My personal reflection of term 1
Strengths and Weaknesses
In the video above I explained what led to my choice of joining IBIS and what skills I developed in the first term. Next to what I explained in the video I also uncovered some strengths and weaknesses about myself, I would like to explain those in this section.
In the what's in my backpack class we did a strengths finder test, it told me that most of my strengths are people related and that I am a strategic thinker. I could find myself perfectly in these, since I always had a natural ability to lead people and include people into thought processes or social events. I always try to let everybody take part of the action, sometimes even to the point where it comes at the cost of my own pleassure. In the IBIS environment, I have been one of the people that has been helping almost everyone. I was pretty good in html at the beginning and because of that I helped a lot of people putting their websites online, or just helping them with codes in general. I can find myself in that I am a strategic thinker by the way I tend to approach problems. I have always tried to come up with new better ways of approaching something, I often see this back in gaming, as I am often the person that tells people what to do in online games that require strategy. In the IBIS environment I try to help a lot of people so they might return my the favor when I need it, for example I helped a fellow student with her html page, and in return she helped me record my IBIS learning journal. One of the greatest weaknesses that I uncovered during the same class is that I am highly unorganized. I never really have a plan and just see how something goes, you can see this in the fact that I often do my asignments at late moments. However, because I am so unorganized, I am highly flexible and am good at improvising. I rarely need preparation for presentations and I am always able to change my schedule to adjust to sudden changes. I did my trial presentation of International World of Business one week before we had the actual presentation, because I thought the actual presentation was a week later. I was able to adjust to this change and was ready the next week for my real presentation.
Negotiated learning units
for my NLU's I chose three subjects: Gamification for social and business purposes, Magazine making and Introduction to psychology. My first and favorite choice was Gamification from the start, for some simple and some deeper lying reasons. First of all I am a gamer, gaming is one of my passions and I would love to learn about making or contributing to games. However I actually discovered the most important reason for my choice during this IBIS year. In the what's in my backpack class I found out that the current high school systems are very outdated and don't work for everybody: I found out it didn't work for people like me. Something that I am interested in doing in the future is making different ways of learning for different kinds of people: I think everybody wants to learn, but in a fun way. I would like to make gaming for educational purposes, for example a virtual reality game when you are present as a friend of Napoleon during his campaign: I think it will be much easier for a lot of kids to learn in this way. The final reason for my choice was more of a confirmation then a motive. During this year we had a guest lecture from Gabriel McIntyre, the CEO of a gaming company. I was very interested in his guest lecture and loved what he did with gaming design: he creates real life interactive games. My second favorite choice was Introduction to psychology. At first I wasn't planning to take psychology as an NLU, however on the NLU market I had a good conversation with the teacher of that subject and understood that it is a lot about understanding yourself and understanding others: being aware of your surroundings. I loved what's in my backpack during this term and am very interested in continueing this form of lectures in a deeper way: I really learned a lot about myself during that class and am a much more self-aware person as a result of it. My third choice was magazine making. During IBIS I discovered that I am pretty good with drawing, even though I am not good at drawing from my free hands. I also like to create creative things, therefore I'd like to combine this into magazine making in order to improve on my skills so I can utilize those in the future.
Meta Skills
Define
I developed my define meta skill in the terms in creating ideas for assessments: in my poster presentations I created some doors and bags that gave my posters more dynamic, and for my reflective journal I created a video where I draw and talk over it. I also had to filter the right information for the poster presentations and the Business model canvas and analysis, causing me to think critically about the business. You may find examples of this in the products section of this website, where I have uploaded my Business Analysis, Business Model Canvas and poster presentations.
Design
I did a lot of designing this term! I haven't really done much creative stuff in the past couple of years, but I fully utilized the freedom that was given by IBIS. I used the design meta skill in terms of creating badges for the promotion team, creating the video for my reflective journal, creating my poster presentations and blog writing. The blog writing taught me to think more about what I write, I used to do this as a kid and it was very nice to get bck in touch with my forgotten skills. I tried to do a lot of designing as a kid as well, I tried to paint shoes in order to "pimp them up", tried making making music and created poetry. In the last years I didn't do anything at all with those ambitions and now that I am doing it again, I am feeling the flow that I had as a kid, however now I can utilize it for better and higher purposes.
Execute
I used the execute meta skills in a couple of in IBIS: I created a BMC and Business Analysis, I created and performed a poster presentation and I created a video for my IBIS journal. For all of these three activities I had to work very hard to meet the deadline, I also had to think out each stage of the creation in order to finish it. Outside IBIS my biggest achievement of this meta skills is when I had my student company and had to make different financial statements, business plans and had to sell products.
Learn
Ironically I learned about how I learn in IBIS. The practical approach caused me to work very hard for projects, resulting in a higher learning curve that I have ever experienced. I feel like I have mastered the history of the prohibition in the U.S. and the Game market crash in 1983. I feel like I can make a Business Model Canvas for any company and feel like I understand my own mind much better. I had to analyze businesses and economic events in order to achieve this.
Lead
We didn't do much group projects this term, however in the short assignments that we did have I tried to get things going, inspire my fellow students and communicate on a efficient way. Outside of the assignments I have been helping a lot of people with their html in a mentor kind of way. Outside of IBIS I have been taking a leadership role in gaming for a long time now. I lead teams of 8 to 16 people and together we tackle challenging content. In this I try to include both the newer as older players as much as possible and try to keep it fun for everybody.