Diary Entry - 19/12/2013

I didn't manage to make the time to finish the work I planned to finish at home yesterday. Therefore, I had to complete it at the start of today's lesson.

Diary Entry - 18/12/2013

My targets for today's lesson are:

1. To finish my construction of article page
2. Take print screens
3. Start to upload the print screens to my blog with explanations.

End of lesson review
I managed to complete my first target that I set at the start of the lesson as well as the print screens target. I have also completed my last target of the lesson by starting to upload my print screens to my blog and beginning to explain them for the article construction. I plan to complete this when I'm at home.

Diary Entry - 17/12/2013

I did not get the work I was planning to get done at home yesterday and I also did not have a media lesson today. Therefore, I had a lot of work to catch up on today. 

At home today, I added the new print screens I had of my construction onto my blog with detailed explanations. I will continue to do this when I get more print screens of my new construction development when I have a media lesson tomorrow.

I also added detailed introductions to my answers I have completed on my evaluation page of my blog. They explain different aspects of my answers: from the making to the reasons behind the technology used.

Diary Entry - 16/12/2013

In my media lesson today, I finished constructing my 3 magazine pages. It was a very successful day and I had no issues with technology. I then started to add my print screens of my construction to the construction page of my blog and I will finish this at home.

After I have completed adding my print screens, in the next few days I will start answering some other evaluation questions.

Diary Entry - 15/12/2013

Today I started and completed question 5 of my evaluation questions. I didn't know what kind of technology to use to answer this question so I made a spider diagram showing each idea I had and why each one was or wasn't a good idea. This is the spider diagram:

I decided to go for the video presentation because it seemed to have the most pros to it. I made a powerpoint explaining my answer to the question and then edited the slides together in iMovie to make it into a video. I then uploaded the video to Youtube and embedded it into my evaluation page of my blog. For a more detailed explanation the making of question 5 and to see my answer, go to the evaluation page of my blog.

My plans for the coming week are to finish making final changes to my magazine construction and also to add print screens of my progress onto the construction page of my blog. I am also planning to answer some more of the 7 evaluation questions once I have completed my construction.

Diary Entry - 13/12/2013

In today's lesson, I was planning to make changes on my front cover. However, I could not do this as the file would not open on my computer. Instead, I decided to make changes to my article page and this turned out to be a very good decision as there was a lot to get through.

To overcome the problem of the file not working, I copied the file and made another document of it and then it worked. I then caught up on the work I missed from not having this file in my free period. I managed to complete my front cover. However, one problem I had was the photoshop application crashed during the time I was making changes and I lost some of the work I had spent a lot of time on. Luckily, I had been taking print screens for my construction page so I could refer back to these when I had to redo the work I lost. I have now almost finished all the changes I need to make to my 3 pages of construction. All I have left to do are a heading changes to my contents page.

Diary Entry - 12/12/2013

Today I didn't have a media lesson so at home I did the work I would have done then. I, again, made some changes to my photoshop drafts based on my teacher's and target audience's feedback. I will continue this in the lesson tomorrow.

I have also started my answer to question 2 of the evaluation.

Diary Entry - 11/12/2013

This week, I got detailed feedback from my teacher about my first drafts of my magazine. I am not going to make a schedule this week because the work I am now doing it more about adding different things and changing things on my magazine pages. I am also going to start making my answers to evaluation questions this week.

So far, the feedback has been really useful because it's helped me to understand what I need to do to make it look and feel more professional. 

One weakness I have had so far this week is not being able to use photoshop at home. This is because I downloaded the trial more than 30 days ago and can no longer use it. To overcome this problem, I asked my teacher and she suggested to download it onto a different computer to I can make changes to my drafts at home.

Diary Entry - 7/12/2013

I have now completed my answer to Q1 of the evaluation questions and uploaded my answer to my evaluation page of my blog. As well as that, I have added a brief description of my what my task was in this coursework.

This is my updated weekly schedule for this week:

This schedule shows that even though I didn't get any media work done on the first two days of the week, I managed to catch up and not fall behind.

Feedback from First Front Cover Draft

I finished my first draft of my front cover on photoshop during this week. Therefore, I needed feedback on it. I got feedback from my media teacher and from my target audience.

Teacher feedback:

This feedback has shown me some different things I need to change and adapt on this page. One thing I need to change is general parts of my layout, for example I may need to make my masthead smaller and add in a tagline to help indicate the genre more clearly. I also will need to smooth out the skin of my artist a bit more and whiten her teeth. I will get help from my teacher to do this. Another useful tip this feedback gave me was that I need to use a greater variety of typefaces to make it look more interesting. With this, I should also include a pug to be more eye-catching than the other cover lines. One silly mistake I made was forgetting to put the price on the page, I will add this when I make changes.

Target audience feedback:

I then also got feedback from my target audience. The overall feel I got from this feedback was that they really liked the magazine cover and thought it fit what they wanted very well. However, there are still a few changes I need to make from this feedback. Firstly, I need to make the barcode bigger and add the price of the magazine. Another thing is that they didn't really like the black box around the headline because they felt it broke up the image too much. One last thing that they thought I should change was make sure my whole masthead is the right colour because the outline of it was slightly lighter and I will need to change this.

Diary Entry - 6/12/2013

In today's lesson I have a lot of deadlines. I have a shorter amount of time to work on changes to my pages because I have to start my evaluation, but I also have to print of my pages as complete as possible to give to my teacher. However, I think I will be able to manage these deadlines seen as I am good at time management.

I managed to meet all my deadlines today. I handed in my printed off copies of my magazine on time as well as starting my Q1 evaluation answer. 

Diary Entry - 4/12/2013

In today's lesson, I am planning on finishing my front cover. I will also start making the changes from my feedback on my contents page, article page and now front cover page. I am also getting feedback on my front cover page in the lesson and in my breaks.

At home, I am planning on reviewing my schedule from last week and then making one for this week to help reach my smart target.

This is my schedule from last week showing if I managed to do certain tasks on time or not:

Most tasks I did manage to do on time. However, I did not get feedback from teacher's until friday and today's lesson which meant I could not complete some of the tasks which I had planned.

I then made a schedule for this week based on the weekly task sheet and on any outstanding work I have yet to complete. This is my schedule:

Diary Entry - 29/11/2013

I missed today's media lesson because I was not in college and because of this I have done lots of work to catch up at home. The main thing I did today was add more to my construction page about how I made each section of my magazine. I did not have any problems with this and everything went very well.

Diary Entry - 27/11/2013

In the lesson I had today, I finished getting feedback for my article draft and contents page draft and scanned the feedback into the computer. The rest of the lesson I continued with my front cover draft. I continued to struggle on deciding which picture to use for the front cover as well as the colour to use for the masthead. I asked the people around me and they helped me quite a lot in the decision making.

When I got home I uploaded my feedback from teachers and my target audience to my blog, as well as explanations about how I will improve my magazine contents and article pages.

I have made a weekly schedule for the work I need to complete this week. This is the schedule:

I am now planning to do more work on my front cover photoshop draft.

Feedback from First Contents Page Draft

I also got feedback from the same groups of people about my contents page draft.

The first feedback I got was from two media teachers in my college.

From this feedback, I can see that there are many things that I need to add to this page as well as just finishing it. The first thing I will change is the banner at the top of the page. I will add the magazine masthead to it to continue the house style of my magazine. I will also add the issue number and date to the banner. Another part of this page I will page is that I will flip the far right picture so that it is facing the page and not away from the page. One major thing I will add contacts of the magazine. For example, a subscription box, social media and a web address.

I then also got feedback from my target audience. This is what they said:

This feedback also shows that there are some things I need to change about my contents page. I need to add a page number to the page. I also need to make all the lines on the page the same colour to make it look neater and give it a stronger house style. One member of my target audience raised the interesting point that the main article image should be the biggest. Because of this, will need to change some of my layout to fit around the new size that my main article image will be. I will also change the typeface of the page's heading because it does't quite fit the page and doesn't have the right house style.

Feedback from First Article Draft

Now that I have finished my first draft of my article, I wanted to get feedback from different categories of people to show me how to improve it and what they would prefer. 

The first set feedback I got was from two different teachers in the media department. I wanted to get feedback from them because they know different skills as to how to make it look more professional and I think it will really help my article.

From this feedback, there are many things I will change. One thing I will add is a dropped cap at the start of my article to catch the readers eye. I will also make the questions in my interview stand out more by putting a background colour around them, making the typeface bigger and make it capital letters. As well as that, I will add a pull quote into the text to break it up more. Another feature I will change is to move the artist's name so it is not covering the artist themselves. Also, I will add the name of the writer of the article and use another colour from the image to link the text to the image more clearly.

I also got feedback from my target audience. I got feedback from them because they are the one's who need to like the article and anything they don't like I would like to take into account and change for them.

One mistake I will correct is my use of capital letters in the banner, which is a very simple change to make. One person said I should make a space between the questions and the answers and I think this is a very good idea because it will make it a lot clearer for the reader to understand. My target audience also thought I should make the artists name bigger. This idea hadn't occurred to me and I think it is a good idea because it will make it stand out more. Another mistake I made was that I forgot to put a page number on the article. This a key convention which someone pointed out and I will make sure I add this to it. Like the media teachers, someone members of my target audience said that they thought I should make the questions from the interview a different colour/typeface because they wanted them to stand out more.

Diary Entry - 25/11/2013

I have not yet finished my task sheet from last week or the week before. Because of this, I will do extra work in my free, breaks and lunches and at home to catch up.

In today's lesson, I got feedback from my teacher about my contents page. I also started my new weekly task sheet by starting my first photoshop draft of my front cover. I struggled with choosing an image and so I got audience feedback to help me decide. I also had a problem with making the image go in front the masthead. To overcome this issue, I asked a friend how to do it.

I have now finished my work from last week's task sheet and I have updated my schedule. It shows how well I kept to the schedule I set at the start of last week.

The schedule shows that I was on schedule on almost every task. The only thing I did not do on time was get teacher feedback. I have now got teacher feedback and I am up to date.

Diary Entry - 21/11/2013

In today's lesson, I'm planning to continue with my contents page. If I do not finish it today, I will finish it at home tomorrow because I am missing tomorrow's lesson.

Diary Entry - 18/11/2013

In today's lesson, I got my new weekly task sheet. I straight away started constructing my first draft of my contents page on photoshop. In my free period I will make a weekly schedule seen as I forgot to do it in the lesson.

I decided to make my schedule on the computer this week because I think it saves time, is clearer to read and also makes sure there are no mistakes. This is my schedule for this week:

Diary Entry - 16/11/2013

Today, I completed the work I had to change on my planning and research pages. I did not have any problems with this and everything went very well.

At the start of the week, I made myself a schedule based on what I had yet to complete for the week. I have now gone back over this and colour coded it based on whether I completed things as I said I would or not. This is the finished sheet:

The sheet shows me that the only times when I do not keep to the schedule are when I have to do work at home. Because of this, I will now make more of an effort to do work at home and be more disciplined.

Also, I have now completed my weekly task sheet from the week before this. This is the completed weekly task sheet:

Diary Entry - 15/11/2013

In the lesson today, I finished my first photoshop draft of my article. I have now printed off an audience feedback copy which I will get my audience to fill out over the weekend and on Monday.

One problem I had during today's lesson was getting all the text of the article to fit into the page. I overcame this by printing off copies of it with different size font and seeing how small it could be with me and my target audience still being able to read it.

Diary Entry - 14/11/2013

In my media lesson today, I continued with making my first draft of my article on photoshop. A strength I had in today's lesson was getting ideas for colour schemes and different shapes I wanted on there. All if it works really well together. One problem I had in this task was figuring out where to put my subheading. I have still not found the perfect place for it, however I asked people in the class and they have given me a few more ideas.

Diary Entry - 13/11/2013

In the media lesson today, I continued with my article photoshop draft. 

I had quite a few struggles with it today because I had created another channel on the document somehow and this meant it would not let me change anything on the page. To overcome the problem, I asked my teacher for advice and managed to fix it. 

One strength I had was using the NME article from my first drafts as a guide because I now prefer this to my third draft. This is because of how the photographs I took turned out and also the colour scheme. To see if this is a good idea, I will ask my target audience their opinion on it when I finish this photoshop draft.

Seen as I have finished the analysis of my second survey on my research page, when I get home I am going to start my third drafts with tweaks.

Diary Entry - 11/11/2013

In the lesson today, I continued with making my first photoshop drafts. I had some trouble with how to crop items and also how I actually wanted my article to look as what I had draw for my drafts was not very feasible anymore. I overcame this by asking friends how they did it and asking for advice. A strength I had in this task was choosing the right photo for the article page because it works really well with the rest of the page.

To help me achieve my new SMART target, I have made a schedule of work for the week. This is the schedule:

Diary Entry - 9/11/2013

Over this weekend, I am planning on completing most of the changes that need to be made on my coursework from my feedback. Today, I am hoping to complete the audio for my pitch and the changes to my research page.

End of day update
I have almost completed all the changes I need to make on both the planning page and research page of my blog. 

On my planning page, one main task I did today was to add audio to my pitch prezi. This was very successful however one problem I had what that the program to record my voice on my phone kept crashing. To overcome this I deleted some old voice notes that I no longer needed and this made the program more reliable. Another task I did to complete this page was put more information under each subheading and this gave me more space to explain why I did what I did for each section of the page. All I have left to do on this page is adding another draft showing more detailed tweaks to my third draft. I will do this over the coming week.

I also had work to do on my research page. I changed the link to my podcast because the link was not working and this was quite an easy task. I also added more detailed summaries to most of my sub-headings. As well as this, I added another paragraph to my prezi conclusion to explain the gaps in the market. One I problem I had with this was that I accidentally deleted some of my paths and my prezi no longer when in order. To overcome this, I searched online how to change this. All I have left to add to my blog is the extra market research which I have done, I just need to analyse and upload them.

SMART Target Update 8/11/2013

Seen as I created my new SMART target a few days ago, I thought I should do an update on my other target. This target was to go outside of my comfort zone more when it comes to technology and I think I have been very successful at this so far.

Since my last update, I have used an SLR camera. This took me some getting used to, but after a few days of using it I think it became very natural to me. One issue I had was when shooting pictures for my article page, I couldn't get the camera to focus on the person in the picture and it would only focus on the background. To overcome this, I used trial and error and I eventually worked out how to get it to focus on my model. After this, the images were very good and overcoming my technology comfort zone was very easy.

Photography Lesson

Yesterday, we had a lesson about photography and photoshop and how to take photos that look professional for our magazines. Here are some things that I learnt.

How to book the photography studio

1.Go to the art office

2.Book with a technician 

3.Let the media teacher know it is

4.After use, go back to the technician and they will lock the room for you

We are also not allowed to have food or drink in the photography studio. I also learnt that there is lighting in the media department if I need it.

Hints and tips about photography

I learnt some useful do's and don't in the lesson also. Here are some of the most useful ones:

Do's

•   Smooth the edges after cropping in photoshop

•   Experiment with depth of field and reflection

•   Keep Mise-en-scene in mind - props, pose, hair, clothing etc.

•   Have at least 4 photos throughout magazine

•   Use SLR camera for best quality

•   Keep style consistent 

Don't's

•   Don't put an image in the middle of the double page

•   Only crop when absolutely necessary

Key Considerations

These are some things I need to consider when planning my photography.

•   Lighting

•   Mise-en-scene

•   Background

•   Clothing/pose

•   Models (need to represent the genre of music)

Review of Teacher's Feedback - 7/11/2013

We had our first lesson back after half term today and we got feedback videos of our blogs. I am currently working at a level 4, however it is a low level 4 and there are lots of things I need to improve if I am to get higher marks. These are the notes of things I need to add to get higher marks:

Over the next 2 or 3 weeks I will add these things to achieve a higher mark and make my coursework better.

New SMART Targets

From my feedback I can see that I need to set new SMART targets and link them to this feedback. One thing I need to do is make more time schedules of work for each week because this will my time management much more structured and set out. This will be one of my new SMART targets.

Specific

Setting more time schedules is specific because it explains exactly what I am going to do to achieve better time management.

Measurable

I will make one schedule a week.

Attainable

This is an achievable and an attainable aim because it is not too hard for me to do, as well as being more than I do now.

Relevant

This target is relevant to the task because time management is part of what I am being marked on and will also help me achieve other parts of my coursework.

Time-bound

My target is time-bound because I will make 1 schedule a week and at the end of each month I will do an update to show that I have achieved this.

Diary Entry - 4/11/2013

Over the week of half term, I had done many tasks which contribute to my media coursework.

The first thing I did was research the types of clothing different indie artists where and made 2 mood boards of my findings. I will upload these on to the planning page of my blog.

I then organised with the people I wanted to model for me when and where. And this lead to me taking the photos for the construction of my music magazine. I will write a more detailed blog entry about the taking of photos later this week.

Diary Entry - 25/10/2013

Yesterday, I started my rough drafts. In the time that I had, I managed to complete the roughs for the front cover and contents page and started one for my article page.Today, I want to finish these computer roughs. After this I will make sure I have no outstanding work leftover.

End of lesson review
I have now completed all of my computer roughs and uploaded them onto the planning page of my blog. I also checked all my pages to see if there is any outstanding work. This is my weekly task sheet for this week and it shows what I have left to do:

Over half term I will take most of my photos ready for the construction of my preliminary task. I will not be able to take all of my photos for my music magazine, but I will get the majority of them done.

Diary Entry - 23/10/2013

Today, I continued working on my 3rd hand drawn draft. I have almost competed my front cover and I will complete the rest of them when I am at home. I will also put them on my blog with justifications. As well as that, when I get home I will write my blog entry about the photography lesson I had.

End of day review
At home, I completed my 3rd set of hand drawn drafts and put them on my blog with justifications. A struggle I had during this was that my memory stick corrupted in the middle and so I had to re-upload everything onto it, which took a large section of time out of my evening. However, once I completed this and got past my difficulty, I had completed my task sheet from last week. I learnt from this task that I should get all the work done within the week it is set otherwise I will become really behind. But, I am also glad I left it until this week because it meant I could get some good audience research done and therefore I made better drafts as a result. This is my completed weekly task sheet for last week:

After this, I added what I learnt about photography to the construction page of my blog. As well as this, I did my feedback sheet for my article and summarised the findings on the same page. 

In tomorrow's lesson, I plan to my computer roughs for my magazine. Then all I will have left to do on this week's weekly task sheet is the photographs, which I will take over half term.

Diary Entry - 22/10/2013

I did not have a media lesson today, however outside of the lesson I did get some tasks done. 

One task I completed was getting feedback from my target audience about my article. I will upload this onto the planning page of my blog.

As well as that, I also took some pictures of the location that I want to do my front cover and article page photos at. However, a struggle I had with this was that the pictures are not good quality as it was just giving me an idea of what it would look like and so I did not use a high quality camera or spend much time on it. The pictures I took will also be uploaded to the planning page.

Also, we had a lunchtime lesson which explained to us about how to take good photos for the magazine and I will do a blog entry about this tomorrow.

Diary Entry - 21/10/2013

There was a power cut today in college so I couldn't do the work in media that I was planning to get done. However, things worked out for the best because it meant I had time to get audience feedback about my first draft which I could take to make the second draft. I also used this time to make a hand drawn schedule for the week because I had not yet finished my draft from the week before. This is the schedule:

End of lesson review
By the end of the lesson, I had completed my feedback from my first draft and started creating my second.

End of free period review
I used my free period to finish sketching my second hand draw drafts, using ideas that my target audience feedback gave me. When I get home, I will finish adding colour to these, analyse them and upload them to my blog.

End of day review
I have uploaded my finished, analysed, and uploaded my second hand drawn drafts of my music magazine to my planning page. I have also printed off my feedback sheet for the content of my article, which I will get members of my target audience to fill out tomorrow. As well as that, tomorrow I plan to get feedback on my second drafts so that I can start the third ones.

Strength and weakness of today
A strength I had today was forward planning and time management because I managed to complete all the work I planned to do on time and ready for the next part of my coursework. A weakness I had today, however, was that I was already running late - even though everything I planned today was on time. Ideally I would be all finished with my drafts, but I did not time manage well last week and now it is catching up on me this week.

Diary Entry - 20/10/2013

For homework today I started and finished my article for my double page spread. You can read more about it on the planning page of my blog.

Later today, I will start my second draft of my magazine so that I have time this week to get audience feedback from it and complete the first draft using this feedback.

Diary Entry - 19/10/2013

Today, I plan to complete my development of initial planning ideas page. Then be able to move on to producing my new drafts ready for audience feedback on Monday. I will also start planning and writing my article for my double page spread.

I have now finished my development of initial planning ideas page and this went very well. One strength I had during it was getting audience feedback and making my decisions based on that. The audience feedback was the part I enjoyed most because it meant I could interact with my target audience and see what they thought about my ideas. One weakness I had in this task was moving some work I did on word, to powerpoint and then converting it to an image for my prezi. I found this difficult because of the amount of technology the string of work included. I overcame this through trial and error and I eventually managed to do it and upload my work to my prezi.

Diary Entry - 18/10/2013

Since my last blog entry, I have started my prezi on "Indie Magazine Development" in free periods. Today, I hope to complete more of this as well as completing more typeface surveys.

End of lesson review
By the end of the lesson, I had completed a bit more of my prezi however I did not complete it. I also did not manage to carry out any more typeface surveys, however I don't think I will do any more of these because it is better to get a professional typeface than get one that the target audience choose, especially when it's for the headline.

End of day review
During the day and after college, I added more to my pitch prezi because it needed more interesting content on it. This was feedback I got from my teacher. Because of this, I did not have time to complete any more of my development of planning prezi. I will do this and more of the weekly task sheet over the weekend.

Diary Entry - 16/10/2013

We had to miss our lesson today because of technology issues and therefore I could not complete (or even start) what I wanted to do in the lesson. Because of this, I had to wait until I got home to start my prezi for my pitch. 

When I got home, I completed the pitch task on prezi. I enjoyed this task a lot because I had used prezi before on another task. This meant it was relatively quick to finish so I could move on to the next part of the weekly task sheet.

Diary Entry - 15/10/2013

Over the last 2 days, I have conducted 2 pieces of market research. One is for the name development of my music magazine. I will be uploading this to my planning page soon. The other is for the typeface for my magazine, which I did once I knew which name I was going to use. For both bits of research, I asked members of my target audience (male and female 16-21 year olds) to tally next to their preferred item. 

This was very useful to me because it helped me to finalise my ideas and get opinions from my target audience. 

SMART Target Update 14/10/2013

Since my last update, I have used one new piece of technology - Photoshop. From the start of the coursework, this was the application I was dreading the most because it will "make or break" the construction of both my preliminary task and my actual music magazine depending on how easy/difficult I find it to use.

I used the Photoshop guide provided to us to guide me through setting up and starting a Photoshop document and after I understood the basics, it was easy! One problem I had, however, was putting a shape over the picture which has colour. Every time I did it, I struggled not to delete the background. Eventually, I overcame this by referring back to my course guide.

A strength I had when using this and other technologies was that I could overcome my problems with help from others and other information.

I look forward to using Photoshop again soon for my construction for the real task.

Diary Entry - 14/10/2013

Over the weekend and at the start of today's lesson, I finished my weekly task sheet for last week. The task I enjoyed most from last weeks task sheet was the Survey Monkey because I got to interact with my target audience and see what they wanted. I also enjoyed the construction of my preliminary task because it was fun using photoshop, however it was difficult to use at first.

This is the completed weekly task sheet from last week:

I later got my task sheet signed off by my teacher and moved on to the next task sheet.

In this lesson, I want to make sure everything is in the right order on my blog and do an update on my SMART targets. I also want to start making a market research questionnaire for the name of my blog, which I will later get members of my target audience to fill out.

In my free periods today, I will decide on a name from the market research and start to produce my pitch for my music magazine on Prezi.

End of lesson review

I completed the first three tasks on my task sheet, which were mainly maintenance for my blog. I started the name market research but did not manage to finish it or print it off. I will do this in my free period next lesson.

Diary Entry - 11/10/2013

My hopes for this lesson are that I start and finish my evaluation for my preliminary task and also upload it all to my blog. If I have time, I also want to start the reflection of my Survey Monkey.

End of lesson review
I have added my preliminary tasks to my blog and put some information explaining them. I also updated other parts of my blog that needed updating. In my free periods I will finish my evaluation of the task and start the reflection of Survey Monkey.

End of day review
I used my two free periods in the day effectively to finish my evaluation of the preliminary task. I also started the reflection on my Survey Monkey, however I did not finish it. I also was not able to start my initial drafts of my actual music magazine (although I did have time to print out the pictures to compare them too).

Because of this, I will be completing these two tasks over the weekend to catch up:
1. Finish my Survey Monkey reflection
2. Initial drafts for music magazine

Diary Entry - 10/10/2013

My plan for today is to finish my photoshop for both the front cover and the contents page. If I do not get this done, I will come back in my free periods tomorrow and finish it.

End of lesson review
At the end of the lesson I managed to finish my preliminary task front cover and contents page. One problem I had during the task was adding the background of the picture back into the cover. I overcame this by asking a friend to help me. One success I had was choosing the right colours and typefaces - I feel they really show the look I wanted to achieve.

Diary Entry - 9/10/2013

For today's lesson, I started my preliminary task on photoshop. This was difficult at first because I had never used photoshop before. Now that it's the end of the lesson, I have started to get used to it and I enjoy it.

SMART Target Update 7/10/2013

So far I have used 6 new bits of technology. They are the media camera, photocopier, Prezi, making a podcast, GoAnimate and Survey Monkey. I am very pleased with how many different things I have used so far and I'm only on the third week. I am also surprised by how comfortable I now feel with all these different bits of technology.

The most challenging parts yet were the podcast and the GoAnimate. The podcast was challenging because I felt so uncomfortable doing it, but after I did it I was pleased because it makes the coursework a lot more interesting. The GoAnimate was hard because it wouldn't save while I was doing it and I go frustrated. Once I found out how to do it, I felt a lot better about it.

My favourite part so far was the survey monkey that I just did. I liked this because it was simple but it has already given me detailed results and I can already tell it will be very useful for my music magazine. I also like it because it makes me able to interact with my target audience and find out more about them.

I will be using more technology in this coursework over the next few weeks and now this doesn't worry me as much as it did.

Diary Entry - 7/10/2013

In today's lesson I received the new weekly task sheet. However, I could not start it straight away as I had some technical issues over the weekend and could not finish my task sheet for last week. Therefore I had to do it in today's lesson.

By the end of today's lesson, I hope to finish last week's task sheet. On Wednesday, I want to finish my Survey Monkey and post links to it on social media sites. I also want to start learning about Photoshop in this lesson. I will use all of Thursday for construction of my preliminary task using Photoshop. And finally Friday's lesson will be used for my evaluation for the preliminary task and also to start my initial draft for my own music magazine, which I will finish over the weekend for homework and in free periods that day.

End of lesson review
By the end of the lesson I managed to finish all the work I needed to finish on last weeks task sheet. This is the completed task sheet.

End of day review
When I got home, for homework I made my survey and sent it to people. I have already gotten 46 responses, which will be very useful for me when I come to analysing and making conclusions about the data.

Diary Entry - 4/10/2013

Yesterday, I didn't finish what I was aiming to finish. Because of this, I will need to do extra work today in the less and free periods.

Diary Entry - 3/10/2013

So far on my weekly task sheet, I have completed my podcast. This was the hardest task for me so far because it was so different to my usual technology preference. However, I managed to overcome my fears of this and recorded and uploaded it all in one evening.

Today, I plan to start adding things to my original textual analysis and start on the double page analysis'. I want to get as much of this done as possible so that I can have less work to do other the weekend.

Diary Entry - 30/09/2013

I finished my weekly task sheet for last week over the weekend. This is the completed copy:

At the start of today's lesson, I was given my weekly task sheet. Because I was completely finished with last week's one, I could start on this one straight away.

In today's lesson, I started task 1 which was toe make a podcast summarising my 4 mood boards. What I did in the lesson was draft what I would say in it. When I got home I finished my draft and finished recording it.

Next lesson, I plan to put all the recordings together and upload them to my blog.