The finished paper basically meets my original expectations. I wasn’t hoping for much, granted, but i knew we had to produce a full blown newspaper that would help with exam revision and be interesting to students. We should really have concentrated more on the relevant articles, such as the exam answers and the questions, instead of going straight into less relevant things such as Wiki World Tour or Zeitgeist Forecasts.

Some of the articles were relevant and may actually help people when it comes to revision, however some are less or totally irrelevant to the exam. Several articles were written from a very set point of view, and probably wouldn’t help that much, so had to be either changed, removed or only used online.

We only worked on the exam questions near the deadline as a last minute thing, which was a mistake. We should have assigned someone to do those right at the start as they were most important instead of waiting for a teacher to say “where the hell is this..”. People didn’t see it as is fun as whatever they were working on so didn’t bother to write about it and therefore it simply didn’t get done, however we got something in the end and i am quite pleased with how it turned out.

How does it look?

At a first glance, the inside looks like an actual newspaper. Words and pictures thrown in seemingly at random, the use of crossheads and stuff worked well for us in this aspect. If you look at it for longer, however, you can tell it was made by students, just by the sue of colour and how certain things are said. They aren’t exactly informal, but they aren’t as wordy and intense as some newspapers choose to phrase things.

Given that we paid for colour, i think we could have used a bit more as most of it was simply for emphasizing titles and important bits. I used more colour than anyone else as i did the Tube Map, which was basically 2 pages of colour, and i had a massive picture in the middle of my article. I think it looks pretty good, still not entirely sure about the front page though.

How pleased are you with your contributions?

I am quite pleased with my contributions to the paper, because while potentially no vital to the paper, i think they work quite well. The Tube Map, especially, as it adds a break in the paper and is quite different to what anyone else has done. My original article, the Wiki World Tour one, started by us playing it. Someone then decided i should use it as my article, so i started trying to explain its benefits as a research tool. This was harder than it sounds, because however you explain it, it doesn’t really sound helpful, but i believe could be.

I think it is much improved with the use of the graphic, i decided to use post-it notes, and a font that almost looks hand written. Some of them are crossed out because they didn’t work, or didn’t help you get to the bit you want to get to, which i liked. This article isn’t vital to the newspaper, but i think it adds a bit of fun if someone tries to play the game.

After completing that, i needed something else to do, and vaguely remembered someone mentioning a web 2.0 version of the London Tube Map, similar to the one we tried to make with TV drama. This was much harder to start, as i was doing it alone, i needed to work out how many stations were on each line, and what each line should be. Once i had figured out which line was which, it was boring, but i started the process of finding the websites i could use.

After i while i got into putting the names in and got on with the map quite quickly. It was surprisingly easier to work alone and complete it than when we tried to do it in a group, and i think it looks quite good. I’m basically sure the stations all fit in, and everyone else seems to like it. I think it works well as a centrepiece as it, as far as i am aware, is our only double page spread.

How effectively do you think you worked in your role and others in theirs?

I think i did well in my role. I worked on my article and managed to complete it easily within the time i was given. I also took it upon myself to start a new project for the newspaper without being told to. I got bored waiting for people to give me something to do so i started working on the logistics of making the Tube Map work. Ultimately, if i had been able to access that as much as i could my article, i would have been able to do it quicker, and wouldn’t have been so rushed towards the end of the deadline to get it finished.

I think the rest of our team worked quite well, too because we all managed to hand in a complete article well within the given deadline, and listened to any advice or feedback we were given. Our team leader worked quite well, but sometimes seemed like he couldn’t be bothered and got a bit annoyed with us hassling him to give us work.

What could be learnt from this experience?

I think the main thing we learnt in this project is how well we can work as a team if we have to. I know a lot of our class like being able to take control of everything and do it all their own way, which, while may be beneficial for them, doesn’t really help anyone else if they have to evaluate a project that they haven’t one anything on. Taking people away from their ideal roles and putting other people in charge worked well as it gave them a chance to organize themselves however they wanted, and i think we worked very well.

I think using an actual company was a really good idea, as we totally had to meet our deadlines. Occasionally, on our projects one or two people don’t quite make it and hang around after college a bit to finish uploading their videos or whatever they still have to do. This time, however, we had to have everything e-mailed to the appropriate people by a certain time or we wouldn’t be able to finish the project. This gave everyone the kicking they needed to get the work done on time, which was a big improvement.

What has been learnt from previous experience?

Given how badly some of our attempts to work together as a class worked out, we have clearly learnt a lot and improved our teamworking skills. For the show project, we started as a while class, and simply couldn’t get anywhere. We were constantly arguing and ended up splitting the group in half. This time, however, putting different people in charge and giving people set job roles meant they couldn’t argue about who was doing what and we could work efficiently as a team.

We also knew from previous experience who we should and shouldn’t put in charge of things. We figured we could trust Alex to talk to the client and go do things, so we set him as the liaison. We knew Tara, Matt and Kirk can work well and efficiently, so we put them as quality control. We chose the team leaders because thy were people we thought could take control, but not be too controlling and everyone else just got on with essays.

Overall

I think we did pretty well in the end, as we have produced a half-decent looking paper, that at brief glance can look almost official, but when you actually look at it, works for students and may well help them with their exam preparation. We managed to work well as a whole class team, which hasn’t worked out before, and we all managed to contribute something useful to the finished product.