Flight Path

Current Coordinates

My general academic background is in Geography and Environmental Studies, which I have been studying for four years. Throughout this time, I have been exposed to many kinds of media, most of which are digital. As a fourth-year student at the University of Victoria, I consider myself to be quite fluent in their online spaces and Microsoft databases that are crucial for success within courses.

Recent projects I have been doing for courses consist of papers and presentations, each of which requires tedious styling and formatting. I am grateful for these experiences, as they have contributed to a solid foundation of skills in using digital mediums to express my thoughts and findings. These projects were always targeted towards people in the academic community, so I am used to my audience already having some kind of foundation on the matter at hand.

There has been the occasional project that involves creating something to share with those in my life, including using Canva to create a zine of Miqan Park to spread awareness of how the landscape has changed since colonization, using the Geocaching and GAIA apps to create a digital geocache at Cadboro Bay Park to share with friends and family, and using iNaturalist to contribute to an ecological database.

Mapping the Route

I wish to explore how to render media more engaging and educational. What I have created for school has not been very engaging for those outside of academia and does not create lasting impacts or understandings for the audience. I would love to learn how to make standard forms of media more engaging and effective because they are much more accessible and widespread. Other underrated forms of interactive and multimedia pique my interest, but I have not been exposed to many, and I wonder if there are many that are built explicitly with learners in mind.

I am very curious about the medium of blogs; I have tried in the past to create a blog but was unsuccessful because of how difficult it was to navigate the online platform I chose to use. Creating a blog was desirable to me, as I thought it would be an excellent creative output and documentation of my own words as I navigate young adulthood. If I am successful with this course’s blog portion, I would be inclined to try again and would be able to write with a different audience in mind, where I could apply design, storytelling, and interactive media concepts that I will learn in this course.

Anticipating Turbulence

I expect there to be some turbulence along the way for this course, my primary concern being the course’s format; I have always had courses with very structured lectures where readings were complementary to lecture content. The course tutorials have been very helpful in overcoming challenges I have faced so far, and I will continue to visit said page when I come across more issues. If I truly get stuck, I will send a message into the class’s Mattermost chat reaching out for help. I would also like to acknowledge my previous mention of my failed blogging attempt, which did not go as planned because it was a completely independent mission in which I had absolutely no guidance. For my second try I am much more optimistic and accepting of help and feedback.