OUGD501 - End of Module Evaluation

What skills have you developed through

this module and how effectively do you think

you have applied them?

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My skills in writing have increased dramatically over this year and I feel that the final essay I created was a big step up from last year. I feel that after engaging fully with the lecture program, I have gained tons of useful contextual information which is very important for my personal practice. Whilst engaging with the program, I found certain topics and areas of personal interest which led to further research and eventually creating and essay and publication in response to. I particularly enjoyed the Panopticism Lecture and this is where the main starting point came from looking into modern day Panopticism working across Social Media. 

I have gained other important skills across writing such as how to properly plan and structure larger pieces of writing as well as essay techniques such as triangulation. I feel that this helped me successfully structure and generate my final essay this year. I got to create my own essay title which was also useful, and will be extremely important when considering my COP3 dissertation topic. 

After tutor contact, I was able to see what I was successfully achieving in my essay and where I needed to go away and become stronger at. I needed to work on my introduction and conclusion elements of my essay, although I had more than sufficient amount of research, I then went away to work on how I can introduce and come to a personal conclusion, which was really useful. I am also now confident when harvard referencing within any piece of writing with carious different forms of sources. 

What approaches to methods of design production

have you developed and how have they informed

your design development process?

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I really pushed myself when working editorially with the publication this year. Due to my very interesting topic of Social Media Addiction, which was derived from my Essay and mainly the Panopticism Lecture, it allowed me to be much more experimental with the layout and format. 

I had a strong vision that I wanted the publication to be fairly confusing, much like pop up windows on a computer. This was achieved by using a certain metal binding technique along with different sized pages and leaves which gives the publication a very unique look and feel. I was happy I achieved this in the end because I feel it is much more successful for the topic than a standard saddle stitched book would be. 

The topic also allowed me to be quite experimental visually throughout the publciation. I wanted the look of the publication to reflect that of things you find on screen, be that social media, or general computer interfaces. I used lots of visual research of computer interface designs, both vintage and modern day, and my design reflects this. I also used the design of Facebook as a strong visual reference, as I feel this is the best way to grab attention and connect with my target audience. 

What strengths can you identify in your work

and how have/will you capitalise

on these?

___

I have really enjoyed a lot of the lectures this year, much more than last. I feel that I am fully engaging with the theories raised and actually wanting to learn more about them as I now realise the importance of this when informing my personal practice, when I used to think it was a waste of time. I feel like, I have a much more well rounded concept and theory behind the work created, and this is from gaining a

good knowledge of my chosen topics, through engaging with lectures, seminars and researching more thoroughly. 

Conceptually I have grown this year in other modules as well as this one. I find myself bot just going with my first concept, but using various points of research and participation to gain a greater knowledge of the topic before coming up with a concept I feel will be strong enough, unique enough and most importantly work in a real life environment. Engaging more with theory and being more confident about my topics have also helped me gain a much better concept and this will continue to grow into COP3.

I am much stronger when writing longer pieces with planning and structuring. I feel I have a much greater knowledge of writing techniques and researching methods to help get the best possible results.

What weaknesses can you identify in your

work and how will you address

these in the future?

___

Identify five things that you will do differently

next time and what do you expect to

gain from doing these?

___

I plan to create a much better plan when it comes to my dissertation next year. Much more than any of the essays I have previously written. I feel that uses my knowledge in research techniques I don't have to waste my time researching things I don't need. I can make a plan that involves both secondary and primary sources of research and can achieve this over summer to a high level putting me in good stead for when it comes to writing it.


I will organise my time in general much better, especially across modules. I feel that I am pretty good at Time Management on the whole, but I felt at times this year that I put certain modules on the back burner, this one being one at a time and I shouldn't need to do this. Luckily, it didn't have any serious effects but I still feel that by structuring a better time management plan, this can be avoided.

 

I will make sure I will fully engage with all the lectures and not just the ones that are interesting to me. I will make the effort to go away and find out my own research in relation to each topic so I get a clearer idea of something that could be useful to help informing my personal practice.


I will also be more organised on my blog next year. I often find myself at times going back through blog posts and drafts inserting tags and losing important information along the way. I can't afford to do this next year and I don't really have the time. I will just be on point more when it comes to correct tagging and generating posts rather than hundreds of unfinished drafts. 

I still need to work on my presentation skills even though they have really come along this year. I need to be confident in my work in order to make other people confident in it too. I feel that I am constantly getting better at this, but again it's something that needs to be fully sorted when it comes to the third year.