Post 7 - The Social Impact

This task has the ability to emphasise social issues both the audience of the film and to those working on creating the artefact. My group's film, Little Blue Riding Hood, a twisted take on the story of little red riding hood, has a girl meet a guy in a bar, and he then spikes her drink. While she is aware of this and switches the drinks, leading to the wolf's demise, the inclusion of this does alert viewers to the dangers of drink spiking. It is only when Blue leaves her drink with the stranger that he has a chance to drop the tablet in, and although she turns the tables on him, the danger she is in and his intentions are clearly shown. As an aside, I must say I really enjoyed the audience's sharp intake of breath at the shot of the knife during the screening; this was very much what we were going for. So, hopefully the film was able to convey this perhaps somewhat unsophisticated message about the dangers of drink spiking.

The second major social impact I’ve mentioned previously, that is the change in the group dynamics, and that despite differences of opinion we all managed to come together and get on with it. I can see that with regards to Civics and Citizenship education, that group work can go long way to introducing students to group situations, and in this safe way those more used to working alone, or to getting their way, can develop an appreciation for the dynamics of a team. This is vitally important as teamwork is a ubiquitous fixture in almost all careers, and indeed to develop into the Melbourne Declaration's (2008) Active and Informed Citizen, it is necessary to be able to work with others, to tolerate differing opinions and to appreciate other points of view.

Overall, I’ve really enjoyed this course. I entered it with a fair bit of trepidation, recalling with horror my experiences in SCIM101 - Computing for Scientists which I undertook way back in 2000, a course which was all databases, spreadsheets and Powerpoints. I feel like I have developed a good understanding of the major theories, and almost more importantly, have had experience applying them and then analysing the results.