This project has allowed me to experience the strengths and limitations of working in a team. I was given a chance to explore various cultural perspectives. This research has also helped me learn new skills when it comes to research and the development of an outcome. Throughout my research, I referred to data and statistics from various reliable sources, such as transnational organisations like the WHO. My contribution to this project was the in-depth exploration of cultural perspectives from two different categories: region and age. I believe I was very efficient in my research and stuck to the deadlines that we set. I took responsibility for finding relevant research and understanding various cultural perspectives. I also contributed various ideas such as suggesting to interview our school sports teacher for her insight. In the initial stages of the project, the aspect of hovering deadlines put me under a lot of stress and provided to be a hindrance to my productivity. But, as I began with my work, I soon overcame this state of mind which led me to successfully stick to the deadline. However, if this was done earlier, I would have been able to assist my teammates with other aspects of our outcome, like designing. We wanted to create an outcome through which we could present a multitude of information and media, as we thought this would be the most effective way to achieve our aim. Through our various blog posts, I think we successfully did this. Not only does the website include various cultural perspectives, but it also takes one through the different sides of the issue, as well as suggestions, directed towards our target audience (teenagers) that encourage them and advise them on how to maintain a balanced lifestyle. We set out to make an informative website that creates awareness, which we did. If it weren’t for restrictions on time and access to the internet during school hours, I believe our outcome could be improved if we focused more on the nuances of the website such as the colour scheme or its name. I also wish we could have had more resources to market our website and reach out to a larger population of teenagers. Through our research on cultural perspectives, I learnt about how levels of inactivity and prevalence of gaming population differ depending on different cultural groups: age, gender and region. For example, we learnt that on average, teenage girls are significantly less active than boys. Through the course of my research on the differences across regions and age groups, I learnt that majority of teenagers are video gamers and are insufficiently physically active. I found out that high-income countries have a higher prevalence of inactivity than lower-income countries. Something I particularly enjoyed is analysing various statistics about the Philippines. By observing its enormous population of gamers, and how a survey revealed that it has the highest inactivity levels among teenagers, I reached the conclusion that there is a very plausible, negative connection between video gaming and physical health. By incorporating a national perspective, I researched about the prevalence of this issue in India. I contributed by framing the questions that were asked while interviewing our sports teacher. After referring to official reports published by the WHO, I put together suggestions on how teenagers could improve their physical activity by also balancing it with video gaming. I also included a section about how schools could help achieve the same. A strength of my research process was that I made sure that I used recently published data only from reliable sources that were relevant to our issue. This project challenged me as I am someone who prefers to work alone. Team projects concern me as the is room for a clash of ideas and disagreement among members. However, our work process was very smooth as I enjoyed working with and appreciated the contributions of my teammates. Each one of us had a different strong point, from doing research to working with designing aspects of our outcome and editing videos. Initially, we had an issue with keeping up with the deadline, but we overcame this by scheduling meetings outside school hours. I personally took charge and assigned work to my other teammates based on their strengths, which was efficiently completed. I took on the task of going through my teammates’ research and making any necessary edits. Working with others helped me understand that I alone didn’t need to take the burden of doing all the work. As a team, we worked well together as we made sure we were on top of doing our individual research and sharing it with each other. We discussed and gave suggestions about changes we thought needed to be incorporated into our outcome. We exchanged sources that we thought would be helpful to each other. This project has made me more open towards working and communicating with people outside my friend circle. My strength was in organising tasks and doing extensive research. However, I faced an issue with making one of my teammates, Jayden, participate. I tried assigning him work but he completely refrained from trying to communicate with the team. I wish I could have resolved this more efficiently, along with the help of my team members. Our performance as a team could have been improved if we openly communicated each other’s challenges and worked towards resolving them together. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed working with my team members. It has helped me improve my research and communication skills. Yes, we had our limitations, but we were successful in achieving our aim. Our outcome was able to address various cultural perspectives. Through a website, we could integrate various information, an interview and suggestions together to encourage teenagers to strike a balance between video gaming and physical activity.
