Communication Technology: Evaluation
I have learnt interactivity. A wide, all encompassing word such as this can be both problematic and useful. Problematic in that interactivity essentially left me in a bit of a wilderness at first, with the word needing further definition; which is posted on my blog. It was useful however as it allowed me to learn what I wanted to learn. I was able to learn both the theory of how people interact with websites, as well as put this into practice by learning a wide range of skills.
The first major step I took to start learning was to take an existing website and get creative. In this case, I took the St. George's website, which I have some control over, and came up with ideas about what I'd improve.
This defined what I want to learn. I went with these ideas to Simon who told me what I need to learn in order to do these things. This was a list of programs and languages including JavaScript, Flash and RSS. I left a little lost as, in honesty, I had no idea what Javascript was in reality.
Therefore I watched tutorials on YouTube for Javascript having done this for Flash. I later realised this was unwise and time wasting as JS is a case of finding codes and embedding on the whole- but I wasn't to know this then. For me it's a bit of a double-edged sword as I should have put my foot down a bit more with Simon rather than letting him tell me to 'go away and do tutorials'. A simple 10 minute crash course would have given me a springboard to learn it. Christian later did this, although by this time I had already wasted around two weeks.
My context blog shows my engagement with critical discourse surrounding this issue. Typical of me to pick the industry that is changing the fastest, technological developments in my area are happening as I type. The major change is HTML 5, which will provide a uniform way of presenting media. It was worth learning Flash as a 'base' to the learning; I suppose it's a similar case to how typographers would find it useful to learn typesetting despite on screen type being used more now. This sets up the next stage beyond the project perfectly though- get to grips with HTML 5. Thinking about PPD, I want to make sure that by the time I leave this course, I am at the forefront of new media design in terms of my skills base. Therefore, a similar Comm Tech project with HTML 5 is the next step.
I've learnt that my work patterns fluctuate. Some weeks I get hardly anything done, and tend to be content with that. As the deadline approaches or there are less problems to be dealt with, I can work loads. I suppose this says that I'm a hard worker when there are things to be done, but when I'm 'wandering around', I'm happy with that. In the last three weeks I've been doing several 0900-1800 and 0900-2100 shifts with an eagerness to get things done- but this has only come since I exited the doldrums where I was going round in endless circles trying to get Action Script to work.
I've been told by Graham that I'm perhaps not that proactive. I'm not sure if I'd agree with this though- perhaps I take things at my own pace sometimes too much, but when something needs doing I get it done and seek the relevant people. Having said this, I think there's a fair point in there somewhere as I could actually up my game and take things up a level if I took a level of risk in my learning. By trying to get mini live briefs that would facilitate my learning could speed up the learning process and make it generally more relevant.
I said earlier that the next step is to learn some HTML 5. I'm great at engaging with critical discourse. I check several news sites several times a day and am subscribed to various news providers. I'm also on a number of forums. I'm confident that there's absolutely no issue in my knowledge of where things are going in the industry. However I'm terrible at putting this into practice. If I had been more organised I could have learnt some HTML 5 in this project.
Something that always disappoints me with web is that so much learning can have tiny results. To an average passive web user, they click buttons and roll over flash elements as if they've been made and posted disposably. It's taken me weeks to learn how to make the Flash widgets I've made, but they appear rather significant. I really want to make something more impressive using the same skills for my own peace of mind and self satisfaction on a future project- and I already have ideas for this.
Throughout this evaluation, time management has cropped up many times. My time management is... unique. I don't know whether I'm organised or not- I remember everything, get everything done before deadlines, and generally do quite a good job. But I am very flexible- there's very little structure in my time. I'm not sure if this matters though? What I do know though is that if I planned things a little bit more, but still allowed flexibility, I could get more work time in and thus learn more.
The brief asks to evaluate how well I manage projects. I know fully that this is one of my skills. I have previously organised some huge events, and I'm pretty good at getting people into order and chasing things up. I'm positive about my management of projects without a doubt.
I spoke earlier about my Context blog. I have three ongoing blogs that are linked together to make one organised portfolio of my work, engagement with critical discourse and assessment of typography. I find this is usually a good way to work and document things, but it became a problem for this project as my Comm Tech work is mixed in with many other things. To mitigate this I have labeled and tagged every Comm Tech post to make it as easy to view as a project as possible. I’ve not been that good at blogging through this. I have been blogging relatively regularly, and each post is accompanied with text, but to document a process fully I should have been taking screen shots much more regularly and posting these, not necessarily with text.
It's been a mixed project in conclusion. If I could do it again, I would. There was a very slow start, partly down to me but there were other factors in there too; Simon, the Flash specialist, had tonsillitis for two weeks for example. If I had got the Action Script problem sorted much earlier on in the project, I would have been able to develop my Flash skills to a much greater extent I think. It has only really been in the last two weeks I've been able to get creative with Flash after learning the bones. Despite all this, I'm really happy that my skills base has expanded. I have a good skills base as a designer and now feel I could confidently design and build a standard, mainstream website. I am nowhere near fluent in Flash, but I can build simple interfaces and make simple animations in it; which I suppose is all I need for web design. When I put this into the context of the whole year, I've gone from not having a clue about how to make even the simplest web page to being able to make fully interactive websites. With my skills in other design programs, this gives me confidence I'm going to be able to get out there and do more and better live projects as a more rounded designer. My skills base will continue to expand once this project ceases, and this is the ongoing aim for me on this course.
