Week 4 – 17th October – List Articles – & Reflection [DJ]

Funniest comedians of the decade 

Which of the world famous comedians continued to make you laugh through the decade?

We’ve selected some of what we think are interesting and funny comedians that have kept people around the world howling with laughter over the last decade. Its been a hard decision to choose such individuals but we have picked some of the cream of the crop. Let’s hope you think we’ve done them justice. Here’s just three of our top 100.

 Out of hundreds of comedians we have selected three at random for you to have a peek at and see if these men and women can make you laugh. Some of these entertaining people you may know and others you may want to see what their like!

Ricky Gevais

1. Ricky Gervais

He may have started out as a singer from seona dancing but he soon became a hit with his podcasts on XFM radio and released them on itunes. He has become one of britain’s most hilarious contemporaries within comedy and i think he is one of the best comedians of this decade. Not only has Ricky Gervais given us stand up comedy at its best but brought us some hilarious television shows such as The Office and Extras and Idiot Abroad 1 &2.

2. Peter Kay

Garlic Bread?! Not only has this catch phrase been said by pretty much every person in the united kingdom he has become a much loved comedian of this decade. His humour is perfect for all the family to go and see and his stand up has something for everyone. He is charmingly british and his funny one liners and up beat personality make his comedy hard to resist. He also has made several comedy shows including Phoenix Nights & Max & Paddy’s Road to nowhere.

3. Sarah Millican

I told you i’d be using women comedians also! Sarah has been brought up from around south shields and her accent is a big part of her comedy mainly about relationships. She is a fairly recent up and comer on the comedy scene but has brought nothing but entertainment with her! One the ladies can relate too and she never fails to make her audience laugh and love her at the same time. She has been on many television shows.

Reflection: I found the list writing workshop simple enough and i’ve seen and read alot of the list articles in magazines and newspapers. I found out that readers find them easier as they are a simpler format to read and have more fact and interest packed into them about the subject so the reader gets the most out of the smaller amount of article. Its best for web format as readers scim read and tend not to look at full articles. Freelance journalists gain more work from list articles as they are in higher demand for web and magazine format which dont have readers whose attention stays on big articles but would rather read shorter articles.

Week 3 -10th October – Building collabarative resources [DJ & VC]

Reflection: I found the steps for this difficult as i didn’t actually attend the lecture. I emailed Karl and explained why I hadn’t been able to attend this particular lecture. I then followed the steps I had found on the Wiki through Leeds met uni x-stream portal. I found that we were all as a group collaborating our resources we’d previously been looking for the weeks before. I decided the only way I could add anything to this was by adding one link for each as other people had the same links I had found previously or some of the links I had found just weren’t that useful to be on the collab.
I have decided to pick the best one from each of my resources that weren’t duplicates of anyone Else’s and that were relevant to the topics we had being searching about.
I also found that the links i’ve decided to add were the ones I had chosen within the group I’d worked in whilst sorting through resources Gemma Richardson looked through my resources  to see which ones would be suitable for the collaborative resources and vice virsa. I feel that my Harvard referencing of the resources could do with some work but that I have referenced them against the Leeds met Harvard referencing “Quote, Unquote” guidelines in my blog.

Boolean search – Week 2 – 3rd oct 2011 – workshop & Reflection [DJ & VC]

Deep search finds for – deconstructing photographic images

Deep searching is all about the key words and phrases you use whilst using the search engine itself. I found it a lot easier than i thought it was going to be. However I usually only search things with google i found you can use boolean searches in other search engines which will be helpful to know for future reference when i have to search something deeper than an everyday search.
Using AND in a search will let us search two things at once and will bring up both subjects within the search whilst using OR will bring up two subjects at the same time but simultanisley bring them up seperately. You can also search on google for images and the different file types and image sizes as well as exclude certain words by using a “-” sign and then writing the word you want excluding after it. You can also use this to exclude the search engine from searching certain sites for images.

I found it a very useful workshop which will also come in handy with referencing work in the future and finding good sources for our work.

Keyword  “Deconstructing photographs”

http://photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?topic_id=23&msg_id=003krY

http://www.bestlibrary.org/ssmedia/2009/10/deconstructing-photographs.html

Keyword “Semiotic analysis OR deconstructing images”

http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Students/pmc9601.html

http://w3.gril.univ-tlse2.fr/Proimago/LogiCoursimage/semiotic.htm

Keyword “Reading photographs”

http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Modules/MC10220/reading_photos.html

http://nuovo.com/southern-images/analyses.html

http://www.noodletools.com/debbie/literacies/visual/diglitnews.pdf

Keyword “Deconstructed photographs”

http://www.flickr.com/photos/caitlin_alexandra/5389973231/

Keyword “Image Anaylsis”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_analysis

Keyword “Reading images OR photographic  deconstruction”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_analysis

http://ukw.academia.edu/MikolajSobocinski/Papers/111275/Ideology_in_Images_-_We_Are_Being_Framed_Analysis_of_Press_Photography_Films_Posters_and_WW2_Propaganda_Posters_

Using The Library Workshop & Reflection – Week 1 – 2011 – 26th September [DJ & VC]

Reflection: We were using the university library today to find references for 3 different people. I found out how to use harvard referencing by going onto the xsteam portal then clicking onto the 24 hr digital library for our university then clicking on skills for learning and searching the harvard reference on the page. I used page 23 as a guide of how i did my harvard referencing this time but for essays it would be slightly different as i would have to add a bibliography and highlight the references.

I did find harvard referencing rather difficult however once i’d read the book or parts of the book online from the library on how to harvard reference and spoken to karl about how was the best way to reference, i found it alot easier to use harvard referencing and how to set out my references.

I feel harvard referencing will become easier the more I use it and in time i will gain the skills i need for when i write long essays and need to reference for my quotes. I found out how to use the library more also in today’s session which i feel has helped me and has given me more confidence to book to see the librarian when im stuck and need help with referencing for future essays.

Marshall Mcluhan’s the medium is the message

Reference 1. Tan Austen. (2001) At 100, a media prophet finally gets his due. Guelph Mercury. 29th June. Pg A9.

(Nexis – Newspaper article)

Reference 2. Gordon, W. Terrence, Marshall Mcluhan (2005) Unbound. Corte madera, CA: Ginko Press.

(Library Book)

Reference 3. Ed Driscoll (2010) Full helvetica jacket (Internet blog) avaliable from: <http://pajamasmedia.com/eddriscoll/2010/10/05/full-helvetica-jacket/z&gt; (Accessed 6th october 2010)

(Nexis – Blog)

John Bergers way of seeing

Reference 1. Peter Schjeldahl (2011) haarlem shuffle; the fast world of frans hals. The new yorker 8th august pg 74. vol 87. no 23.

(Nexis – newspaper)

Reference 2. De botton, alain (2009) best books ever. (internet) 11/23/2009 Vol 154. Issue 21. P59-59 1/3p Accessed 11/23/2009
(EBSCO)

Roland Barthes Camera Lucida

Reference 1. Virginia heffernan (2010) studies in hyperreality. The new york times. 14th November. pg 26.

(Nexis Newspaper)
Reference 2. Roland Barthes, richard miller. (1998) S/Z new york: hill and wang.

(Library book)

Reference 3. alpert avaram (2010) overcome by photography: camera lucida in an international frame (internet) may 2010 vol 24. issue 3. p331-339 9p. accessed may 2010.

(EBSCO)

Week 10 – Zip file back up blog

In this session we learnt how to back up our blogs. We have to use a website called Site sucker which downloads the whole of a website for you.

I have written down karls step by step guide which i’ve used to help get a zip file of my blog:

The SiteSucker window shows the Web URL (Uniform Resource Locator) being downloaded, the current status of the download, and the toolbar.
To get a download going, follow these steps:

1. Click the “Settings” button in the main window. Set the “HTML Processing” option to “Localize”. Click “OK”.

2. Enter an Internet address into the Web URL text field (in your case, the address of your WordPress blog).

3. Press the enter key and SiteSucker will go to work.
SiteSucker will download the page, scan it for any links, and download the links.

The status of the download appears in the lower section of the SiteSucker window.

When all files are downloaded, they are saved by default in the Downloads folder on your machine.

To change this, go to Download Folder control in the Download Settings dialogue.

SiteSucker lets you save all the information about a download (including the Web URL, download settings, and queue) in a document. This allows you to create a document that you can use to perform the same download whenever you want – which means the next time you want to save your blog, you can do it by selecting this saved configuration.

To ZIP up your site back-up

1. Go to the Downloads folder on your machine

2. CTRL click on the site back-up

3. Choose “Compress (foldername)”

You’ll end up with a file that has an icon like this:

 

I have found this difficult to do but i will follow these steps and hopefully get a finished zip file of my blog.

Week 8 – Tutorial session

I however did not attend this session as the university was on strike. As i live on the outskirts of Bradford i travel on two buses to get to university and when i was told of the planned striking action i asked around the rest of the course to see who else was attending this lecture.

I myself felt that as there was no one else going to attend this lecture but go to the pickets i would not attend. Instead i used this free day to go and interview my interviewee which i recorded on my ipod. I cannot upload the interview recorded onto this blog because it doesn’t have any sound formats allowed to be uploaded. I do have the interview saved to my hard drive in case Karl needs to hear it.

Week 7 – Reflection

This week we started to think about our assignments and go back through all the work we may have missed in workshops or reflections. I went back and changed a few things on my blog and tweaked a few of the posts so i had the work i may have missed or didnt write down properly.
I mainly used this weeks session to catch up on two of the weeks workshops i missed due to illness. I caught up the work and added the reflections to my work so as to explain what i learnt from this weeks session. I feel that my idea for my photostory will make a good article about elderly persons care.

Week 9 – 800 word article task & Reflection

edler

Mind Map

My angle for my piece is to find out what are the best options for care for elderly people and whether they should be put into a care home or whether they could be cared for in their own homes. As i feel strongly about this subject and my photo story is connected to this theme i will be interviewing a carer of the elderly lady i photographed. I have scheduled this interview for this weekend which will be the 1st of April 2011.

This week we’ve learnt all about how to structure our articles. I’ve made a template for my article structure which i have added to this blog and i will use this to map out what i will be writing out in each section so it makes it simpler for me to do my article. The article we are writing has to be 800 words in length.
I’ve decided that i will be focusing on why old people go into care homes and what are the best options for them, i feel strongly about this subject and my photo-story is about an elderly lady whose recently had to move to a care home from her home. She is 94 and in one of the set of images i’ve taken its her 94th birthday. I think my article will reflect how i feel about the subject and what i’ve found out i will be interviewing the carer of the elderly lady who looked after her for three years before she had to go into a care home.

Week 6 – Creative Commons & Reflection

Creative commons license are copyright. They protect the copyright of books, websites, blogs, photographs, films, videos, songs and other audio & visual recordings. A creative commons license dictates who can use your work and if they can reuse your work and what restrictions you can put on your own work or if you can make any money off your work. They unfortunately do not protect you from fair use or fair dealing and they do not give you the ability to control anything that is not protected by copyright law. E.g: facts. Creative Commons licenses attach to the work and authorize everyone who comes in contact with the work to use it consistent with the license.

Marys Work by Mary Anne Baillie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.
Based on a work at marybaillie.wordpress.com.”>

I learnt that a creative commons license doesn’t give you complete power over your work no matter how much you want to try and keep restrictions on them. It can however stop others from profiting from your work if you didn’t want them to share your work. It also doesn’t protect software from being copied and sold on to other people around the world.

Week 4 – Image tasks 1&2 & Reflection

This was one of the first images i took last week for Honeys photo story. My photo story images are of a frail old woman who has become a family friend over the years. She has had bowel cancer an has sadly had to leave her home and move to an old peoples home to be looked after now. I’ve decided to take the place photographs of her old home. The image above is of her bedroom, the bottom of the bed in her room has a stacked pile of washing just plonked on the end of the bed waiting for her return. We now know she isn’t allowed home because she is too old to now care for herself. This image shows that life stands still when someone is either taken from their home or died. I feel this image is a good representation of how her life had just been put on hold in her home.

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I added about six photographs from this weeks images of my photo story i’ve started for Honey. These photographs are of an elderly woman’s home whose just had to move from her own home to a nursing home where she doesn’t really want to be there. I feel these images show a good portrayal of her home and her belongings which have just being left as she had them.
Unfortunately she won’t be coming home again as she has had several operations since and cant look after herself properly so she has had to be moved. These images are of her belongings and around her home.

This week i learnt how to upload images to WordPress which i found rather simple i just plugged in my USB clicked the little image tab at the top of the post and then uploaded my selected files. Once I’d uploaded them i could change the scale of my image on wordpress as well as add a caption, rename the image and change whether i wanted the image centered or not.

As well as this i found out how to make a slide show on wordpress which was a lot simpler than I’d first thought i uploaded all the images i wanted to use then clicked save at the bottom of the upload window. I then kept the tab open and selected slide show and then updated my blog post. The slide show was easily made and looked good.

Week 1 Reflection (Work was done on paper karl made us hand in)

We gave each other feedback on our hobbies and interests. We wrote down about 20 websites and blogs we followed and we talked in discussions on our table. We then were asked by Karl questions about why we followed these websites and what interested in them and why.

Everybody’s opinions and questions about why we liked certain things were all valid. Karl then spoke to us about what he liked and followed and why. We wrote all of this down on paper and he then took the work in and has kept it.

Week 5 – Indesign Workshop & Reflection

karlarticle

Today we’ve being using InDesign and learning how to put articles into online format for tablets. I found it easy to follow the step by step guide Karl gave us https://docs.google.com/document/d/1U36eotUZmCIeL6GseWV_-xwcUyvzi74YWy1fQmf_fn8/edit?hl=en_GB&authkey=CKmyhvoF&pli=1# which was useful at putting my article together with an image on the program.

I then attempted to make a front cover using the programme but it wasn’t as successful because i wasn’t sure what i was meant to put onto the front cover and what i wasn’t. I feel In Design is a lot easier to use than Illustrator so i will probably try and use this more frequently than Illustrator for ISSUU.

I feel that this weeks work looks good and i used as the text for the body of my article one of my first reflections on my blog, i will find using In Design a lot simpler to make my article than illustrator and will hopefully come up with some good designs to keep my article looking fresh and interesting.

Week 3 – Interview & Workshop Reflection

Today’s lecture was all about how to interview people properly and learn some new techniques which will help us when writing our assignment of 800 words. I found it very informative and learnt a lot of useful techniques which will help me when i decide to write my article.

The main tips i’ve picked up from the lecture are:

• During an interview be natural and conversational
• Be respectful and polite
• Let your interviewee talk
• Listen
• Remember its about them not you!
• Ask your most important question first

The three basic formats of interviews are:

1. Q & A
2. Inline – Quote from interview
3. Block Quote

We were also told some useful technical tips which i will definatly be using when i have to go and do my interview for my 800 word article

• Test your equipment
• Check your recording properly during an interview
• Choose a quiet location for the interview
• Position the microphone nearer the interviewee it is more important to pick up their answers than your questions

Either record an interview by:

• digital Dictaphone
• mini disk recorder
• a voice recording application on your phone
• dedicated telephone recorder (records your phone call)
• Short hand

The photographer I interviewed was Sam Taylor.

I asked a set of 5 questions about one of his photographs that he showed me. The photograph Sam had taken was for his weekly Challenge from Honey one of the university lecturers.

Sam researched his location thoroughly because of his weekly challenge which was fashion photography, he carefully selected the most picturesque locations for his fashion shoot so that he would get the stereotypical feel of a fashion location. He decided the best location for this was Temple Newsam which had the feel of a fashion shoot location.

He decided to show me the image of a fashion model because of his assignment and because it was his favorite image from the set of images he had taken and it wasn’t out of focus like some of the rest of the images had been.

samtaylorphotostory.wordpress.com

Week 2 – Article & Reflection

The hardest thing is to say goodbye.

Written By – Mary Baillie

This image isn’t about the university abandonment weekly challenge I’d been set but really it was about finally going to my grandfathers house and overcoming the grief I’d felt since losing him at the beginning of September.

I’ve always had a good family up bringing and before starting university which my parents didn’t really support my choices in doing  i spent the summer visiting my grandfather. A funny man who although old always seemed so alive.

I feel this image is a fitting last goodbye to my grandfather as the photograph portrays the way his house was left just before he had died. He had things piled up on top of his cabinets ready to be put away.The photograph also highlights just how old the whole house now feels that he’s not around anymore, it’s as if time has stood still.

Gramps Old Bedroom

Today we were given a lecture on the different structures in written articles for online and the printed word. The main structures between the two both include:

• Head (title)
• Strap Line
• Byline
• Body
• Sub-headings or cross headings – the difference here being the written word has (300-400 words) and an online article has (50-100 words)
• Page length also differs between the two the written word has (1200-1400 words broadsheet, 750-100 words magazine) and online (300-800 words)

We needed to learn about the written word because for our assignment from Karl we will be writing an 800 word article to tie in with our photo story Honey is going to be setting us. I found the practice article writing 150-300 words on one of my own photographs rather hard, i did go a bit too personal in my article but i feel that when i spoke to Karl about this, i felt it actually did make sense and went well with the image.

I do think i may struggle with the 800 words if i’m writing about one image in particular but i’ve written essays before for my A level in film so i think i should be okay once i get into the swing of things.

I found the lecture interesting an informative learning about the basics of writing an article for online such as a blog or online magazine, the key aspects i’ve picked out that i think will help the most to write an online article is to:

• Break the article up
• Simple language
• Speak to the reader
• Use shorter sentences than the printed word
• Get straight to the point
• Add headings and subheadings
• Use key points
• Use proper names for links
• Always link back an image or quote to original source (this will help to not get sued!!)
• Use hyperlinks in your text to link back to other articles or web pages

I didn’t have any issues with this lecture as i found it straight forward to go through, I would like to learn more about wordpress in one of our next lectures and maybe learn more about adding images and how to add hyperlinks etc into blog posts.