The IB FOA is a very individual project, where there are no instructions except for the given topic studied in class being Mass Media and Communications. From here, we have the freedom to create a presentation surrounding any topic we want with no guidance to what to talk about or what to cover.
I started by going through all of the grading criteria and all the sub-topics of Mass media we had covered in doing so I made myself many points in order to ensure I covered all aspects of the FOA I needed. For example, this meant going on IB websites and any other online resources; I made note of the learning outcomes and assessment objectives.
I spent a lot of time on my research, and I watched all of the 4 videos taking notes and taking screenshots. I feel I went about it really well, considering I had already created an outline for myself and highlighted aspect I needed to ensure I included in my presentation. This was helpful as when I watched the videos and did research, there was a lot of content – however, knowing what I was looking for put that into context for myself so I knew what to look for and what angle I needed to look at it.
I will definitely use this in the future, as I don’t like going into projects blind. I love having a lot of room for creativity – but this can often lead astray and become too long and too broad. Giving myself a structure initially and a purpose allows me to stay focused and keep everything within the lines.
Furthermore, at first, I was not going to go with this topic, but rather about Instagram and other ideas. However, with all the drama going around on James Charles, I was watching these hour-long videos in my free-time and felt I was wasting my time when I should have been working on my FOA. Then I realized, I could turn that feeling I was wasting my time into actually watching those videos as “study” and I found a huge loophole. It was not only very relevant, but I was really interested in it considering drama is always interesting to read… and that meant I would put a lot more effort into it considering I wanted to learn about it anyways.
I thought this was great because it was relevant to current media, part of teen culture, spread mass media and was about unique communications. Overall, this has shown me that school work can be fun, and it doesn’t work anymore when you chose a topic you’re actually interested in rather than doing what you think would get you a good grade.
