6) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

I used the computers at school to create a lot of my work and to do a lot of my research at school, however, when I did work at home, I used my laptop at home to complete work and I used a USB to transfer my work from one place to another, which enabled me to work on creating my magazine both at school and at home. The computer programmes that I used to create my magazine, included:

Microsoft word: Before I started to create my magazine front cover and contents page, there was lots of research that I had to do. I had to research different colours that I wanted to use on my magazine, different text styles (e.g.,- bold, big text that stands out for the title of my magazine). I also did research on different magazine conventions and all of the feedback I got from my drafts, I saved in a word document. Using a word document for all of my research made it easier for me to access it whenever I needed it, if I forgot what colour I wanted to use for the title, I could just look back at my research and see what it was. This way, I kept my magazine looking consistent.

Photoshop: Photoshop was the most important and an extremely useful computer programme that I used when undertaking this project.  I used Photoshop to create most of my magazine. To use the programme, I had to learn how to use the tools on the programme. I used a tool on Photoshop to change the lighting of an image; I did this by enhancing photographic exposure. To do this I had to add a curves adjustment layer and lighten the darker side of the image. I also used the crop tool, to crop images. The text tool was the most important tool when creating my magazine, especially the front cover because I had to ensure that the text that need to stand out stood out and the text that didn’t need to stand out as much, didn’t stand out. For example, I needed to make sure that the heading on the front cover stood out more than what the sub-heading did. The crop tool was also an important tool when using Photoshop, as I could crop around the shape of the person and not have the background.

Blogger: During the process of creating my media product, I regularly blogged about what stages of the media product I was at. This blog allowed me to publish all my drafts and research of the product online.

Powerpoint/Slide share: I used PowerPoint to create presentations throughout the project. SlideShare allowed me to upload any presentations that I had made whilst creating my media product, when these presentations were uploaded, it provided me with a link and I was then embedding the links on my blog, which allowed the presentations to be viewed from my blog.

Scanner: I also used a scanner whilst creating my magazine front cover and contents page as it allowed me to scan in any first drafts that I had made and upload them onto my blog.