The Text and Image class has come to an end. My perception of the course before I began was that it would be theory heavy with extensive reading and writing. Although we did begin the course reading Kress' new book on Multimodality and writing and conceptualizing our readings through imagery, the class quickly changed. The focus of the course shifted to a much more production driven class.
I was very excited at the prospect of developing creative elements for the clients (City Farm and St. Joseph's). I wanted to participate in both groups' projects, and I tried to do this for many weeks, but I realized towards the end of the quarter that this was not doable. I volunteered to be the lead editor for the City Farm video project, which turned out to be very time intensive.
About half way through the quarter, I began to have some anxiety about the project. I was worried that maybe I bit off more than I could handle. I questioned my abilities. I had some conflicts with other team members. But at the end of the day, the project worked out. Professor Moore even mentioned that anxiety is part of the process. I found this quite interesting to think about, now that I am reflecting on the process.
This project has been a very positive experience for me for a number of reasons:
- I regained my confidence with video editing. It's been many years since I last did any editing.
- It reaffirmed my belief that I'd like to pursue some sort of professional editing job. This was what I originally wanted to do when I graduated 14 yrs ago, but my career never followed that path.
- It helped me remember even though the task is challenging, this does not mean I can't do it. I constantly question my abilities, but I always work through the challenges to achieve the end goal.
- Strive to be a team player. Even when you don't agree with other team members' ideas, it makes life much easier to find common ground.
I am pleased with the video product we completed for City Farm. I think it will be a useful tool for them, and I am glad to have a strong example to add to my portfolio.
There are a couple of ideas I would like to offer the next time this course is offered. First, it would be helpful to make the groups smaller. I would have liked to gain experience in other areas like graphic design. Second, it would be helpful to make sure there are experts (graphic designer, editor, etc.) in each group. Finally, I would incorporate the reading assignment into the projects.
Here are a few additional comments on the course. Although, I did find Basecamp easier to manage than Blackboard, I still found it confusing. There were so many emails going back and forth and when it came to locating past post it was hard to find them. I’m not sure if there is a better project management program available. Maybe we just needed more assistance from our project manager or further tutorial information. I would also advocate for a student account for Lynda.com and the ability to check-out DePaul computers that include Adobe programs.
This was a great class and I would highly recommend Professor Moore teach it again.
