Matt Jenks's Blog

My own PDP

jenksy00 — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 23:03:30 +0000

I created a PDP which looks at 3 goals that i will look to improve on that are academic related and i have one area that is related to a careers that i will look to improve on. The 3 academic ones are all looking at different things that can be looked at from now on. The other one can be looked at now but it wont be a serious goal until i start looking into jobs and careers within the industry.

This is my PDP:

I will look to add to this through the year/course and possibly identify more weaknesses that i can try and improve on. This will be an ongoing project and i will look to try and come back and visit this regularly so that i know if i am following it correctly.

Personal development plan

jenksy00 — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:52:50 +0000

We leant today about personal development plans. A PDP is a “process that enhances and supports your experience as a student. By engaging in PDP you will be reviewing, building and reflecting on your personal and educational development. The process encourages you to take a step back and reflect on what you have achieved in a structured way. It also involves clearly identifying your goals and planning the steps you need to take to accomplish them.” (http://www.chiuni.ac.uk/pdp/WhatIsPDP.cfm)

With this in mind i had a look at some image example of what they could look like. I can see that they do vary mainly depending on what the creator wants to get out of it and also the industry in which they are in.

This is an example from http://www.mftrou.com/image-files/example-personal-development-plan.gif. It shows basically what i am after in a PDP so with this in mind i will try and create my own PDP to help me to improve as a person by identifying weaknesses.

Pecha Kucha

jenksy00 — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:03:01 +0000

Today we were set our task for the next few weeks and it was to create and present a presentation about our blogs. The presentation can be on any areas of the blogs or it could cover the whole blog itself, but it must follow a set design called Pecha Kucha.

Pecha Kucha was created for ”PechaKucha Night was devised in Tokyo in February 2003 as an event for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public.
It has turned into a massive celebration, with events happening in hundreds of cities around the world, inspiring creatives worldwide. Drawing its name from the Japanese term for the sound of “chit chat”, it rests on a presentation format that is based on a simple idea: 20 images x 20 seconds. It’s a format that makes presentations concise, and keeps things moving at a rapid pace.” (http://www.pecha-kucha.org/)

I have a basic understanding about what exactly we need to do but just to mak sure i am going to look at a few shows and i will do some more research into this presentation method to make sure i fully understand.

Social artwork

jenksy00 — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:55:16 +0000

I have been doing some recerch into social and artwork that can be associated with the word and i found this interesting piece:http://mosaicglobe.com/files/image/article-social.jpg

Its a simple piece but it shows various forms of technological ways to communicate and socialist with people using the internet. It has the logos of a few popular blogs and social networking sites/ applications.

Mappa Mundi

jenksy00 — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:43:24 +0000

Mappa Mundi was another thing that was mentioned in our lecture so i thought i would do some research into what it is:

http://www.magrathea.it/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/mappa_mundi.jpg

Mappa Mundi is a way of expressing various social trends using a map. This is a good example of a famous Mappa Mundi of Hereford Cathedral, Hereford, England, 1300. It is not 100% clear what it shows but from what can be worked out it shows social groups around the Hereford Cathedral around the time of 1300′s. These maps were not just produced in England but they were a form of art worldwide:

http://www.babelstone.co.uk/TowerOfBabel/Images/HerefordMappaMundi.jpg

This map shows social trends and groups in an area of India by Ghulammonhamed Sheikh.

I find these images very interesting as they are very different and they also have a deep meaning. They show a lot from what is essential a simple piece f art and they also give us an insight into the social culture around various periods in history across the globe.

Social?

jenksy00 — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:26:59 +0000

Just had a lecture all about basically the word “social”. This incorporates many different issues surrounding the word, such as social trends, social background, and social culture. But what does social mean?

relating to human society and its members; “social institutions”; “societal evolution”; “societal forces”; “social legislation”
living together or enjoying life in communities or organized groups; “a human being is a social animal”; “mature social behavior”
relating to or belonging to or characteristic of high society; “made fun of her being so social and high-toned”; “a social gossip column”; “the society page”
composed of sociable people or formed for the purpose of sociability; “a purely social club”; “the church has a large social hall”; “a social director”
tending to move or live together in groups or colonies of the same kind; “ants are social insects”
sociable: a party of people assembled to promote sociability and communal activity
marked by friendly companionship with others; “a social cup of coffee”
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

These are all thoughts on what the word “social”means.

To me the word social means a way of communicating, using either yourself or any other form of technology, to another person. quite simple but to me social brings to mind socializing.

Heath Bunting

jenksy00 — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:51:35 +0000

Heath Bunting was the first person that got mentioned in out lectures. Heath is known for various forms of digital art but we were told about him for his digital mind maps. This was the task for next week and Heath Bunting created some more complex versions of what we were asked to create. This is an example of his work and what we were asked to do:

I also did some research into himself as an artist and found this link to an interview with him where he explains his career and about all his art work that is has created and future artwork that he will be working on:

http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/6/6176/1.html

First Lecture

jenksy00 — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:43:22 +0000

It was my first lecture today for IDAT 101. My first thoughts on the module is that it is a lot less practical than some of the other module and it encourages us to think about certain issues more. I think it is a much more research based module where by we will be told about certain people and things within the industry and we will have to go away and research them. I’m looking forward to it because it is something very different to the other modules and i will require a lot more thought.

Finished!

jenksy00 — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:14:25 +0000

The site was compliant with the level 1 on http://www.contentquality.com/mynewtester/cynthia.exe so things are all good now. All i have to do is upload my site now and save it onto a disk then i will be complete. One thing i have defiantly learn from this is not to leave it all till the last minute because if anything went wrong then i would be in serious trouble.

less painful than i thought

jenksy00 — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:11:27 +0000

After putting my site into http://validator.w3.org/ there were only 19 errors on it so it didnt take long at al to fix them. alot of them were either simple missing taggs or very basic errors that took seconds to fix so im all very happy about that.

Now i have got to upload my site onto http://www.contentquality.com/mynewtester/cynthia.exe to see if it is level 1 compliant. fingers crossed it will be and it will all go as smoothly as the validation for the website did…