Evaluation

Criterion A

Investigation was my favorite part of this project, as is often the case. I started off by interviewing many other teenagers to get a basic feel of how different people live adolescence. This reporter work was pretty interesting, but I’m afraid I did not get as much out of it as I could have. I tried to interview many different teenagers, but mostly ended up with girls my own age because I wasn’t comfortable asking vague acquaintances for their full feelings on life. I completed my survey over Facebook, so it was easier to keep a written record of their answers.

I think that the fact this interview wasn’t private made the people a little self-conscious about honestly answering what they thought of peer pressure, living abroad and what’s stressing about that, etc. It probably would have been easier for them to talk if I had made the interview anonymous, but I didn’t think of that at the time.

After completing these interviews, I actually listened to real podcasts to get a feel of what these sounded like. I had heard about podcasts before but had always thought they were just an online version of the radio, which I am not very fond of. I looked through iTunes and actually found a lot of interesting emissions on topics that interested me: photography, science, technology…I think I spent a little too much time on this part, though, than I really needed. After watching two or three podcasts, you already know pretty well what they are like – you don’t need to go through another four like I did. I probably should have spent more of this time researching teenage stereotypes or something like that.

Criterion B

Before starting design, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to do for my podcast. Since I’ve lived abroad my whole life and I had asked my interviewees lots of questions about how that felt, I thought it would be interesting to do a podcast episode on that. Before I completely decided on that, I still asked other people for their opinions on the topics I had brainstormed.

None of the people I asked were interested in a podcast on the differences between living abroad and living in a mainland country. They all thought it was a little overdone – and well, I realized it was. The specific culture we live in is something we always talk about and it can be a bit of a boring topic. On the other hand, everyone thought that a podcast on teenage stereotypes would be interesting. I actually quite liked that idea myself, and I think teenagers can relate more easily to this day-to-day issue than another long presentation on living abroad.

Once I knew which topic I would do my podcast on, I started brainstorming designs I could work on. As soon as I wrote each of my designs, I thought it was the best one I could think of and didn’t think it was necessary to make another one, then I made another design and thought that one was great too. Finally, I decided on the simplest format – a script and interviews of various people representing each stereotype. That worked out well, but I think I should have made my script shorter as my podcast ended up being way too long. People tend to have a limited attention span, but I felt like I would forget so many things if it wasn’t at least seven minutes long. I should have asked for more opinions on the script at this point in time. The people I asked may have been too nice since they are good friends of mine, and it’s also hard to judge how long a page of writing will be once it is recorded.

Criterion C

My plan was pretty similar to the ones I usually do, and I think overall I followed it pretty well. The problem was that once again I planned too many things to do in each class. I know it’s better to push yourself rather than be completely unambitious in your plans, but it ended up being rather stressful as I hadn’t planned all the little gaps between what I planned to do – getting the microphones and setting them up takes time, even if “Interview three people” sounds like very little on the actual plan. I think my plans are more adapted to my speed of work every time, though, so this isn’t really much to worry about. Now that I know how these little details take up time, I won’t make the same mistake same time.

Criterion D

Since I had created my plan and my design, I actually started working on my project. The first step was to get people to interview, and Elise, Jiri and Kyu were happy to help. That was a good surprise because I was afraid not to get a single boy to interview, and I thought I really needed a little of their perspective since I had already interviewed so many girls for investigation. Their interviews were the first thing I did and they went well, but they were a little distracted by each other’s presence. It might have been easier just like in investigation to make this anonymous by not revealing their names in the podcast, or simply to interview them separately.

Once I was home, I recorded my own parts which took me less time than planned and turned out pretty well, as far as stuttering or bad pronunciation go. However, my sound quality was really bad. I can’t hear myself all that clearly at times, and there’s a lot of background noise. I should have bought an external microphone for this part of the project or come back to use the school’s microphones, because I think that really messes up the quality of my podcast.

After that, I assembled all of the recorded parts and created my final podcast, adding images. I really wasn’t happy with the images. Whereas my podcast sounded somewhat interesting, the pictures just made it look so amateur and not serious. I think it would’ve been better to use just one image for the whole thing, even if it seems like that’s less variety.

Finally, I think my podcast would’ve been better if I had actually uploaded it on Youtube as putting it on Blogger wasn’t the best quality I could have gotten. My sound was already not too great and this most definitely did not help with it.

Overall

As a whole, I think my podcast turned out alright but there are so many areas I could’ve improved in so many small ways, as I realize while I write this evaluation. First of all, I knew from the start that my sound quality was not too great from my fictional podcast, and I would’ve had time to buy an external microphone. The problem was that I kept forgetting about it until it was too late. I like my script and I think my podcast topic is really interesting to many teenagers, even if there were lots of things I could have improved. In my case, I think the content of my podcast was good but the actual format not so great. I could’ve improved it by using less pictures, better sound and a better uploading website, as I said just before.

To make sure that my judgment was completely fair, I asked other people for their opinion on my podcast following the test I had set myself at the beginning of the unit.

• Ask a number of people what they'd expect to see on a podcast about teenage stereotypes, and compare it with what is actually on my podcast
• Have 3 people listen to my podcast and rate it from 1 to 5 based on interest of the theme, interest of the script, sound quality, pronunciation and overall.

For the first test, I asked Elise, Suugii, Binderyia, Bilegt, Kyu and Brooke what they'd expect to see on a podcast about teenage stereotypes. Here were their answers, and whether or not these things actually are on my podcast:

Elise

1. Specific stereotypes - Yes
2. Interviews - Yes
3. Pictures - Yes
4. Background information - Yes
5. Solutions - Half

Suugii

1. Not too formal, funny - Half
2. Entertaining information - Half
3. Slang words - Yes
4. Interviews - Yes
5. How to deal with stereotypes - Half

Binderiya

1. Pictures - Yes
2. Stories of teenagers - Yes
3. Background music - No
4. Adults discussing teenager stereotypes - No
5. How teenagers want to grow up - No

Bilegt

1. Not too formal - Yes
2. Stereotype yourself - No
3. In your own high school - Yes
4. In your country - No
5. In other schools - No

Kyu

1. Interviews - yes
2. Personal anecdotes - no
3. Background of interviewees - yes
4. Social relationships due to stereotypes - yes

Brooke

1. Interviews - yes
2. Opinions - yes
3. Statistics - no
4. Background information - yes
5. Pictures - yes

Overall, I think my podcast mostly matched expectations as it had interviews, background information and pictures (what most people seemed to be looking for.) However, people also had many other interesting suggestions I forgot to include in my podcast. I particularly liked the ideas of statistics (I could've realized a poll of some sort in my class), background music, comparisons between stereotypes in our school and other schools, and more "solutions" to stereotypes. I think most teenagers don't need that much background information on stereotypes - they know what they are. Perhaps having more solutions to the problem rather than exposing it could have improved my podcast.


For the second part of my test, I asked Sonya, Elise and Ha Young to listen to my podcast and give each criteria a rating out of 5.

Sonya
Interest of the theme: 4
Interest of the script: 5
Sound quality: 3
Pronunciation: 5
Overall: 4

Elise
Interest of the theme: 4
Interest of the script: 4
Sound quality: 3
Pronunciation: 5
Overall: 4

Ha Young
Interest of the theme: 5
Interest of the script: 5
Sound quality: 3
Pronunciation: 5
Overall: 4.5

From this final test, it seems like most people did agree with me on the general idea that the content was better than the format itself, as they all gave a rather low grade for the sound quality. I would even have given something lower for sound, but I suppose I may actually be a little biased as I keep thinking my sound is terrible whenever I listen to my podcast and I can’t focus on anything else.

It was great to see that other people enjoyed my podcast, and in many ways seemed to like it more than I liked it myself. My friends who listened to it said it made them think about stereotypes themselves, which is what I really wanted to achieve with this podcast. We teenagers often think we understand ourselves but I’m not sure how much that is really true. It’s impossible to make a podcast covering all aspects of adolescence, but by making and listening to podcasts each talking about one of these multiple sides to our teenage years, I think we can understand ourselves better. It helps to be able to make sense of this giant mess our thoughts are in this time of life, and it helps even more to see that we’re not the only ones feeling that way, as I realized when listening to the others’ podcasts. Everyone is confused about who they are; everyone has these same problems with stereotypes and other aspects of being a teenager. I’m glad I understand my own better, as well as the trouble other teenagers go through.

My final podcast

As some of my classmates had said that the quality of videos uploaded on Blogger wasn't too good, I tried to upload it on Youtube but it repeatedly gave me an error. So here it is right above - hopefully it will work this time. Since I wasn't too happy with the pictures, I was planning on removing them to create an audio podcast but then remembered one of the design specifications we had been given was to include at least one image.

It took me over ten technology classes to simply make one podcast episode, and it wasn’t even all that long. I can’t imagine the amount of work that needs to be put in by those running Muggle Cast, for example (a nearly 2 hours long podcast published every week.) As with many things, listening to a podcast is a lot less time consuming than recording one! Overall, there are many things that could be improved in my podcast but I believe it turned out pretty fine. I'm glad to be finally done...

In case the video above is really of a terrible quality, I also uploaded the original file here.

Process - recording the podcast

Over the next class, I got two microphones from the school in order to record my interviews. Since the class was noisy, I borrowed Elise’s computer and we set it up in the corridor. The problem was that the school’s microphones refused to work, as we didn’t know how to set them up. We ended up using the built-in computer on the laptop - obviously this diminished the sound quality. I had asked some of the people who got really good sound quality on their fictional podcasts how they had done the recording, and they had used their computers or even their phone, so I thought it would be fine.

The recording of the podcasts actually went well. The sound was not as bad as I expected, and I think my interviewees felt freer talking outside the classroom. However, their mutual presence was still a bit distracting, and sometimes I had to push them to develop their answers to the questions. Here is what I asked each interviewee:

• Have you ever been stereotyped? If so, as what?
• What did you experience because of these stereotypes?
• Do you think the stereotype does apply to you?
• Do you stereotype other teenagers? Do these impressions usually turn out to be right or wrong?

I was happy with the unscripted interviews because all three of my classmates gave very different, interesting answers. They were also quite honest in admitting they did stereotype other teenagers, and actually thought that often stereotypes turned out to be partly true. The only problem with the interviews was that recording them took much longer than planned. I didn’t have time to record my own parts or Sonya’s part, as I had planned.

I finished recording at home, but I think my own built-in microphone is of a lesser quality than Elise’s. My voice was a little hard to hear every now and then. I asked my sister to record the part I had planned for Sonya, and I hope her young voice is not too noticeable in the podcast.
Once I had all of the parts, I assembled my podcast into a small movie using pictures I had found on the internet for stereotypes. Some of the images were very striking. I particularly liked a series of photographs that went “I die my hair crazy colors so I must be an attention seeker,” “I’m Asian so I must like math,” “I am a person so I must be stereotyped. Overall, though, I felt as though the images added something very amateur, not serious, to my stereotype, and made listening to it less interesting.

"Recording sign on black background." Kompressor Studios. 2007. 26 Jan 2010

Process - writing the script

Once I had decided on how I would make my podcast, the next thing I needed to do was write the script for my podcast. I had already made a vague layout of the way I wanted the podcast to go, while I was designing it:

• 2 or 3 seconds video shots of various teens saying "Hello. I'm a jock. I'm a nerd. etc. etc. etc." (Scripted)
• Switchover to myself on video, explaining how many teenagers are categorized into groups, a fact that is accepted as "common knowledge" by most teens (Scripted).
• Quick interview of people defining themselves as belonging to a certain stereotype and how their daily life is affected by this characterization (Unscripted).
• Switchover to myself, explaining how many teenagers don't fit inside any of these groups which are often more of a fashion statement than a way of living (Scripted).
• Short scripted interview of someone who believes they don't belong to any stereotype, and who thinks many other people don't either (Scripted).
• Credits for all the people who were interviewed.

Writing the script was then rather easy, especially since I had a lot of ideas on the subject of teenage stereotypes. I used Word and simply wrote all of the scripted parts you can see above. I had planned to do this during one class period, but it took me a little longer so overall I used about two technology classes.

My next task was to find people to interview for the unscripted interviews, and one person to read out the scripted interview. I wanted to focus on how my age group experiences stereotypes, so I asked those of my classmates who I thought were most likely to be stereotyped. Not everyone accepted, but Elise, Jiri and Kyu agreed to being interviewed about their respective stereotyping experiences. I was happy about that, because as we are a majority of girls in the class I was afraid I wouldn’t get any opinions from boys, but that turned out fine. Sonya agreed to record the unscripted part for me.

"Pile of Paper." Quo Vadis Blog. Feb 2009. 26 Jan 2010

Script for my final podcast

I finished writing the script for my podcast. Some parts are unscripted, so I simply wrote that "interviews" went there but didn't specify what the interviewee would say. I labeled my scripted interviewee as Sonya, but as I ran out of class time it's likely I will ask my sister instead.

SARAH

Good morning, everyone. In this podcast episode, we will be talking a look at common teenage stereotypes and where they originated.

The words nerd, jock, prep or emo probably ring a bell if you’ve ever been in high school. Based on their interests, teenagers have a habit of categorizing themselves into groups whose members are assumed to have the exact same personality.

Someone with a strong interest in sports will be automatically labeled a “jock,” for example. This term carries much more meaning than simply being athletic. People will usually assume a jock is male and somewhat popular, a spoiled teenager who cares about little besides sports and his girlfriends. A jock is not thought to be very intelligent, and the less athletic students will reassure themselves thinking that “he’ll never amount to much.”

The girl version of the jock is the “prep,” the popular high school girl who can also be labeled as queen bee sometimes. Like the jock, when someone calls a girl a “prep” he means that besides being interested in fashion, sports and parties, this girl is somewhat of an airhead. She’s thought to have always been spoiled and have nothing to worry about. She has developed somewhat of a mean streak as a consequence. The prep has nothing to think about but lip gloss and boys, and she’s thought to be very superficial. Despite that, she is one of the most popular girls in her school, just like the jock.

On the opposite, someone who gets good grades and does well in school will be considered a nerd. Nerds are thought to be little know-it-all’s who are usually pretty unpopular, and most definitely socially awkward. They can be both male and female and in both situations their company is not considered very desirable.

Some more recent stereotypes include the emo, the geek or the tomboy. Emo stands for emotionals and represents a small group of people who dress in black, often feel depressed and are also thought to cut their wrists. Though a social group of “emos” does exist, just because someone likes to wear black eyeshadow doesn’t mean that person is always unhappy. A geek is someone who is strongly into new technologies, and even more socially awkward than the nerd; a teenager called a geek has a lot of computer knowledge and supposedly no social life. A tomboy is a girl who enjoys the company of boys and will often wear her hair short or dress in baggy clothing. While tomboy is not necessarily a bad term, a boy who likes the company of girls will on the other side be deemed “gay,” implying he is homosexual.

Where did these stereotypes originate from? While some athletic boys might really match every single characteristic of the jock, many of them simply like sports. Those who get good grades in school are sometimes a little socially awkward, but for every true nerd there is a confident, outgoing teenager who also care about his or her grades.

Stereotypes might have some truth in them, but they are highly exaggerated in the culture teenagers are exposed to. Pick up any typical teenage movie and you’ll be able to categorize every character into a category. The hero will usually be someone average, bright but not very popular; he or she will have one or two sidekicks with large glasses and a terrible sense of clothing, the awkward “nerds” and “wannabes.” A popular jock or prep, good looking but cruel, will usually be the enemy of the hero. This person will however turn out to have a nice, distraught side and be redeemed in the final minutes of the movie.

Making people believe that anyone who is into sports must necessarily be a little thick, or that someone who spends a lot of time thinking about what they should wear is an airhead, can have very negative consequences. Here is what some teenagers faced because of stereotypes.

Interviews of various teens who have been categorized as a particular stereotype, and what they experienced because of this (unscripted)

SARAH

Stereotypes can have a strong impact on anyone’s life. They follow us all the way throughout adulthood, but teenage years are described by many people as the worst time as far as stereotypes go. The reason is that “fitting in” at school is one of the main concerns of teenage years.

Parents are everything during childhood, but suddenly at adolescence your friends and your social life become more important. It’s a period of insecurity for many of us, and stereotypes may seem like they help us feel more confident. If you see a girl who pays attention to her clothes, assuming that she is a superficial person is less time consuming and more reassuring than actually having to go talk to her.

What if you miss the opportunity to become friends with a great person because of this? Stereotypes force you to fit into a mold someone else created for you. If others tell you students with good grades aren’t “supposed” to enjoy partying and hanging out with friends, you don’t need to listen to them. Teenagers make their own stereotypes, and it’s up to us to destroy them. Next time you see someone who likes computers, for example, don’t automatically assume this person has no social life and is utterly boring. For every teenager that entirely fits a stereotype, there are a thousand that don’t fit any at all.

SONYA/INTERVIEWEE

Hello, my name is Sonya and I’m a tenth grade student in ISU. Some of my friends are people who I wouldn’t have thought I’d be friends with at first. I used to think things like, since this girl likes sports, she has to be a jerk, right? It sounds stupid when you say it. There’s no link between the way you dress or the activities you like and your personality. I don’t fit into any stereotype, and I know lots of other teenagers who don’t. I like art, does that make me an art freak? I care about my grades, so am I also a nerd? I like to spend time dressing, is that something only a prep would do? Of course not. The only thing I am is me, and that’s something every teenager should remember.

SARAH

Thank you for listening. This is the end of this adolescent life episode, which hopefully will have given you a fresh perspective on high school stereotypes. Thank you to Elise, Jiri and Kyu for granting us some of their time, and goodbye for now!

I asked two people, Elise and Ha Young, to comment on my script. Here is the advice they gave me:

Elise 
I really like it. The people who are listening tot this will have a greater understanding of stereotyping and maybe they will think more about this the next time they see a new person. I’m looking forward to see the interviews because I think they’ll make this podcast even better. Also, that Sonya is speaking at the end makes it a really good conclusion, and will also make the people think more about this.
Overall really well and interesting 

HaYoung 
I really enjoyed reading your script! It has a lot of those ‘stereotypes’ information, and some of them are really funny. I would like to read your script, or even listen to your podcast after you included the interviews. I’m curious that if Sonya is one of the people that you are going to interview. Anyways, you have strong points that are against those stereotypes, which I liked it  Good job! I think people would be able to think differently about those stereotypes after they listen to your podcast.

Plan for the creation of my podcast (Criterion C)

Here is my plan (though it might be a little blurry). I have quite a lot to do on this podcast, so I have planned to spend an hour over the weekend working on it. If it turns out I am in advance on my plan, I won't complete this study session (13/12/09).

Final design

I decided to choose a combination of my first and second design. I will follow the basic idea of my second design, but only use audio and cut the time down to about 7-8mn as using video will most certainly prove a hassle. Here is a quick view of this design:

Number of episodes: 1
Audio or video: Audio
Length of episode: 7-8 mn
Scripted or unscripted: Partly scripted/partly unscripted
Breakdown of episode:

• 2 or 3 seconds video shots of various teens saying "Hello. I'm a jock. I'm a nerd. etc. etc. etc." (Scripted)
  
• Switchover to myself on video, explaining how many teenagers are categorized into groups, a fact that is accepted as "common knowledge" by most teens (Scripted).
  
• Quick interview of people defining themselves as belonging to a certain stereotype and how their daily life is affected by this characterization (Unscripted).
  
• Switchover to myself, explaining how many teenagers don't fit inside any of these groups which are often more of a fashion statement than a way of living (Scripted).
  
• Short scripted interview of someone who believes they don't belong to any stereotype, and who thinks many other people don't either (Scripted).
  
• Credits for all the people who were interviewed.

I decided on this design for a number of reasons. Looking at other podcasts, I enjoyed the short, various ones more than the sitcoms ones (see 60-seconds Science or Muggle Cast posts). I usually end up making very long projects, but listening to these podcasts I realized how important it is to keep it concise, if you want to maintain the viewer's attention. I also thought that the second design was the most diverse as it involved interviews, explanations and other various ways of conveying the information.

I decided to cut out the video because I realized it did not actually serve a purpose. By having an audio podcast, I make my podcast more accessible to people who want to listen to a podcast while walking in the streets, for example. This will also allow me to focus more on the sound quality instead of trying to make the video work.

Here are my design specifications for my final product:

• My podcast must be between 7-8 mn long (not shorter or longer)
• The sound must be perfectly clear and audible
  
• The transitions between the interviews and the other parts must seem natural
• The podcast must accurately reflect teenager stereotypes
• I will use at least 1 picture for each section and 1 for each interview

In order to record my podcast, I have a number of options. From what I gathered of my classmates on their fictional interviews, using an external microphone connected to your computer gives the best sound quality. The disadvantage of this will be that I have to record in school, as I do not have an external mike at home. The second option would be to record using a phone or another mobile device, which gives me more options as to where to record but sacrifizes the sound quality. My third option is to use the microphone I have at home, which would allow me to work more on the podcast while I am away from home, but will have the counterpart of both limited mobility and bad sound quality.

As for sound software, I also have a number of options. I could use "My Podcast Recorder", which gives you very few options but is straightforward to use. I could record using Skype, which has the advantage of letting me interview people who are not necessarily in my school. I could also record with Audacity, certainly the software with the most editing options. I would however have to check whether or not it is installed in school. For the assembling, I can use Windows Movie Maker to put together the slide show or JayCut. Movie Maker is simple to use, but it is very limited when it comes to options. JayCut gives more freedom but being an online editor, uploading and downloading the videos will take a long time.

Overall, I think that my best choice of recording options would be to use the microphones in school with Audacity, and assemble everything in Movie Maker. I do not really need to interview people outside of my class; if I want to, I can always have one interview on Skype at my own house, in which case the sound quality will depend on the hardware of my interviewee. Movie Maker also provides a large enough number of options considering I only want to put in a few pictures for the class slideshow.