Projects are in!
Dr Brian and His Thoughts
The projects have come in, been marked and the students are about to leave in May 2005. Some exceptional work. The projects all show students striving to excel.
Topics were (a) interactive 3D model for product development, (b) a virtual highstreet with franchising possibilities and promo video, (c) pop music video with fast cutting, (d) a sophisticated cocktail bar that conveyed an excellent classy mood, (e) a suite of childrens multimedia games using Illustrator to Action Script, (f) an attempt to show the effect of architecture on our posture (using After Effect in a novel way) by transposing the urban to a rural setting, (g) an animated story between modelled electric tootbrushes and (h) an illustrated mythology.
What is obvious to me is the sheer diversity of this list. Students, doing what they really want to do, have come up with this range of projects themselves. It is Self-Organised. I was there as a learning coach, a midwife to their ideas, but I did not control this process. I simply let it emerge. I did not tell the students what to do.
That is not to say I was not challenged. Some students had pushed themselves to the edge and had become unwell or had personal problems or both. However, the key thing is they drove themselves.
The next stage is to do this with elan, poise and a relaxed sense of being in control. "Treat it like an assignment. Do not make too big a deal out of it. Let it simply grow," is what one student said to me before she left for her holidays. I was thankful for the feedback. I thought it ironic I had adopted this approach for the Project documentation rather than the artefact.
By making the chapters in the documentation seem incredibly short students suddenly felt, AFTER having done so much practical work, tthe documentation process was a breeze. How did I do this? By doing arithmetic on e.g. 10,000 words and seven chapters and three points per chapter, I was able to demonstrate that you could "only write a page on a point." That took the mystery out of it all. The throwaway comment "Treat it like an assignment" was taken on board quite naturally.
Academic year 2004-05 is a watershed, since students in Level 3 final year 2005-06 next year will have done a project-like design assignment in the last half of Level 2 in 2004-05. They will already have been exposed to significant project-like activity of some scale. How come it took so long to get to this obvious position? Not being fully in control of what we were trying to do. Some of us hardly knew each other three or four years ago; now we are colleagues, aligned to course goals,and respecting each others strengths. We are a team.
I wonder how the videoed debrief session will go ... (i) Ethics of sharing blogs, (iii) hopes and fears, (iii) meeting as a group, (iv) what next? job, BCS membership? research? never look at a computer again? We will see.... later today.
The projects have come in, been marked and the students are about to leave in May 2005. Some exceptional work. The projects all show students striving to excel.
Topics were (a) interactive 3D model for product development, (b) a virtual highstreet with franchising possibilities and promo video, (c) pop music video with fast cutting, (d) a sophisticated cocktail bar that conveyed an excellent classy mood, (e) a suite of childrens multimedia games using Illustrator to Action Script, (f) an attempt to show the effect of architecture on our posture (using After Effect in a novel way) by transposing the urban to a rural setting, (g) an animated story between modelled electric tootbrushes and (h) an illustrated mythology.
What is obvious to me is the sheer diversity of this list. Students, doing what they really want to do, have come up with this range of projects themselves. It is Self-Organised. I was there as a learning coach, a midwife to their ideas, but I did not control this process. I simply let it emerge. I did not tell the students what to do.
That is not to say I was not challenged. Some students had pushed themselves to the edge and had become unwell or had personal problems or both. However, the key thing is they drove themselves.
The next stage is to do this with elan, poise and a relaxed sense of being in control. "Treat it like an assignment. Do not make too big a deal out of it. Let it simply grow," is what one student said to me before she left for her holidays. I was thankful for the feedback. I thought it ironic I had adopted this approach for the Project documentation rather than the artefact.
By making the chapters in the documentation seem incredibly short students suddenly felt, AFTER having done so much practical work, tthe documentation process was a breeze. How did I do this? By doing arithmetic on e.g. 10,000 words and seven chapters and three points per chapter, I was able to demonstrate that you could "only write a page on a point." That took the mystery out of it all. The throwaway comment "Treat it like an assignment" was taken on board quite naturally.
Academic year 2004-05 is a watershed, since students in Level 3 final year 2005-06 next year will have done a project-like design assignment in the last half of Level 2 in 2004-05. They will already have been exposed to significant project-like activity of some scale. How come it took so long to get to this obvious position? Not being fully in control of what we were trying to do. Some of us hardly knew each other three or four years ago; now we are colleagues, aligned to course goals,and respecting each others strengths. We are a team.
I wonder how the videoed debrief session will go ... (i) Ethics of sharing blogs, (iii) hopes and fears, (iii) meeting as a group, (iv) what next? job, BCS membership? research? never look at a computer again? We will see.... later today.
posted by Dr Brian Morris at 6:25 am
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