Introduction to Visual Communication Blog

Throughout this module one of the goals we have been working towards is completing an e-portfolio made up of a series of fifteen blog posts. There were five compulsory blogs that we would be marked on as well as an additional ten that could be made up of what we liked, within reason. The five blog posts that we were asked to complete were as follows:

1. Photostory using 7 pictures
2. Review of a TED video clip that was related to education
3. Review of an Educational Blog
4. Pro's and Con's of Web 2
5. Testing of a Web 2 Application

Following the completion of the assessed criteria I have blogged about various other educational based topics for my e-portfolio. These can be found using the labels Mandy or Project within the label cloud or via the hyperlinks.

Glogster Review

This post is a review of the website Glogster, how it works, what it looks like and what you can do with it.  The image below shows the layout of a pinboard glog mid production during the editing stages before publishing.

A glog is an interactive blog that has live feeds to videos and pictures making the layout more aesthetically pleasing.  I like the idea of a glog and I have used one to demonstrate Instagram as an app in my web 2 review for this assignment.  I enjoyed using glogster, however it is not the easiest to get to grips with if computers are not your strong point.  I struggled using the site although I feel the final result was more effective than just words on a page.  This is definitely something I will use again in the future, although a lot of practise will be required to enable me to manoeuvre around the different features more efficiently.  Even though the finish article was better than in a written format I hadn't quite grasped the 'adding post-it notes' or 'frames' that were available to complete the glog to the intended finish.

I believe that this could be a fantastic tool, if used in the right way, to replace presentations in appropriate situations.  Especially when presenting to children and teenagers it could involve them more rather than just blindly staring at a PowerPoint.  They would be able to go into different areas of the glog to expand the information, so they are more involved in the learning process.

Blogger Review

Throughout this semester we have been using blogger.com for the presentation of our assessments.  This is the first occasion that I have used blogger.com; in fact, it's the first time I have blogged full stop.  I have found the blogging aspect of the assessments challenging and for educational purposes I am not entirely convinced that it has a place within the assessment criteria, nevertheless I have found the experience interesting and I have learnt a lot about blogs. 

In our first couple of sessions we set up our blog, designed it and learnt to manoeuvre our way around the site enabling us to create posts and view our blog.  Further seminars enabled us to complete more complex tasks like adding gadgets and making our blogs more personal to us.

 

 

When completing the assignment for Caroline using blogger I noticed that some of my work had been shared publicly, as I mentioned before this is not suitable for the assessment scenarios as you are making your work readily available for people to copy.  Fellow students are 'following you' so they are able to see a live feed of all of your work as it is being posted and it is being sent directly to their news feed.  Going forward to make the assessments less accessible it could be suggested that maybe students shouldn't be told to follow each other.

 

 

With regards to using blogger.com again; I like the site and the idea of blogging, however it is not something that I find enjoyable, having not used it for anything other than the work requested of me, and I cannot see myself wanting to blog in the future, if I were to use blogger.com again it would either be for educational or professional reasons; not personal.

Educational Blog Review

For my blog review I have focused on the Education - Telegraph Blogs.  I found this blog particularly useful when keeping up to date with current education news as the posts are based on the hot topics in the news today, with a focus on what is going on in schools if not with a strong political underpin.

Initially, when sourcing 'educational blogs' on the internet searches I found myself struggling, I had come across a few blogs that took my fancy, although they were not solely based on education, they would only have the odd post weekly based on the topic but they would also cover a wide variety of news stories.  My favourite blog of all is The Parentdish found in my blog list, many of the education based stories are controversial but also focus on what is happening within our schools today. 

Back on topic, I chose the Education blog from the Telegraph for my review as the information is being communicated by a newspaper and therefore I believed that it was a more trustworthy source to use for academic purposes.  Although I found the blog informative I also noticed that the author(s) were very left wing and their view were extremely pro David Cameron and Michael Gove never questioning them, and even though I sit on the fence with Cameron as a Prime Minister, Gove has a lot of view with regards to education that I disagree with.  With this in mind I did find some of the blog posts irritating and bias towards the Tory party.

Overall the blog is useful and informative and I would use it in the future to keep up with current affairs in the education sector.

University through the eyes of a student

So what does university today look like? Are students using their time effectively and where do they really spend most of their time? The short video below will show you just what our students are doing and how some of their tuition is being used, and where it could be used more effectively.

It is evident from the video that a large proportion of a student’s time is spent socialising and partaking in activities that don't involve learning or studying. So is this right, shouldn't they be focusing on learning? Let's think about this logically, the majority of these students are in their late teens to early twenties, it is their rite of passage to experience all of the aspects of university life; a degree is the end game but these young people are also learning to live by themselves, look after themselves and build friendships with other likeminded people, to put it simply these students are not only there to better themselves educationally they are also in university to gain essential life skills.

To other students like myself, these figures may be completely off and the university experience completely different.  At twenty seven I have feel I have gained my stripes from the 'University of Life' and I have returned to education to better myself and the future of my family. With this in mind the majority of my time is spent in the library or studying at home, when my child is in bed. There is someone else relying on me to pass my degree and that reflects in the university experience that I lead. Similarly, if the question was posed to many other 'mature students' I am sure the answers would mirror mine.

Visual Communication

This is a reflective post, based on what I have learnt since starting the IT based module for Visual Communication: Culture and Creativity in October 2013.  The module mainly focused on blogging although there were other areas that were covered too.

In this module I feel that I have learnt a vast amount of useful tips when it comes to the technological side of assessments, whether it be more professional ways of presenting work and thinking more creatively in the presentation or learning to add citations and references to essays using word. 

Throughout this blog the different techniques we have been taught are demonstrated; embedding videos, creating animations, creating videos from images and making a mind map online to name just a few; as well as things that I didn't even know existed like glogs which, if used correctly are fantastically powerful visual tools.

I have gained a great insight to IT and Visual Communication during the semester which will no doubt enrich my future academic career.

Web 2 Review

This web 2 review will be looking at Instagram, a photo sharing application.  The glogster below will give you an insight to what Instagram actually is.



So now you have an idea about, is it any good?  Well let's look at the pros and con's of the application.  Firstly let's look at what it is doing right; the few effects that you are able to format your photos with are great and varied.  The site as a whole, whether on your mobile or on the desktop site is very easy to use, the layout is fantastic so it's easy to find your way around and when it comes to editing and sharing pictures it is very simple with step by step instructions.  Personally, I love Instagram, it is a fantastic way to be able to see what your friends are up to and what is going on in their lives when they may not live close to you; they can keep up to date with you too!  It is a great app for sharing the beauty of the world around you with a couple of click of a button.  Also a vast majority of celebrities are on Instagram too and you are able to follow them, enabling you to do a little celeb stalking in your spare time... what could be better?  If you want a little more privacy then you simply go to your setting and set user to private and instead of people automatically following you they will send a request that you can authorise or decline.

So, that's what is good about the site, when are the con's then?  There are a few, the application isn't quite perfect.  It is a basic application designed for sharing pictures so it differs from other social networking sites as you cannot message people or update a status, so for this you would need an alternative social networking like Facebook or Twitter.  The notifications could also do with some refinement; when you comment on someones picture they must then tag you in their reply or you will not get a notification of it, and you may miss whatever they have to say to you.  Finally with regards to the editing side of things, as I said before, it's great, if not a little basic, other applications such as Line Camera have a wider variety of editing options to create a more advanced filter on images like airbrushing.

Overall Instagram is a fantastic application and as I said previously, I love it and use it daily to connect with people!

Making a Human

The purpose of this exercise was to tell a story using only 7 pictures.  I have titled my clip 'Making a Human' which shows the story of my son so far.  over the past 2 years my life has mainly been focused on raising my son and making him into a person of his own.  He is my world and you will see from the pictures why; he is brilliant!

 

TED Review - Logan Laplante on Hack Schooling





Logan Laplante is a 13 year old boy whose mother withdrew him from mainstream school when he was 9, against the recommendations of her peers; his story is a truly inspiring outlook on modern education.

The key principles of Logan's talk is that when kids grow up we shouldn't be concerned per say with what they will do for a job, we should be focusing our children's education to focus on happiness and healthiness as if we can get these things right then they will surely follow the right career path for them and most importantly will have a happy, healthy life.

Logan has been studying the science of happiness and health and from this, the classes he takes in his 'school envirnoment' can be broken down into 8 key areas.

 

What he is saying is that creativity is one of the most important skills a person can have, from creativity and interest in something will innovate ways of learning.  Children will find ways to learn, if they link the learning to their passions and interests.  Within his home school environment he still studies the things that children in mainstream school learn, but in a way that interests him; as he states in the clip, rather than writing a short story about butterflies in English class, he is instead writing creatively about his passion; skiing. 

 

Logan has developed this further into a theory called 'Hack Schooling'.  This is not a school that teaches people to hack computers, well, not if that is not what they want to do.  The theory is there is always a way to 'hack' education; find a better easier way to complete a task, find a short cut, add one way of doing things to another way creating a mash up of methods and thus creating a simpler, better way of doing things.  It is about always taking advantage of opportunities to learn and moulding this situations to your personality so you gain more from the experience.

 

 

 

I would suggest that we remember the name Logan Laplante as I believe we will be hearing more from him in the future with his innovative Hack Schooling theory.

My return to education...

In September 2013, after years of making excuses, I made the decision to return to full time education.  Following the birth of my son I found that the previous jobs I had held were not stimulating me and the future career prospects were dismal.  The most recent job that I held was as a Store Trainer in Sainsbury's, teaching hundreds of adults key skills for their jobs on a daily basis, although I thoroughly enjoyed the training element of my role, I found that the people I was training believed that the content was irrelevant and they did not need the skills to enable them to simply 'stack shelves in supermarket'.  I found this frustrating and wanted a career that focused on teaching young children a Primary Education that I would gain greater enjoyment from.  There is nothing worse than trying to teach someone who simply refuses to learn.  As well as the daily frustrations of the role, I also found myself working dramatic hours for a low wage.  Although I understand that I will never be a millionaire as a teacher, I will however be more financially stable.

I chose this course particularly as I felt that the content of the individual modules would benefit in my future career, the university is also close to my home and my sons nursery making the experience possible.

So has my education journey so far been what I expected?  On the whole, yes.  I attend lectures, seminars, workshops and I learn a wealth of interesting information.  Although it may surprise some, I have also enjoyed writing assignment, in the various different formats, as well as the recent exams. The last time I completed an exam was in 2003 for my GCSEs so I am taking each experience with the view that I can learn from then and improve.

One of the struggles that I have faced as a 'mature' student is that I am surrounded mainly by people of a different mind set than myself and I have to remind myself that they are young and they are looking to gain a different student experience than myself.  My idea of a good Wednesday night is curling up with a cup of tea and a film, not Student night on Wind Street.  This has caused some friction when it comes to group work, although I try to motivate others instead of letting it frustrate me.

I am enjoying this course immensely despite some of the struggles I face and I am looking forward to completing the degree and following it with the PGCE before embarking on my career as a primary school teacher.

Referencing 21/11/2013

I found the Visual Communication: Culture and Creativity session on Thursday extremely insightful.  I learnt how to use the referencing tool on Windows 7.  It is a fantastic tool that will inevitably save me time when writing assignments in the future.  By being able to create a database of readings, that with one click on completion of the assignment turns into the bibliography / References section, I will save a great deal of time and prevent error when compiling the list.

Although I have used MS Office throughout my professional career, my educational career is revealing my shortfalls with the programmes as the aspects we are required to use are very different.  With this in mind Mandy's sessions have become invaluable to me as I am learning vast amounts about programmes that I would have previously deemed myself experienced in, it turns out I actually am not as versed in the programmes as I thought.

In Plain English...

...in Plain English are a series of videos, available on YouTube, about pretty much anything that you may need to know about technology.  The video above focuses on Social Networking.  They are fantastic, each of the videos that you watch breakdown, what may originally seem like a complicated topic to explain into simple steps for understanding.  Your Nan doesn't understand what the world wide web is?  No problem!  The World Wide Web in Plain English will explain it all to her in a way that she can grasp.  Its not just for technophobes though, even the more technologically advanced people can benefit from the various videos out there that breakdown the more complex scenarios.

2 Animate - Apple doesn't fall far from the tree

 

During our session on 14 November 2013 we learnt how to create and upload animations to our blog using 2 Animate.  The programme is fairly basic and easy to get a grasp of.  The basic concept of 2animate is enabling you to reproduce images with minor alterations in each frame, thus creating an animation or moving picture, the extent of which is limited only by your artistict talant.  The session was an enjoyable experience and demonstrated the different aspects of the programme that we could use throughout different projects; ranging from basic to advanced.  I will definitely try to use the programme again during my studies and no doubt in my future teaching career.

 

 



 

Embedding Video

During our session with Mandy on 14/11/2013 I learnt how to embed a html link to my blog using code.  Embedding a video is a simple process, once you know how.  When on the website of the picture or video that you would like to embed there will be an option to either embed straight away, or a share option with an embed option within that.  Once you have selected embed a link will appear, copy this link ready for use in your blog.  When you are in your blog select the HTML tab and paste the link.  When you return to compose the picture or video will be there as a live link. 

Once I learnt how to do this I have been using it a great deal, as well as sharing with others the method.  The process is so simple but thelook of your blog will improve tenfold once embedding video or images as it will become increasingly visually appealing.

Mind Mapping

 

Returning to Experience

 

I have created a mind map using bubbl.us to visually document 'Reflection'.  This links in to my previous reflective post dated 11/11/2013 on models of reflection.  Mandy Peace uploaded a task to Moodle asking us to familiarise ourselves with virtual mind mapping and have a go at creating a mind map online.

 

 

Attending to Feelings

 

I found the tool extremely useful and easy to navigate.  I created a mind map on 'Reflective Learning'.  The site had clearly marked tabs to enable me, as a new user, to create this mind map with ease.  The colour coding gave the mind map clear differentiation between categories and I was able to display the mind map in a way that was appealing to me.

 

 

Evaluating the Experience

I will definitely be using bubbl.us for future mind maps as I thought it was a great programme.  In the past when I have created mind maps by hand I have found they are unorganised, hard to read and difficult to digest when returning to them.  The great thing I found with bubbl.us was that I could adjust the layout of the mind map if i wanted to go back and add another bubble, whereas by hand this could have resulted in there not being enough space on the page meaning that the bubble was in the wrong place.  All in all, great tool and I look forward to using it again throughout my studies.

Reflection 11/11/2013

Description:

Over the past couple of weeks I have learnt about 'blogging'; what a blog is, creating a blog and writing practice blog posts. 

I have been tasked with writing a reflective blog to form the assessment criteria for two modules; Visual Communications: Culture and Creativity and Caroline Lewis' assessment of 21^st Century Learning: Theories and Contexts.

I have also read 'Reflective Journals' and  'Reflective Learning' posted to Moodle by Mandy Peace to gain a greater understanding of reflection.  I already have a basic understanding of the Gibbs 1988 model so I will be including this model and comparing it to the other methods discussed in the document

Feelings:

As I have never written a blog before, let alone formally reflected, I have been finding the thought of a 'reflective blog' fairly daunting.  I am also excited to practice these methods and vary my reflective style throughout my degree.

Evaluation:

In my opinion the Dewey (1910, 1933) model over complicated the process of reflection by asking for a possible solution as the first point of the reflection.   Boud, Keogh and Walker's model of reflection is the most logical out of the models documented in 'Reflective Journals'.  I will explore this method in later reflections as I believe I would easily transition from Gibbs 1988 style to the Boud, Keogh and Walker model.  I felt that Kolb's model was less complicated than Dewey, however, the 'watching' element of the model would suggest that this may be a useful method to use when reflecting on an observation.

Analysis:

After reading the Reflective Journals document and considering all of the styles of reflection within the document, I found Gibbs model the easiest and most logical for my thought process in my first formal reflection.

Conclusion:

Although I had a prior knowledge of the Gibb model, I had never formally reflected before today.  I could have used one of the styles documented in the 'Reflection Journals' document for this blog which would have taken me further out of my comfort zone.

Action Plan:

When the opportunity arises again I will use one of the other models of reflection to blog; I may find that I prefer a different style for this type of reflective writing.  The models I will be experimenting with for reflections in the immediate future will include; Boud, Keogh and Walker's, and Kolb's models.