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!