Proof of Learning Week 4

The focus of this last week of class was our final research report. I was a bit hesitant to start the research report and it seemed a bit daunting but the report really came out to be the most interesting activity we have done in this class. It was very beneficial taking the skills that we learned in this class and applying them to something within my major. This really helped me connect to the information more then if I was just researching a random topic.

What helped me the most when researching for this project were the interviews I did with the different professors. I wanted to learn about how they learned graphic design when they were in school and how it compared to with how they currently teach design and I really learned a lot from talking with them. Having the personal experience as the main study in the research project was very interesting because I got to have personal perspective of technology.  This perspective was the thing I was really aiming to research, not so much how technology has changed in the last 10 years for graphic designers, but how we as students are affected by this rapid evolution.  I concluded in my study that as students in the age of advanced technology we are getting the short end of the stick because we are no longer being forced to do things the long tedious way, we rely too much on the computer to do our work for us.

I wish for this research report that I would have had more time because I would have liked to interview more professors and also do follow up interviews. But this was hard because I am not currently on campus and it was hard to receive responses from faculty via email. I think if I would have more perspectives from professors and compared them to students the research report would have been more complete. I also wish I could have made some sort of solid way to tally my data into some sort of graph or chart to really begin to understand technology’s affect on students being good designers.

What I really took away from this research report is that I want to really start understanding graphic design without using technology and not relying solely on technology to help me.  Technology is good and it has been invented to make the process easier but to really understand how to do my job I should first learn what it means to have good design by hand and then I can add the computer. This class in general has really helped me with my critical thinking skills and I am really glad I took it. I look at the world and want to question things more so then before.

Proof of Learning Week 3

For our third week of class the subjects of the articles were more open ended. There were three articles for the entire week but they lead to a very good discussion between my classmates and I.  I think that the most interesting aspect of the week was the discussion on online classes vs. in-person classes. This topic is something that is very important to students now a days and discussing the pros and cons with classmates was informative, and is what really helped me connect these readings to my real life. I was also very interested in the Online Research Methods Knowledge Base. I am very appreciative of Joyce giving us this resource because it is online and always accessible, it is also presented in a way that is easy to navigate.

In talking about online class communities and the pros and cons of them vs. face-to-face class communities with my classmates many points were made that helped me assess my feelings towards the subject. I think some of the best points were made by Jeffery Mason, “I am not sure that these classes would work with everyone or across age groups. This course is a summer course and sometimes it is difficult to manage a class during work, nice weather, and summer in general. This being said there must be a certain internal drive to motivate an individual to get their work done on their own.” This statement is something that I felt like I could really connect with and I felt the same way about online classes in general. But there were other points made by students that I would have never thought of about the pros and cons of online classes and that is why I think I benefit the most from these discussions. The post by Jamie Coit really surprised me,  “I think online discussions give students who might not normally participate in class to interact online. Another positive thing about online discussions is it allows students to actively formulate a response instead of having to say it right away”. I never really thought about how much better a discussion could be if students had time to fully develop and understand their own thoughts before posting and the benefits of this are extremely positive. This way you can have an affective discussion.

The use of the online research textbook was helpful this week as well. The fact that it was spit into sections that were easy to navigate through was very helpful. I thought the introduction to different research designs was interesting. The site defined research design as “the structure of research -- it is the "glue" that holds all of the elements in a research project together. We often describe a design using a concise notation that enables us to summarize a complex design structure efficiently.” This was useful because I could connect it to the research project we are doing for this class. I found on this website that the type of research that I will use for this project is known as group research. Vaguely put towards my project each group in a design is given its own line in the design structure.

Throughout the next week I will be using this online textbook to help with the final project for this class. I think it will be interesting to also tie in some of the class discussion topics on online classes and technology. I think that after the online discussions I have come to realize that although online classes sometimes are annoying because everything you have to do is on your own time, there are so many more benefits. But, I still feel like I personally benefit from taking a face-to-face personal class.