Steps in the right direction 10/09

(I must apologize for the late field report. It hadn't occurred to me that October is halfway over!)

Well, September and this first half of October have been filled with minor victories and lots of frustration. Time has been flying, and I'd like it to slow down and let me catch up.

In addition to my main project, I've been doing some other minor work for my organization. After some tedious database updates, I was able to see the fruits of my labor with more clicks on a regional radio show my organization produces and distributes for free. It's a great show, and I was happy to see those numbers rise. I wrote my first-ever blog post (I know, I'm a bit behind on blogging), which wasn't much, but got some traffic. As far as my bigger project (a curriculum on using digital media as tools for social change), the victories are less tangible, especially since I'm the only author on this, but I've moved past initial research and outlining and actually started writing.

I'm also going to be working to make this curriculum more relevant to the Seattle CTC community by sending out a survey and doing on-site interviews. I felt that kind of relevance and feedback was seriously lacking from this project, and my supervisor took my suggestions seriously, so we'll have the survey out by the end of the week. While I had been talking to other Seattle media and nonprofit folks about what the curriculum could look like, and doing research into media literacy and digital inclusion programs nationwide, we hadn't been asking the people who we would be asking to pilot the curriculum!

It felt so good to put what I've accomplished into writing that I think I'll spare you the details of what hasn't worked. Now that I'm clearer on what my organization actually wants out of me, everything should work smoother.