much on Social Media. We would have kept the last debate that focused on Social Media, since it’s such an interesting actual topic, but could perhaps change the theme for the problem solving game. Maybe have something that would involve other fields of Media, like ask one group how would they make the masses go to the movies more often again, or how would they fight piracy on the music scene, etc.

We also think that it would be a good idea to include a conclusion with their own answers to the questions posed on the video. We agree that students should think for themselves, and come up with their own definition of what is Media, but sometimes in order for an idea to grow and bloom you must plant a seed. So, using Group 1’s own conclusion as starting point, the students could more easily come up with their own.

We believe Group 1 did an excellent job with their presentation, being engaging, asking for opinions, promoting debates and teaching in a fun way. It was a very good way to present, share and develop knowledge.

First group’s kick off is done, 6 more groups to go

We had two weeks of preparation for this class, and despite the lack of time, we think we had a result.
How can we start without some technical issues? It’s seems that one of the senior lecturers stole our class (unforgivable!), so with a little help from Cai, we managed to take over Ada.

When all the technical problems solved, we have started with a short video introduction, made by our group members and a little help from a czech alien. We tried to make it serious as we can, but our group member, Justin Case, had to add some sexual jokes into the video, and since he was in charge of the video editing, we all had to comply.


Password:  H1ghlySophisticat3D  

After the video has ended, we asked our classmates, what they think design is, what is media, what is art and what is the relation between them is. Since it was 10 in the morning, most of our classmates were still sleepy, but we managed to get some answers we liked and made our point clear.
We gave them a short historical introduction to our subject, tried to cover everything from cave painting until today’s social media in less than 7 minutes.

Our galaxy team in a middle of a mind storming

 We believe that the best way to learn is by laughing and having fun, so we arranged kind of a game with an educational propose. Our classmates divided to 5 groups, and each group had to design a social media for a certain target group: Cannibal Chefs, Galaxy Explorers, Moustache Club Members, Multi-Million Swindlers and Medieval Dictators.
All the groups got the idea really fast, and after 15 minutes we got pretty impressive and detailed results from each groups, and needless to say we all had fun.

Thinking of new ways to steal your money

Teppo presenting the mustache club's social media idea sketch

Joanne, a senior member of the Cannibal Chefs Club

CCC logo

The group that laughed the most is the one who learned the most

Mustache club sketch

On the second part of our lesson we covered the benefits that the new social media and new technology brought us in the last 2 decades, what media brought and does to business, to society and to the individuals. In the last part we felt it is important to reminds that everything comes with a price. We discussed with our students about the downsides of media, if they ever found themselves or someone they know damaged because of the media and what mass social pressure can do to people.

Our students were pretty supportive and cooperative. We covered most of the things we wanted to talk about, and we made our points clear.
For the downsides: as our feedback group told us last friday, our content emphasised too much on social media and not and media in general as we were expected, and maybe we could cover some of the subjects better. All in all, it was a great fun to work on this subject and we have really enjoyed to do this class. Thank you all.

The first student driven class successful

Students as professors seems to be a usable concept. Or at least the first class prepared and implemented by a student team was informative, involving and entertaining. Can you expect more?

The first professors Jonathan, Robbert, Yonathan and Josef preparing the class

The first topic was titled "The designs of Media". The professors - Yonathan Wolowelsky, Josef Pacal, Jonathan De Jong and Robbert Schefman - opened the session with interviews made on the street.

The class featured one major group task for the students, to develop social media services for certain predefined target groups. You can see the complete programme and content on the page http://intro2012imp.blogspot.fi/p/designs-of-media.html

The team designing a social media service for Moustache Club Members
had many laughs

The team will publish a summary here, and the feedback team will also post their statement.

I must say that the feedback discussion showed good quality. The feedback team grounded their assessment well, and many other students participated in the feedback discussion. The merits of the class were recognised, but also useful hints how to improve were given.

One more positive feature I have to mention: The professors created a relaxed atmosphere and most teams had a lot of laughs while working. But then again the general discussion about the pros and cons of Social Media was quite serious. To really include the students in the learning process it is useful to involve different emotions. This class did.

A very good start this was.

Can't wait to experience the next class!

Exploring collaborative online tools (notes 14.9.)

On Friday September 14th twelwe students gathered on Saturnus for the optional tutorial session making collaborative online tools familiar.

The first hour we looked at working with a Google Docs document as a wiki. The students seemed pretty happy with the possibility of not only editing a document simultaneously, but also using the chat window to discuss in real time. The option of attaching comments in the margin was also appreciated.

The second hour was used well exploring the use of Blogger. The service is really easy to use. The only a little bit complicated thing to remember is that embedding content from a non-Google service like Vimeo you must switch from Compose to HTML mode. (YouTube is a Google service and embedding YouTube contents is a snap using the Insert a Video button.)

Guidelines for professor and evaluator teams, also students

Please read carefully and energize:

Professor teams:
Your team has 90 minutes time to give your presentation.

• The time frame is 9:30 to 12:15. We always start punctually. Cai has the first 5 minutes, you begin 9:35.
• If you give the students a 15 minutes break, your show should be closed 11:20.
• The team evaluating your presentation has 10 minutes for discussion between themselves (other have a break), the evaluation starts 11:30.
• The feedback team has 15 minutes, then there is a general discussion on the topic.

IMPORTANT: You should publish everything on the Wednesday before your presentation. If you need Thursday to prepare, you publish what you already have, but everything has to be online latest on the presentation day. (Of course you can edit and improve your materials later.) But the team evaluating your class has to have the possibility to review and discuss your work on the Thursday before.

Prepare the presentation carefully: 90 minutes can be long time when your are following a presentation, but time flies when you are on the stage. (If five students are presenting, the last two might have only some minutes to use if your time management doesn't work)

• The presentation should cover (maybe not applicable for the Designs of Media session) some history, technological and content issues, also some legislative and ethical aspects and wrap up with a look at the future
• Try to avoid a U.S. centric approach
• Involve the students. You know how boring the classes are, where the professors read the slides they are speaking to. Experiment with student and learning focused methods
• There's a lot of useful video clips online you are welcome to use. But this is your show, so use external resources with forethought

How to publish your presentation
You will post a summary of your presentation as a blog post (like this) on the home page of our course blog. The actual presentation with all links you post on your own page of this blog.
If you rather publish your show entirely on some other service (like prezi.com or a Google Docs presentation) you attach the link on your page.

Evaluation teams:
The first presentation is evaluated by the last team, the second by the first team, the evaluator of the third presentation is the second team etc.

Your tasks evaluating the presentation are:

• to acquaint yourself with the topic.
• go trough and discuss with the team the materials produced by the professors. Don't forget the source criticism.
• highlight the three best qualities of the presentation.
• make suggestions for the professors to consider when preparing the next gig.
• After the presentation you have 10 minutes for discussing the performance - how did they succeed as educators? Did they give an inspiring learning experience?

You have 15 minutes time to give oral feedback to the professors. You will also prepare a more or less one page (30 lines, 60 characters per line) written feedback on a Google Docs wiki document. Share the document with me from the beginning. After the session post a copy the feedback document on the course blog home page.

All students:

• familiarise yourself with the topic during the week before the presentation
• do what ever the professors ask you to do during the show
• participate in the discussion after the presentation and the feedback
• give general comments after the summary on the blog home page and detailed comments and questions on the blog page of the presentation 

Are these instructions useful? Do you want to work like this? You are welcome to comment this post. There is still time to improve the rules and guidelines.

Notes about the September 7 class

First I recommended everybody to follow the documentary series The Story of Film - An Odyssey on Teema.

It is broadcasted every Sunday on Teema at 9 P.M. between September 2 and December 9.
All 15 episodes are visible on Areena 30 days after the first broadcast.
Episode 1 is here
Areena
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We had a mini-workshop "The medium of my choice". Everybody was sent to a small but remote island with only one medium: Radio, Television, Cinema or News/Printed Media.
All islands got several inhabitants and the students motivated their choices with very good arguments.
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Then we had another mini-workshop. This time all islands had Internet, but only one Social  Media service: Facebook, Skype, Twitter or Google+&other Google apps.
Again all alternatives were supported, and students explained the justification of their call in a forceful manner. (I adore smart students, a privilege to work with you.)

I said one key service was missing, http://www.linkedin.com Only a few students have an LinkedIn account so far. I believe everybody will have a brilliant cv on LinkedIn before they start looking for summer jobs and work placement.
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Then we talked about the course schedule and assignments. We also built teams, one team for every topic of the course. (You can see the topics on the menu bar above.)
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Did I forget something? Please feel free to use the Add Comment button to comment and add to this post.

This is the start

Instructions soon here (latest on Tuesday September 11)