Final rewrite

 Hello, for todays blog I am going to be going over the experiences that I have had with the rewrites of my blog posts over this semester. Overall I have done 3 rewrites of random blogs in different weeks, while also doing 3 peer reviews. In each of these rewrites and peer reviews I have always learned something new which I can use in future work.

First I will be discussing my peer review experience. Overall, I would say that the peer review process has been a very good learning experience as it was something that I haven't had past experience with. My experience with peer reviews was always from getting markings and gradings from my teachers in secondary school primarily pointing out what I did wrong rather than pointing out both what I did right and wrong so that I know what I'm good at and where I can focus on improving.

When I found out that we were doing peer reviews I wanted to try make my reviews straight forward and easy to follow with information detailing what was done right by the writer and also giving constructive criticism on what that they can do better next time for their rewrite.

When I received peer feedback on my past blog work I was happy with the reviews that I had been given. They highlighted on what my strong points were while also pointing out my weaker areas so that I can improve in my next blog posts and in my rewrites. When you look at your own work it is sometimes difficult to find where you need to improve on so getting different peoples opinions on my writing helped me out a lot in seeing other peoples perspectives when they read my blogs.

Now moving onto my experience with rewriting my blogs that I had received peer reviews on. After receiving my reviews I had to rewrite the blogs that they were reviewing in order to improve on the areas that I was advised to work on. When rewriting it became more clear why people criticised certain areas and techniques in my blogs and I could then put myself in other peoples shoes to see what I needed to do.

previous to this course I had a minimal amount of rewriting experience from secondary school and from a post leaving cert course but this process has helped me improve on those skills.

After the rewriting experience I can definitely say that my writing overall has improved from rewriting. I learned that by spacing out my paragraphs into smaller chunks it becomes much more easier to read. Another thing I learned was that there are much better ways of laying out my sourcing at the end of my blog. I learned that using the Harvard referencing format allows for my referencing to be easily found and verified as real and reputable.

At the end of both my peer review and rewriting I can say that I am pleased that I had taken part in it and think that students from all courses can benefit from these skills as they can come in handy in the future.

The production process broken down into stages rewrite #3

For todays blog I will be going through 4  videos that I have watched in relation to the production process and go through the steps and stages that are mentioned in these videos.

The first video that I have watched is called 'What is Design Thinking? An Overview'. This video was done by a youtuber called AJ&Smart. Design thinking is a way of problem solving that can be used using creativity to find solutions. The reason why design thinking is so important today is (AJ&Smart YouTube (2020).  "Almost every innovative company in the world uses some form of design thinking". 

In the video the 5 main steps for design thinking are mentioned that is a structure that is commonly used by the production industry. These 5 steps are empathise, which is trying to understand what a customer needs. Define, is using the information you gathered from the first step to try figure out what the customer needs. Ideate, is the stage where you begin coming up with your ideas to solve the problem. Prototype, is taking the ideas you came up with and taking them to the next stage by trying to see if they are viable. The final stage is test which is to take your best prototypes and get people to test them to see how well they work. This video gave me ideas of sectors that you can apply design thinking to. An example would be if you are a graphic designer creating a logo you could apply these 5 steps to make your logo. 

Prior to watching this video I had never seen these 5 steps but after watching it made more sense to me. This will help me get a better understanding of my customers when designing something 

 Another video that I watched was Film Production Stages by the YouTube channel Five Minute Film School. In this video he mentions that production is broken down into 3 parts. Pre production which is at the very beginning where the ideas of coming up with the film. This includes film writing, hiring staff to shoot the film, getting a cast for the film, organising locations to film, obtaining props, making a budget and having a schedule. The second part is production. Once you are at the production stage you should be fully committed to your film because at this stage you are paying salaries for your staff and your cast. The last stage is post production. This mostly consists of editing like visual effects, sound effects, colour correction, picture editing and music. 

Film production stages was something that I had seen before and made a lot of sense to me. These steps helped me plan out part of our group project that we are currently making a video on. In the past I have done video production so this previous experience should help me with this in the future.

After watching these videos I would say that the most useful one for me at the start of my project would be 'What is Design Thinking? An Overview'. The reason why this video would be most useful to me is because of the 5 steps that were mentioned in this video and how they can be applied to the process of making a project.

In a group project I think that it is important to organise ourselves into roles for example someone can be a leader that can organise what work needs to be done and give people roles. Another role would be the researcher which could try find information that can be useful. Another role that could be used is scheduler/timekeeper which is making sure that there is enough time allocated for specific stages in the process and also to make sure that goals for deadlines can be reached.

A role that I think that might not be in the group project is the leader role because depending on the group they might all want to be equal and make decisions together as oppose to one person choosing what happens.

 -Bibliography

-AJ&Smart - What Is Design Thinking? An Overview - 2020 -  YouTube

- FiveMinuteFilmSchool - Film Production Stages - Five Minute Film School - 2014 - YouTube

- Science Filmmaking Tips - The Process of Making a Documentary: Pre to Post Production - 2018 - YouTube

- Indy Mogul - 4 Easy Steps to Film a Short Documentary - 2019 - YouTube

- Photo by Canva Studio - creative commons zero license - Pexels

Another revision of a past blog post

 Hello, today I am going to be going over how I improved on a blog post that I had done a few weeks ago on the importance of media literacy. Since when I made that blog post I have learned more about proof reading, layout, revision and peer reviewing which has allowed me to become a better writer. 

For the preparation to rewrite this blog post I read 2 articles relating to feedback and revision. In the feedback document I found useful information like in Brilliant Academic Writing, Pearson Education Limited, 2012 in chapter 14 its said: "The simplest form of feedback is the mark itself. If it’s good, you’ll know you’re reaching the required standard; if it’s not, you’ll know you need to do something to improve". (Bill Kirton Brilliant Academic Writing, Pearson Education Limited, 2012).

I found this information to be very useful because by knowing that you are getting a good grading on your work you can  tell that what you are doing is in line with the marking scheme and should stick to the way that you are approaching your work, and if you are not getting good marks then you should probably change your approach.

In the second document I also learned useful information to do with revision. I learned that revision is even more extensive than proof reading because your going through every detail to make sure it is right rather than just skimming over the work.

 When I revised my old blog post I took into account what advice I got from peer reviews in the past. I decided that I would separate larger paragraphs into smaller ones because I had seen other peoples blogs and from a readers perspective I thought it made the blog easier to read. Another change I did was leave links to my sources in the bottom where I had only left author names and names of documents making it easier to access the information. I also had made minor changes to the way I worded sentences.

Sources

- Brilliant Academic Writing, Pearson Education Limited, 2012, Chapter 14 - Bill Kirton - (link)

- Writing a paper: Revising - Walden University - (link)

Peer review #2

Hello, for todays blog post I am going to be discussing my second peer review work. In this I will talk about the experience as a whole and what I have learned throughout the process and on the topic of peer feedback. Firstly I am going to discuss my thoughts before doing feedback and what my attitude is towards it now.

Prior to participating in peer feedback I always experienced it from getting feedback from my teachers. This kind of feedback can range from being very positive saying you did very well all the way to giving heavy criticism like telling you that your work is unacceptable which can give you low esteem.

When I heard that we were doing peer feedback in IDM I was initially worried because I thought that I would have to give in some cases negative criticism towards someone which I dont like doing because I have experienced  negative forms of criticism before and know that it can be a punch in the stomach sometimes. Luckily when I actually learned the process of giving peer feedback and making our own feedback comments on blogs I learned that criticism doesn't have to be condescending it can be constructive and used to help you build and improve on your current and future work.

When I give criticism I make sure that it is constructive so that people can build off their mistakes rather than receiving criticism that only offers criticism without ways of improving on it. 

Something that I really enjoyed about giving peer feedback is that when you look at multiple blogs on the same topics you can see the many approaches that people take and the techniques that they use. Another part that I enjoyed about peer feedback was getting feedback from others about my blog.  The feedback that I got back from my peers were constructive helping me to improve on my work.

When I am giving my peer feedback for blogs I try to put myself in the person that receives its shoes and think what I would like to hear for feedback. For myself I like to know what parts that I did well, parts I didn't do so well and what I can do to improve my work in future. I use this as a framework to make my feedback as useful as I can.

- Source

- The Power of Giving Feedback and Receiving Feedback in Peer Assessment, Volume 11, Number 2 Page1 by Lan Li and Valentina Grion.

Peer review 1

Peer review 2

Revising writing from a previous blog

 Hello, for todays blog I will be talking about my experiences from when I received a comment on one of my blog posts. This comment included feedback in what I did well as well as what I can improve on.

The advice that I got was that my blog is worded well and that my structure was well done which made it an easier read. It was also mentioned that when I would quote someone else's work I appropriately give credit to the text that I am referring to. The reviewer can tell that I did my reading of the document thoroughly due to my understanding of it. I was happy to hear this as I was worried that my work might be difficult for someone else to read. I always try to make my blogs easy to read and follow because I know what its like to read something that is difficult to follow.

The constructive criticism that I was given was that  I should give my own point of view on the information that I am giving. After seeing this and reading through my blog again this became apparent to me. I decided to give my own thoughts and experiences after each of the methods of studies that were talked about and how I have previously used those techniques or what my opinions on them were. It was good to hear what I was doing incorrectly because when I write articles in the future I will take this advice into account.

- Blog and comment: https://finnsidmblog.blogspot.com/2021/10/breaking-down-journal-to-encourage.html

 

Peer review #1

 For my reading task this week,  I was tasked with writing 2 comments on 2 of my course members blog posts. These comments that I made were to review the blog post using a work sheet as guidance. We were also given articles to give is a better understanding on giving and receiving feedback.

After reading both "Try Feedforward Instead of Feedback" and "be a mirror" I learned that when giving out my feedback to people that I should try to give out positive as well as negative, but when giving out negative feedback dont make it a this is right and this is wrong type of feedback. Instead I give constructive criticism that shows the writer how they can improve on their work.

By doing these feedback comments I have also learned new information that is mentioned that I can apply to myself. An example of this would be in Christelle De Gamas digital media blog where she says "turning on a computer and completing an online job application require different skills”. This section made me realise that in digital media there are vast amounts of different digital literacy skills I have also learned from Kailan Purcells Study skills, active reading and media literacy blog, she says “When the brain learns it is at 100% learning capacity and by 24 hours the next day it will only be at 50% capacity of the information learned due to less frequent revising over time.” The reason why this is useful to me is because I can keep this in mind when studying in the future so that I will be able to retain more information while studying.

Before I started doing feedback I expected it to be limited to just pointing out mistakes and parts where good information was mentioned but in reality there is also a lot of information to be learned about by reading these blog posts.

Sources

- Try Feedforward Instead of Feedback by Marshall Goldsmith. - https://marshallgoldsmith.com/articles/try-feedforward-instead-feedback/

- Be a Mirror: Give Readers Feedback That Fosters a Growth Mindset by  Gravity Goldenberg - https://www.literacyworldwide.org/blog/literacy-now/2015/12/08/be-a-mirror-give-readers-feedback-that-fosters-a-growth-mindset

- https://christelle19.blogspot.com/2021/10/digital-media.html?showComment=1634674674416#c5118484227633448992

- https://kailanp.blogspot.com/2021/10/skills-active-reading-and-media.html?showComment=1634674550498#c6182986928684826682

The importance of media literacy

 Hello, in this blog I will be discussing the importance of media literacy. For discussing this topic I have read 3 articles related to the topics of  digital media companies, misleading information regarding Covid 19 in the UK and News media literacy, perceptions of bias, and interpretation of news.

The first article I read was about how digital media companies are failing to help its users to understand the information that they are seeing online. A survey conducted in Ireland said that 62% of people were concerned about misinformation online. personally I see this as a very important issue that needs to be addressed in a serious manner by all digital media companies because of how much people consume information online. To combat misinformation digital media companies like Facebook, Twitter, Google and Microsoft have all signed up to the EC code of practice on disinformation. This code of practice is monitored by the European Regulators Group for Audio-visual Media Services. In my opinion this is a step in the right direction to get these companies to enforce rules on disinformation,  although it is only a small effect on a large issue. Personally I feel that if everyone could enhance their digital literacy it would be easier for everyone to find sources that are reliable and know how to spot misinformation.

The second article I read is regarding misinformation about Covid 19 in the United Kingdom. Ofcom have been researching misinformation being spread on the internet by conducting surveys. In one of their surveys they discovered that half of the people that they surveyed have come across false or misleading information about Covid 19. Ofcom have been doing these surveys periodically through the pandemic to monitor what misinformation is being spread and where people are coming across it. One figure which I found concerning was that 4 out of 10 people were getting their Covid 19 information from social media which can easily be misleading. luckily most information regarding Covid 19 came from trusted sources such as the BBC. Another concerning figure I have seen in this article is that 35% of Northern Irish participants said they found it hard to know what's true and what's false. This shows how important it is to have good digital literacy in the modern world.

The third article I read was News media literacy, perceptions of bias, and interpretation of news. This article focuses a lot of its content on American politics about political parties, sources of information and media literacy.  A part of this article I found interesting was about the news sources that people were looking at for their information. I discovered that certain news channels such as CNN would bias towards the Democratic political party by giving them positive praise while on other channels like Fox News would have a bias towards the Republican party.  An interesting survey in this article showing the age, gender, party ID, opinion on the importance of news and media literacy education can effect their opinions. From this survey I discovered that depending on someone having media literacy education greatly effects someone's opinion of the importance of news which was important for nearly everyone that had media literacy education, rather than what political party they vote for.

After reading these articles I have discovered how immensely important it is to have media literacy in todays world where there is so many sources of information which have a possibility of being false or misleading.

Sources

- Digital Media Companies Found Lacking in Helping Users Understand The Online Environment - by  Dr Niamh Kirk

- Ofcom research: Nearly half of people across the UK nations have come across false or misleading information about Covid-19 - by Rebecca Lennon, Regulatory Affairs Advisor at Ofcom.

- News media literacy, perceptions of bias, and interpretation of news - by Melissa Tully The University of Iowa, USA Emily K Vraga George Mason University, USA Anne-Bennett Smithson George Mason University, USA

Breaking down a Journal to encourage active reading

 Hello, in this post I am going to be going through a journal that I have read called The journal of reading by Ernest Balajthy. The journal was published in 1984 by the International Literacy Association and Wiley. First I will be going through that is given in the journal and after I will give my opinion on the research.

When reading this journal you can see that the target audience is aimed at students. The reason why I think this is because multiple times in this journal he makes examples using students in classroom scenarios, for example in the second paragraph Ernest (page 408 February 1984) says " As a skill, self-questioning can be taught to students of all ages. Research and experience have demonstrated its classroom usefulness and its place in models of learning by reading.

When discussing active reading, Ernest does not just give his own opinions he also mentions the thoughts of other researchers. An example of this is in the third and fourth paragraph (page 408 February 1984), he show the two opposing views of learning activity with Kintsch and van Dijk believing " retention is automatic with comprehension and can be predicted by analysing the text structure" (Kintsch and van Dijk, 1978; Rumelhart, 1977). Other researchers believe that retention is influenced by their four factors which are: "the nature of the material, the characteristics of the learner, the learning activities applied (cognitive learning strategies and study skills), and the task by which learning is measured"  (Kintsch and van Dijk, 1978; Rumelhart, 1977) (page 408 February 1984).

From reading this journal I think that Ernest Balajthy is in agreement with with the active research that he has done on previous studies by other researchers. What makes me believe this is in the second paragraph (page 409 February 1984), Ernest mentions: self-questioning allows the reader to read actively for meaning independent of teacher supplied learning aids (Singer and Donlan, 1982). Ernest gives his own opinion on this research talking about what other advantages these techniques might give to a reader.

After reading this journal I obtained useful information that I think that I will be able to use to my advantage. I would like to train how to self question myself better so that I can stay focused on my task at hand and not loose interest in what I am doing. More information that I found useful was the student led discussions and the group competition in the third and fourth bullet points (page 409 February 1984). I think these techniques will help in a group project situation to get everyone in the group to know how to work together and how to do it more efficiently.

Sources:

- Journal of Reading, Feb., 1984, Vol. 27, No. 5 (Feb., 1984), pp. 408-411, 

- Author: Ernest Balajthy