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March
This month was the last of the project, which means I’m writing it as the project ends. But final deadline equals loads of work.
This month we:
-- Invitation: we did the invitation, which didn’t take
long, though I spent ages trying to think of a good design. Sir then gave me
feedback, saying that it aimed at the students instead of the staff, governors
and local VIPs, the rightful audience. I’d made a little informal -- oops! But
that was fixed quickly and I was all done.
-- E-Portfolio: I was
lucky enough not to have deleted last year’s e-portfolio (unlike some) which
saved me loads of time! I simply changed a few of the page layouts, adding rows
for print screens either side of the commentary and logos at the top. Ah, the
print screens . . . Once the commentary was done and dusted -- mostly for
homework, which was piling up -- I began the long task of print screening, using
Fireworks to get the right sizes. I came into school early to get it done and
stayed afterwards as well! But at least it got completed, right? I checked the
links and a few things, but it was fairly straightforward.
-- Project
Review: it was quite interesting looking back on the project and its good
and bad points, evaluating etc. It was almost like a reflection. I found out
things I hadn’t even realised yet. I spent most time out of lessons doing this,
writing extended bullet points and converting them into paragraphs. Didn’t take
too long . . .
One thing I haven’t yet mentioned is that this is my second run at Blogger. My original account was deleted which was awful, since I was mostly up to date. Other than that, I made a few changes to some things, like aligning boxes on my leaflet. I also updated my sources table and my final project plan.
So, this is it. The end of a project that has spanned a year, full of hard work and dedication . . . Too poetic for my tastes. This the end. It’s been great. Bye ICT. Miss you.
February
I’m quite enjoying publications, so this month wasn’t torture, hehe. I like doing all of the creative work which is awesome, and something that I prefer to work in Access and Excel.
This month we:
-- Leaflet: this was done at an average speed. I got the
pages done after trying out a few designs. I did the front page within fifteen
minutes max, using images from the welcome poster, taken by myself in Portobello
Road. I then made the middle two pages about the trips with the descriptions
from the spreadsheet. And then the back was the quiz. By then I was panicking --
what about the translations? Well, they’re in little coloured boxes everywhere.
Cool, right? Bit of time on feedback and I was done.
-- E-Cards: done in my own time and for homework, these didn’t take long. I did one
complicated one on two slides with loads of animations, transitions etc. The
second was still animated but simpler. But both of them run on loop and are
black at the end -- I can’t fix it!
In the middle of this was half-term, to let you know. I thought the leaflet would have taken less time but I guess because we did the e-cards in the half-term holiday, we got enough done. Next time, you’ll hear more about publications.
January
So, more welcome poster creative stuff! Awesome! I’m really enjoying learning the tips and tricks of how to use ICT creatively and it’s good to learn transferable skills.
This month we:
-- Welcome Posters: I finally finished the Fireworks
images, which took ages. Then I began designing the pages. I chose a category
for each, based on their words. They basically showed London off and told
students what trips they were going to go on. I made sure they were stand-alone
as that was a requirement. And then there were the sentences on there, one of
them in French because that was kind of welcoming. I spent an age on the timings
once I’d looped them -- the opposite: easy-peasy -- but they aren’t too bad
now.
-- Leaflet: we only looked a little at this, the requirements
and such. I chose the same colour scheme as my welcome poster, which was,
unfortunately, different to spreadsheet one. Ah, well.
So, next month more on the publications bit, specifically the leaflet at least. I foresee lots of lunchtimes spent on ICT work in the future . . .
December
Not too much happened this week, I must say. And at the end of the month, welcome posters! I’ve been looking forward to this bit ages!
This month we:
-- Trips Spreadsheet: I just finished off the budget
calculations and then began designing, which was fun. I chose the colour scheme
of my shortlist, so it fitted in. I added hyperlinks to each page so it easy to
access and locked almost everything (stuff that no one was meant to touch). Sir
gave us feedback on it and had nothing too bad to say about mine, which was
cool.
-- Welcome Posters: I really wanted to spend a lot of time on
this part of the project because it was start of the creative stuff, which is my
forte. We looked at the project brief to see the requirements and then some
examples. When I heard about primary images, I immediately knew what mine would
be -- words. Yep, meet: London, Unique, Fun! and Inspiring. They took a lot of
work outside of this week and I’m still not done.
More holidays! But I can say that I’m looking forward to doing more on welcome posters after the break. Merry Christmas!
November
Catch-up month. I didn’t even want to think about the work I missed, but I have and it was scary. Get ready for the list.
This month we (in a lot of my free time):
-- Trips Shortlist: this
involved making a table in excel and writing information about the destinations
within it. I chose a cool colour scheme (black, purple and white) and then began
to write. I used multi-map to find how long it took to get there, and the
websites to find out how much group rates were etc. I thought some of the
websites could have been more user friendly, but no worries. There had to be at
least 6 destinations for each of the destination types -- heritage etc. I spent
loads of time out of class doing this as you had to describe each trip, then
choose three trips per type and explain why we did or didn’t choose them.
-- Spreadsheet skills: I didn’t do too much of this since I had work to
catch up on and it wasn’t part of the project, but what I did do helped me with
the next thing and what I didn’t I had to learn of my friends, which was
annoying. One of these functions was the IF function, for example.
--
Trips Spreadsheet: this was where the spreadsheet skills came in handy. We
were introduced to the section -- yep, new section! -- and then we got started.
Looked at examples, deciding which were the best layouts etc. And then we began
using one of those structures ourselves. I chose to do everything on separate
pages because I found it clearer. I used the new functions to work out costs and
things like that, and they saved my life. Once all the information was added, I
highlighted the rows with formulas in them so I could identify them quickly (or
the examiner could). Then we did the summary sheet, which involved adding costs
together to see which combinations of trips went over budget. None of mine did.
Just a few more things on the spreadsheet to do next month. Thanks to all the hard work outside of lessons, I’m finally back on track! Hallelujah!
October
This month was more about the trip lists, though not about the searching, which was done. It was the cause of much PDF bad feelings . . .
This month we:
-- Trip Lists: we began by changing one of our searches
into a PDF file, and that took ages to do because I had loads of formatting
problems -- it didn’t want to fit on one page! Much of my week’s
unchtimes
was spent on that.
That was all I did this month, as I wasn’t here. Sun, sea and shopping awaits in Brazil!
September
The back-to-school-month was all about the destination database, again! We’re spending ages on it. It’s slightly annoying that the examiner won’t actually be marking our database, but a document with print screens. I almost feel like the work was for nothing, but oh well.
This month we:
-- Database Evidence Report: we had a whole sheet to fill
out and to comment about, which was kind of daunting. We explained everything
that we had done within this document and this meant that we had to print screen
everything tiny, little thing we did -- that’s a lot of print screening! We
looked at the why’s and how’s etc. and annotated the print screens, with the
help of a, well, help sheet. I used a criteria sheet as well. Then it was handed
into sir.
-- Trip Lists: this was about searching through the
database and finding the best trips for the final trip categories -- it was the
first step into narrowing it down. We also did a print screen report for the
trip searching as well. I stuck to same kind of layout as the first report, so
that it was more professional.
So, still on the database, eh? It does take it’s time. Next month, guess what: more database work! I want to get onto the more creative work.
