Thursday 21st November

Today we started with a test. We had to listen to a song by weird Al, followed by questions about the song. The test was quite hard but it was created by John so this was to be expected. I got 10/13, which is pretty good considering I could hardly understand what he was saying. This meant that I came joint first with Mr Shane Barnes. The bad news was we didn't win chocolate because I think John has eaten it all.

After that I was working on my animation again. I am really close to finishing but I was having problems with some of the coding but Lewis soon sorted it out for me, all I need to do is add the information of the last for animated pages. 

Wednesday 20th November

Today we started with a technical task, we had to create a paper airplane; but we had to make it how we would create any piece of work. This turned out to be referencing, meaning we had to reference the webpages we got our ideas and help from for the plane.

I didn't do this because I created mine from my head. Anyone's who weren't referenced were thrown in the bin. Only 6 of us made the cut (including John, Me and Lewis); Shane came third, John came second and as for me, I came first. My simple yet evenly balanced, long gliding plan, WON!!! I managed to win some rolo’s.

The rest of the day I was working on my animation. Because I have lots of ActionScript and lots of layers it all got rather confusing so I needed Lewis to help me with some of the coding and where to put what. When he helped I was soon sorted out and knew what I was doing. When it came to doing different coding for different parts, I had to get him to help me again.

In the final part of the day we peer reviewed the animations of the people who finished. Lewis animation came about 5 and Dan won with flying colours, 87 points. I should have it all done by tomorrow, Friday at the latest because I have only bits and bobs to do but using flash can be rather frustrating. 

Tuesday 19th November

Today was the day of Dan’s TED Tuesday! We were lucky enough to be blessed by Dan Summersgill questionnaire; the president of the level 3 extended himself. It was quite hard though because Dan was very specific on the questions, however it wasn't as difficult as Matt's was. Lewis won the quiz today and managed to bag himself a ripple. I came close by getting two point less than him.

Today I started my web banner on Adobe Flash; I got all of the basic assets and part of the way it will work. Tomorrow and Thursday I need to add a lot of coding (ActionScript) to make it a lot more interactive like the task has asked of us to do. I will include links and buttons. The creating of the assets and the actual animation was pretty easy as I remember a fair amount of Flash from last year. To do the ActionScript I will need Lewis help as he started all of that today.

Monday 18th November

Today I came in later due to lack of sleep, if I had come in in the morning I would have fallen asleep within half an hour of being here so I thought it would be better to get some sleep and come in on the second break.

Today I spent time going through the assignment that is meant to be handed in today and I believe I will be finished by the end of the day. I went through all my designs for the animated web banner and decided on which one I wanted to use to create in Adobe Flash.

John wanted us to proof read other student's work in order to improve our feedback on peoples work. This was a repetitive task but it was obvious as to the importance of the task because John was becoming frustrated with marking peoples work and not having correct referencing, grammar and spelling etc. I received back Task one and two of assignment one and there were only about five changes all together. All I need to do is add some images in to make it more relevant. The grade I received back from people was a distinction; I was happy with this as I was aiming to get a distinction. I will finish off the rest of the assignment (task 4 and 5) for Thursday.

Thursday 14 November

When we all came in today we got on with what we were supposed to do, which for me was to carry on with A2 of web animation and update any work that is out standing. John was not coming in till 45 minutes after the day has started because he had a Physiotherapy appointment. 

Today I done half of the specification and will continue with it at home so I can send it to John later on tonight. I managed to update Assignment 2/3 Task 1 and Assignment 3 Task 2 of digital graphics. A2/3 T1 took me longer than I thought because I had to compare my old InDesign to the one John has marked. To make things easier for John to mark my work, I have updated my InDesign document and wrote out my text in a word document so John can look at both. If there are any changes need making then John can do it on the word document instead of the InDesign document, this will make it a lot easier for both of us.

I have sent both A2/3 T1 and A3 T2 to John.

Me, Dan and Shane helped Lewis quite a lot today because he needed our opinions on whether his animation was good or not and what he could do to improve it. So far he has done a very good animation.

Wednesday 13 November

We started the day by looking at three storyboards; we had to rank them from the best to the worst. It was clear the better ones used clear annotations stating the times, colours and so on. We then went on to an animating company’s website, where it showed what animations should include. This showed us that planning is the most important process of the animation because without a good plan, its more than likely the end result won’t be as good as you first thought

I finished my designing phase for web animation today, I have drawn four designs all together and like I said yesterday I will expand on my old design to make it more complicated. All I need to do I complete the specification document and update my Gant chart and I will be done for A2 of web animation.

We are finishing at 3 today because the there is an open evening for Develop. Me and Lewis will now take apart a computer and label all of the components so the people who visit develop can see what a computer consists of.

Tuesday 12 November

John started the day off with Matts TED Tuesday video, he was sadly unable to be here to read the questions out himself. The video was slightly weird, bit like Matt, but never the less i got on with it. The video was about 10 things people thought they knew but actually didn't, it involved the presenter giving some handy hints and tips about simple shortcuts on a computer keyboard that people should know about and some tips about iPhones.

After that John sent us three links to different articles on the BBC website. The first one was about a young lad called Jamal Edwards who become a millionaire just by posting music video of Rappers and Pop starts on YouTube, he has been doing this since he was 15 years old and is now 23 and worth £8 million. That's not too bad at all. 

The second article was about a team from the University of Cambridge found that codes entered on a number-only soft keypad on a smartphone could be identified by using a programme called PIN Skimmer. The software watches your face via the camera and listens to clicks through the microphone as you type. This shows that there are threats in/on your phone where you wouldn't expect them to be.

The Third Article was about Microwave signals that are turned into electrical power. According to this article in the future you will be able to use satellite, sound or wi-fi signals to charge a phone and just be used as general power.

For most of the day is was starting the second assignment in Web Animation, I am currently on the designing phase. I have managed to create two designs today and I am expanding on my web banner from the previous unit. I have also been updating work from the last unit to make sure I am done, i also sent in A3 T2 from Digital Graphics unit.