Spring 2018
Information Literacy Level 2, Information Synthesis Levels 1
Information Literacy Level 2, Information Synthesis Levels 1
Spring semester of my freshmen year of college, I took CMST 203, Intercultural Communications. In this class, we learned how norms vary from culture to culture and how you can aim to communicate clearly across cultures. For our final project in this class, we had to create a video discussing certain elements of culture. Some groups chose to discuss clothing, religion, or language. Our group chose to discuss the importance of food in various cultures. We ended up focusing on important foods in Poland, Peru, Qatar, and India, because we were able to interview people who had lived in those countries.
By practicing gathering information accurately and authentically for this project, I learned how important it is in research to gather and use ethical information (Information Literacy Level 2). While putting together this research project, our group conducted interviews in order to report accurate, authentic, and ethical information to our class. The people we chose to interview and incorporate in our video were an international student and someone who has lived abroad for most of their life. This helped us to get a first-hand look into what food from other cultures is like and the meaning behind it. This project helped me to understand how important it is to accurately and ethically account for other people’s ideas into research. We understood that we could be misrepresenting cultures and causing harm if we used unreliable sources or lazily conducted research. Another element from this experience that I was able to grow from was the experience of conducting a research project within a group. This can be challenging because other people's ideas of good information or ethical research strategies may vary from your own. Setting standards, finding other sources that back up your information, and double checking the resources of your group members were things that I did in order to make sure we were using quality, ethical information. I will apply this knowledge in my career field because being knowledgeable of the ethical use of information is very important in the media profession. Using information unethically can have very harmful consequences, and it is important to be cognizant of how you are using information.
This project helped to develop my skills about how to organize research in a way that could be easily communicated yet maintain accuracy (Information Synthesis Level 1). This project helped me to understand how important it is to incorporate other’s ideas into my own research project. After we gathered our information from a variety of sources and media types, our group had to figure out a way to piece it together in our final video. This project allowed us to synthesize information in a creative form that was different from how we were used to presenting information, such as in an essay. We wanted to make sure our message and research would easily be communicated and that our message wouldn’t get lost. We also had to remember to maintaining accuracy in order to not muddle any information or research we had conducted. Our final project consisted of photos, interview video clips, and our own voice-overs stating some of our findings. Not only did we synthesize our own research, but we also incorporated video clips straight from our interviews in order to demonstrate to our audience that it was accurate information. By practicing how to synthesize other’s ideas in research throughout this experience, I was able to further practice this skill in the research experiences I had after I completed this task. I learned that there are more ways and methods to use other’s information, but it is important to be cognizant of how you are using other’s information in any research you conduct.
This project helped to develop my skills about how to organize research in a way that could be easily communicated yet maintain accuracy (Information Synthesis Level 1). This project helped me to understand how important it is to incorporate other’s ideas into my own research project. After we gathered our information from a variety of sources and media types, our group had to figure out a way to piece it together in our final video. This project allowed us to synthesize information in a creative form that was different from how we were used to presenting information, such as in an essay. We wanted to make sure our message and research would easily be communicated and that our message wouldn’t get lost. We also had to remember to maintaining accuracy in order to not muddle any information or research we had conducted. Our final project consisted of photos, interview video clips, and our own voice-overs stating some of our findings. Not only did we synthesize our own research, but we also incorporated video clips straight from our interviews in order to demonstrate to our audience that it was accurate information. By practicing how to synthesize other’s ideas in research throughout this experience, I was able to further practice this skill in the research experiences I had after I completed this task. I learned that there are more ways and methods to use other’s information, but it is important to be cognizant of how you are using other’s information in any research you conduct.
Research Artifact #4
Below is our final video we created to complete this assignment.