AS media evaluation questions

We have been asked to evaluate our first year in several questions and these are all about reflecting back on what we learnt and what we will bring forward this year, these are the questions I was asked and my answers:

As media critical analysis

What about the subject still holds your current interest? What are you dissatisfied with?

As media was interesting as I learnt many new skills and some of these I still use regularly. Making a music magazine gave me new skills and I am very interested in doing this again as it would great fun and very interesting. The photography also holds my interest as I learnt new ways to take photos and develop them on Photo shop to create a better photo. I was dissatisfied with the amount of exam work and preparation. There was lots of coursework and I feel the media course should be more than 50% practical as this means more to learn than the exam as it lasts longer. Although the exam is key and is needed, I feel it should not count for 50% as this is a little too high, the coursework should be worth more.

What is the overall value of the As Media course? How will this impact A2 Media?

The value of AS media will be carried on for many years, skills such as Photo shop and being able to evaluate what a picture is trying to show will be useful for many years and especially help when at university. The planning techniques I also experimented with to do well in the exam will help me later on as they gave me solid ground to do well. The media course was valuable too as the skills I learnt also were used when I did my other a-level exams as they were able to be carried across to them as media is so broad. The skills and value of AS media will move to A2 as these skills will be developed further and will give me solid ground to start from. The Photo shop skills I learnt can be developed further and make a more professional magazine front cover as I had no idea where to start before, now I know what to do and how to start it and develop from that. These Photo shop skills are worth a lot to me as I never knew how to do this before and now, I have a good understanding and would be able to basic tasks if needed straight away. It took me time to learn this but now I do, I will use much more in my life, especially in advertising (what I want to do after a-levels) as this is a key part to it so it looks more professional.

What are the course’s (and your) strengths and weaknesses?

The course itself is a very good a-level to do as the skills can be spread across many other a-levels. The strongest part to me was creating the music magazine as this gave us many skills to learn and to develop to make a professional piece of coursework. These skills then can be used later on in life, especially at university and can be used elsewhere also. The course also developed my exam writing technique and s.a writing techniques. The questions were high in marks and there were only 2 so I had to write with good explanation and well presented and I did very well in this getting a B bringing my grade up from a D to a C. this is a great skill to keep and I hope to develop this into A2

The course did have its weaknesses also though.  I feel the course should be more reliant on the coursework (as said in other questions). Although I did better in the exam I still feel the coursework should be worth more as this is a better skill and shows much more understanding as some people do not like exams. Although exams are needed I do feel the coursework should be worth a little more and exam a little less. The course also had a weakness from our teacher. He was great at teaching but his marking skills were poor as I was told my coursework was at grade A but I only got a D which is very disappointing. I had my doubts so still did a little more work than normal and I am glad I did or it may have been an E.

My strengths in this course were the exam writing techniques and gathering photos and making posts on my blog. These pieces I developed skills for the AS and made them work in the coursework and exam. I learnt how to answer questions to a high standard within the time limit, it is just a shame that the question in the exam was one I never tried, although I did good, I could have planned and done a bit on that too and done even better!

The weaknesses in this course would be the piece involving Photo shop and planning. I did not know how to use the programme before the AS so I only learnt basic pieces and how to do them so it was not at a professional level (D). my planning, although sufficient, was not enough to get into the higher boundaries and get a C. I could of improved this much more and done much better and brought my grade up, but these are just things which happened and cannot be changed as it is finished but I feel I did well overall not knowing what some things were before and coming out with a good grade, the highest in the class for AS.