EVALUATION 6: WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES FROM THE PROCESS OF

CONSTRUCTING THIS PRODUCT?

When I come across technology I see two things to it.1. Hardware / Phsyical2. Software / VirtualThese are the two simple categories that they can be broken into with somethings linking back to the other. Most of what I used in making and showing the steps I took were done on virtual software through the use of a PC. Blogger being the key thing in all of this, a online service where you can post images, text, html code and more and display in the form of updates over the course of time. This is what is used to present my work and the steps into making everything.

Hardware / Images• The Camera used was a DSLR Nikon camera that was supplied by

my 6th Form. The high quality camera allowed me to take large resolution pictures to allow me to get detailed images for the use of my magazine. With the use of the camera I took use of the facility in the 6th Form to have the use of a grey screen and strong white lights to allow the images taken to have a easier flexibility when I came to image manipulation. This equipment was controlled by a mix board and wired to the building’s infrastructure. With this images taken with the DSLR camera were very easily edited in Photoshop and virtual software. With the support of other to help me set up the image environment and the use of the lighting I feel I took very successful images from the DSLR camera to have used in my magazine.

Adobce Photoshop• Photoshop was another important tool for the use in the production of

my magazine, I have had about 2 year of experience and understand the concept of edit and manipulating images using this programme. With this I had a smooth flow using the programme into manipulating my images to work well in my magazine. With the help of the grey screen in the images I took I was able to remove that and have a way of editing the background of the image, with this it was like having full control of the given pose that I was editing and all I would need to is decided on what I wanted to do, not technical implication on that part. With that I was able to make an outcome with images to which I was very please about.

Adobe InDesign• InDesign was another key software to work towards the production of my

magazine, with it I was able to use the images, planned layout and fonts I chose to be put into action onto my production of an EDM music magazine. InDesign is made to the use of text and images being merge into the creation on physical documents. With InDesign I was able to successful make a professional looking magazine, with the use of margin and guidelines to help assist I the production. Other features like ‘Text Link’ which allows me to link separate text boxes into a chain link making it act like one entity for type my Double Page Spread body into. This was amazing useful into allowing me to prepare the text boxes to flow around the images and then pasting the whole planned text immediately with very little fixing and fine tuning to it. The text would flow into each box with out cutting out letters or words. My knowledge of InDesign wasn’t too big but what I knew was enough to make what I believe was a successful magazine Front Cover, Contents page and Double Page Spread.

Disadvantage• Even though the use of Photoshop and InDesign were

extremely useful in production of my music magazine the problem was Updates / Version. The 6th Form’s Computer supplied what were old version of Adobe Photoshop (CS3) and Adobe InDesign. While I had access to the Adobe Creative Cloud (CC) which gave me access to the most recent version of both these programmes. But if I was going to use some of the newest feature from what would be called the CC version of the programme the older CS3 versions given to me from the 6th Form would not be compatible, this cause implication when trying to work on the production of my Magazine within the 6th Form.

Slideshare, Prezi • SlideShare and Prezi are online presentation tools used to upload, create and

share presentation. With this I was able to present my progress in different ways. Slide share was extremely useful to how I would present my progress. I feel that using Microsoft PowerPoint is a very useful tool in showing progress in anything and is why I would use it when I can. Slideshare allows you to upload pptx. Files to be displayed online through their custom presenter, Downsides are that you will not get some features such as animations and transition available but given that I can at least present it and showed clearly on their presenter is something I would be happy about. Prezi was an amazing design animated way of displaying similar to a PowerPoint Presentation. Prezi is online based meaning its accessible anywhere with internet to modify at anytime. However I didn’t personally like the control and way to add features such as text boxes and text with limitations here and there in the font, colour, sizing and editing of animation to have space for more detail and didn’t use it as much as I did with Slideshare.

Google Forms• Google Forms is a survey tool and was very useful in the features it gave in

allowing me to see the results and to make the initial questions. Google Forms would be linked to what is known as Google Drive, a cloud storage service support Documents, PowerPoints, and Excel Files, Removing the need for application packages such as Microsoft Office.

• Google Forms is a easily usable and editable software that lets me create questions with various ways of accept the answer. Also adding images, HTML link and Videos. I have free control on how I wanted my Survey to look.

• With google forms there is no limitation nor ‘Premium features’ meaning I would have to pay to access some features which could’ve proved very useful. Online Survey Services such as Survey Monkey do this and would give major limitation to what I could extract from the survey if I was to use that service instead of google forms.

Disadvantage of Online Based Services

• Sometimes within the 6th Form or else where the internet service could be slow or even down. This problem is something I encountered with using purely internet based services would mean I would have struggles or not be able to access the service(s) meaning I wouldn’t be able to make progress on what I need to do. This could cost valuable time and would mean I would have to try work on something else until I could reach access to the service.

Conclusion• To conclude, I have learnt many new things in the way of using

a Grey / Green screen in the assistance for Image Manipulation to using Prezi and Slideshare as a way of presenting my work online. All this has proven to be very useful in the step towards the final stage of my magazine production.

• However rely too much on internet based application / services could cause major setbacks if there is not fall back option if you weren’t able to get access to the internet, as well as there being compatibility issues with software causing you to lose out on features or limits where you can do certain tasks