On completion of the product, candidates must reflect upon their work, using digital formats such as director commentaries, slideshows with voiceover, podcasts, prezis or screencasts. The emphasis should be on creative use of such tools to critically reflect on the production, guided by the following compulsory questions:
- How do your products use or challenge conventions and how do they represent social groups or issues?
- How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of ‘branding’?
- How do your products engage with the audience and how would they be distributed as real media products?
- How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project?
This critical reflection should be presented individually, though candidates may collaborate in the production of responses. In their critical reflection, each candidate should give a clear indication of their contribution to such collaboration to allow teachers to allocate an appropriate mark. Collaborators who worked with the candidate on creative critical reflection must be listed on the Individual Candidate Record Card under ‘other group members’.
Assesment objectives: levels for Component 3. Creative Critical Reflection
Component 3: AO2
Level 5 16–20 The application of knowledge and understanding to show how meanings are created in media products is excellent, as
demonstrated in the blog, in the finished product and in the creative critical reflection.
Level 4 12–15 The application of knowledge and understanding to show how meanings are created in media products is competent, as demonstrated in the blog, in the finished product and in the creative critical reflection.
Level 3 8–11 The application of knowledge and understanding to show how meanings are created in media products is apparent at a satisfactory level, as demonstrated in the blog, in the finished product and in the creative critical reflection.
Level 2 4-7 The application of knowledge and understanding to show how meanings are created in media products is limited, as demonstrated
in the blog, in the finished product and in the creative critical reflection.
Level 1 1–3 The application of knowledge and understanding to show how meanings are created in media products is minimal, as demonstrated in the blog, in the finished product and in the creative critical reflection.
Level 0 0 There is no evidence of the application of knowledge and understanding.
More detailed Assessment Objectives and criteria are on our dedicated Tes lesson.
Examples of answers to CCR questions:
-on past students’ blogs:
https://mariabega.wordpress.com/category/a2-music-promotion-package/creative-critical-reflection-a2/
https://dianachisalita.wordpress.com/category/a2-creative-critical-reflection/
http://wgeorgiw.weebly.com/creative-critical-reflection-a2.html
-on Pinterest on “Creative Critical Reflection” board:
Follow Ana-Maria’s board Creative Critical Reflection on Pinterest.
Various websites and techniques you can use to show your responses to creative critical reflection or for other posts on your blog
Canva Comic Strip:
https://www.canva.com/create/comic-strips/
Use Canva to weave images and text together to present your answers for CCR in a narrative, engaging way.
(list taken from here: http://heathenmedia.co.uk/tech/):
Emaze
http://www.emaze.com/?emazehome
This is another PowerPoint alternative with lots of different templates you can use to present your work.
An example of 1 of these templates is below:
Slid.es
This is an online presentation tool that is similar to PowerPoint, however rather than just up and down you can also go sideways too making it easier to link points together.
An example can be seen below:
Powtoon
This animation creator is a great way to create interesting presentations for a range of different coursework tasks, you can embed the final results on your blog by exporting them to youtube and embedding them as a video.
See an example below:
Venngage.com
Venngage is a great tool for creating and publishing infographics because it’s so simple and easy to use. You can choose from templates, themes, and hundreds of charts and icons as well as uploading your own images and backgrounds, or customize a theme to suit your brand. You can animate them too!
Haiku Deck
Meet Haiku Deck, a completely new kind of presentation software. We make telling your story simple, beautiful, and fun.
Easel.ly
This free web-based infographic tool offers you a dozen free templates to start you off, which are easily customisable.
You get access to a library of things like arrows, shapes and connector lines, and you can customize the text with range of fonts, colours, text styles and sizes. The tool also lets you upload your graphics and position them with one touch.
PiktoChart
Piktochart:
Piktocharts are a very visual and creative way to display data, you can use this to present your audience research data.
Survey Monkey
Survey Monkey:
This allows you to create online surveys where you can collect information about your potential target audience, these surveys can be embedded into a blog (like below) or sent via email or facebook.
This survey software also collects and colates your data into charts and graphs for you to analyse at a later date.
Google Calendar
Google Calendar:
https://www.google.com/calendar
This is a useful tool to show your ability to plan your time and your organisation skills. These calendars can be embedded into your blog to show your planning easily and quickly.
A basic example of how this can look can be seen below:
Pinterest:
This is a social media tool you where you can create walls containing images and links to other content, such as images, websites and videos. This is useful for gathering fonts, images of magazines and other inspirations. These walls can be embedded into your blog posts as you can see below:
Follow Ana-Maria’s board Creative Critical Reflection on Pinterest.
This is a interactive timeline programme you could use to chart or plan your progress through your coursework.
TimeToast
TimeToast:
TimeToast is an interactive timeline app, this could be used to chart or plan your progress throughout your coursework project.
An example of how a TimeToast can look can be seen below:
Popplet
Popplet:
Popplet is another mindmap software, this one however can only be used to insert text. This could be used to create a list of initial ideas for your magazine.
You will have to convert your Popplet to an image in order to embed it in your blog as the embed option can fail on some computers.
An example of how a Popplet might look can be seen below:
SpicyNodes
SpicyNodes:
This is a mindmap software that can contain text and images. Although this software can be a little clunky at times it can use used effectively if the information is small enough, the trick is to keep your ‘nodes’ small containing a few sentences rather than paragraphs.
An example of a SpicyNode can be seen below:
Tagul
Tagul:
Tagul is a word cloud creator, you can use this to create a visual representation of how frequently words appear in a document. This might be useful for some of your questionnaire responses.
An example of a Tagul can be seen below:
SlideShare
SlideShare:
This website can be used to upload powerpoint presentations to to allow them to be embedded in your blog posts. This is not a particularly creative piece of technology, but can be used to portray information effectively.
An example of a SlideShare can be seen below:
Bubbl.us
Bubbl.us
This is an online mindmap software that can contain text and images. This can be used for a variety of different tasks, however the free account will only allow you to create 3 mindmaps.
An example of how the mindmap can look can be seen below:
An explanation of how to use Bubbl.us can be found here
VoiceThread
VoiceThread:
VoiceThread is an interactive tool that allows you to comment on videos and images with your voice. You can also illustrate them and label them while you are talking and providing commentary.
This tool is particularly useful when evaluating your progress, or analysing a number of different images.
A tutorial on how to use VoiceThread is below:
SpiderScribe
SpiderScribe:
This is an online mindmap tool, it can be used for a variety of different things including analysing magazines or listing initial ideas.
You can also add locations, dates and pictures to this mindmap making a creative option for several of the research and planning tasks.
Youtube
YouTube:
You can post videos to YouTube and embed them into your blog.
This is a fairly simple process, but you can also use the tag and annotation tool to add more interactivity to your videos.
This will also allow you to direct the examiners attention to specific features of your magazine within your video.
Remember to make your video engaging, but informative. You should balance the creative and the content equally to ensure you reach the highest mark band.
Glogster
Glogster:
http://edu.glogster.com/?ref=com
You can use this website to create poster or pinboards of images and videos.
Its fairly simple to use and you can take images directly from google search as well as embed videos directly from YouTube. You can also embed audio tracks from your own MP3 players to the Glog.
From my experience creating a Glog can put a bit of a strain on your internet connection, so it might be worth while to ask your family/friends if they are intending to download anything while you are making it (this can really slow up the process and sometimes make it freeze so save it regularly.)
I have created an example of an Audience themed Glog below.
Prezi
Prezi:
This is very similar to PowerPoint, but you can zoom in, move around and embed videos and sounds into the presentation.
If you use this software make sure you are not simply writing an essay and presenting it, use it creatively
Pixton
Pixton:
This is a free comic creator you can use to create comic strips answering your evaluation questions.It can take some getting used to, but the tutorial videos are good and once you have the hang of it it’s pretty simple.
This comic has been taken from another user of the site and explains how you can answer evaluation question 3 using this software.
Photosnack
Photosnack:
Photosnack is a great way to display a number of different images, you can also add music tracks or pre-recorded voiceovers to these slideshows which can be useful for adding more information or analysis.