So. I have been instructed to create a "Zen presentation" or Pecha Kucha for ICT, using Wikipedia as one of my main starting points, about anything at all, most likely something that means something to me. But wait - before you start thinking that my ICT teacher is a bored, lazy oaf, he has actually been quite clever by making us do a Pecha Kucha in particular. This means that we have at most 10 slides, each of which advances after exactly 20 seconds. This means that we can a) accurately predict how long each presentation will take and b) stop the presentations from turning into bloated, soporific banality-fests like most of the marketing presentations in existence. It also challenges us, i.e. the pupil, not to ramble and it makes us squeeze as much information as we can so people don't get bored. No fancy animations, no dodgy graphs, just pictures and a few words. A good example of people doing this can be found here at Ignite Where 2.0.
I decided to write about the Joni Mitchell album "Blue", which is widely recognised as a work of brilliance. It is an example of an artist baring her soul and laying it all out there. But I digress. The research is what I am here to write about. I started by going to the Joni Mitchell Wikipedia page, which was not great. I know Joni Mitchell's life story quite well, and it was distressing to see a warning at the top saying that the page had no reliable sources or citations.
However, when I got to the bottom of the page there were plenty of sources. It turned out that the warning had been there since September last year, and since then people had obviously done something about it. I checked the references and sources, and the ones I checked were good. I found the Joni Mitchell Discussion List particularly useful. I then went on to the main page for the album "Blue". This was less reliable - it had less sources, and they were all rather poor. The only really reliable bits were the parts about the various awards and accolades the album won. The other really helpful bit was a link to an interview by Cameron Crowe, which was great for trying to understand the mindset Mitchell wanted for the album. I know that this isn't really ICT, but it is relevant and it is what my presentation will be about.
Finding out the true meanings of the individual songs was a bit harder. Some of the songs from the album had individual pages on Wikipedia, some were not. The ones that were had few sources, if any - most were stubs. Again, the JMDL was helpful, particularly for the song "Little Green". Two things during this project struck me: the first was how easy it was to back up information on Wikipedia with hard, impartial fact. I could be sure of the information I garnered from the "Little Green" Wikipedia page because it appeared on an official, Joni Mitchell approved fan website. The second is perhaps more interesting (to me at least). "Blue" is a desperately sad album, dealing with all kinds of emotional trauma. I am in awe of the courage and boldness that Joni Mitchell displays by publishing this album. That's just a short aside from me. Back to the tale of the research.
In conclusion, I found that using Wikipedia as a primary research resource was not as bad as I had anticipated. All the things I found were verifiable, there were no utterly outlandish or ridiculous statements and the information I garnered has proven useful in writing my Pecha Kucha. So I hope you enjoy my Pecha Kucha, which I will put in my next post. Until then, enjoy these people showing you how presentations should (and should not) be done, and don't try and ignore Wikipedia as a valid source of information. Just make like a blowtorch and use with caution and discretion.
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