#ctec502 reflective

[benmillerbct]

Of Reflection and Time-Management

something I've been learning throughout the year so far has been reflecting on my work and managing my time more appropriately. questions I've been asking myself a lot now have been things such as: What am I going to work on today? what did I do yesterday and what can I do to make it better? what have I learned from my progress so far?

these kind of questions are things I've found quite helpful in considering my options and being aware of myself compared to the time I have. as I write this, Thursday at 11:21am, I'm still thinking back on what work I still must do and remind myself that I can go to playing games and relaxing once it is all done.

managing my time as I am right now however can also be rather taxing. I find myself being much more tired and stressed as I constantly play the things I need to work on through my head while doing said work. this can lead to difficulty doing any future work that may suddenly appear as one concentrates on managing the pre-existing work.

just yesterday, I was asked to work on a new blog discussing what I have learned over the past 8 weeks of BCT and I have difficulty remembering it. not only due to a lack of proper care to record and reflect on the lessons, but due to focusing more on the present work to be done, writing other posts, finishing my 2nd programming assignment, beginning work on my final project (a dnd character creator) and working to design my final studio project (a friend making app).

as such I think I need to re-orient myself and come up with a better way to manage time. as it currently stands, I have done so by simply remembering, but I'm seeing how much that taxes me. I think a better option would be to set reminders on my Calender and taking more notes, that way I can focus on the project soonest to be due and have everything I need to remember hints and tools to remember my other work between the weeks.

this is a lot to read but the "too long; didn't read" of all of this is, looking back and reflecting on my current way of handling my time, I see it has flaws that need solving and I may have a possible solution. I'm sure it's not the best solution, but that is why we have the internet. to help get information!

this brings us to the topic of reflection rather well. reflection is a rather useful tool in most parts of life. it lets us consider alternative actions and solutions to our mistakes while giving us a chance to congratulate our successes big or small. it gives us a moment of respite from the present that troubles us and lets us consider the past and future. and it helps us to act with hindsight.

I've found that reflecting on one's actions can be very useful, and very powerful, but one may find themselves using such a power dangerously, be it against others or themselves. reflect on your actions incorrectly and one may go about making excuses. reflect too often and one may find themselves either becoming arrogant or self-defeating. never consider your reflections in future choices and actions and one may find it useless as they continue life never fixing their mistakes.

Reflection is a tool we have learnt as we have grown but it can be abused or wrong. even I find myself using it in ways that lead to being critical of myself or simply making excuses for my actions. something we can do to strengthen our ability to reflect however is to learn from others.

Everyone has a different background and life. this changes how we see ourselves or consider the world. this can help us to better ourselves by learning from their beliefs and considering them alongside our own. we often can be very critical of ourselves, getting the opinions of others can help us in reflecting by giving us an outsider's look at our actions and a less biased understanding of our situation. do not consider another's opinion any more important than yours, however, as it can lead to many insecurities and a feeling of incompetence. this is something I can also say from experience.

Overall, we must remember something important in regards to both reflecting on our actions and managing our time. these are both tools that we use to better ourselves and make our lives easier. they have no say in how they are used and can be used for better or worse. they can be used too often or too little and we choose how we use them.

all I can do is give my understanding and give the advice I was taught and try to live by.

"Everything in moderation."

[hirenpatelbct-blog]

Reflective Journal

Outline of the assignment

In this assignment, you are revisiting your previous blogs and creating a reflective journal blog. Journal should be a reflective document that provides personal and thoughtful analysis of your individual participation/progress and reflection.  You are required to submit a full reflective journal, aggregated collection of entries so that your “final” journal covers the entire semester analysis of your thinking process and articulating what you learned as a creative thinker.  HOWEVER, it is very important that you be honest in your journal entries.

________________________________________________________________

 I used to always think that I was not a creative person and that Ideas that I usually come up with on a daily basis weren’t good enough to become noticeable by others.  When coming into the BCT environment I first noticed that there was no wrong answer if you put your mind to the test, dedicate your time to your craft and passion you can achieve anything. This semester in my first year of BCT I have been studying three core papers which are called Introduction to Creative Technologies, Creative Technologies Studio and Programming for Creativity. In these courses I have been learning how to think outside the box of and become a Creative technologist. I have also been learning how to showcase my ideas on Projects whether that’s by myself or in a group. In the Creative technologies studio, so far I have completed a total of three projects which I am reasonably happy with the final results. The projects that I have done so far this semester have been Cards for Play, Sound and Spaceship Earth 2050. These projects have been very challenging but fun I feel I have gained a lot of important skills and creative ideas which can be useful in the later projects in the next coming years of my degree and hopefully when I go into the workforce.

Introduction to Creative technologies. This where I learned the basics of the Creative technologies. I learned about how to understand creative ideas and way to write blog entries. Blogging personally, I was never really fond of especially using Tumblr. I used to always think that nerds only do blogs and that it wasn’t really wasn’t necessary at all. The assessments in ICT such as videos and blogs has really boosted my self-confidence up. Before being in front of a camera was a mission for me, I would feel very scared but now It’s just a piece of cake. Plus, sharing Videos on YouTube of myself has made me feel more confident in communicating with my peers as trying to showcase my mind towards Creative Technologies and my personality I was no longer the shy kid However It took a lot of time, dedication and effort to collect my ideas and feelings together towards the course to video myself. It was also quite daunting and scary because of the realization that our Videos and Blogs are going to be marked by the lectures. Everyday thinking hoping that they don’t hate my video or my blog, did I explain myself well and Is my Idea up to the standards required. However, as the semester went I began to realize that as Creative Technologists our goal is to become creative and original we should not care of what someone else thinks of our video, blog or any material we have made and I mean yes they are teachers their marking it however we should be proud of the work we produced and if they don’t like it look for ways to improve it nothing is always. Also I told myself that if the teachers did not like my work I decided to never give up and keep improving to make my work better. This went great for me. 

In ICT I have noticed that the thinking process are the most variable methods for being creative original and solving the problems. The thinking process includes empathising, define, ideate, prototype and test. The empathising represent engaging and encouraging while working in a group to share the ideas and understanding by communicating and discussing. The define is where I have to gather all information and ideas together to create the prototype or concept.  In the ideate, I used in my induvial and group projects were brainstorming to stimulate the concept by adding positive and negative effects, this can support my concept by finding any solutions for problems that might occur in the future. The prototype, it is experimental process to where you have to self-check the concept or the ideas by producing the prototype. The testing, testing is the process to test the prototype by sharing with our lectures such as Clinton or some others. Therefore, it leads to feedback which can be used to change the concept or starting the whole process over. These thinking process supported me to solve the several problems that have occurred during the studio projects.

My second core paper is “Programming for Creativity. I am quite new to programming and it has to been a tough semester of it so far. I feel that it just not my area of learning. I have learnt so far Pure Data and Processing so far both I feel have been difficult for me to learn. I love computers but programming I just find it to find hard. In high school we always had the option to do what we wanted weather that’s programming or data basing so I always went with data basing and now it’s kind of flipped on me. The test and assignment for Pure data I felt went well however It didn’t as I missed out on passing. However, with processing my goal is to ace the assignment and test and pass the course so I don’t have to take it again next year. In programing I have learned that everything requires practice. Just reading notes is not going to help you have to physically do programming to get better. That’s happened with me so far with Processing I have done a couple of exercises and I’m slowly getting better.

Studio is my third core paper. I really did not know what studio was going to be about. I was quite anxious to know what’s the semester going to be like. Hearing words like collaborating and exploring made me realize that this course will make me and others come out of comfort zone and will challenge myself to make brilliant new original ideas. My first project that I did this Semester was the Cards for Play. I worked in a group with three other people and I was required to produce a Card Game that was is creative and original. My original thinking was that the task would not be too hard whatsoever as we are only producing a game however this completely back flipped. As a group we were struggling to come up with an Idea as it took us a week to think of. I remember we were excited and motivated toward the production feeling we had nailed the project. But when the prototype cards were shown to our lecturer Ben it ended up being very disappointing.  The lecturer said our Card Game Concept was boring and ideas are too basic and did not have the wow factor I still remember his words “It’s boring; you can’t destroy anyone”. My group members including myself lost motivation, even though this was the great experience to understand how important the feedbacks can be. With the feedback I feel that it really benefited us and that if we didn’t get it we wouldn’t have made a card game enjoyable for others. We then decided to change the concept of the cards for play from the script and started with a brand-new idea with mathematical number cards which end up well. This ended up being much better than the drinking game as It was more interesting. I learned in this project that you cannot skip the thinking process if you don’t spend time developing your idea it will not turn out good. In the future I have to be careful and use my time wisely when making something.

My second project was Sound. There were three tasks of Sound which was Creating instrument, Soundscape and Performance. The first two tasks, producing instrument and soundscape were individual work. I found these two very fun, with Soundscape it was cool getting different sounds and mixing them into a soundtrack. I took sounds from my favourite games and mixed them and did sound very funny to me personally. The soundscape I felt lived up to my expectation I felt that I made something that was original was unique and that was well composed.   With making an instrument it was a struggle thinking of something but when Clinton gave me the advice of “Try to get away from making an already made instrument” I had an Idea. I decided to make a Whistle piano. The production of the instrument was enjoyable as I bought whistles from the $2 shop and my materials from the workshop it was cool spending time making something that you feel could be a great showcase of yourself as a Creative Technologist. The only negative with my instrument was that when I glued the whistles onto the wood it was staying and continually falling of which led me to be very careful with it when playing and walking around with it. The performance task was another group project so I decided to work with my previous group from Cards for Play. We had to share our instruments and soundscapes but all our concept was different from other. This made the concept mixed up and gave a problem to solve. Therefore, we had an idea to create a soundscape by using all the members sound samples and play the instrument toward the sound of beats which we felt could be very cool. It was a difficult and complicate task but there was only one way to complete the project in our minds. I was assigned to make sure that our instruments were up to sound scratch meaning that I had to figure how loud each instrument has to be by for the performance to be also I was in charge of finding good background music as well. Overall it felt daunting as a group to go up and perform but in the end we had to come over fear and we did. With sound I learned that even if we aren’t good with it we should at least give it a shot and test our creative mind. I kept thinking I am not good with sound and I am going to fail it no! that’s not right as a Creative Technologist I have to think positive and challenge myself as well as believing myself that I can achieve anything possible.

The last project I did for Studio Was Spaceship Earth 2050. This was the project I felt was I did not enjoy the most. Even though I kept reading the brief I still did not understand what it was asking me to do as well as what’s the point we are trying to get across. The task was to create a movie film based on e-waste and 2050. I was having the problem of what I should do, do I talk about the future technologies in 2050 or e-waste in 2050. Even though it was a group work all of my group was struggling to understand the project. I had then decided with my group to work on how e-waste can affect the environment in 2050. The script and storyboard was written by teammate Sushmita with struggle we would continually disagree on when a scene would come in or which information shows up however this helped us in to making a video sharper, clever and better. We wanted our video to stand out from the rest so we decided to make it animation. This required heaps of time however it was worth it as it was so fun to play around with different animations. Personally I was confident with the script I thought we did a good job with it but still need a bit of fixing up. In the end my group and I had decided with a script which explains the e-waste and how it can end up in 2050’s environment. This was the project which I felt was more confusing and challenging however thanks to the lecturer’s continuous feedback we became more confident and ended up making a good unique original video. From the E-Waste Project I learned that we should not be scared of asking the teacher for help. Any problems we are having we have to address with them it will help and benefit us in the long run plus it help us achieve great grades.

Overall in the 10 weeks of this course so I far I have made the conclusion that creative technologies are about being yourself it’s about showcasing your true self and your creative mind. In creative technologies it’s not about the end outcome or being perfect it’s about the time that you put into your work, collaborating with other people and stepping to the limit to see how creative you can be. One thing I have noticed is that in Creative Technologies the words perfect or done is like a cuss word it does not exist because each day your trying to improve your idea and as a creative technologist we should not feel satisfied with our ideas we always want to keep thinking of ways to improve them. Sometimes I lost motivation however because of collaboration I have builded relationships with people I like to call friends and family they support me whenever on my ideas and give me feedback in a respectable manner. I feel being challenged and getting out of our comfort zone is the main component of this course it helps me and others think outside the box, becoming more original and creative as well it could be a big asset in the upcoming years of my degree. Creative technologies have help me learn about reflecting my work and blog posting. Blog posting has just become a common thing to do now every day for me.

[calsbctthingy]

CTEC502 Assessment 2 - Reflective Journal

Young adults are faced with many different problems as they step out into the world, some straightforward and some odd or difficult to solve. What You Do!? (WYD) is a social-game created as a part of the Cards for Play studio assignment. It was designed with creative and critical problem-solving in mind and using the MDA approach (Hunicke, LeBlanc, & Zubek, 2004) which defined specific experiences the game wanted to insight. The cards were also developed using an iterative process which used playtesting to measure the user experience.

In the early stages of this project, my group was tasked to define different aspects of our project which we would then build upon. This started by defining the Aesthetics of Play (Hunicke, LeBlanc, & Zubek, 2004) which is a set of pillars which characterise the different facets the cards will focus on. For WYD, we focused on Fellowship which is tasked to create social interaction between players, Narrative which plays out as a story or a scene & Challenge to create an atmosphere of competition. We also started at looking at our statement of intent which defines the overall scope of the project. Our statement was “To see how users can use different everyday scenarios and objects to invoke creative problem solving through social interaction.” For this, we had to focus on both the imagery used as well as the wording used to set the right tone.

To achieve our statement of intent, playtesting was incredibly vital as it gave us the means to go back, modify and refine our cards. We started off with a very basic playtest, quickly writing simple scenarios such as “your son broke their arm learning to ride a bike, what you do?” and a small selection of around 10-12 objects meaning we could facilitate a playtest with up to 5-6 players. Upon our initial tests, we discovered the wording of the scenarios and the pairs of objects were important as some scenarios came across as more vulgar than others meaning players would answer with crude undertones. From these observations, we created our second iteration and instead focused on the pairing of cards. We created 2 different object sets – One set intended to be serious, ‘stock-standard’ objects (such as “screwdriver,” “measuring tape” etc.) and a set with more comical connotations (such as “bucket of mayo,” or “toaster”). We tested rounds where the players only received serious objects – which seemed to produce predictable responses from our players and proved to be less engaging. Other rounds where they were given only comical cards, which is where things became vulgar and the answers became more offensive and finally where the player received 1 x serious and 1 x comical card. The latter test proved to be the most successful as players so this is the approach we decided to implement into the final design of the game. We also tested with imagery and colours – We wanted to give the cards a playful vibe so we decided that on we would use both words and images for the object and the scenario cards to help set the scene. For this, we sketched out the majority of our designs first and from there I then put them into Adobe Illustrator and using a brush tool, outlined and filled in the colours to make them vector images. We also chose to use red, blue and purple as our primary colours – Red to instill a sense of panic, urgency; blue which holds a more serious/professional undertone; and purple to highlight a less-serious, more playful card. We used playtesting on these to finalise our colours and went around to people without giving any context and asked them what the different colours made them feel.

Iterative design during this process was incredibly important. As described above, we tested numerous avenues and built upon our precedents. Iterative design is referred to as play-based design, whereby during the design process prototypes are played, reflected upon, refined and then played again – It allows the designer to build upon precedents based on a cyclic process (Salen & Zimmerman, 2001). At its very core, this process is essentially a rinse-repeat cycle. An example where Iterative design is commonly used is during the user interface design stage of an app. Generally, the designer will come up with the initial concept on how they want the user to interact with the app – This could be anything from icon placement, gestures, all the way down to the colours used. They then test these models and observe the user and see how they interact with the app without guidance. Once observations are complete, the designer will evaluate the design and implement changes, and repeat the cycle again. This was an important learning step for the Cards for Play assessment as previously when I’ve made designs I would generally start with my end-goal in mind and I would never refine or make changes unless I felt necessary. Getting out of this habit took some time but in the end, the benefits of going through this were easily seen by the final product. In our initial stages, my group had a completely different concept and objective. We wanted to design a set of cards that helped users rediscover the things that defined their youth in a nostalgic way. Upon playtesting we quickly learned that this concept was nothing about nostalgia and more a quiz on 90s/2000s pop culture, something we were trying to avoid. We then went back to the start of the entire process and built a new concept from the ground up, expect this time, we put it through the iterative design process and continued to refine and develop the precedents to create a more cohesive set of cards that complimented one another.

After having completed this project – It was very clear that iterative design is something that should be considered through every single step of the design process. Not just when testing on users but also in the refinement of background logistics such as curating rules and the interlinking factors to create cohesion. Moving forward, in addition to this process I think it is important how to collate feedback and observations – why does the user do that? How does the user feel when interacting with the project? Is the project intuitive enough for everyone or does there need to be an element of explanation? In the earlier lectures, it was said to use that Creative Technologies is a lot of un-learning then re-learning. I’m finding that as I begin this journey I am starting to loosen up and I am thinking less about the end goal and more about the way to get there – something that I found difficult coming from high school and from tertiary studies that were primarily theory based. Creative Technologies is also more about exploring new avenues – What are the ways I can achieve these goals? How many different outcomes can I get? It’s not about what you know, it’s about how you learn.

During the Cards for Play assessment I learned a lot about the creative process as a whole – More namely the iterative design process. After identifying our core aesthetics for play using the MDA approach we would design and create low fidelity prototypes which were then tested for refinement. From this, it is clear to see that looking at the project with the end-goal in mind is counter-productive and instead playtesting should be involved in every step as it may generate large changes for the overall project and design.

Bibliography Hunicke, R., LeBlanc, M., & Zubek, R. (2004). MDA: A formal approach to game design and game research. Proceedings of the AAAI Workshop on Challenges in Game AI, 4, 1. Salen, K., & Zimmerman, E. (2001). Rules of play: Game design fundamentals. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

[designcreativetechnologies]

I’m fully aware that this type of diagrams can feel weird and artificial, but so does everything when you start. Just look at the ABC tracing sheets, they aren’t “natural” in the sense of how people actually write once they master it. But they are “crutches” that help scaffold the process. 

Also, although I know that some people think that they need to see some “examples” to figure out what is required, I invite those people to think about it in these terms: if you were looking at good ways of choosing a life partner... how helpful would it be for you to get to know the partners of other people? Not much, because you are you, and you need to figure our how to do it as you do it. Makes sense? Or, how useful is it to see someone skiing or cartwheeling for you to learn? Again, not much. Just do it!

[charinar-bct]

Something New (Week 2)

This week something new that challenged me was showing something I wrote - a song - to people in the class. Sure, it was definitely collaborative, and I always knew from the get go that whatever we were going to make for the third project was going to be displayed to the class, but it was still an unnerving experiece. Even more so because my group was the only one doing a music video (and I was rapping - I don’t rap).

Another thing that challenged me was that I booked a session today for the AUT Edge Award (the first step: information session), something that I was curious about and now am interested in completing. 

Both of these experiences are new and push me out of my comfort zones: the first experience was that for one, I don’t rap, and two, I’m not used to showing people songs I’ve written myself even in collaboration with others - like Megan for our project. It’s a bit embarrassing, and my songs are usually very personal and something I like to keep private between me and close friends I trust (as said in previous week’s reflection). Although, even if this is the case, showing my group’s work was worth it because of the good feedback we received and compliments Megan and I received for our song. It’s really flattering and simply put, nice to know the work - the music - was actually appreciated and left a mark on the audience. I’d encourage others to do something similar to this because it’s an eye opening and nice experience to just see if what you’re fearing others would think is different to what they actually do -  about your work (or other things). 

I also feel like I’m pushing myself quite a bit with trying out for the AUT Edge Award because I’ve never done anything like this before, and it seems like it’s got pretty high stakes too: a certificate if it’s been completed? Like, yikes! Plus the amount of work that needs to be completed to actually get it is insane (an overexaggeration,but still). I mean “having an edge” for the future as a student and future worker sounds pretty nice so I might as well try it out. I’d actually recommend this experiencefor others  the most because of how through the AUT Edge Awards’ activities, not only do individuals gain more knowledge and skill essential for the workforce, it’s also got a bunch of opportunities to create a good contact circle outside of AUT - at least that’s what it seems right now. We’ll see how things go during the next few months-years as I try to complete it. Already booked to more sessions for next week so let’s see how things go!

[briefdelusiondestiny-bct]

CTEC502 Week 7 Reflection

Week 7 reflection ctec 502

Effectuation logic is term coined by Dr. Saras Sarasvathy who is an  Indian born business school professor who specialises in researching entrepreneurship and business ethics. She suggested the theory of effectuation in the 2000s and it is now regarded as one of the most effective process theories entrepreneurs can adopt. When  an entrepreneur is using effectuation logic they are trying to determine what the future looks like through their innovations negating the issue of trying to predict the future, timing the market perfectly or waiting for the ideal opening. Sitting opposed to effectuation logic is casual reasoning.

So what is casual reasoning exactly? If one is using causal reasoning, they would start the project with a precise goal  they would like to achieve within a specific set of established resources. Causation uses search and select tactics and believe if they can forecast the future they can control it. This kind of reasoning is best suited in a simple easy to anticipate operating environment, where the need to navigate continuous change in not necessary.

In contrast Effectuation logic is a way of  making rational choices when the future is unknown. Its about  recognising what is next best thing to do in relation to your goals, while always comparing these goals to available resources and actions that need to be taken. Someone utilising effectual thinking would think If they can control the future, there is no need for them to predict it.

There are four main principles to effectuation reasoning. They are as follows:

Bird-in-hand: You have to create solutions. Don’t wait for inspiration. Take action based on who you are and what you know.

 Lemonade principle: Embrace uncertainty and surprises. Always remain flexible.

 Crazy Quilt: Form good strong relationships with people who are open to making a commitment with you.  

 Affordable loss: Only invest what you can afford to lose.

 Pilot in the plane principle: Understanding not everything is within your control effectuation logic encourages you to focus your time and energy on aspects which are to a certain degree in your control.

 The effectuation life cycle

 Effectuation reasoning isn’t a practise that should be implemented one time throughout the process. Its best utilsed in the ignition stage of the creative process where the need to create new means, fresh perspectives and new goals are most needed. As a result, instead of having one singular goal and finding one path to reach it, entrepreneurs can use these new and exciting ideas and perspectives to gain more partners on the project, more customers and can use them to help push forward the conception of the project in directions that were not forecasted, leveraging ideas as they come forward.

 https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/erj-2017-0065/html

 https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JSBED-02-2017-0030/full/html#ref062%20ref063

 https://www.effectuation.org/?page_id=207

 Creative reasoning needs 

Reasoning is the course of exploiting existing knowledge to pull inferences and build explanations. Three different kinds of reasoning are abductive, deductive and inductive   

Abductive reasoning

Abductive reasoning usually starts from an incomplete set of observations and continues onto the most probable outcome. Abductive reasoning is best understood with the example of a doctor and his or hers patient. The patient will convey symptoms to the doctor which are most likely incomplete as the patient has probably forgotten about some of their symptoms. The doctor then comes up with a hypothesis based on the patient symptoms and from there, goes down the list of possible illnesses and tried to assign the most appropriate one to the patient. 

Deductive reasoning

Deductive reasoning is pulling conclusions from principles that are thought to be true. For instance, all mammals have kidneys, you then could use deductive reasoning to arrive at the conclusion that all dolphins have kidneys. This type of reasoning is driven by theory. 

Inductive reasoning

Inductive reasoning is oriented around making observations gathering data and facts and making inferences based on what you now know. You are not always correct but it is very likely if it’s based off correct information. I think so far, especially in studio I have been utilising inductive thinking the most. During the research phase of the creative process I have been finding myself conducting research in attempt to try and find wicked problems that need solving. I will then try and use this information to come up with an solution that is based off the information I found.   

http://www.butte.edu/departments/cas/tipsheets/thinking/reasoning.html

https://www.brown.edu/Departments/Joukowsky_Institute/courses/greekpast/4886.html

https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/deductive-reasoning 

Failure

When you are in the process of creating there is definitely going to be times that you are going to encounter failure. Failure is all part of the process and its important that you don’t let your failures discourage you. Its about shifting your perspective to look at your failures in a different light. Instead of looking at failure as a representation of something you cant do or that you are not good enough look at it in a way that you are now one step closer to finding the perfect solution as you can confirm one path that doesn’t work. An example of someone who has failed over and over and over again is British inventor James Dyson who created the dual cyclone vacuum cleaner. James Dyson is a perfect example of reversing the effects of failure and making failure work for him. The British inventor worked through  5,126 failed prototypes before finally arriving at the perfect design that went on to change household cleaning. I feel like I can take many lessons from James Dyson and apply them to my own creative practice. After all an expert/ master has failed more times than a beginner has even tried. I feel like this quote sums failure perfectly and if you fail enough in the correct way eventually its going to lead somewhere worthwhile.

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34775411

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/why-creative-work-relies-on-failure

[gide555]

CTEC502 reflective week 6

(This is a bit short because I just lost my finished post and don’t have the energy to recreate the whole thing)

How is my creative practice changing?

The thing that changed most was my ways of thinking when making a project. I used to only think about the final destination and how to get to it. Now I learnt that we should start with an idea then develop from it bits by bits then it starts to take form of the final project.

How am I experiencing the difference between having an idea in my mind vs. growing an idea in the world?

From how I read the question is that the difference between those two is having an idea is already having a visual of the final project in mind while growing an idea in the real world is forming an abstract solution of a real world problem.

I’m developing more nuanced views on __________

On what the futures will become like the “technology determinism” or the “social determinism” which is the oppsite of technology determinsm.

These are some things I learned this week:

I learned to start writing reflective post starting from this week and to take the course more seriously.

[imagineitbetter]

CTEC502 – Week 6 Reflection

Intro to Creative Technologies

How is my creative practice changing?

I just keep reminder myself, the brain never stops, you can feed it with more information, another chapter, another podcast, another documentary...

I’m more conscious of what I choose to invest my time on, I’ve changed music for podcasts on technology, science, design, I recognise the ones I enjoy the most relate to the mind and social behaviours, I’m giving Drag Race a break and instead watching more documentaries, I’ve promised Kvothe from The wise man’s fear and Sapiens from Yuval Noah I would come back soon, to finish their books, right now I’m engaged with Creative Technologies for Multidisciplinary Application.

Finally I picked up my PC’s pen and played with it.

How am I experiencing the difference between having an idea in my mind vs growing an idea in the world?

Recently I’ve been giving a better use to features that I normally would never use but are very helpful, like using the browser bookmarks to store and organised information I find useful or want to come back to, I’ve started to use my phone’s notes app to write down ideas, projects, issues that come up to my mind, for future projects and not just leaving it all on my head.

An experience I want to highlight was making my vlog video through animatron, although I wanted to do so much more but my knowledge was limited, it helped me imagine myself creating something better and fun in the future. I’m such a big fan of animated series meaningful and innovative like Big Mouth. Maybe they’ll hire me one day...

I’m developing more nuanced views on…

The meaning Technology, uses, influence, and responsibilities with it. It���s a broad understanding to grasp, but I think we must think harder on our actions around it, for example with social media, what do we want to really achieve with it, what is the purposes of having a social profile, what information do we want to share and how does it benefit in any way, how can we avoid young generation’s potential go to waste and instead optimised it. Another example is with my professional life, the opportunities that Technology offers me to fill me with knowledge and use it for good purposes, to not fall into the technological determinism trap and instead be the future shaper.

These are some things I learned this week:

Technological Determinism refers to the idea that technology dictates the future of society and not homo sapiens, however it can be argued that technology is just a human tool like any other and therefore is our responsibility to use it for our benefit and to shape our own future, but to do so it requires our collaborative work and understanding of the challenges daily presented.

APA referencing, was more of a refresher.

A strategy for problem framing, which is ask and answer the what, why, who, where and when of your project.

Bees are important pollinator insects and honey producers that also help maintaining the balance on our ecosystem and the richness of our nature (flowers, trees), fruits and vegetables.

An example of professional practice that I find interesting.

RainbowYOUTH a charitable organisation that seeks out the wellbeing, provides education, support, information, and advocacy for the LGBTIQ+ community in New Zealand.

RainbowYOUTH offer a range of support and information services for the LGBTIQ+ community as well as allies, for example offer gender and sexuality support, homelessness support, online support, awareness and support events, has multiple resources like  InsideOut  a free video-based teaching resource that aims to reduce homophobia, transphobia and bullying focusing in educating kids and young people in school years 7-13, although can also be used to educate adults.

I find rainbowYouth’s mission and work very important for New Zealand and an exemplar worldwide, I consider education, inclusiveness, diversity and offering a save environment for our youth and people in general fundamental for the development of our society, in our present and future; our technology is rapidly improving and so should be our thinking.

I can now see the ethical issues behind.

Social Media, has become a great tool to communicate with people, a message, promote businesses, provide information, give an understanding of the different cultures and behaviours in the world, it connect us, however it is also increasing the influence power over society in different ambits, political, social, behavioural and ethical. Unfortunately, with the among of information being streamed right now is making it almost impossible to be able to filter and identify it as truth, false, useful, good or bad influential; everyone’s opinions and interests differ, making it hard to control what the young, uneducated, naïve people, really anyone is receiving and doing with it.

Among many issues, a simple like, or watch can make you an accomplice of promoting a wrong message or supporting an influencer with unreliable or absolutely bullshit information, something you cannot take back easily.

Ethical Issues Surrounding Social Networking Sites - 922 Words | Research Paper Example (ivypanda.com)

[dinomightofficial]

Creativity in progress...

18/05/2017

 -  “[Provide] personal and thoughtful analysis of your individual participation/progress and reflection.”                    -  “Demonstrate competency in creative, critical and reflective thinking.��

Since Day One I have been blogging about my progress in this studio; the space of supposedly Creative Technology, to become a “Creative Technologist.” To at least practice the attributes of being a creative being. This might seem egotistical or may even sound obnoxious for me to even say but I have always considered myself a very creative person. Despite my self labeling and what I think is an unorthodox viewpoint and taste in art and design I was initially skeptical as to how the creative practice could be something that was taught. I feel like teaching someone to become ‘creative’ is like teaching someone to have a certain type of personality. Being creative is a way of life, a kind of personality influenced by a very precise set of variables and environment that is unpredictable. I acknowledge the fact that creativity can be subjective and the degree of it can be deterministic but for a task given out to measure the degree of competency in our progress in becoming a “creative, critical and reflective think[er]” is just unrealistic, especially this early into the degree.

My blogging process in its infancy is in my opinion not too different to its current form, pace, style and comprehensiveness. I find it important to keep written logs consistent and if anything personal, not through emotional and mental ideas (of course sometimes they are included) but more to do with my physical interaction with my intended project and also any other ideas regarding it. Another aspect of my blogging practice that I intend and believe have been consistent is the informality of the style of log. The way I blog is the way I would normally talk. From my own analysis of reading my previous blog entries the only change that I think have been steadily occurring is the length of the blog entries. Since the first studio of Cards for Play I remember realizing the fact that its not so much the project itself getting marked but instead my blog entries. Realizing this resulted in lengthier blog entries detailing my ideas, activities done and completion per day to portray my involvement with the projects. However, from reading and comparing my blogs in its shorter state to later on lengthier logs on average resulted in less or more the same content but just extended versions of the what is essentially the same content. One critique about using Tumbler as the main platform of examination to monitor student performance and development is that from my experience and point of view, lecturers are more likely to up mark a students project if simply their blog entries are longer. I am often told that when it comes to good writing it is more important to focus on ‘quality over quantity’.

My ‘individual participation/progress and reflection’ is something that I feel difficult to fully portray in a blog format. However, that being said I am confident that my blogging which is directly correlated to ‘participation’ is pretty good; ‘pretty good’ meaning satisfactory for the majority of marking criteria. Despite this I personally am not currently satisfied with it, not because it isn’t long enough but because it doesn’t contain enough detail about my thought processes throughout the day. I have plenty of ideas and processes on my project daily which is not only time consuming but is also plenty-full regarding the rate of it to complete the project. I manage my time because I find these projects fun due to the freedom being exercised but the ideas that I get during the process is something that I always forget to jot down to connote in my blog.

The shift in practice of completing my projects is that I am beginning to understand the importance of holding onto past ideas and revisit them and possibly even expand on them. The way I see it, ideas come and go... well at least for me anyways. I often catch these ideas flying by but then I only hold them loose and they fly off and I forget that I had ever caught it. This is something that I am still working to resolve not through jotting these down but also taking them seriously instead of just shelving it due to its level of difficulty to implement. 

One of my most biggest flaws in being a supposedly creative person is that I think I view other peoples ideas and creations with a very negative view point, to critique almost with hostility. I have a tendency to be arrogant with my view point towards other peoples ideas, I may not express it verbally but I can’t help but think of it through this manner. This is one major stump that I think limits my greater creative potential; to let other ideas in and take them seriously rather than just nodding with rhetorical approval but to think of their ideas as being stupid or outright shit. But then again I also view my own ideas like this relatively frequently so I guess I can’t be so harsh on myself.

In the progress of early studio projects I did not show up in studio very often during red Fridays. However as studios develop and my involvement with my projects become more time consuming and increasingly ambitious I tend to the studio in red Fridays much more frequently now. This is advent in my blogs as it creates additional entries of logs/research and ideas that I have had about my projects.

[wnmwork-blog]

Reflective Journal

2017, where it all began for me. Going into this year, diving into the unknown world we call today Creative Technologies has been a journey and still is a journey. Creative Technologies Itself has been a roller coaster ride of trying out new things, tackling new approaches, from the ups and downs to the new friends I’ve had those ups and downs with, It’s all been one heck of a ride.

I still remember awkwardly sitting at my table being told that I would have to blog my experiences going through each assignment, than later that week thinking of exactly what to type after being given our first assignment. Staring at my screen not knowing what to write I eventually just decided to put my hands on the keyboard and write whatever came to my head, which I guess is kind of like the same thing I’m doing right now but 3 months later.  

Trying to figure out our first assignment was a bit complicated. In all my two years prior to attending Uni at UOA and comparing it to AUT, I had never come across such a project where we were able to pretty much do whatever we wanted. So I didn't even know where to begin. It was a true challenge of whether or not I could change the way I think and bring out my suppressed creative side and create the card game I had envisioned for myself. I had gone through so many ideas trying to create a card game and I guess the more I got to a point where I was stuck the more I discovered something about myself. I slowly discovered of how important balance is, specially while studying a degree such as BCT. I think I tried too hard and started to overthink and complicate the process of my project by trying to add elements that even I myself couldn't understand, or if not that than focusing more on the design aspects of my project and totally forgetting about the logistics side of things. BCT in a way you could say has rewired the way I think. It has given me a new sense of perspective in a way that you must look at something you’re creative from all sides and not just focus on one side.    

Looking back at my blogs I always felt like they lacked in a lot of areas, I shared what I felt but I never really expanded more on my thoughts and experiences. But it's all a learning process and I think I've been a willing to learn kind of student I think, but I guess now is where I can share more than I had previously?  

Firstly I think BCT really forced me to experiment a lot. A huge concept BCT emphasises on and encourages is trial and error. Only by going through all these trial and error phases during the first project was I able to properly understand this concept. I never really understood it, the first time the mentors talked about it in class, I automatically thought to myself, yeah yeah I get it, But to be completely honest I didn't, I just thought I did. Learning the true meaning of trial and error has opened up so many doors for me in terms of how to approach different projects efficiently and effectively. And ultimately prepared me for many projects to come.

Our next project was the sound project whilst eventually simultaneously working on our vlogging project. I guess a challenge that arose from the get go was the fact that I had never before worked in a group for a project before so I went into this teamwork work thing completely blind. As I’ve mentioned in my vlog I discovered the joys of working together to make something creative, to make something innovative but there's a difference between collaborating on an idea and working together on an idea. Just trying to get everyone's ideas into one big performance was such a mess. Bringing in all our very different instruments and trying to make it into a big sound scape was something new, a task indeed that needed more than just a few opinions, but needed everyone's input and everyone's collaborative skills. I think I had leant the true grit that teamwork actually has in this project than anything I’ve ever worked with in my life. To say we got there successfully in the end is an overstatement. But hey we got there.

Working on my vlog now and focusing more on that was actually smoother than I had thought it would be. What I wanted to say and focus on kind of just flowed out onto my keyboard. I guess because we had been through what felt like a lot already, I just ended up sharing my experiences of that. Although the problem for me was putting that into video and overcoming my awkwardness with anything to do with me being on screen. I know being in a world like Creative Technologies there will come times when we must broadcast an image of ourselves and actually be confident in everything that we’re doing and creating, and the only way to do that is to bring out that fiery passion that I have for BCT and I feel like I did bring it out in the end and made a successful vlog.

Again as I’ve mention previously teamwork for me was a new concept, and now we had an even bigger group project to work with, a project that in particular caused many stumbling blocks. Reasons being we wanted to showcase so many different things about how we wanted 2050 to be like, and which artefacts we wanted to show too. After multiple group meetings and I mean multiple we came to a conclusion. It took a lot of effort and managing certain group members but once we came to that conclusion we began to work right away and started on our short film. Something big I took from this was communication. Communication is so important if you want the outcome to be what you envisioned as a group, when everyone wants to produce something similar communicating the idea thoroughly is the only way to go about it, no questions asked.

I guess what I get from all these concepts I’ve leant from every assignment we’ve done is that they all contribute to something bigger. From keeping a balanced mind-set, to stepping out of your comfort zone, to communicating anything and everything, That something bigger is me contributing my creative mind to this world and only knowing how to do so because of everything I’ve learnt doing BCT. I mean we’re all placed on this earth for a purpose right? I wouldn't say Creative Technologies is my purpose but I think its definitely a good path to walk on this journey we call life, a journey also of just finding myself. Having gone through those two years of Uni prior, just so I could understand Waha properly, and realise that actually I don't really want to do all these essays, and exams, but what I really wanted to do and still want to do is use my brain to create and collaborate. Thank You.                      

[josie-gill-bct-blog]

Reflective Journal

Blogging. A concept at first mechanical and unnatural to me when we registered a blog the first week of the BCT. I didn’t quite know what I was expected to say or how to say it. Looking back at those first several blog posts clearly illustrates this. I fumbled my way through describing our first project, Cards for Play. I use the word “describing” for that is what it was. A narration rather than a reflection. The collective result now revealing to me clearer than ever the power of constant reflective practice. If you are not reflecting, you are not allowing yourself to push your ideas or expand your creative thinking. As the dictionary states, reflection is “serious thought or consideration.” Thus if you are not giving serious thought to your work, how can you take it’s simple beginnings?

Looking back to one of my very first blog posts as linked below illustrates how my lack of proper reflection inhibited my project. https://josie-gill-bct.tumblr.com/post/158377538997/this-was-me-experimenting-with-just-using-picture . In the post I am talking about my prototype, identifying problems but not considering how to solve them. At the end I state: “I think overall the actual mechanics of the game may have functioned better this way, however peoples enthusiasm was not very high. I’m mostly concerned at this point that the game is not very fun.” I point out a major flaw — that my game is not fun — and then say nothing more. It surprised me reading this back that I pointed out one of the biggest flaws a game could have, then not reflecting on why this might be or what I could do about it. As a result I reached a point in the project where I felt stuck. As if I could go no further with my game. I recognise now I was approaching the project with a narrow mind. When making prototypes and iterations, the game’s evolution from my original concept was only very minor. I was trying to tweak a flawed design rather than reflect and open my mind to more creative solutions.

Looking to more recent posts I can see already in this short space of time how much my reflective practise has evolved. https://josie-gill-bct.tumblr.com/post/160529027262/revising-our-concept . In this post I discuss how my group were struggling with cementing a concept for our film that filled all aspects of the brief —  a film delivering a message relating to e-waste, exhibiting an artefact in the year 2050, that has an interesting and exciting storyline, is personally meaningful and is approached in a creative way, with our individual creative sensibilities prevalent. This was something that took all of our creative brains to come up with ideas, reflect on them and solve our problem. In the post I point out the key issue: “what is going to be the best approach to communicate the present day impact of e-waste, and how would we successfully communicate this?” I then discus the many potential solutions we came up, how there were still issues with these “solutions”, and how we finally reached what we decided would be a successful concept.

Comparing these two posts truly reflects how continued reflective practice has helped shape me as a creative thinker. “Practice makes perfect” applies completely to reflective practice. What I have come to discover is how creativity goes hand in hand with reflection. Creativity needs reflection in order to sustain itself. 

I believe neglecting reflective practice stifles your ability to be creative. As an aspiring Creative Technologist, what could be more important? This is why developing on my reflective practice may well be the most important thing I can gain from the BCT. As I was researching into this topic, I came across the scholarly article Reflective Practice by Roger Barnard and Ryan Jonathon. Whilst this paper mostly looks into reflective practise as it relates to teachers/tutors professional practices, I found a lot of it was relatable to myself as a student. “In order then to examine our beliefs and practices, Dewey (1933) maintained that we should engage in reflective inquiry so that we can be freed from routine thinking.” [1] Routine thinking is probably the biggest trap we could fall into. As creative individuals we want to be pushing our thinking past “routine” limitations. This is not to be confused with reflective practice however — something that is naturally habitual. The difference here is that routine thinking refers to how we approach a problem. We should do this in new and interesting ways. Reflective practice, put vaguely, is the act of thinking — something that is ever-continual.

Also stated later in the paper “[r]eflective practice generally means… looking at… what they do, why they do it and how they do it,…so that this practice can become personally meaningful to them.” [1] This is another thing that holds significance to me as a creative individual — finding personal meaning in my work and having something of myself show through my projects. It is something I know I am still working towards and brings to mind something I mentioned in my vlogs - a quote I first saw on a slide in an ICT session: “He who works with his hands is a laborer. He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman. He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist”  I believe reflective practice is something that becomes personal to you. Just as your creative sensibility evolves, so to does your reflective mindset.

Through my reflective journaling on this blog, I am discovering the experience becoming more personalised, and my own voice coming through. For this assignment I looked back back through all my posts from the very first to the most recent. It was like reading a timeline, seeing my articulation evolve from comparatively closed-minded and impersonal, to something I feel I am more “present” in. I am only excited to see myself become prevalent through my work and my writing as I continue into the degree.

[1] Barnard, R., & Ryan, J. (2017). Reflective practice : voices from the field. Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2017.

[sheenaatbct]

Intro to Creative Technologies:

Reflective Journal:

I haven’t had a lot of previous experience with daily blogging and reflection. The only time I had to keep record of my daily progress was in Computer Media Design during year 12 and 13 of high school, sort of like a diary. We were made to do this for the purposes of keeping track of our progress and showing the development we made during our assignment.  I believe I took a similar approach to the blogging I did at the beginning of this course. I used my blog posts as a way to show the lecturers the progress I was making each day and how I made my decisions during development. Looking at my first post, I took quite a formal approach to each of my early posts, writing them almost like an essay as this was what I was used to from high school. My post is almost just storytelling, talking about what I did that day and what I wanted to do next. There really isn’t a lot of critical thinking or reflection on my work in my earlier posts.  In one of my earlier posts, I mentioned a lesson we had in ICT on how to write better blog posts. I talked about how I needed to be more concise in my writing, but also having helpful descriptive posts. The next blog posts that follow do shorten in length and try to explain my thought processes and decision making in a smaller amount of words. I don’t think this really improved on my blogging skills, I still did a lot of story telling rather than reflection.  My reflection post for the Cards for Play project didn’t reflect on much either. I talked a lot about the issues I faced and how I resolved them, but I feel to be more critical, I should have discussed things I could have done better or things I would change about the project I just did.  As I got into the sound project, my blogs were still short, but started to lengthen over time. They also became more colloquial. I think writing in my own personal voice made it easier for me to think naturally about the content in my posts and make them easier to read. I also start to incorporate some research into my work, as seen in this post. I think research is essential in our work as it allows me to look at what has previously been done and helps to create more original ideas or build on others.  Compared to my first final reflection, the final post I did for the sound project really shows reflection and thinking into what I could’ve changed for my projects. I think that my blogging is shown to get better over time to really show that I am thinking more critically about my work.  During the Spaceship Earth 2050 project, I found myself writing longer posts due to the amount of research I had to do each day and the large work load I was given. At this point, I think I’ve really understood the purpose of blogging and show some critical thinking in my posts on the issues and progress I made through the day. My final reflection on this project shows how I’ve used my blog to talk about the problems I had and how my experience could have been better. This shows more critical thinking about the work that I had done and shows that I’ve learnt to reflect better on my projects. After doing this for a semester now, I’ve come to understand the actual purpose of blogging each day. Rather than using it as a way of showing the lecturers what I’ve done, it should be used as a way of critically thinking about our work and how we can improve on our development and work progress. The point of our studio projects is to learn about the development process and by blogging each day, we can reflect on our learning. On taking this forward, I will need to continue to use my daily blogging as a way to reflect on my learning each day and use what I’ve learnt in future projects. 

[synergybct]

Reflective Journal

Cards for Play

The best blog post I saw in relation to my progress as a creative thinker was from during the Cards for Play block, where Ricardo made the post, ‘Freedom and what to do with it’.

“So. We just started the new year with a very open-ended brief for the new students: “Design a set of cards for play”. We should have expected this: we knew that most ideas in the group of 90 were going to be good, and they are! But… most of those ideas lack depth and scope.”

I went back and had a look at my very first blog post, and it made me smile when I read it. “I want to make ideas.” Such a powerful statement. What did I end up making, you might ask? A textured card, with bits of assorted material hastily stuck on with a hot glue gun. Mhmm... Nice ideas. This was my first big step in learning as a creative thinker. First and foremost, I learned during this block the importance of failure and the necessity to fail faster, so we can see what works and what doesn’t faster, ultimately resulting in whatever we’re working on being better.

I’ve noticed that some of my posts are over-written; either containing too much content in general (indicative of breaking the given post up into multiple, bite-sized posts) or not really providing any detail. “I did this,” I would say, not “I did this because...” There’s a level of reflection for sure, as seen in my second post where I used this quote in reflection on my process coming up with card ideas.

“I had a monumental idea this morning, but I didn’t like it.” - Samuel Goldwyn  

However what I didn’t do (and would have liked to) is to drill down the concept further. I had the background, the why I wanted to make whatever I was making, but not the concept. It was a bit vague, and understandably so for an apprentice ‘creative thinker’.

Coming back to Ricardo’s post, my own post ‘Triviality’ discusses my concern for my ideas. I had realised that my ideas were trivial. Banal time wasting material. I wanted my ideas to have meaning, and it felt bad to fail to do so. I quote what I said at the end of the post: 

“Perhaps it is only now with the experience I have gained that I can be left longing to create something with more depth and meaning. Perhaps that was the lesson all along.”

Sound Project

In this project, I learned not to hear, but listen. Clint had us record audio from outside of studio, where we ventured out into Auckland City to find unique noises to use in our upcoming soundscape. From the get-go I knew I wanted to make a sci-fi soundscape. After collecting and experimenting with a range of audio clips, I ended up creating what I think is quite a cool soundscape, depicting the ‘Death of a Spaceman’.

As a whole I didn’t blog as much as I probably should have during this part of the project. When I look back at all my posts, you can see me learning about circuitry and putting my instrument through Ableton to create cool audio effects, however I feel I haven’t critically reflected upon what I was doing or planning to do enough.

Spaceship Earth 2050

Going over my posts for this project block, it’s evident theres a theme of not raising points that I thought about and encountered and probably should have blogged about. For instance, during the teardown of my e-waste artefact (a 2006 clamshell Nokia cellphone), I remember visiting a few different websites while I was researching the environmental impact of the material inside the phone. A few of these websites were ‘fake news’, merely clickbait trying to scare users into getting views. Others were much more reliable, including the sources I ended up using. What I didn’t do however, was show on my blog post that I did this. I need to start reflecting on what I’m doing in my blog posts, what message I’m trying to put across, and if I’ve said everything that should be said. 

As a whole, a lot of the blog posts in this project block aren’t very reflective. I believe this is because for most of the work I was doing, we made something we liked and that was that. I should have written more about why we chose to do such-and-such, rather than ‘we did xyz’. 

Seeing this come up again now reminds me of my progress as a creative thinker. Critical reflection cleans away the slate, allowing us to drill down the meat of our ideas and to help us make better decisions in the future as a result of our self-learning.

[matts4-blog1]

Reflecting on my reflective practices

Now theirs a mouthful. I came into the BCT with zero prior experience of blogging or self reflections so when I came to the BCT and they told us that we had to blog and reflect critically on our actions, it took me quite a while to actually understand what I was doing and what was the point of it.

Right from the get go I legit had no idea what I was doing and I pretty much treated my blog as a diary to pretty much recount what I did everyday to prove to the lecturers that I wasn’t a complete drop out and actually did stuff. But as I learned more about the course and why I was actually there I started to gain more knowledge about what the blogs are helpful for and why they are such a crucial pillar in this course.

I feel like I have come quite a far way from my first blogs about the cards for play project like for instance lets dissect one of my early blog posts from the start of the cards for play project; (Link)

“Today we went over some more of the mechanics of the game and how it will flow through turns and the feel of the game by playing around with the ratios of the action cards compared to the number cards/activator cards as we are calling them. We also managed to create one side of our first prototype for play-testing so we can get a feel for the vibe of the game. We also made sure that we balanced out the pick ups and the placements of cards so the game doesn't run for too long or too short. . Also I looked at gathering some examples to base our action cards icons on by compiling a list”

As you can already tell I just pretty much skimmed the surface of what we did in that day and didn’t really go into depth about the effects that the actions I did had on the project, and the things that I learned from what I did. I think at this stage of the BCT I thought that if I blogged only positively and showed that what I was doing wasn’t a waste of time the lectures would give me a good mark. But after this project has over pretty much and we learned about how to actually blog and get some critical ideas and thinking into our blogs I realized how shallow and really just pointless this style of blogging was. What I feel that I have learned from the first project cards for play, in terms of blogging is that the blogs are a way for the lecturers to get into my head and understand my thinking towards the creative process that I’m using in every project I do. I feel like the lecturers in charge of ICT kinda held off on explaining what blogging really is used for and how to do it so we could feel the way ourselves and find out how it does actually help us in anyway at all. which I’m pretty sure I realized this in the next project, the sound project.

In the sound project I feel like the strength of my blogging improved dramatically and I managed to improve my grade of a 13 in the cards for play project to a 17 which I feel was solely based on my blogging. An excerpt from one of my blogs from the sound project when I was working on my ruler instrument; (Link)

“Little did I know that when you put more hot glue onto contact mics on top of the original glue they have on them, it completely breaks the connections. So long story short there was no noise coming out of the mics and I tried to get the glue off them and the mics just fell apart.  Quite frustrating being that I have to now go spend another $12 on piazo disks and because the mechatronics lab is closed have to solder and make the 5 contact mics at home. But I guess on the bright side when I did have them glued down they looked pretty cool and I also know exactly what to do now which will mean creating and connecting the contact mics SHOULD be a breeze but anything could happen. Lets hope its the best so that I can focus on not making the instrument look like its come out of a year 6′s woodworking class. This setback today was pretty annoying because it was just a simple little thing that happened that completely ruined like a days worth of progress but I guess that was inevitable to happen at some point, and at least I can do something about it and learn that you never hot glue something twice.”

As you can see my blogging has improved and has become more indepth from the last project and gave a much better insight to the thought process that was going through my head but this post still wasn’t perfect. The main issue I had in these posts is that I focused mostly on the mechanical and structural issues of my project and I didn’t really go into depth about the creative thinking of my project. In some regards this style of blogging is much like the blogging from the first project however I just went a little bit more in depth with the descriptions of what I was doing. Looking past just this example of blogging from the sound project I also found that I seemed to focus alot on the negatives of what happened a lot more than I did in the first project. I think that by doing this and focusing on working on even those small and tiny negatives that occur and trying to improve on those is a really good way to improve on the ideas that you already have, just looking at my strengths and what was going well like I did in the first project really didn’t help me anywhere, honestly I don’t think that it helped at all in my reflective process and didn’t really serve any purpose so from then on out I have tried to look more at the negatives of every situation. Finding the negatives was hard in the cards for play project and the sound project at the time because I didn’t really have any idea of what a bad project and teamwork looked like until I came across it in my third project; speculative design.

In the speculative design project I feel like we just had a bad run as a team, things just didn’t really work out and to be honest I think that I learned alot from it, so I tried for this project to take yet another approach to blogging which was to pretty much not focus on any of the mechanical/making aspects of the project but instead I focused on thinking critically about what we had done and what I think had happened to our teamwork. This is a part of my final blog about the project; (Link)

“From the start we had an alright idea that would convey the themes and issues surrounding a preferable future that has been caused by e-Waste. It was a pretty simple plot with basic narrative but it would have worked and would have been fine I think. But we changed paths pretty much and decided to go down the path that Pete pretty much said avoid which was the path of spending way too much time being hooked up on making it look like a Hollywood blockbuster when in reality its most likely going to be considered cringe worthy in about a years time. I’m not saying that the way we went down was bad I mean I enjoyed thinking of what shots to use and what dialogue to say but I think that there is a way that we could have done it much easier and much more time efficient manner as, as of right now me writing this blog at 1:30 in the morning before the due date I have still not seen the video. That is pretty much just a telling in itself that as a group we had terrible resource management and that was mainly my fault.”

In this style of blogging that I tried its obvious to see that I was trying to focus on the negatives that our group had and I also managed to essentially talk about what I feel went wrong and what I think could have gone better. This style of blog isn’t really that entertaining to read but it manages to convey my thinking and thoughts effectively and that is pretty much the point at which I’m upto as of now with my blogging and the usage of reflective practices, I think I’ve started to get the hang of how to say what I’m thinking and not what I have done which I think is a pretty solid starting point for getting into the rest of my BCT journey. .

Obviously I will continue to get better at blogging and integrating the reflective practices throughout the blogs as time goes on, and since I have another 2 and a half years of this course I’m sure I’ll be able to get a good thing going (hopefully) but as of right now I feel like I am happy with my progress with blogging coming from a background of never trying it before and getting all the way to this point feels like I’m actually learning a new skill which is something I wasn’t expecting. I can’t say that I enjoy blogging but I can say that it is pretty effective at helping me understand what I’m thinking and helps me to map out what comes next in my project.

[doris-xu-yang-blog]

Reflective Journal

When I know that we need to turn in a reflective blog on Monday，I had no idea because I never do that before.But I will try to sort my all blog out in these past three months and to finish my Reflective Journal.My study journal includes CTEC502 class and the CTEC501 class and the COMP570 class in past three months.My some processes of idea and conception and design post in my blog.But I don’t write any reflection on work and post to blog when I had done my work.However, I have learned many things from my blog journal.

So now I can start to write a final summation blog and my all reflective.

I can think about what I learned in these three months.Maybe I need review my all blog but I didn’t write much before.Although I didn’t write so many blogs but I think I can get some reflective from my blog.

Project one：Cards for Play

We have the first assignment on day one of the university.I feel anxious and interesting because this is my first work.So it is meant that today is the first day of blogging.Then I find some people make a group and we think about the card game.I design some character and event cards in my group.So I write not much on my blog.And I did not do more research for design，because card game actually is not just limited to the board game, it can also be used to other parts of the card game in our life.But we without thinking too much about that.

However，I am reflecting it now because I realised that we should post a blog every day.But I did not do that.I should post our process of discussing and why

I can think that to my blog.It is not very good.

Project two：Sound Project

This is the second project for us.The project has 3 parts.My blog is more good than project one.I think it is good for me.But I think my blog still lacking quality.I have some special idea but I did not properly take it yet and I did not display and describe it carefully on my blog.I want to make my idea become true.So I research more different type music but I did not put some reference to my blog.I think it was bad.And I did finish my 3rd part of project two because I did not find other people make a group.So I do not join music performances and I can not use my music idea…… All in all, I have made great progress in my blog after project one.

Project three：Spaceship Earth 2050

The project is finished on May 15th, 2017.My blog is more good than project two.I can write more words and my blog is high quality because the explanation of my thought process is very clear.I was quite satisfied with project 3 and my blog.I can know that I need to find more experience of innovation in our life.we should be somewhat descriptive in our process, however, the description of what we have done should not outweigh the thinking behind what we have done.

Final thoughts

I think no project that I have worked on so far has gone perfectly.There are sometimes conflicted，lack of inspiration，lack of knowledge and lack of research.But my is not perfect and it can make me improve my blog and make it become better.I can see now that the quality of my blogs and there were terrible,  So，I could have gone into more detail with my thoughts rather than my ideas before.This reflection journal points out my problems so that I can fix them in time.The reflection of the previous project will guide my workflow in the final studio Ι project.So I am re-examining and modifying the previous assignments.

[bct-tailored-technologies-blog]

Reflective Journal

At the beginning of the course, my difficulties in reflective processing were routed in my tendencies to overanalyze and my fear of failure.As this was the first time I had ever used a blog before, I wasn't familiar with the formats and procedures that conventional bloggers used and I wasn't even sure about how to use Tumblr, let alone create informative and reflective blog posts. My biggest struggle was overcoming the fear of making a mistake and not getting everything right all at once. I was initially very anxious about how I should post, what content I should be covering and whether or not I was doing enough or even on the right track. I started to develop a negative feedback loop as I constantly compared my work to others in the class and would fixate on what I thought I was doing wrong instead of what I was doing right, which made it difficult for me to explore and develop my ideas enthusiastically.  As I began to fall behind because of my difficulties with time management, I started paying more attention in the ICT classes and started asking for more feedback from my mentors. With the new information and feedback I received,  I got over the initial stages of worry about whether or not I was doing the right thing and decided that I would adopt the core principle of the course to "fail faster." I realized that no one was going to do the work for me and that it was time for me to take responsibility to try my best even if it didn't always end how I had initially intended.

Thus I began developing my skills in the iteration, I started creating prototypes quickly to see what an idea had to offer, what could be improved and what were some of the trouble that I discovered from making a physical model. Learning to be brave enough to just try and let go of the outcomes was a big step for me in this first semester.  By letting go of the outcome, you create space in your mind to explore the idea in critical and creative ways which turn the task into more of an experiment, which in my eyes is more enjoyable to participate in. 

During the sound project, I was beginning to understand the processes of divergent and convergent thinking while I was exploring the different models for my instrument. I discovered the benefit of exploring a range of possibilities then narrowing my sights to develop an individual aspect of the piece. This helped with exploring new possibilities quickly and effectively as I learned from every iteration.

REFLECTIVE AND CRITICAL THINKING REVIEW

Reflection for the purpose of documentation and box ticking is the mindset I had as I began the course. It wasn't until I began the sound project that I began to understand that the reflective practice of blogging helps to open up room for insight and understanding. It's supposed to be used as a tool to help refine ideas and critically evaluate your most recent actions, acting as a compass for progress on your journey to the end.

Finally looking back at my reflective progress I believe one thing that really held me back and took an extra while to understand; was that when a task seems too big to approach, break it down into little chunks.This is probably one of the most valuable pieces of advice that Clint and Jacques gave me marked my progress start point for the semester. 9/10 of the times, my anxiety about what to do and how to do it was simply caused by the monumental illusion of difficulty that I would perceive a task to be. Without even knowing how or why I was finding it difficult to begin, subconsciously it was the fact that there was just soo much complexity involved that I would give up prematurely because I didn't think I could accomplish the task. Breaking the big problem into bite-sized pieces is what has allowed me to begin the improvement progress and push past my regular boundaries as I'm now able to take problems and break them down into accomplishable tasks, similar to how I began writing this reflective post.

FUTURE IMPROVEMENTS/THINGS I HAVE LEARNED 

-Time management and task management. This one is pretty obvious and in the future, I hope to strongly strengthen my abilities to maintain a consistent and constructive workflow on my future tasks.

-I would often research at the wrong times in my creative process. In hindsight I realize that research is one of the vital elements of the creative process, it allows you to peer into the world and see what is already being done, what is similar to what you are trying to make, and fuels the potential for creative reinvention. By doing this you are saturating your mind with more pathways for exploration and creativity.

-Consistent effort. Looking back, I feel like simply doing "more" work isn't going to help you grow as much as doing quality work consistently. For me, quality work is taking the time to set time blocks aside for certain tasks and not stopping until it's reached the expectations of your best work. Even when you don't really want to do it for whichever reason, just having that repetition of effort is what is going to make the most improvement in the long run and lead to the best results on the journey to self-development. 

As you begin to develop a routine of always producing your best work, or at least making an effort to, you will find that in times of stress and deadlines you will be more prepared to perform because you have trained your mind to push through the mental struggle.

Over the period of this course, I have developed my abilities to inspect, research, critically evaluate, iterate and communicate my ideas. I look forward to refining my work ethos and develop more insights and tools to benefit my future endeavors on the journey to becoming a Creative Technologist.