My daughter Charlotte just completed a grade 11 online secondary school course (HNC3OE) on fashion & creative expression here in the Waterloo Region District School Board. She was recently sharing with me, her work completed for the summative project on the topic of creative expression. There were 4 components to the work in addition to a personal reflection on the course.
The first component of the summative was a research assignment that reports on sweat shops in the apparel industry. The report is called The Ugly Side of Fashion . Another component was to review wardrobes used in a high profile event such as a fashion show, new collection, red carpet event or video. Charlotte chose a Costume Review. One of the aspects of the summative that Charlotte really enjoyed was designing new clothing. Her Fashion Design (graphic) was prepared using a drawing tablet and multi layer capable software called Art Rage 3.
The last component of the project really captured my interest. The idea was to research and explore, in a real life manner, how personal perceptions of attractiveness relate to how others see you. The research methodology included comparing the subjects opinions of themselves, Charlotte’s perceptions based on knowing the subject and input gathered from others who did not know the subjects.
Charlotte has an active online component to her life as a fan fiction writer and co-administrator of 3 blogs. The one blog, administered with 2 online friends from Malaysia, is kpop fans can relate, and has over 15,000 followers. This blog was used to gather anonymous input from people for the research. I thought this was a great use of social media and crowd sourcing some feedback to provide an authentic context to research. This also demonstrates an example of why students should have access to social media and web 2.0 tools to support their learning. The topic, research and findings are presented in this Fashion Video (12 min.) which was planned, filmed and edited by Charlotte.
Note: All noting and final documents were prepared using Google Drive. The video was produced in iMovie and uploaded to Google Drive.
I enjoyed learning how social media added a key component to this learning opportunity.
~Mark (& proud Dad!)
~ Mark's Musings ~ blog.markwcarbone.ca 
Just took a look at Charlotte’s video, and I’m blown away. What clever insights into such relevant issues for teenage girls. Her skills with technology made the project interesting, but also seamless enough to make sure her viewers were able to focus on the content. I’ll definitely be passing this along! Please tell her that I admire her work!