Impact Of Technology

As far as technology I theory I was drawn to when researching was something Meyer put forward in 1992; “ knowledge is being actively constructed by the individual and knowing is an adaptive process, which organizes the individual’s experiential world.” I feel that I can relate to this statement because throughout the process of planning and constructing my coursework for my foundation portfolio I feel I have been on an active journey learning and experimenting with new technology.  

I have really enjoyed this process because I feel that I have been able to gain a number of new knowledgeable skills since starting this work in September. I shall now talk about how I have developed and learned new skills on Blogger, the internet, survey monkey, digital SLR cameras, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Filming, green screening and also how I have used iMovie to edit my evaluation.

I feel that Blogger has been one of main sources of new knowledge and experience. With Blogger I have been able to regularly add to my planning work and progress in the style of an online blog. Blogger has enabled me to plan my final work using posts that can include not just text but images and moving image links, I have also been able to look back at older posts, make any changes and then decide on my final products. Outside of my portfolio, I have been also using blogger to start doing my own match reports on college football matches as I want to go onto a career in sports journalism in the future so I feel blogger has helped me to potentially set up a new career as I now have followers who regularly read my posts and will be able to share my football blog link with potential employers and universities.

As a regular internet user, I feel that the internet has been helpful to use websites such as survey monkey and blogger to enhance both my work and my research. I feel that the besides these two websites, I have stuck to what I know when using the internet and it has significantly helped me because I have been able to find Q, NME and Kerrang covers, content pages and double page spreads to analyse, theorists work to read and helpful tutorials on how to improve my photography and editing. Also I was able to use my existing social media sites to share my Survey Monkey link to get audience input and information.

What I liked about survey monkey, was the fact that I have been able to enhance my research, in particularly when it comes to finding out what my audience felt was either important or pointless with magazine publication and production. I feel that if I need to learn more market research or anything for other studies I can always go back to survey monkey to easily and quickly set up new surveys. I previously used this once or twice a couple of years ago but not to the level that I have used it for my audience research in this project. I do not think that I found learning how to blog or create Survey Monkey survey’s too challenging because I already had a good knowledge of the internet and was quickly able to transfer existing skills.

After studying GCSE Photography, Media and Film for 3 years, I already had a good knowledge of using digital SLR cameras in a studio or outdoor on location environment but I felt that I was able to enhance my skills further this year as I challenged myself to get gig pictures at live gigs which meant shooting more images outside than I had done in the past. I found digital SLR cameras to be helpful for getting high quality shots form a distance but a hindrance in a lively crown so relied on my IPhone 5S and my canon compact camera for some of my shots. Overall I am pleased with my photography as I think during this project I have taken some of the best photographs I have ever taken.

Using what I knew at GCSE level, I was comfortably able to use Photoshop to a high standard. I was able to experiment with tutorials and filters to add various styles to my work, that I had not done before and I think I got quicker at using all the basic tools like the; move, magic wand, brush, text, paint bucket, zoom, colour picker, marquee, crop, lasso, eraser and blur tools to make my work look 

professional.

Unlike Photoshop, Illustrator was a new concept to me. I learned how to use it so I could make more interesting typography styles for my masthead during my experimental stages. Even though I managed to master the basics I had to rely on tutorials to guide my and think I need a lot more practice using it before I am as comfortable with it as I am Photoshop. In the end, I preferred the simpler masthead I designed using Photoshop so did not use my Illustrator version for anything.

Similarly to Illustrator, I was also new to using Adobe InDesign. Like illustrator I spent a lot of time focussing on tutorials to enhance knowledge of how to use the program to make my layouts look professional. I used InDesign mostly for adding text to my final products.

I felt at ease filming this evaluation, as I am used to talking on YouTube as I make and publish video game videos in my spare time. This makes me comfortable in front of a camera lengthy periods of time. I feel that I can use my YouTube experience to add fluency and completion to my voice overs. When it comes to filming this, I wanted a professional image quality so I decided against using the inbuilt camera on the mac and opted for the canon 5D. I sat with a blue screen behind me and the camera on a tripod in front of me.

As I am experienced in editing videos, I felt at ease using iMovie. I have used it a lot in GCSE Film and Media so it was quick and easy to start using again even though an update had moved some of the effects. I used iMovie to import the footage I captured on the camera, trim and cut anything I did not want, sort the sound levels and add the images of my work into the blue screen. I then exported as an MP4 file and uploaded the finished evaluation to my YouTube before linking it to my online portfolio blog.