This final project was a really interesting experience, especially given the unusual circumstances of the current pandemic which did not allow for our group to work together in a physical space. However, I did learn a lot about digital communication and collaboration, which is actually what a lot of our presentation was about, so that was a cool parallel!
As far as my personal contributions to the project go, I was present in all of our group zoom meetings in which we brainstormed and made plans about how to go forward. After a lot of deliberation and discussion, we eventually decided on dividing the guidebook into tips on a Google Slides presentation, and each person was responsible for one tip. I worked on recording a couple of verbatim theater pieces taken from interviews with my dad and brother, which was actually a lot more challenging than I thought! I also created a video about a cyber-bullying experience I had as a child. I also put together the final video that really sums up everything in our project (with A LOT of help from my dad—bless his heart).
I think this could be a cool concept to apply in an English Language Arts classroom. Obviously, the main difference would maybe be a connection to a piece of literature or some form of writing that the students would need to do, but I think it would work really well. I would invite students to consider a certain theme or overarching question that they read about in a novel or text, and then create some sort of digital presentation about how that theme connects to their personal lives and to the lives and stories of other individuals who are close to them as well. Hopefully, by the time I would have my students do this, we will not be quarantined (lol), and they will be able to use physical space, their bodies and the interactions between multiple people to amplify their messages.
I think one of the challenges of the project for us was the limitation of each of our group members being in different locations. That is why we decided to use the Google Slides presentation format, since it would allow for all of us to collaborate on the same visual project from wherever we were. We further explored this by adding our own videos and audio to our respective tips. It’s interesting to see how each person portrayed themselves in different ways, depending on their location and on what the message was that they were trying to get across. Having a variety of selfie videos, collages, symbolic images, and video compilations was another way we tried to get our message across about the versatility of the medium we chose, as well as the versatility of social media. One way that I focused on gesture and physicality was in my verbatim theater videos. Even though I recorded both of my interviews as audio only, I tried to recreate and reenact the physical gestures and expressions that I know that my dad and brother were likely making when I spoke to them. For my dad, I was in a relaxed position, laying on my side, trying to show the same kind of easy confidence that he has, and making funny faces at the corresponding moments. With my little brother, I did a lot of hair touching, and side glances because that is just the way he is as a shy yet hilarious teenager right now. I think my favorite part of our final project is the very last video. We each planned to record ourselves saying the exact same words, all wearing white, and then to compile them into one cohesive video. It was cool to see the backgrounds that everyone chose to film themselves in, even though that was something we didn’t discuss. It was just interesting to see the variety and to get a glimpse into what each person saw as meaningful, and where they chose to stand or sit, given their limitations (within the walls of their home, because #quarantine). It was also fun for me to edit the different shots, so you would just hear one person saying a few words or phrases at a time. This allowed us to make it a more fragmented piece, yet at the same time, it felt united. Even though we were all in different physical spaces, we united through the making of this video and the whole project. The scene in which all of our faces come onto the screen and we say, “You are not alone” is my favorite part! It’s meaningful because, in actuality, each of us IS alone—on the screen and in our homes. However, by using social and digital media, we were able to connect to make this project, and we were able to show how we are actually all together, working on the same thing and joining in unity over an important topic. I’m really happy with how it turned out, and I am so grateful for my group! I love each of the girls on my team and think that each of them put in so much effort to make this a success. :)
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