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.