Year 12 Digital Media & Design gives you the freedom to choose a project for which you are passionate and to develop skills in a domain of digital media that appeals to you. Whether you want to champion a social cause, bring justice where you see inequity, or just want to make something cool, this course has you covered.

However, there are always limits to what is admissible as school work (particularly that which NZQA will accept in exchange for credits). In particular, the requirements for all of the Achievement Standards we are doing this year (Inquiry, Design, or Advanced Techniques) dictate some of the constraints, such as:

  • you must have end users other than yourself, meaning that this can't be a project just for you.
  • you must conduct research with end users, incorporating their opinions and feedback in your development.
  • you must consider various implications relevant to your outcome.

For this reason, while you will be following the inquiry process to develop a brief, you will start with a brief statement which will guide you inquiry.

Brief statement

This year, the brief statement is

Delightful Anachronism

Before you start the inquiry process, you need to unpack what this could statement could mean.

Tasks

Task 1

  1. Search the web for THREE (3) different definitions from THREE (3) different, reputable sources for 'delightful'.
  2. Search the web for THREE (3) different definitions from THREE (3) different, reputable sources for 'anachronism'.
  3. Write these definitions in your book, including:
    • the definition
    • any example usage/sentence from the source
    • the name of the source

Reputable sources include major dictionaries with a real-world counterpart (Oxford, Collins, Cambridge, Merriam-Webster), linguistic resources (Etymonline, Lexico), and encyclopædic dictionaries (Brittanica).

An online collaborative site, such as Wikipedia or Wiktionary, is acceptable as one of your three sources per word — however, the definitions found there should not conflict with the other two definitions.

Task 2

  1. Get into a group of two to four people.
  2. One person gets an A3 piece of paper and some felt-tip pens from Matua Doc.
  3. In your group, rainstorm what you think "delightful anachronism" could look like based on the definitions you found.
    • In the centre of the page, write "delightful anachronism" and draw a circle around in.
    • Somewhere else on the page, write down an idea for how what you think "delightful anachronism" could mean.
      • aesthetically (what does it look like? sound like?)
      • content-wise (what is it about?)
      • outcome-wise (what is the outcome? what is it built using?)
      • technology-wise (what will the outcome run on? be accessed on?)
    • Around that idea, write different ideas for what that could mean for:
      • a website
      • a video series
      • a podcast, or
      • any other kind of digital outcome.
  4. Compare your brainstorm with another group's brainstorm. Think about the following questions:
    • Did they come up with anything different from you?
    • Do you agree with their ideas?
    • Would you be interested in pursuing one of their ideas?

Task 3

  1. Think about THREE (3) ideas from your brainstorming session that appealed most to you.
  2. In your exercise book, write a paragraph about explaining each idea and why you find it appeals to you.

Example: My first idea is making a website that uses a 1990s aesthetics. This is because I plan to discuss an issue that has been a big issue since the 1990s and has recently been in the news again today.