Final Evaluation. 

AO1 I wanted to do my final project on something that I care about and means a lot to me. Which is mental health; because mental health is such a big topic I had to narrow it down. That’s why my tutor and I decided to Build off the themes of previous projects about this subject matter. My last project was a magazine article about the harms of social media on our mental health. For this project I am furthering my knowledge and learning new heights. I am passionate about saving and helping others. Because of the struggles I have been through, I really wished there was someone to tell me these harms or what I can do to remain safer; therefore, I want my project to be a personal reflection that can help others in that situation I was in. Thankfully now I do understand the harms and the troubles so with my advice and knowledge I will help others get to their healthy point. I understand the value of support and how valid raising awareness is, so I will make my project a guide for others to gain support and help, while understanding how my audience can remain safe themselves. With the impact of social media becoming even more apparent it’s the perfect time to take action. So, with my experience, knowledge and passion I know I can drive towards making a piece of content that’s so valid and so helpful towards my target audience. I have taken into consideration about the timing of this as social media is only growing bigger and harming more people. That’s why my project is at the perfect time so the younger generation understand these harms before being completely wrapped in it, and the older generations can reflect on the harms and understand before it’s too late. The ethical considerations that I enquired were the ideas of mental health, I linked up stats, facts and articles that were around the involvement of mental health. I did this because I want to have all the knowledge of how others feel, the overall percentage for mental health and what the cause is. My cultural considerations are my audience, my audience is such a wide diversity because I want to understand their thoughts on social media, how they react and use these apps, why they use them and what do they want to see. Understanding what they want is incredibly important as I want to give my audience the advice that they want, and help them, the way I will help my audience is by understanding what they want to have changed around social media and how their mental health is affected.  

AO2 I chose this topic because I want to help people and by understand how others feel around social media. This topic is important for the world because it effects most people, but I also believe that this topic will help me get closer to achieving my goal of saving others’ lives. I chose this topic because the world is slowly crashing down in the fields of social media and mental health so by bringing together the idea that I can help and communicate these strategies towards others so they can remain safe. I have learnt lots of new skills during this project as I pushed myself to my full abilities, these skills include of, research, planning, camera work, set up and website design, audience knowledge, adding screenshots, linking and podcast editing, these skills were the ones that I’ve adapted throughout the project, I also gained some weaknesses such as: microphone work – this is because I had trouble understanding the rode caster mic recorder, but I know what to do for the future, time management but I know I'm getting better at this and can adapt myself to become better. The last weakness I have is my ability to understand what I've done is correct, what I mean by this is that I have been overthinking my project and I am unsure if I have done and completed the correct things, if I have written the right words and if my project will reach the grade I’m hoping for. My threats and opportunities are about my anxiety, I want to overcome that fear of doing it wrong, I also want to work on my ability to write and submit the correct things. My aim of this project is to understand the struggles people face with social media and apply a good set of ideas to keep their mental health safe when on these apps, I changed a lot of things throughout this project like my room that I will be filming, this was because the room was booked, but it worked out a lot better and I was satisfied with my set design. I also changed lots of little details like the things I will say or want to achieve. I feel as though I haven’t been able to share my actual structured idea and not sure if my ideas have come across well. Another weakness I have is to share my concept idea and what my main goal is. I know my main goal is to keep others safe and spread awareness by telling them what to do, but I feel in my next project I can be set on one topic question that I will make sure to answer throughout my project.  

AO3 My primary research helped me develop my project further, because I collected real opinions of how social media harms our mental health; this was also helpful because I got to understand how others feel and can interpret different goals and skills for my audience to learn about. My primary research gave me more ideas on what other people, adolescence’s, will want to change in future to help them remain safe online, and by reading their results I can figure out what they want to change, this way I can think of new ways to keep them safe that I know my audience will want. This also allowed me to gain further information on the fact that there is a link to mental health and social media, I had lots of research from websites and other influencers stating this but thanks to my primary research I can properly explore and understand that there is something linked together. This way I can use all aspects of my research to understand what my audience want. Jonathan Haidt was my main inspiration as he is fully involved in children's usage of social media; he has made me more aware of situations and has developed my knowledge in social medias harm, he has lots of stats and opinions on what has happened with the world and I agree with what he says so therefore he is a perfect example of what I’m looking for. I also investigated podcasts to get an idea of what I want to do in mine, this gave my lots of starter questions for my guest to build on, but it also helped me structure my set design and how I want my podcast to look, feel and be like. The next thing I did was learn about the future and history of social media, by learning this I can work out when social media came into play with mental health and where I think it will go. By understanding this I can build on my original ideas to help my audience in the future and present. Because social media is always evolving it’s important to stay on top of what’s happening. The next piece of research I did were guidelines, because I wanted to cover guidelines in my podcast and what guidelines should be put in place, it’s important for me to understand what guidelines are already there, that way I can determine what needs to change or what could be added. I also researched on recent trends which were some Netflix shows on social media; by doing this I can understand where our generations minds are at and some of the extreme harms that are happening. Because my audience will be younger it’s important to understand where they think social media is at but also reflecting onto what needs to be done with a level of knowledge that they will understand. I feel as though the research I did was so valid to my understanding because I got so many different versions on what’s happened but its so far fetch that everything has linked together, I made sure to use all my research in order to create my podcast and script. Everything I researched on is somehow embedded into my podcast and by understanding where it came from allows me to create a piece of media that can support others and help them. My podcast is all about helping my audience remain safe and I learnt my techniques through my primary and secondary research. Overall, I think my research was important and valid to my project and helped me stable my ideas.  

AO4 I have explored new availabilities for skills and have adapted throughout my project, my first skill that was reflected majorly was the idea of planning, I have managed to plan out what I needed to do and when, by doing this I have got better at time management, my research has also improved majorly by this because I can now plan ahead what I want to get done, my plans were also including of mind maps, these mind maps made it easier for me to understand what I need to focus on within that topic. This also helped me get better at searching what I want to find. By understanding what to type into google it gave me improved results that I was then able to figure out exactly what I was looking for and what I want to write about. My overall research and planning have improved so much and I’m incredibly happy with the outcome. I made some mistakes along the way like forgetting to press record, but I used this as a learning curve to realise that I should research about my equipment before starting a production. I did my research after it all happened because getting it wrong is what made me realise that I had to educate myself first. By researching this it helped me so much by gaining new skills and overcoming the challenges that were thrown at me. My overall production had lots of issues and downsides, but because I am using this to grow my learning I have far more opportunities for next time; I also understand what I will need to do and research on in later projects. I wanted to cover over the challenges of my podcast like the interviewing aspect of podcasting. I want to understand how sensitive this topic could be and understand the challenges I’ve faced. My production took a lot of skills and understanding to preform, I also had to understand how to set up and film while making sure everything is appropriate for my guest. My issues whilst filming consisted of forgetting about the microphone which defiantly was a learning curve, but I was able to create a plan for how to work around this, the start of the podcast where we was talking slowly, this got better throughout the project but was quite bad at the start. To overcome this I will do a practice run so were already prepared, I will also make sure my guest is clear on the topic and what we will be speaking about. My skills for this would be communication, as I am good at holding up a conversation, I can connect with my audience making the conversation flow, this was developed throughout the podcast. The next thing is about the fact I kept interrupting my guest, this was annoying to listen back to, and I fear I do it a lot. In future I will remember to let my guest talk and finish, I will be patient and give a second gap in between each person that talks. This will also tie into my communication, and I will remember these weaknesses for future projects in hope of being able to submit a better conversation. The camera facing me went blurry at one point for no reason, I will speak with my production crew in future and always double check everything is clear. This also ties into my production research as I need to fully research what I want to achieve so I can understand everything. The next issue I had was the idea that the video disappeared, in future I will use other cameras and check all the SD cards before and after straight away to make sure everything is saved and there. This is another one of my production research skills. Overall, so far, I understand that a lot of my weaknesses are about my lack of researching production skills. I am gaining skills of research and planning so in future projects I will enable my research and planning into productions as well. The last issue I had was the echo, this was annoying, but I will make sure the mic is recording and I will fill up the room with lots of items for a decreased chance of space making it less echo.​ This was an issue of my lack of microphone skills which to overcome this in future I will do further research on production and the skills I need to learn about in order to create media valuable. Overall, I have been very effective in understanding where I need to improve and where my skills are. I have determined how I will get to that point and my processed learning along the way. My skills have improved, and I have gained more weaknesses, but I am able to pick that out and I can understand where my issues and skills are. 

AO5 I have understood my goals that I want to achieve for the next project, I have targets set and by failing at certain things I have developed better knowledge in other aspects of my production. My weaknesses aren’t weaknesses they’re learning curves. I’ve set myself lots of targets to make my project better. These are all so valid in helping me exceed. These targets are mostly about researching more, I will remember in future projects to research on production and equipment that I’ll be using, I will research more on the way these podcasters talk, like their conversation flow and the way they pronounce that “influencer” voice, adding more detail in primary research and also planning out when I’ll do my primary research. I have adapted to new forms of skills that I haven't done before, this includes of focus groups and interviews, using new equipment, trying new forms of research and I've extended to new heights in my overall project, since my previous ones. I wanted to go beyond what I've done before, this was why I am determined to get the grade I want, I used this project to try and see my full potential, learn more, find areas to improve and find my skills. I think this project has taught me a lot about where I need to improve and where my skills really are, the skills I have learnt is my ability to research, because I can understand what I need to research and say, I also understand how to link my research to my podcast. The next skill I’ve learnt is about understanding what I need to do, I have thought thoroughly about my work, I've spoken to tutors about what I need to write and taking their advice to preform something great. I watched lots of professionals doing this to get the factors of the professionalism, all the podcasts, news and shows I've watched speak with a professional and serious manner. Lots of people in my age range can't take anything seriously, that's because they will laugh or mess about, say inappropriate swear words. I adapted to the seriousness, and I felt my professionalism was good in the podcast. 

AO6 I wanted to engage with my audience, so I selected all my knowledge from podcasts, guidelines, stats, and other forms of my research to create a rough script for my podcast. I asked my guest questions that related to my project and I spoke about the ideas I got from my research, I did this because I wanted my audience to acknowledge my research skills and I wanted to preform media with what I found rather than whatever I think of. These outcomes relate to my audience because my project is aimed at them, they are the centre, and I need to make my production as beneficial to them as possible. So, by relating my work with my research my audience can identify where the information is coming from, and they will begin to believe me more as I’m speaking with experience and knowledge. 

AO7 Throughout this project, I have been pushing my research and planning skills so much, I have done this because I want to fully understand how to perform a piece of production that will be inspired by my research. I decided to make lots of mind maps and lists of what I need to do. This helped me because I was able to keep on track of my tasks, keep remembering what I needed to complete next and helped me with my time management, my plan at the start was helpful at the beginning but then I wanted a better plan with the topics I needed to do, that's when I started to draw mind maps and checklists for everything, there was a new check list every week. But this helped my project because I knew what I had to do and was able to complete it with my time management skills. These new techniques will help me understand what I need to do in the future and how to adapt to become better. Overall, these new skills make my work and performance more professional, and this will help develop my future into a better production. I feel I could have communicated my ideas more and made my project explain thoroughly what my ideas were. I feel to get around this I will write one sentence or question down and that's what my project will be based on, this way I will then understand exactly what's happening and my audience will fully understand my ideas. 

AO8  When I started my project, I didn't really have any idea what I wanted to do, so I decided to gain as much knowledge about what I needed to do to aim towards an amazing grade. I developed new strategies and tried techniques I haven't tried before, I started creating a plan and set out lists for what I was going to do, at the start I was a little clueless and followed along with my plan and looking at other inspirations. The next thing I did was start to do mind maps and checklists which I found easier, more efficient and more precise. I didn’t follow through with my original plan, but I used skills and techniques to develop a new way of planning that suits me best. The planning I did helped me reflect on where I need to improve because my targets are made by my mistakes, but I have adapted and learn how to overcome my weaknesses by noting down what I can do in future to stop that from happening.