Capitalism in crisis

http://contemporarymediaissues.wetpaint.com/page/Capitalism+in+Crisis

The link at the top is a group wiki about Capitalism in crisis. This explores the different areas of crisis and how it is effecting the public,business's and the enviroment.

The Game!

So we had to come up with a game in our groups and within this presentations it shows how it will work the rules around the game and also how we thought of the game!
Enjoy...

The Lift Game

My Website

We first started to look at web design in session 15 where we were introduced to web design and accessibility. This was a key ingredient of successful web making practice and the ability to reduce complex concepts into simple easily understandable elements. We looked at the key components on different websites and used useful links to generate ideas for our own website. During this time we quickly moved onto looking closely at the different designs and layouts of websites to help us identify the difference and compared and contrasted good websites and poor websites this gave us a better understanding on how the tutor would like our own websites to look .

This is how my final website looked: Mysite

Reflection

This is my screenr reflectional presentation which I found really hard due to the following 
A. Your talking to yourself
             AND
B. Having a scouse accent doesnt help

Reflection

Profiles

Unfortunatly for the Fake profiles we had to make the one me and the group made was blocked when it came to presenting it! DEVASTATED... but we had made him a TWITTER so we were able to talk about this instead and how much media is involved when signing up to social networking sites.

Mark Hepburn

VIDEOS!

Here are just some of the films I have produced over semesters one and two!
People on the move - Mad world

Personal profile

Its Liverpool

 

Creativity & Concept - Whats it all about?

Todays lecture was about suming up what all the thinking techniques were for and what were gona use them for in later life. We recieved a photocopy of a CBBC aplication form which was all about new ideas. The mojority of the form was to think of new programs or how you would revamp old programs.

Before this lecture I was struggling to understand why we were learning all these different thinking techniques but after it was spoke about in more detail it was easier to understand without feeling a bit lost.

The next thing we done was talk about how much media we use each day.
sooo... How much media do we actually use?

Games = board games,computer games,card games
Reading = magazines,books, news papers
Television = Programs,films
Internet = mainly everything
Talking = skype,facebook,phone

These are just some of the media we use every day and not even notice. So by using this type of media we are actually taking part in being a target audience for companies to measure the amout of media people are using at certain times.

Personal Profile!

Yet another video...
The Personal profile was a task trying to find someone whos profession was intresting and also they had to be a good talker. Whilst planning and thinking of people who would help us out with this project it sprung to mind that i could use a family memeber who works at Croxteth fire station as a fire fighter.

Brick wall!
The idea i had was different and the group seemed to like it but the only problem we had was the time. We only had a week to film and edit the whole thing. I would have to check with the people in charge if it would be okay to film on there premisis and be available on the date they would give us. This was difficult so it was back to the drawing board to figure out a new plan of action.

After are hickup we decided to use are second best idea which was to interview Sophies mum who owned her own pub and was also the barmaid.With this new idea we were able to film at any time of day because it was her permission and the outcome we thought was brilliant.

Edward De Bono- 6 thinking hats

Six Thinking Hats is a book by Edward de Bono. The term Six Thinking Hats is also used to describe the tool for group discussion and individual thinking that is the subject of the book.Combined with the idea of parallel thinking which is associated with it, the thinking hat tool provides a means for groups to think together more effectively, and a means to plan thinking processes in a detailed and cohesive way.

Basically each coloured hat reprosents a different way of thinking and each hat has its own meaning. (shown below)

I found it hard to understand some of these techniques but found them very usefull to use in the future while trying to come up with ideas for other projects.

Here is a clear video explaing 6 thinking hats in a more detailed way.

Struggle!

After being off for over a week after hearing some bad news i found it hard to get back into university life and the course itself becasue it began to become so hands on. I had a one on one talk with my tutor who helped me to leave my worries back at home and become determined to get through this year. Many of the tutors were very suportive during this hard time and i decided to stick at the course.
Im glad about my decision but sometimes feel that theres a lot of work thats given all at ones but i suppose thats what happens. Working in different groups helps me to understands other people and how they work in a team. Its intresting that one persons strength is another persons weakness, so it gives people more confidence in what role they bring into the team.

Filming 'Its Liverpool'

Having been off for most of this i caught up with my fellow students to discuss what there ideas were for this project. There idea was to capture footage of liverpools most famous buildings and tell a story using this footage. I didnt really have no input in this project but they seemed to have it all under control so i was looking forward to seeing the final result.
Below are some building featured in the short movie.

Google Maps - Location Based Narrative

Today was when we started are location based narrative. Unfortunatly i had been off for this lesson but managed to catch up with my group members to disguss what there idea was and how we were going to go about making the story work. There were a few ideas around the table but we manged tostick with one we all agreed on and that would be most of intrest to the group and audience.

The starting point we were given was Otterspool Prom so thinking of a story to do with that location was tough at first but we had in mind what we wanted to do before recieveing are location. We took it step by step thinging of places around the world this person could have been to and it was obvious, it had to be a biography about Steven Gerrard!

One of the most talked about and recognised footballer ever known Steven Gerrard was born in Whiston Merseyide, a suburb of Liverpool England in 1980. He started his successful professional soccer career in 1998 on the club team Liverpool.

 

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?msid=203481394485836462880.0004b6cadc9eeaa54cd6b&msa=0

Creativity & Concept

Havnt done a blog in a long time so here goes!... (Monday 16th Jan)

Today was when we were introduced to the first essignment of 2012. The task was to create an exhibit,event or artifact for the new museum in Liverpool.

We each started by getting into groups of 3 and with a list we had been given write down the numbers 1-10 of the topics of our intrest. We were then given a number and if you wer one of the lucky ones that got one of the first numbers then you wer able to pic the topic you would like to base the project on. The group i was in were 4th so we chose a local history group to create our ideas from.
The humor to this was being able to pick your group name.It started to look like the worst songs in the top 10 charts at one point, but we settled on FRUBES.

We Think - A Discussion in Mass Inovation and Participatory Culture

The link below allows you to explore what Charles Leadbeater's book (We Think) is about, and find out other links and information to do with ways of thinking.

http://contemporarymediaissues.wetpaint.com/page/We+Think+-+A+Discussion+in+Mass+Inovation+and+Participatory+Culture

For a better undersatnding of the book we think click HERE!

Lego serious play

Plato says ‘You can learn more about a person in an hour of play than you can in a life time of conversation’ and Lego serious play was used as a talking tool to get everyone interacting and thinking that the Lego was not just a piece of plastic but could be a metaphorical resemblance of a person or how there personality could be. We started off by gathering on the sofas in the Automatic were we were given a plastic elephant toy and was told that the elephant was a metaphor of the personality of a new teacher that will be having us next week. The elephant was passed around the room and a series of answers were given to do with the personality of the teacher. Answers such as a very bold person, very helpful, likes to engage and interact with people and is a good listener. The first model was to build a tower, the only rules being it had to be on a green base and have a figure on the top. This was my first model that I built, and as you can tell most if it is very symmetrical. This could identify what my personality is like or what am like as a person. Also the model I built isn’t so high off the ground this is because I like to be stable in what I do and in anything practical I am involved in. In some cases I felt slightly uncomfortable talking about the building because I felt like I was giving to much information away about myself especially when we were told to build the second tower which had to consist of adapting to the tower to reflect on what you bring to the team.

Comparing to the other model I added

many more Lego blocks and a net. This resembles that I like to have a back up plan to any of my ideas if they fail on me or I don’t think that they are good enough. I would bring stableness and creativity to the team as I like to think of myself as creative, mainly through production or drawing my ideas.

The third model was a core element of a successful team. Once all the models were finished we then used a technique called landscaping to place the elements of the team in proximity of each other in order to understand the group’s concept of essential teamwork components.

Finally are team gathered all the Lego buildings and place them a pens width away from each other to show which was the most important and strongest part to the cycle of teamwork. Once we had are own models in the right place we realised that there were a few parts  missing to complete the cycle, so we made models to fill in what we needed in order for it to work. The one model we had to remake was the communication between students. We decided to place small character models in a line

and link them up from there heads using rope. This suggests that we all should work together and every idea should count in making the final product. Starting from the right all of the small models cluttered together resemble the ideas. A majority of us made these as are first models so it shows that were creative in what we think. Moving further into the middle the tall black model was the key that holds it all together a bit like the brain of it all and the connection between everyone in the group. This helps everything move a long smoothly. Further down into the left corner was the outcomes and the production and editing side to teamwork. This method  helped show are creative side to one another and it was brilliant to see how Lego can help with story telling and how its used to not only say what you mean but build what you think about. I would defiantly use Lego to create ideas to help with explaining what I mean and how I will go about making my ideas in future presentations.

Edward De Bono

My favourite method that we studied was the random stimulus. It is basically solving problems through a creative approach, some of the problems may not be obvious but by using Convergent thinking and other creative thinking techniques it can be solved with many solutions and ideas. To put are lateral thinking to the test we were given De Bono’s random thinking cards and random word sheets.We were then told to write down things that relate to the cards. After a lot of thinking and planning and we had all the information in front of us that we needed we then had to come up with an idea for the screen school using just these words to think of a product of some kind. Are ideas had to be feasible so many of the ideas we had down had to be rearranged or changed dramatically in order for it to work. One of are ideas were to have glow bug lights instead of light bulbs within the screen school. Automatically this is never doable but with slightly changing the idea to replicas of the glow bugs made out of plastic we were able to make are idea more realistic and a possible idea for the school.

Creativity and Concept (Divergent & Convergent thinking)

Concept extraction was the topic for session two and we then considered Divergent and convergent thinking. Divergent thinking is a method used to generate ideas which can then make possible solutions. You start with one object for example a paper clip then find as many different uses for that paper clip as possible. The more ideas you come up with the more unique your answer will be. This helps with trying to think outside the box and getting rid of the first ideas that come into your head. It somehow digs the unusual ideas out which can be more relevant to the question asked, even if your idea is not possible. Convergent thinking on the other hand is often used in conjunction to Divergent thinking. It brings as many ideas as possible together to form one object or one idea.

This is used in many schools during multiple choice test for intelligence. We gave this test a go to find out what intelligence type we were. I found this type of creative thinking really interesting and it helped me a lot in being able to branch out to new ideas and not worry about them being wrong as there is no right or wrong answer. The test showed that I was special-visual am better at looking at art work or drawing my ideas on paper rather then writing them down. After doing this test it was time to think of ways in which to transform the teaching room into a better space for learning, we generated ideas and concepts and also placed these on the wall. We placed concepts on top of the line but didn’t give anything to specific to give to the contractor. We matched up the ideas and concepts and then added ideas below concepts and concepts above ideas - to generate more ideas and concepts. Overall I found this way of thinking to be more challenging because some of the concepts weren’t as straight forward as some of the ideas where. It was easier to find ideas then concepts because we were constantly thinking about ideas and most of them weren’t doable. This challenged are creative mind in order for us to come up with exclusive ideas. Also it helped with teamwork and working in groups you wouldn’t normally work with so it gave me an insight of how other people work and what ideas they had.    

A reflection of Creativity and Concept

Throughout this module we have been introduced to many creative thinking techniques, to make us understand and be able to think outside the box, therefore challenging our own ways of thinking. This will help us in the future to think of ideas that are unique and possibly never been tried before.  

Firstly we had to understand the basics of creativity and what it means to be creative. In the first session we brainstormed definitions of creativity and pinned them up on the wall, in order for everyone in the room to look around and see what the different definitions were and what other people thought creativity was.

There were many different interpretations of the word creativity and many of use gave examples such as: development of something smaller, speaking freely, looking inside the bigger picture to the smaller picture and ignoring limits. These were just a few examples people gave. At first I was unsure what I thought creativity was. Was it being artistic? Or being open minded about difficult situations? I came to the conclusion that both of these answers were to do with being creative along with many other answers I gave. It wasn’t about getting the right answer because we all think differently and word may mean something different to other people.

 We also researched theories and theorists and people who we thought to be creative in whatever industry there from whether it be Film directors, Actors, Witters, Cinematographs etc. During this first session we also looked at ways of recording are creativity through sketch booking. There were many ideas captured in the sketchbook that could be used within an idea or trying to build on an idea to make it better. Sketch booking is a great way to write or draw down any ideas or memories that could be used in the future. I have started to use this method because it not only helps me plan my ideas but it helps with remembering what I have done in the past.