What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?

This question focuses on the use of technology throughout my piece. I began by discussing Photoshop, the program I used to make my magazine, as I felt this was the most important program. I talk about why I used this program, and how I used it in creating my magazine. I then went on to discuss YouTube, and I also discussed how I took the pictures for my magazine, including information on the camera, and I also noted the use of a green screen. Finally, I discussed Blogger. I discuss how I used this website as the hub for my magazine, and I used it along with Scribd, Prezi and Slideshare to create a high quality Blog and work storage space. 

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?

Throughout the process of this unit my skills have greatly improved. The primary product I used throughout the course was Photoshop. Although I did have experience from my GCSE media course, this year my skill level has improved greatly. The reason we used Photoshop was because it gives work a very professional look, due to the varied range of tools and edits you can make to any picture as well as building a magazine. An example of some skills in which I improved in this year was cutting out images, putting text around images, and adding certain effects, such as brushes, to my magazine.

I managed to achieve this increase in skill through the use of several methods. Firstly, I used several tutorials that were made available to us on the shared school drive. These were made by a media teacher, and they gave us a step by step guide on how to achieve certain desired effects. These were useful because through the method that he gave us, once I had done one of the tasks, I could do them repeatedly. I also got assistance from my class mates, as some of them had more experience and skill in the program, and due to this i asked them how to use a certain tool or how I could do a certain task. I also found several tutorials on YouTube. For example, I learnt to increase the space between letters and rows through a step by step guide on YouTube, and this technique was used throughout my coursework.

I also learnt how to take pictures much more effectively. The school supplied us with high quality cameras in which we had to use to take pictures for each of our pages. Through looking at pictures over the internet, and getting some of my own ideas, I was able to find a desired location for each of my pictures to be taken. Many of the pictures in addition were taken in front of a green screen. This allowed for me to add any colour background that I desired, due to the cutting out of images being easier and much more detailed.

This year all of the work I have completed was stored on a blogging website called ‘Blogger’, owned by Google. This is the first year in the media studies AS level course  that this website has been used. The website allows for easy access to each individual topic that makes up the course, and also make the course much easier to mark. Furthermore, the website allows for the digital representation of certain programmes. The main focus of this topic was on variety, and making sure all my work is created using a range of products. Much of the work I have produced has been uploaded using several programs including Scribd, Prezi and Slideshare, which each allow for a different presentation graphic, adding to the variety on my blog

These forms of technology made the creation of my magazine much more professional. Through the use of Photoshop, I have managed to add several effects and customise it in a way that would be unavailable to me through the use of any other program. The addition of high quality image capturing software further added to this professionalism, and overall, these programmes and products allowed for a much better quality magazine to be produced.