Entry 5
Date of Entry: 28th February, 2018
Section: Planning
ATLs: I will discuss how I displayed great organizational skills in my project by creating a realistic and time-efficient action plan that allowed me to account for issues encountered during Taking Action phase and complete my challenging project successfully.
Subject: This entry is about how my action plan played out and discusses the changes made to it due to issues during the Taking Action stage.
Date of Entry: 28th February, 2018
Section: Planning
ATLs: I will discuss how I displayed great organizational skills in my project by creating a realistic and time-efficient action plan that allowed me to account for issues encountered during Taking Action phase and complete my challenging project successfully.
Subject: This entry is about how my action plan played out and discusses the changes made to it due to issues during the Taking Action stage.
Content: Below I reflect on three relevant questions that evaluate my action plan.
What changes were made to the action plan? Why were they made?
One of the primary changes to the plan were the dates I filmed and edited the tutorials videos. Initially, my plan had intended for me to finalize the recordings of the tutorial during the December holidays. I then planned to have this footage completely edited by the middle of January. However, the poor quality of the underwater footage forced me to redo the whole filming process. As the end of January approached, I bought a new underwater camera that filmed in better resolution and better quality. I then recreated and redid the editing for the tutorials. I spent about one and a half weeks recreating all my tutorials from the end of January to the start of February. This was a considerably long process and I recall spending many hours on multiple days to finish these videos by early February.
Some of the other smaller changes made to the plan included postponing work and tasks due to stalling. For instance, I had initially wanted to produce the majority of my website during the December break. Because I already planned to do so much during this holiday, I worked very little on my website. Instead, I finalized all the way in February; this meant about a one and a half month postponement. I also adjusted my plan for times when I had a larger workload than normal. The time from January 8-18 was a great example of how I pushed tasks on the action plan to future dates. As January 8-18 was so hectic with exam preparation, basketball tournaments, and other summative tasks, Personal Project was not my priority and I focused on completing other schoolwork. Despite the changes to the plan, the whole project was still completed in a timely and effective manner.
How did the plan ensure that the project would be completed in a timely and successful fashion? Did you use your time effectively in the project?
My plan ensured a timely and successful completion of my product because it was very meticulous and made me space out time efficiently. One section from my action plan that showcases its helpfulness were the three weeks that made up the December holidays. With three weeks of holiday, it posed a great opportunity to get substantial work done, and thus I targeted to complete my vlogs, some of my tutorials, and a substantial amount of my website during the holidays. Doing this would allow me to finish the project considerably ahead of the deadline, and have my product tested against my success specifications. By receiving feedback, it ensured that I was able to make final edits and adjustments to my product.
Nevertheless, not everything went perfectly according to plan. When I encountered issues during the creation of my project, like the one I had with the underwater camera, it was because of the efficient spacing out of my schedule that I was able to solve such problem . My plan was not made in a way that I expected to start working on my products two or three weeks before the Personal Project exhibition. Instead, I did at least a bit of work every week and continuously worked on my product from December to February. So when I had to refilm and reedit the footage for my tutorials in late January and early February, the fact that my action plan was not too packed and hectic meant I could finish this task without any problems.
What changes would you have made to the plan if you did the Personal Project again?
If I did the Personal Project again, I would make sure to be equipped with all the right tools and resources before beginning the creation of the project. This change is once again linked to the huge issues I faced with underwater footage. When I first created my action plan, I refrained from purchasing an underwater camera; as a matter of fact, I also refrained from purchasing other important video production resources, like hard drives and microphones. At first, I thought I could use an water-proof iPhone pouch to film underwater. I did not even consider how I would mount the phone and make sure that I could stably film the footage. Eventually, I resorted to buying an underwater camera and mounts of Amazon. The camera and mounts came at a deceptively cheap price (especially because of a Christmas discount) for a 1080p underwater camera. My suspicions eventually ended being true, as the camera filmed in 240p. My mistake here was to search for the cheapest resource, disregarding the possibility that it would be low-quality and unreliable. Nevertheless, I went on to use the 240p camera and actually edited the underwater footage into a tutorial, despite the low resolution. However, in mid-January, I finally came to the conclusion that I would need to refilm the footage for the tutorials with a better quality camera. In the end, I managed to convince my parents that a GoPro would be a reasonable investment. Had I only made sure that I possessed all the needed resources for creating my product, my plan would have been a lot more smooth and successful. What's more, I learnt that going for the cheapest product can actually force you to spend more money. I ended up wasting money on buying a camera that filmed in 240p, as I never used its footage in my tutorials. If I simply bought the GoPro first, then I would have evaded countless problems from the creation process.