Evaluation Question 6

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

InternetI used the internet a lot when creating my media product. It allowed me to gather information and images which I needed during preparation and when I was actually making my product. The main websites I used when creating my magazine were:

• Prezi

• Blogspot

PreziPrezi was a website I used to display my work rather than just being written in paragraphs. It allowed me to create spider diagrams where I could include images. Some of the things I learnt from using Prezi when creating my magazine:

How to embed a Prezi onto my blog; simply by copying a link and posting it

Creating a path so my Prezi could have an order to it

How to insert images into my Prezi and how to re-size/move them

This has benefitted the production of my magazine as it has enabled me to display my work in a new, interesting way. By using a spider diagram with a path, I could easily look back at what I had wrote without having to read through paragraphs to find the thing that I was looking for. This helped me to save time, which I could put into making my product instead.

BlogspotBlogspot has been a very useful website whilst producing my magazine as it has helped me to publish my work and to have it set out in a chronological order – showing the progression of my product. Some of the things I learnt to do on Blogspot were:

How to embed Prezis, YouTube videos, Powerpoints, comic strips and posters

How to insert images into my posts

Alter the layout of my posts

Blogspot has brought a lot of advantages to when I was creating my magazine. It enabled me to display my work in an effective way which demonstrated my progress. By displaying it in chronological order, I could see where I was up to, and what needed to be done.

YouTubeBefore I started this project, I used YouTube when watching videos or listening to music. However, once I had used it for my product, I learnt a lot more about it:

• How to publish a video made on Movie Maker onto my channel

• How to embed videos into my blog posts

• Alter the information of my video – e.g. making it public or private

YouTube has benefitted my production of my final product widely. It allowed me to see how people of a certain music genre are targeted through music videos. This helped me to create the representation of social groups that I wanted in order to make my magazine effective for its target audience. It also benefitted my production as I could create my own video on social groups which could then be embedded onto my blog. This makes my blog look interesting and professional rather than just a paragraph of written words. If I had done that, I would have took me longer to do where I could have been improving my work instead.

Adobe PhotoshopBefore I started this production I didn’t have any idea of how to use Photoshop. After I had created my final product however, my knowledge grew of the program.

• How to edit my images effectively – adding gradients and changing the colour to make my image look more professional

• How to convert images to a JPEG file so it was compatible

• How to insert my images into Movie Maker, Prezi and my blog

All of these skills helped to benefit my production. It helped me to create a professional looking photo which I could use for my magazine making it look more appealing. The skills I learnt through the production will come in useful in the future if I do another project similar to this. Photoshop was simple to use and benefitted my product a huge amount.

Movie MakerI had used Movie Maker a few times before I started this project but only had little knowledge of how it worked. Through this production I learnt how to:

Import music and images into my videos

How to caption over the images so I could add some description

Moving the slides into a chronological order that would make sense

How to cut and fade out music onto certain slides

Using the animations on my video to make it more appealing. This included transitions etc.

How to make a slide longer or shorter depending on the content on the slide

All of these skills did benefit my production and also increased my knowledge of the program. I could create a professional looking video that could be published onto YouTube where I could then embed it onto my blog. The program was easy to use and it was actually fun to create a movie.

I found all of this software extremely useful for the production of my final product. All of them made my blog look more interesting and appealing with a wide range of different posts. This helped me to create a professional product, that matched my professional looking blog. It also increased my knowledge of programs which hopefully I will be able to put into practice in the future.