Digital Archive Post #9: The Digital Short
Throughout this term, I have learned how to incorporate my critical thinking and ideas from pieces of text I have read. I have developed my scholarly identity and will continue to challenge myself to do so in my academic career.
My research and work in the class assisted in locating my main idea. In week 5, one of the assignments we focussed on was the rising sea levels in Venice, Italy, due to climate change. We read an article and answered the discussion question for the week, reading our peers responses as well. I found this topic to be very interesting and I was unaware of the current issues in Venice. I have always been drawn to learning about our planet and protecting our environment, so I decided to research the topic of climate change along with the causes, effects and what we can do to prevent it. After expanding my research skills through this term, I was efficient in looking for scholarly articles on my issue of climate change. I had no problems finding articles or digital posts needed for my script.
My writing throughout this term has allowed me to develop a more critical approach to my digital short. Practicing our writing skills weekly, from discussion posts and critical responses, I have learned to write critically and establish a purpose for my writing. For our critical response assignments, we had to respond to multi-layered questions with our own perspectives and research of the prompts. This then prepared me to form my own prompt and thesis statement for my digital short. When analyzing my visual evidence, I made sure to incorporate how the evidence I chose supports my claim and the importance of the visual to climate change.
Using the research and writing skills I developed throughout the course, I translated it to my digital short on the current global issue of climate change. I went through my notes and past assignments to assist with the format of my scholarly writing and critical analysis. After choosing my topic from one of the weekly posts, I began my research. I had no difficulties researching climate change or finding visual evidence for my prompt. When I began outlining my script, I found it difficult to break up the research responding to my thesis and the ten claims. It was also somewhat challenging for me to develop critical analysis for each of my visual pieces of evidence at first, however once I developed my outline and organized my evidence, I was able to assemble my script.
Overall, I was actively engaged in my research and enjoyed collecting evidence on a topic of my interests. I furthered my knowledge on the issue of climate change in our society today and learned new information to help develop my scholarly identity. The digital short allowed me to express my critical thinking along with my creative ideas through the visuals. Unlike many other assignments, this project consisted of students interacting with an assignment in various ways, rather than involving only reading or writing skills.
