Evaluation Six - What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

From researching to finalising my magazine, I have used multiple amounts of software.

I went onto Slideshare to view other peoples work that had previously created their own magazines. I tried using it myself but I found it difficult and I didn't think it looked that good when I put images and text together. Also, I didn't like the way the presentations looked and I didn't think they looked very professional so, I didn't want to use them for my own work either. 

I used both a Macbook Pro and an iMac to research and upload my work. This is because they were available at school and my home so it was easy to transfer work from both places. I found them easy to use and the upload time was quite quick and the graphics seemed to make my work look a lot clearer. There was one slight problem when I tried to upload my first draft of the double page spread because I had worked on this on Publisher and the Mac I used at home didn't have this software so, I had to use a Windows laptop that was available to me at home to upload the post when it was needed and this was quite time consuming.

I used Pixlr express to create my final pieces for my magazine and this was very useful as it had lots of different edits to choose from that I could manipulate onto my images to give them a professional look. I didn't want to use any other software as I thoroughly enjoyed using this one as it was really easy to transfer onto my blog. One problem that did occur was when I tried to place the images onto my blog it kept saving as a text document instead of an image so I had to make sure that I wrote jpg at the end of the saved name so that the file would transfer to an image file. This was time consuming but once I had figured out what was going wrong everything worked fairly quickly.

  

I didn't end up using a camera as I found it a lot easier to just use the iPhone instead. I downloaded extra apps such as BeFunky as well as just using the edits readily available on the camera app already installed on the phone to create a clear looking photo for my magazine. The camera on this phone has the same GB as some cameras and the images that were produced were very good quality so I was happy with the result from using this equipment. I always had it with me so, it just made sense to use this instead of using two different types of equipment as I would have had to carry various different equipment and the leads that go with them and these could have easily been misplaced.

 I made sure that I had a memory stick with me all the time when working on my blog so that if anything was unable to save I was able to quickly place it onto my memory stick or if I hadn't finished work in one place I could put it on my memory stick and take it with me to somewhere else and continue my work exactly the same. It was very small though so I made sure I was extra careful so that I wouldn't lose it!

When I wasn't near a computer, I was able to continue with work on an iPad as it was easy to go onto the Blogger App or Safari and access my blog. This made it easy for when I just had a small blog that I had to upload and I had some spare time to quickly complete it because I didn't have to wait for the computer to load as the iPad was already always on.

I used YouTube to upload music videos of an artist in a blog I did a while ago to show an idea that I had for my magazine. This was useful because I was able to present my work in a different way and this engaged will have engaged my blog audience more. 

I also watched video responses of previous students who had done the same work and this helped when working on my own piece because I was able to see if what I was doing was correct but also so I could try to improve my work based on my peers.

I used Google as my main source of researching and I found many images and information that I was able to use to make my blog even better. Without Google I would have found it difficult to find out even more about things like Media Institutions.

I feel that the technology that I used was very reliable and easy to access most of the time. I realised that you couldn't just use one piece of equipment or software otherwise the magazine would have taken a lot longer to complete and I would never have learned how to use all the different types of software that were available.