Unit 3 Reflection

We chose our genre for our Unit 3 Project because of our joint interests in staying fit and being healthy. We typically all see each other in the gym on a daily basis, so it just made sense to talk about how technology has impacted our health and wellness. Sydney’s Unit 2 Project was based on this topic and we decided that it would be smart to use one of our previous topics. We felt that we should use one of our previous topics because we wanted to know that the research we would be looking at were in support of our argument. We (Rhea and Lindsay) did our Unit 2 assignments on how technology has impacted the environment and the advertising industries. Although both of these topics have strong support and claims to argue, as a group we decided that we would create a better portfolio if we used a topic that all of us lived with everyday.

In regards to the medium in which we presented our project, we felt as if a podcast would be most effective. An effective podcast would be a challenge for all of us to conquer, as we have not experienced much with creating our own podcasts in the past. We felt as if this would be the best way to reach our audience because we were making a twist from a typical informational podcast. To do this, we decided to make our podcast more conversational and less about which sources taught us what. Although we did not explicitly say any sources used in our podcast, there was still research that went into our project, just we felt as if college students don’t necessarily care about the source of the facts as long as they know they are facts.

As mentioned before, we submitted our Unit 3 Project to our projected audience through a podcast. We wanted to pitch the idea that innovations in technology have impacted people’s health and wellness in both positive and negative ways. We wanted to concentrate on the positive impacts mainly because we feel as if the benefits are outweighing the negatives. We began our podcast with introducing our topic and our names in order for our audience to understand a basis for what we would be talking about, and who would be talking about it. Since we used the topic from Sydney’s Unit 2 Portfolio, we looked into how she interacted with her audience. When she was collecting the research for her assignment, she asked different student’s their takes on specific questions. Coincidentally enough, two of her respondents were the other 2 of us in this group (Lindsay and Rhea). This was another reason that we decided to use her topic since we all had an interest in her topic and were stakeholders in the development of her research. The questions asked were, “Ever since technology has been introduced to the fitness industry, do you think it has caused our nation to be more or less fit?”, “How has technology impacted our physical health?”, and “What role can exercise/fitness/health and wellness apps play in a person’s fitness routine?” The answers to these questions were answers that we concentrated on in our podcast. Another way that we got information from our audience was in Sydney’s Unit 2 Abstract and Pitch Blog Post. Sydney has an Instagram account where she posts the healthy food she is able to make whether at home or in her dorm, so she posted her pitch here to reach the audience that is clearly into healthy eating. The pitch was, “How does social media and technology as a whole affect our physical health? Do you think it has caused our nation to be more or less fit?” there were many responses to this post, which gave us a wide variety of information to compare and contrast. We were able to receive responses that emphasized both the positive and negative impacts of technology and fitness. One of the positive responses said, “More! Following various pages gives me recipe and workout ideas that I love to try.” Furthermore, one of the negative claims were, “I think the distraction of social media has made us less fit.” Getting a well-rounded response from viewers gave us somewhere to start.

In regards to Unit 3, we had a one-way interaction with our audience. We didn’t ask any specific members of our target audience any questions because our project was mainly using our own opinions based on the information that we found as research. We would like our audience to be inspired to be more cautious of their health and fitness from our presentation because we all feel strongly about living a healthy life. We have all been committed to living healthy lives for at least the last 6 years and we try to get our peers around us to feel the same way. Our podcast discusses the ease of tracking your fitness through devices such as Apple Watches or Fitbits, and we also discuss how the evolution of headphones has allowed people to have less frustrating workouts. We believe that those discussions will give our audience more of a reason to workout and stay healthy.

We feel as if our project may have been stronger if we had direct quotes from members of our audience answering some of our questions, however, we felt that since we are pretty much targeting ourselves that they weren’t that necessary. Something that was really nice about our podcast was that all of the information was pure as we did not really script much about what we were going to say, rather just talking points were written down that we wanted to hit. One of our favorite aspects of our podcast was our headphone evolution conversation because we loved how it came together. Sometimes you don’t realize how nice a conversation will turn out, but it is definitely a nice surprise when it does.

One of the comments on Lindsay’s blog that changed the way she wrote was actually from Rhea. On her Unit 2 Draft, Rhea commented, “Hi Linds, I think that you met the rubric requirement and the sources are adequate, I suggest maybe spicing it up and pick a fun video or article to make things more interesting because we are talking about social media.” This comment changed the way I write because it made me realize that not all audiences are serious and adding a little fun to my writing will reach a better audience. From this review, I made sure to include pictures to make my paper more interactive with my audience. For example, there are two pictures of Instagram accounts that I spoke about in my paper so my audience could see what I am talking about, rather than just having to read the boring words on the page. As a whole, I think we can all say that the peer review system we used taught us to connect better with our audiences. Since we are so used to writing papers that have to be serious whether it be for a science class or even a business class, we sometimes forget that writing can have some fun in it too!