Category: In-class

During project 2, I felt that the schema group 2 developed was a great asset. It set a very clear outline of what was needed. I’m especially happy that we designed it in such a way that we could treat our different page types as components. You could really compartmentalize you thoughts into different pages.

For developing my understanding of writing I thought our group assignment of developing the schema helped the most. It forced us as a group to analyze what we wanted and how to present it in the best way. As a group we decided on a segmented genre that allowed us to have a lot of key points.

In regards to what went well, I think our group work of developing the schema turned out exactly as I would have wanted. It was a great collaboration, and I enjoyed using the final product. I also think my final product went well, but (and I don’t think i’ve ever said this as a student) I wish I could have wrote more. I already exceeded the size of this project, and I found myself wishing to flesh out the report in various ways.

I wouldn’t change anything about the assignment, after seeing other groups projects, I almost wish our group had done something more “fun” (and I say that knowing I suggested our rather dry genre). Again, I’m very happy with the final result and wouldn’t change anything about the project.

Looking at looking at the available genre models from our class the one that jumped out the most was the edutainment genre. This genre is not only incredibly lively (a little more exciting than my own group’s feasibility study) but it also allows one to practice a valuable skill: presentation. No matter where you are, no matter what you topic, you are only a successful presenter if your idea is understood by your audience. I think the edutainment genre gets at the heart of this.

From the group member’s own XML files I can tell that the schema largely consists of important ideas, followed by explanations. This meaning that if you wanted to summarize a given edutainment document you simply need to pull out whatever number of important ideas. The other key aspect is the visuals, which present the document in a friendly way and break up the text. This idea of images also adds to your ability to cater your content to your audience.

Although not necessarily the intended audience, I think edutainment has a very feasible application in highly technical places. The genre (from an outside perspective) is incredibly versatile and presents a valuable skill. Even among very technical experts in any discipline the ability to present things clearly and simply are key.

When looking at the example or tone, the one common theme from all of the edutainment documents is that they are accessible. They are designed to encourage learning and participation. I really enjoyed this about the documents, as a lot of educational documents feel like they are presented with opposite intentions.

The process of writing in XML certainly affected my writing process. I cannot say if this was for better or worse, but I can say that it forced me to consider the meaning behind groups of sentences. For instance when composing the summary portion of each annotated bibliography, I had to narrow my focus. I could focus on interpreting the article and writing my own take-away, or I could write a general summary. It was sometimes tempting to choose a little of each, but having the label near next to the start of each element encouraged me to strictly fall into either category.

Now, it may not be fair to say that I was forced to choose a category, but having definitive criteria for each element certainly encouraged the paradigm. I found myself framing thoughts in either more subjective or less subjective ways in order to stay consistent. That is one area where I see an immediate improvement. While writing I also started to understand how you create your own work from reading others’ work, as our reading has talked in length.

In regards to changing the schema, I don’t have any idea on how we could change it. I thought the process in which we developed it as a class was productive and it was valuable to hear and incorporate the classes thoughts on what we would eventually use.