Week 9 was the final stretch of my project and mainly consisted of organizing all of my thoughts and new knowledge into a few comprehensive posts and a final presentation. It was really beneficial to me to be able to track my learning so easily, and I am really happy with my decision to take notes on my bibliography. As I put my thoughts together and reviewed all of the material I have covered over the quarter, I realized that I am really very satisfied with the extent to which I was able to cover such a large area of focus.
I am most pleased with the work I did to complete my notable concepts posts – particularly the elements traditional dress posts and the spinning history overview. I hadn’t really realized how just how much research I had done until I noticed the ease with which I was able to explain these areas of study. So, to me, that shows that I was able to accomplish what I set out to do while drafting my ILC.
I also made sure to continue closing the gap in my knowledge of India textile culture by really narrowing in on the state of Rajasthan. I was able to get the geography of the region down as well as the basic history timeline and textile traditions, so I feel like I am one step closer to having a full understanding on how that region’s particular history and diverse cultures has had an impact on the global fashion industry. I made the choice to approach that particular area of study with the intent to learn what the culture has to contribute to sustainability rather than drawing any big conclusions as to what they are doing right and wrong. This is mainly because I still believe that I need a much wider understanding of India and its history and culture as a whole before really formulating any strong opinions on their current practices – all I can really feel confident doing is looking at my own culture and see how it impacts the industry in their world.
I finished the week by condensing as much information as I could into a 10 slide powerpoint presentation. This actually turned out to be much more challenging than I anticipated. As I mentioned before, I ended up covering a lot more material than I realized as the weeks passed, so suddenly having to describe all of that in 10 minutes was a challenge. But, I was able to successfully put together the most important aspects of my project and am really happy with how I put it together. That presentation can be found here.
Week 10 is going to be mostly tying up loose ends and making my ePortfolio as concise and comprehensible as possible. I’m a bit sad to see this part of my study end, but I’m excited about the new prospects of next quarter.