My Very Detailed Evaluation... Apologies

In my evaluation for the course, I’m not going to focus so much on what I did for the campaign, but more on what worked and what didn’t worked for certain aspects of the course. I will try not to be as long-winded as my friend Kyle, but this may take a bit of time to read through. I split Citizen Media for Social Change into four categories: the course, the equipment, the final project, and the professor.
When I signed up for this course last summer, I had no idea what this class entailed. Now after completing a semester of the class, I feel like I’m just grasping some of the concepts that Thom taught in the class. Citizen Media for Social Change was an awesome course and the material that we covered (from the books we read to the videos we watched on the Internet) lead to me really getting into new media. I thought that learning basic html was important, but I thought that this shouldn’t have taken up as much class time, so other applications could be focused on like Dreamweaver, Adobe Photoshop, Macromedia Flash, and maybe even, FinalCut. To add time to the course, I think the books were important to read, but I could have read those books much faster than the time that was allotted to us.
The class environment was perfect. Like Kyle said, it was great to be out of a 300-person lecture class and into a class where we had more interaction with the professor. I really like seeing all the computers on the first day of class also. The only criticism I may have on equipment available to us was the lack of cameras available and other audio and lighting tools that could have made the newscast look pretty professional. If not professional, it would have at least been fun to play around with the stuff.
I think the final projects turned out better than I could have imagined, especially with the small amount of time we had to throw something together. It was amazing to see everyone’s talents come together to produce the final project. The only criticism I can express is the same as everyone else’s – time.
Finally, I have come to Thom. I think when you are first starting into college everyone wants to find that professor who inspires them and makes them think differently. Thom was that guy for me and I bet for a lot of the class. What I noticed about Thom was he took away any shyness that was in the classroom and he wanted people to speak up with what they were good at. The artists, the writers, the editors, the actors… he knew we were talented and was just the guy to bring us together. Now when I think of Thom, I think of the Santa Claus in The Christmas Story. We were all a bunch of Ralphies sitting on his lap, intimidated to bring our ideas across. The only difference is when we told him our ideas he didn’t say, “You’ll shoot your eye out kid,” and kick us down the slide, he ran with our ideas.
Overall, I have little criticism for this course and only a positive assessment. The class worked. I actually wouldn’t mind staying in this one for another semester. Sorry for rambling on so long.

Thanks everyone.
Caleb