Hey everybody! My name is Kelsey and I am a 3rd-year transfer student, so even though I’ve been in post-secondary education for a while, this is my first semester at UBC. I am a history major and enjoy learning about the history of the Americas, especially about patterns of colonisation, culture, and conflict. So far I’ve mostly focused on American, Canadian, and British history, so I’m really excited about the new perspectives this course will give me! 

My favourite student video is “The Meeting of Two Worlds III.” I think the topic this video covers will be one of the most interesting topics for me in this course, due to the relationships between the meeting of two different cultures and the ensuing conflicts around this time of discovery. I also really enjoyed how the video was presented, using cartoon footage and historical images as the background, while narrative audio was overlayed, so as to keep the audience’s attention. What made this video stick out to me is the fact that it included alternate perspectives (not just the famous story from Columbus’ point of view) and facts about more than one of his voyages, and a bit of historiography at the end.

I also really liked the video “Casta Paintings.” Again, I’m interested in the integration of cultures that occurred when the Europeans began colonising the Americas. The thorough explanations for each class represented by the Casta system were well done, I think, and I enjoyed the informative visuals in the video as well! The facts, presented in audio format, were accessible and easy to understand and follow.

I feel bad identifying least favourite videos! I think each one of these videos, though some may not be my favourites, have good, unique, and interesting features. That being said, this is part of the assignment. While I cannot account for the validity of any information as I have not yet gone through all the material in this course, I found “The Meeting of Two Worlds IV” to be a little repetitive in the information given. Also, the visuals were a little one-note compared to some of the other videos. Unfortunately, I also got the same one-note vibes from “Martí and Cuba.” The information seemed to be all there (again, I cannot say for sure as I’m not yet familiar with the subject matter!) and it made sense while I watched it, but the nature of the narration and visuals were a little flat.

While watching these videos, I learned some information that will hopefully be useful to me as I progress in this course! I also hope that I picked up some good tips that will help me once it’s my turn to create a student video later on!