CRITICAL REFLECTION

To me, contemporary media literacies means understanding how to use and make sense of all the media around us including: social media, videos, news, and even online fitness content as I have further researched throughout this course. I think that media literacies have made me question the true meaning of whatever message a certain platform is putting out there, and it’s true meaning and intentions. I’ve learned that I use contemporary media literacies every day without always realizing it. As a personal trainer, I’m constantly posting, learning from other reputable coaches, and connecting with clients online. This class made me more aware of how I present myself and how I can use media platforms to help my business grow. 

I think media literacies are important because they expose us to a wide variety of information. This can be a positive, but it is also easy to get influenced by trends or false information as well, therefore keeping up with digital literacies is very important. In my career and personal life, media literacies helped me build a positive online presence for my business and connect with clients in a genuine way. Regarding school media literacies have helped me find more resources with information and have helped me stay up to date with my class work.  

This course has been designed to be very interactive, especially for an online class, I currently am in another IPS class that is very similar, IPS 408 Applied Project Management. This course has also been very interactive and the contemporary styles that I have learned in this class I have been able to apply to my speaking assignments in that course.  

When I get a speaking assignment, I like to plan it out first. I think about what I want to say and the main points I want people to take away. Then I like to make notecards to make the information that I am presenting flow better and I also like to keep myself from being overwhelmed by too much information at once. The less overwhelmed I am when giving a speech the more natural I can be when giving a presentation. I try to talk the same way I would with a group class filled with all my clients, clear, confident and genuine. 

My strengths as a speaker are being energetic and able to connect with people. I’ve built that confidence from coaching and working with clients but also being in the service industry for a long time as well. My weakness is that I sometimes talk too fast when I get nervous. To fix that, I’ve been practicing slowing down, using pauses and making notes in my flashcards on when to take those pauses and focusing on keeping my information straight to the point.  

When writing and speaking for school you should remain professional and thoughtful. You must be very clear about what you are saying, and you must speak with confidence and specifically have confidence in what you are speaking about, this applies to your professional work life as well. What I am currently doing for a job right now is what I hope to be doing for the rest of my life, I would like to be knowledgeable and make people feel comfortable when I am talking to them about my career. This means talking confidently with my clients and making them feel like they made the right decision when hiring me for the job.  

When curating my work, I really wanted to make it as personal as I possibly could, this way I could relate to it, that is why I chose to curate my work around my personal/ professional job. The best part of the website was seeing it all come together. It felt good to create something reflecting all the work that we have progressively been doing the past several weeks. The topic that I chose to focus on was also very interesting to me, so it was cool seeing a whole website on it that could potentially inform the right audience on the digital literacy gap that is present. The best part of the presentation was finding all of the research on the topic that I picked, I thought it was really interesting seeing that other people have been looking into this topic before I even realized it was an issue.  

The most challenging part was getting the website to look the way I wanted and keeping my presentation organized without taking too much time on things. I think that while working on it I put more time into things that did not hold as much importance as some of the information that was clearly more important.  The most challenging part of the presentation was not being nervous and just speaking with confidence. If I had more time, I would make the website look more aesthetic and more on brand with myself, I think that I could have done better with the overall look of the website if I had more time to work on it. If I had more time for the presentation, I would put more effort into my visual aids and I would take more time rehearsing my presentation on my own.  

This project helped me grow personally and professionally by improving how I talk and communicate with large groups, especially while I am at work. I think academically it has taught me a lot on how to give a proper presentation and that there are a lot of tools that go into making a presentation/ speech as good as it can possibly get.  

My main goal for my education is to keep learning so I can help more people live healthier and more confident lives. I want to grow as a personal trainer and business owner and continue building my knowledge in health, fitness, and communication. I also want to acquire a degree. After taking a step away from school for quite some time to focus on my health, I have realized how important it is for me to accomplish this one goal that I started so long ago.  

During this term, I worked toward my goals by staying as focused as I possibly could while also trying to maintain my full-time job and pay attention to that when needed. I tried my best to manage my time well, and connecting what I learned in class to my real-life work with clients. I tried to put real effort into each assignment so it would help me both in school and in my career. 

If I could change something about my student life, I’d manage my time better so that I wouldn't stress out so much over the little things. I would also prioritize my schoolwork over some more personal things that I had to deal with.  

This class honestly was challenging for me; it was a lot of information that I have never learned about or been exposed to yet. A lot of times I felt confused and overhwelmed but I did try my best to understand what I could. I am also newer to online classes so being in such an interactive online course was also a huge adjustment for me that I really had to learn to navigate. I tried my best to learn what I could on this topic and present it in a way that makes sense to you and my audience.