Hi everyone, this post is marking the end of our “Think you can do better?” project. If you haven’t read my previous posts, the driving question for this project was “How should we govern ourselves?”. In this project, we were split up into political parties and each decided on what we wanted to see happen in Canada’s government. In my opinion, the final outcome of this project was a fail. But, has also had successes and sparked out opportunities to learn. Like we learn in PLP, a fail isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s your First Attempt In Learning and a chance to grow.
At the beginning of this project, our class was introduced to the Zettelkasten system. Which was one of the really good outcomes of this project. It is essentially a note taking system that helps you store ideas in a “second brain”, which for us was in an app called Craft. But, the magic of this system is really in the linking. Where you’re able to link notes to each other (through Craft) by finding a way to somehow connect them together, even those notes are completely different. Which, you eventually create ideas from. I quite enjoyed being introduced to this system and will continue using it for school and personal use for the foreseeable future.
By the time the Canadian Federal Election had just finished, we had already learned about some political concepts and Canada’s government structure. So, we then wrote a blog post reflecting on the election’s results. We all got some feedback on our posts before our teacher officially marked them, and mine was to explain why my GIF supported my post. I could’ve done a much better job with the feedback I received, because my paragraph didn’t make much sense compared to the rest of the post. My post was also a bit all over the place, I should’ve made my main message much more clear throughout. To add, I had yet to get good enough at using my Zettelkasten, which I think could’ve also played a factor.
However, I did take my thoughts on this post and made sure I improved those aspects when it came to my next one. The next step in our project was for our class to be formed into political parties, and have each party come up with plans on how they would like our country to be governed. For this next post, I wrote my party’s press release on the ideas my group and I had come up with (Jordyn, Liam, Meg and Alex O). I made sure to have a clear message throughout the post and made good connections (eg. Solar and wind sectors and to my previous post). I also enjoyed the fact that you could tell that I knew what I talking about. Because of all the research I had done, and used to back up my points included in my post (thanks to my Zettelkasten).
What I want to talk about next is the final step of our project, our party’s campaign video. When we first wrote up our screenplay, we had a specific vision as to what we wanted our video to look like. And it didn’t turn out exactly the way we wanted. At the start of our video where we had the people walking in, I think that you can tell what we were trying to accomplish. But, the overall quality of this part could’ve been improved (ie. audio, visual, place, angle). Next, the clips of Jordyn and I talking was the most important part that could “make or break” our video, since it was the longest part. We didn’t take the time to memorize our lines as much and we didn’t get to film the way, and at the place we wanted because of weather and time constraints.
On the other hand, I did really like the visuals that popped up when Jordyn and I pointed. Plus, the content was well said and the editing was pretty good for what we had. All in all, I think that if we had more time or were to do this again, we could’ve definitely made every aspect of our video slightly better. Now that I look at it, I also think that we should’ve explained our party’s name more in depth to avoid confusing our audience. Our party was the most unique out of all the other parties in our class, and I think we should’ve used that as more of an advantage and stuck to it when it came to our video.
Finally, this project may have been a bit of a flop. But, it has also lead me to be the most interested in anything politics related that I have ever been, and I’m really glad it has. Although, I still have much more to learn and have probably just scratched the surface enough to form my own opinions.
I’ve also come to the realization that it was a lot harder than it looks to be put in a politicians perspective and make final decisions on what exactly would be best for Canada. I now hold a little bit of sympathy for politicians I have criticized in the past, because they’re people too and also have failures. So, when it comes to answering the question “How should we govern ourselves?”, it may seem simple but it can actually be pretty complex. Because no matter what, there will always be people who don’t necessarily agree with your ideas. That’s because no plan will be 100% perfect, and will always have it’s flaws. For example, if you want to focus a lot on the environment, you need to figure out a way to fund it and other plans you may have. Reducing the deficit also should be put into account.
Side note:
This visual was something that was just published on the BC Government’s Instagram page. Reading it, I noticed that a large portion of the plans were plans that parties in our class had actually mentioned. This goes to show, that all our parties had legit ideas that governments are actually discussing and implementing.
