My Gathering Process

20 Apr, 2021

My Gathering process journal(or Series reflection)

Background & Series-Correlation

Sharing my Series with the class and our guests was a really eye-opening experience and exciting for me creatively, because I was taken aback by all the potential directions in which I could continue this project...which was the problem.

I guess while I was doing my Series, once I had my content nailed down, I became super fixated on the technical, coding component of the project. Because of my lack of experience with coding, I was learning a lot about it as I was building my site so perhaps that learning process started overshadowing my initial thematic goal with the Series.

Talking with the guest speakers made me realize that perhaps there are multiple ways in which I can execute the same creative vision, which is ultimately what my Gathering ended up doing; it was an educational experience in which I presented the same information that I did in my Series, but in a different, more interactive way.

Distilling themes

The initial planning of my Gathering began with a sort of reflection, or "distilling," or even "going back to the roots" of my Series project. I needed to figure out what themes had initially excited me before any of the technical stuff and what I wanted to carry over. Here's what I came up with:

Presenting the media industry as a "small world" through...
Interconnectivity (both of the media companies & contents AND of my Gathering participants)
"Going down the rabbit hole" feeling when tracing to/from a specific movie through all its parent companies

Planning the Gathering

I will admit, this whole thing was planned in an extremely short amount of time- especially in comparison to my planning for the Series. After a classmate suggested that I try a game-show, "look what I learned" format for my Gathering, I immediately got to work.

I have made Kahoot! games before for my team because they are fun ice breakers and bonding experiences. I actually started by making the Kahoot! with zero invitees in mind. I found myself blowing through 15+ questions and decided to cap it at 17. Like my classmates and the guest speakers had suggested on my Series, I tried to design the questions to trigger this "Oh, I didn't know that" sort of feeling by quizzing people's knowledge on production companies and which companies make what are considered the most popular movies of our time.

In other words, I used my Series feedback to construct my Gathering.

After I finished making the Kahoot! I decided to invite (VERY INFORMALLY) my go-to "movie friends." I realized that none of them really knew each other from beforehand, which suited the Kahoot! format because, like I mentioned above, the game is great as an ice breaker.

Carrying out my Gathering

The Gathering was a huge success, to say the least. It exceeded all expectations I had, because I did not anticipate how engaged and interested my guests would be not only with the material but with each other. Maybe I'm just a pessimistic person... We played the Kahoot! Although my Zoom crashed midway through the game, my guests were super excited and determined to show off their movie knowledge, but the best part was the look I saw on their faces when they learned something new.

As someone in the class pointed out yesterday, my Gathering was basically just an opportunity for me to present to my friends what I had learned through my Series! I like that! It was very true. I think what made this Gathering special for me was the fact that I actually had live feedback and interaction with the people who were "going through" my content. In a way, I think that the Gathering should honestly precede my Series. My Series would then become a "learn more on your own" opportunity after an enjoyable, social trivia experience.

Moving forward...

I learned A LOT from both of these projects, which I've now come to think of as one. I am really proud of what I was able to accomplish in terms of coding, but I am also super thankful to all my classmates, to Laurel, and our guests for helping me realize as a second semester senior that there is joy in learning and sharing that experience with others!

I'm going to figure out a cheap way to keep my site live and I think I've made my Kahoot! public, so if anyone ever wants to visit/use either site here are the links:

Series: www.aileeseries.com
https://create.kahoot.it/details/905700e2-6fda-4b98-8d91-dece232b3647

(If the links don't work, please let me know!)