Branding

Over the Easter holidays, we were given a small task to carry out on the topic branding, which we had learnt about previously. Our task was to arrange ourselves into small groups and to create a new object, drink, food package etc.. Gender, age and what audience we wanted our product to attract was just a few things we had to consider. We chose to create an energy drink that would be suitable for university students. The name of the drink was "Push Up" as we though energy drinks gives you that push to go and feel energized. We then created a poster advertising our product which we will later present to the class, and give a small  presentation including  our ideas and why we chose to do this?

Brainstorming

Before making a start on my project, i thought it would be a good idea to mind map all of my ideas. Firstly, i created i mind map which i drew, including all of the ideas i thought would tie in well with the given theme. However, i later used an online program called Bubbl.us to create another mind map. I used this to only brainstorm my ideas about my chosen topic, so i could see clearly what to include.

Artist Research

I have been researching a number of artists who use beds or bedrooms in their work. I found two artists that i was very interested in and thought would fit in well with what i am doing for my design. The first artist i chose to research and study was previously introduced to us in one of our Visual Communication lessons, who is Tracey Emin. I was very interested in one particular piece of work she has produced, which is called "My Bed". The emotions she tries to get across to her audience, i felt i could almost relate to them at this time period. Another artist i researched was Tamar Stone. Again, she uses beds in her work, but in a very different way. Her belief that her bed or her bedroom was the most important feature of the home, was the same as my thought so i could relate to this very much. Also what interested me about her work was the writing on the bed sheets. The words printed on the bed sheets indicate she has secrets and she hides them in her bedroom. Similarly, at this point in my life i often found myself hiding away in my bedroom, and my bed was my place to relax and to express all my emotions. Therefore, this is why i decided to include these two artists in my project.

Chosen Idea

After a lot of decision making, i finally thought of an idea which i think links in best with the theme "sense of place". So my final idea i have chosen to do is about how my family and the family household has been split up due to divorce, depression and alcohol abuse. However, as this was too broad of a topic, i decide to focus on a room within my house that i thought was my sense of place, and this was my bedroom. Throughout my project, i will be describing all the different emotions i felt and experienced at this time and how my bedroom was a place for me to escape from the madness. I am going to portray this firstly through a scrapbook, which will include sub-headings, pictures, text and many more. Meanwhile, i am also going to produce a movie including photographs and memories, by using windows movie maker as the ICT element of the assignment.

First ideas for ICT project

I have thought of and mind mapped a few ideas out for my project. My first idea was to base my project on something i really enjoy and is now a part time job for myself. This idea was dance, however once thinking this through thou-ally, i thought it would be quite difficult to link this into the theme of "sense of place". Once discussing this first idea with Suzzie, we came to the conclusion that how dance can take you to another place and what emotions you feel through your dancing. However, i thought this topic was not as close to my heart as something else and i would not be able to expand greatly on this.
My second idea was to focus on family and upbringing. A vast number of family members were born and still live in Birmingham. For example, my grandparents, mother and uncle are all from Birmingham but later moved down to Wales after my uncle was born. On the other hand, remaining family members such as aunties, cousins, great nan etc stayed there. We often visit them during holiday times, so i thought this could of been a good idea as it would link into again the theme "sense of place" On the other hand, as i was not born and brought up in Birmingham, i thought i would have little to relate to apart from family.

Guest Speaker 7- Jane Davidson

Today's what is education module? was taken by Jane Davidson who was the Education Minister in Wales for 7years, dealing with skills for life-long learning. To begin with she told us all about the background to education starting with the year of 1983 when the National Curriculum was introduced. She later when on to describe the year of 1997 where labor came into Government and the Weslh Assembly Government was established in 1999. For the remains of the lecture she talked to us about the books "the learning country" which was published in 2001 and "the learning country-vision into action" which was later published in 2006. We looked at things like the goals, policies and principles these documents were setting out.

Guest Speaker 7- Alice Davies

Today Alice Davies took our lecture for what is education? module. She gave us a overview on what widening access in Wales. She then went on to explain what her work is which is a "reaching wider" and what they encourage to do for young children. She then gave us a brief outline about what they do to help those preparing for further or higher education. An progressive program  is put into place starting at a primary are, leading up to year 13 pupils. However, the activities, support/advice they offer are different for each age group. For example, pupils in year 11 have gcse revision classes set up for them. Study skills classes are essential and also each pupil has a mentor to talk to if they have any problems or concerns. Whereas, year 13 pupils learn more about UCAS support and how to write personal statements etc.

Adverts!

In today's visual communication lesson we learnt all about advertisements and how adverts affect peoples opinions on a particular object. For example, to begin the lesson Suzzie gathered us around the interactive board showing us a number of different adverts shown in the Uk. These ranged from car adverts to adverts promoting drinks (tango) etc. Then our task was to arrange ourselves into pairs and to think of an advert we enjoy watching and then to explain to the class what we think the advert is trying to promote. We also had to say why we thought it worked so well or not so well, what we liked the most about it and what screen shots we particularly thought were engaging to the audience. For our advert we chose the diary milk chocolate advert (eyebrow dance. We thought this was a good advert to show as it engages the audience straight away as you do not know immediately what is going to happen. The advert is also very funny and un-usual which again catches peoples attention, therefore we thought it was a good advert to advertise dairy milk chocolate as once you have watched it, you feel the erge to go buy a dairy milk chocolate bar.

Guest Speaker 6- Nick Bennett

Nick Bennet who is the principal of Gower college in Swansea took the lecture for our what is education module this week. The lecture was based on an overview of further education in Wales.We were given a number of statistics which were interesting to see. For example, 20% of further education students are full time, where as 80& are part time. Following on from this, we learnt all the key factors within the Welsh Government Program of September 2011 and how improving welsh skills can increase employment opportunities. Overall, we were given a brief outline but detailed enough to understand the factors and priorities for further education.

Guest Speaker 5- Mike Day

For today's what is education? module, we were taught a number of topics relating to education. For example, its definition, goal, objective, policy and strategy. Firstly, we were given background information on what education policy reflects upon and what education is actually for? Branching on to this, questions such as should education be selective and why is education policy needed? were apposed. Day further went onto to explain who, when, where and why education policy is developed? Unfortuantly, we were unable to complete the whole power-point slides as we run out of time. However, we were told that the slides were going to put up on moodle for us to make further notes on this particular topic.

Nostalgia

In today's lesson we had to think of an emotion and try to portray these emotions through pictures/photos we took around the uni campus. I chose to study the emotion nostalgia or loneliness. We were given 30minutes to have a walk round the campus in pairs to collect any photographs we thought matched our chosen emotion. Once we arrived back at the class, we had to upload our photo's onto the computer and onto our blogs, ready to share with the class in the following session. My 6 chosen photo's are listed below:

Guest Speaker- Graham Allen

For today's lecture we were taught by the enviromental manager of swansea university. The topic he taught us wsas on "Education for suitable development". Firsty, we learned about what coroporate responsibity is and what does it invlove? For example-Coroporate responsibity in the education sector. We further went on to learn about digression- the benefits of growth. Foloowing on from this we touched upon GDP and the fundamental priciples of sustainable development.

suzzie-Metaphors/ i have a dream

To start of today's lesson we continued with our photo montages for the first 15minutes or so. Then we went round the class discussing and explaining what we had cut out and why? For example, what purpose or meaning it has to you? Following on from this, we were given a number of pictures which all had a metaphoric story behind them. Our task was to work out in groups of 3 what the metaphor behind the picture was. Then we watched a short clip to end the lesson called i have a dream, where we had to take some notes on any metaphor's we came across in the american speech.

Creativity with Suzzie

In today's visual communication lesson we were concentrating closely on the assignment as there has been some confusion. Firstly, suzzie went through the brief with us to make sure we all understood what we had to do and how the mark scheme works etc. Shortly after, we carried out a small task in which we had to write down memories we have from childhood, could of been negative or positive or even both. We then had to crumble up the piece of paper and throw it across the room for another person in the class to read out.Once everyone had a different piece of paper, as a class we discussed the differences or similarities of what people wrote down. After this, we were put into groups of 3 and given a A3 piece of paper and different resources such as newspapers, magazines etc where we had to cut out what we though were our sense of place. We didn't quite finish this so we are carrying on with this in the next session.

Guest Speaker 4- Olive Hopker

For Today's lecture What is Education? Olive Hopker who is the head of planning and development at Swansea university. She taught us all about collaboration versus competition. To begin the lecture she gave us all a small handout each named example of Government Statements, which we had to read quietly to ourselves.
In this session, i learned the benefits and the limitations of both collaboration and competition.

Guest Speaker 3- Steve Gullick

Today we had our final seminar with Steve Gullick, who is the director of the all wales center fir Governor training and research. Again, we taught us more about governors, however unlike the previous session we learnt more knowledge about the work of governors. Steve gave us a small introduction to which countries and the percentages of how there is lack of governors in these areas. e.g- deprived areas-these suffer the most.
He then introduced us to a man called Professor Stuart Ranson and explained his thoughts and opinions about governors. Ranson came to the conclusion that governors are often white, middle aged and middle class. Based on this, Steve then went on to explain why this is? I learnt that this is because black ethnic minorities may not get a job as a governor due to a language barrier. In order to become a governor it is vital to have the English language.
Following on from this we had a handout by Peter Early on his 4 main types of governing bodies. We discussed this handout as a whole to come to some answers we all agreed on.
To end this session, we were given a question. Should training be compulsory? Answers to this was the Welsh Government is bringing out a law that to become a Governor you must have basic training and the same to became a chair.

5 objects

In today's session we all had to bring in five objects that had a particular meaning to us. My five objects i bought in were my camera,mobile phone, car keys, ipod and a bracelet. All of which had different meaning to me. A little while later, we arranged ourselves into small groups and went out into the corridor just outside the classroom where we spread all our objects out and discussed individually why we chose these objects and what meaning they bring to us. Again, i found this lesson very interesting and it was nice to see everyone's objects and to listen to their reasons why they chose to bring them today

Suzzie's first session

For our first visual communication lesson we were introduced to our eductaor Suzzie Pugh. To begin the lesson we arranged the table and chairs into a circle where we had to do a starter task to introduce ourselves and mention our hobbies and what backround knowledge we may have or in my case didn't have. Following on from this, suzzie then put up on display two pictures and a video. The whole idea of this was for us to use our imagination and thoughts of what we thought the artists were trying to portray through their work. I found this lesson very interesting and exciting. I thought that it was a good way of making everyone as a whole class to think and to express our thoughts.

Guest Speaker 3- Steve Gulluck

In Todays Lecture for the module What is Education? We had a Steve Gullcuk who we had in the previous lecture teaching us about Governors. Today was really i re-cap session on governors, however he did expand and go into more detail about how governors act within a school. We were given a handout which explained breifty the contact between school governors and teaching staff. The things we touched upon were job interviews, informal visits to schools, celebrations and many more. We also had a seminor session with Steve where we learnt all about health and saftey procedures governors have to undertake, and also strategic planning that has to be put into place. Overall, i found the seminor much more interesting and more useful than lecture as i thought the lecture was almost a repeat of the previous lecture he took.

Guest Speaker 3- Steve Gulluck

Steve Gulluck is our third guest speaker of the term for our what is education? module. In this lecture we were taught all about Governors within a school. Before going into full detail about what are governors and what is their role and son, Steve explained all the background knowledge we needed to know. For example,he firstly explained how schools in England and Wales are different and expanded on this. Following on from this, he then went on to tell us about what does being a governor involve and who does it include. I learnt that only those who have a relation to the school are allowed to be governors, such as parents, teachers/staff and those who live in the community. Also those who attend schools in England, Years 11-13 are able to become school governors. How to become a governor? was another question that was raised. Steve Gulluck went into great detail on how the process of becoming a governor works. I was quite shocked how much time and effort it takes in order for a person to become a governor. I was also unaware about the length of time a person is classed as a governor of the school which is 4years, which was of great benefit to me to know this information. I found this session very interesting and beneficial in the way that i was unaware of what is involved etc to become a governor. Wanting to per-sue a teaching career i found knowing this information will benefit me in the long run. I look forward to our next session on this particular topic to have wider knowledge and understanding of this.

Guest Speaker 2- Dr Russell Grigg

Dr Russel Grigg taught us all about the Estyn report. To start the session, he started off by explaining to us what estyn is and where it takes place. Some examples he gave us were places like Primary and secondary schools, adult community learning etc. He further explained what estyn does? which is to provide advice to the Welsh assembly Government and to inspect quality and standards in education. Towards the end of the lecture he described a typical inspection and what it en holds. So we came across things like what is an inspection like, who is involved and the importance of the data from the inspection. Dr Russel Grigg then also gave us two websites for us to look at in the future which were..estyn.gov.uk and ofsted.gov.uk

Guest Speaker- Ken Jones

Our first guest speaker was Ken Jones. He taught us all about the background to education that we needed. For example, the first question he asked us was who is the current minister for education in wales? However no-one knew who this was which was quite worrying as we are doing an education degree. Anyways that got covered and by the end of the lecture we knew who it was..Leighton Andrews. He also introduced us to a policy called PISA starting from the year of 2006-2010.
I found the lecture very interesting as i felt it was of great advantage to what he taught us as almost everyone in the lecture theater did not know this very important information about the education system.

Graffiti Art

In today's lesson we were shown a variaty of ways in which words can be used to create a picture. There were two programmes available called text-image.com and grafittiicreator.net.The programe i chose to do, i found on delicious.com and clicked on the link grafitti art. I created a grafitti art of my name which can be seen below.

Silent Movie!

In my first ICT lesson back from Christmas. Our task was to create a silent movie. We were put into groups of 4 or 5 people and had to choose i theme. The theme we chose was people. We then had to go around the uni with a camera device and film all different kinds of people. Once we gathered our information we then installed our clips onto the computer, and onto a program called windows movie maker. We had a few problems with this as it kept crashing, however we got there in the in end. To make the movie more interesting we speed ed up some of the clips and put voices on top of another. We are due to present our silent movie to the class in our next session :)

Placement Week

The week before chiristmas i carried out a weeks work experinece at Hirwaun Primary school. Before leaving for placement we were given a placement handbook with a number of tasks for us to do. On my first day od placement i got introduced to the head teacher, where she futher asked me which age group i would like to experience. The age group i chose was a year one class. My first day was pretty much getting to know the children and their teacher. At this time period i found the classroom was very hectic and not much work was being done, apart from activities relating to christmas.
My tasks for the week were to observe how the teacher and children interact, help children with their work. For exmaple, i helped children make christmas and folders for them to keep their work neatly. Also the children were practicing for their christmas concert so this was their main focus. The two main tasks i thought were useful to my learning was listsening to a handful of pupils reading; and taking them down to the computer room where i had to teach them to copy and paste festival pictures from google, in order to produce a festival poster. Things i found interesting was each day children had what they called "news time". This gave the children to discuss with each other and with the teacher what they are doing for the weekend or what they did the previous day. I thoughily enjoyed my placement week and look forward to my next placement :)