Final Blog Entry

FOUNDATION PORTFOLIO IN MEDIA
CANDIDATE NAME: NAOMI KENDALL
CANDIDATE NUMBER: 1759
WOKING COLLEGE 64986

Diary Entry - 19/1/2014

Today, I decided to get all the changes I needed to make to my evaluation page done. I mainly focused on question 4 because I think this answer was the most lacking answer because there was no visual. I added visual using iMovie and powerpoint (you can see a more detailed explanation on my evaluation page) and it automatically felt and looked like a much better, more successful answer. 

I am now planning on completing this week's, the final week's, task sheet. It is a lot of admin and printing things and then I think I will have finish everything. This is the task sheet:

Diary Entry - 17/1/2014

Since my last blog entry, I received feedback for my evaluation page and the answers on it. There were quite a few things I needed to adapt and change in my evaluation and throughout this week I had started to make these changes. This is the feedback I got:

There were many different things I needed to change on each question. Some examples of things are:

• Re-record the screen videos of question 2 and 6 because I was stuttering and not fluent enough in these videos.
• Add visuals to question 4's answer
• And also change a few grammar errors.

So far, I had re-recorded question 2 and made grammatical changes to questions. I have only gotten this far so far because re-recording question 2 took a lot longer than I thought it would. This was because I had to write out all the things I said again because I did not have the script from last time. This took me close to 2 hours and then nearly another 2 hours to re-record it because I had some background noise issues. 

I am now ready to start making changes to my other answers and I am going to start this this evening.

Diary Entry - 10/01/2014

I did not get the work done that I planned to get done last night at home. Therefore I have had to catch up in this lesson.

I started writing my script for my podcast answer to question 4 of the evaluation questions. One struggle I have had today is not knowing quite how to answer this question. I think this is why I have left it until last because it is the hardest question to answer of the 7. Where previously I have read the question and been able to answer it straight away, I cannot do this with this question. Therefore it has taken me quite a while just to get where I am with my answer so far.

Diary Entry - 9/01/2014

In today's lesson, I couldn't start question 4 of evaluation which I wanted to start because I am going to do a podcast for this and there was too much noise in the room for this. Instead, I checked through my question 7 and made changes to little mistakes and things. I also continued adding descriptions to my uploaded evaluation answers.

At home, I am going to start writing a script for my podcast for question 4 and maybe start to record parts of it.

Diary Entry - 8/01/2014

At home yesterday, I continued and got quite far with my work on question 7 of the evaluation questions. I decided to change it to a powtoon presentation and this helped me to achieve more as this was an easier website I could use. 

In today's lesson, I will continue answering question 7.

Diary Entry - 6/01/2013

Over the holidays, I have been keeping up with media work. I have now completed all the work on the construction and construction page as well as adding in a new page called 'Final Construction'. This page is a short page just for the JPEG files of my final construction work. One problem I had with this page was I the contents page and article page JPEG files had corrupted somehow and so I could not upload them to my blog. To solve this problem, I decided to iMessage the files to myself so that I could save them as new files. This worked very well and they eventually uploaded.

Another thing I did over the holidays was continue my evaluation and evaluation page. I had previously completed one or two questions and uploaded them to the evaluation page, and I still had many questions to do. I have explained which media platforms I have used so far and which questions I have answered on the evaluation page of my blog.

I still have question 4 and question 7 to do and I and hoping to complete them by tomorrow because I will be able to get useful feedback from them if I manage this in time. However, I do not want to rush them too much and so if I do not manage this target, I will try and get feedback for them another way.

In today's lesson, I want to start work on question 7 on prezi. I will complete this in my free period today or at home along with starting and hopefully finishing question 4.

SMART Target Update 1/01/2014

Seen as I had not done a SMART target update on my original SMART target in a while, I decided to do so. 

Since my last update almost two months ago, I have used a wide range of new technology. The main thing I have used is photoshop to a higher level. I had used it before to make my preliminary task, but other than that, not much more. This time, I had too use it to try and achieve my aim of making a media product to a high standard. This included integrating my work so that the images, text and everything on the page fitted together and looked like a magazine. I managed to do this quite well with help from people around me, my teacher and some trial and error. For a more detailed explanation of how I did all this, go to the construction page of my blog.

Another new technology I used recently was screen recording on my laptop for my evaluation. I had never done this before and I was very intrigued to find out how it worked and what I had to do to make it work. I researched how to do it and how to sort out issues I had with it. For a more detailed description on this, go to my evaluation page, question 2.

Also in my evaluation, I have used Powtoon. This was a lot like GoAnimate, however, I had less problems with this one and I think this was partly because I had the previous experience with GoAnimate. 

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: