Final Thoughts

Ok so it seems people aren't happy after all then!

In my opinion, we all did a fair and equal amount of work.

I offered to do the powerpoint in the first week, everyone agreed that they would tell me how they wanted their slides and I would put it all together. I offered to do this because when we joined together as a group, NO ONE SPOKE! I had to start all the discussion. So I went away and made a start.

Then Charlene emailed me saying that we should all put the powerpoint together at the same time as a group. This is fair enough, but when we first met up in the learning centre, only me and Raj had completed our slides and brought them in. No one else had done this.

Charlene then decided she would do exactly what I had offered to do in the beginning.



Second meeting...Charlene was not there. Raj sat at the computer and filled in our parts of the handout sheet with all of us (minus Charlene) contributing our sections.



What annoys me about this whole situation is that no one who has had a problem has spoken to me face to face. When we met up, everyone was nice as pie to each others faces. If Charlene had discussed her thoughts with the group instead of ranting about it after the presentation we might have been able to sort something out.



Emma, I apologised at the time and I do so again now for the late reply by email, other assignments were also due at this time.



What have I learnt?

1. Never assume people are being honest. If they appear to be friendly, they might still have a problem with you.

2. I agree with Charlene, I don't like relying on other people for a decent grade.

3. I think the presentation went well overall, we ALL contributed equally.

4. Next time I will be very wary about who I am in a group with. I want to work with people who want to do well and will be honest and speak the truth face to face, rather than through emails and blogs.



Thankyou Mark for all your help and great lectures and trip to London!



Well done to EVERYONE. We ALL did well.

oooooook then... just a few things for whoever marks this..

errrm.. not entirely sure why there seems to be a slight tension but as i said in my post earlier i thought the presentation went good.

For whoever is going to grade this:

1. Everybody in the group researched and put together their own sections including the slides and talk they delivered
2. There was a slight disagreement in the early stages as to who would be putting together the completed slides for the final presentation that was shown; as we seem to be naming names, Cat offered to do this but Charlene thought it would be better for everybody to do it together. We had a meeting after this in which we showed our slides to each other.. Charlene took these away and said she would put it together. If this was a problem then I think an email or post on here stating this or asking for others to pull in would have been beneficial instead of struggling through it alone.
3. Re. the handout, during the second group meeting, we looked at the final presentation and completed half of the handout we needed to give in at that point. Emma completed the rest along with the concluding slide with email responses..

Personally, i think we probably could have done with meeting up maybe a day or two before the presentation and cleared up any problems that seem to have aired now as all in all i thought this was a pleasant experience of group presentations.

Thanks to Charlene and Emma for making certain that the presentation and handouts were completed to a high standard and thanks to Kate, Kiri and Cat for doing what I thought was a fair share of the work also.

Final thoughts

Hey guys,
I thought the presentation went well. I was surprised at how well due to last minute panic.I feel that i have learnt a great deal from carrying out research about not only Jack the Ripper, but in terms of research skills which i feel i will be able to carry on into other assessments.My most interesting find was the representation of the Ripper in children's fiction, which shocked me a bit. If i could change anything it would of been more depth in our conclusion, agreeing with Charlene's thought about Meena's question. I was a bit annoyed about the lack of email/blog respond during the final week from a few members of the group, again agreeing with Charlene's views about the sharing of the work, but luckily these problems did not effect how our actual presentation was on the day.

Well done to everyone, hope our hard work pays off when we get our grade x

In response to Kiri's comment, about the work being shared. That was the problem, Cat offered to do the powerpoint and the handout, whilst a few of us felt it should be done TOGETHER and that was mine and Emmas response. We did not suggest that we wanted to do it all, just that it was group work and therefore contributed by all members. In terms of my other post about the week leading to the presentation, the comment that me and Emma was left to sort it out overall, was that Emma had emailed everyone and posted on here, about the conclusion and the handout. Raj me and kate was the only ones to do respond to this. It was quiet hard to get in touch with everyone. So my comments were about the fact that me and Emma was left to worry about the powerpoint and the handout the day before as not everyone had responded to email or blog in the final week and i thought had a more laid back attitude, therefore i feel that my comments were justified. Everyone did their fair share in their part of the presentation, just not overall in terms of bringing it all together. The point of this blog was/is for reflection of our presentation and our last post was to reflect what we would do differently or what we have learned, so my comments were adhering to what the blog especially the last post aims were. In terms of how much effort particularly me and Emma did put in to this presentation compared to others is only highlighted by Emmas upseting rant the night before, because Cat and Kiri had not contacted her back and even more so by the amount of posts and extreme and constant blogs/discussions we posted on here show our effort at trying to bring the group together as a whole, and to involve everyone, it is not our fault if some other members were not as enthusiastic or putting in the amount of effort we thought this presentation deserved and that we were working at. As unlike my history debate this presentation was graded as a whole and not individual therefore it is fair that the work was disturbited evenly as everyone benefits from the same grade, therefore we did try to involve everyone, but this i found very difficult when people are putting less effort/unwilling to do so and wants to sort everything out over email to avoid group meetings etc. I was not saying that everyone did not take part/contribute well enough in their individual parts, but in a way were more concerned with their individual area, then bringing it all together etc/ working in a group which was the aim of the assessment! and this is something i would of changed and i feel me and a few other members have learnt from, for future presentations.

On a more positive aspect Well done to everyone, as on the day i felt that it was brought together quiet well x

Overall

To respond to Charlene's post about Emma and her being left to do most of the work......I feel this is unfair on Cat as she offered to put the presentation together herself but was told not to, as Charlene believed that this would not work, however Charlene then took control herself and ended up doing exactly what cat had originally offered to do.

Overall I think that the presentation went really well, and I think that considering we didn't run it through because of Charlene being ill the week before it went well. I thought Kate's introduction with all of the gruesome facts was brilliant and you answered Meena's question really well Kate!

Hope everyone has a nice Christmas!
x

afterwards.....

Okay,
so our presentation went quite well and smoothly. I was very pleased by the response from Mark and Meena. I felt that we explored the topic in depth. Meena's question about why objects such as figures, games etc, and why people exploit Jack the Ripper, threw me a bit because throughout each of our parts we explained that their is a market for such items mainly due to the many open interpretations of who the Ripper was/ what exactly happened, therefore it can be explored and exploited in many different ways. Also i felt at the time this was shown by Cat, who talked about many Americas thinking the Ripper was a fictional character etc. However after the presentation i thought about this more, i realised Meena's point and thought what we could of done to improved it further. I think that even though we all included why we think people exploit the Ripper, we did it briefly and did not highlight its importance in any significant way. Therefore if we could of changed anything, it would been to include a section/ slide(s) exploring why people exploit the Ripper, and why there was a market for this, looking at different reasons etc.

As this was the first presentation i have really done at uni for an assessment. I have learned quite a lot, heres a quick list.
1. That i don't like relying on other people for my grade, as other people have different acceptances of what is a 'good' grade for them etc.
2. It made me realize that in group work, its not always equal like it should be. Even though we all did our own individual research etc, and all worked equally hard in that particular sense. I did feel that the work overall was not Shared equally, and that Me and Emma in particular was left with the task of bringing it all together, or left with the fear that it wouldnt of been if we hadn't of done this.
3. In a more positive aspects, presentations make you research/prepare weeks in advance because other people are relying on you, and you don't want to make a fool of yourself in front of other etc on the day. Another advantage of this is its less rushed and it gives you the opportunity to find lots more.
4. Also that presentations etc, are not really scary or nothing to get really stressed about which i thought they would be. Whilst im on this point, i also believe that they dont have to be as boring as you think. Our particular topic i found extremely interesting and with the use of visual aids, clips etc, you can create something good.
5. Finally that the use of a blog alongside presentation topic is an EXTREMELY good idea, it keeps the whole group in touch. It makes you find/research something every week sometimes more which consequently helps your presentation, and makes sure its not left to the last minute.

Okay so thats enough from me. I'll look forward to finding out our grade for all our hard work. I've really enjoying ranting my opinions about all different aspects of the Ripper. He's a few links for the musical clips we used in the presentation, because i haven't pasted them on here before




http://www.rippershow.com/video.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pYIZvP5Qn4 Jack the musical (opera)

Take care everyone x

Well Done

Hey,
Just wanted to say a big well done to everyone. Thought the whole presentation ran smoothly and no one messed up even though we thought we would. Just wanted to say a big thank you to Emma for making sure everything was prepared and doing the handout.

Will see you all soon x