How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

1. EVALUATION 4 : HOW DIDYOU USE
MEDIATECHNOLOGIES INTHE
CONSTRUCTION AND RESEARCH,
PLANNING AND EVALUATION
STAGES?
Teddy & Lucy

2. PLANNING & RESEARCH
■ iPhone – During our planning and research we both used our phones a substantial amount
as we could access the internet quickly and without an issue.We also found it was useful as
we could transfer information and images from our phones direct to our MacBooks.
Moreover, we could use our phones to edit and modify our blog whilst creating documents
and completing task.This was an extremely useful feature as it saved us a lot of time and
hassle. In addition, we was able to use our cell phones to access our google calendar and
also plan out our photo shoot tasks through saving a journey to google maps.
■ MacBook – In conjunction with our iPhones, our MacBooks played a huge role in the
planning and research for our magazine. Being so light and portable it made it easy to work
on the go. Because it was so fast it made uploading things to our blog seamless and easy.
Having our MacBooks also meant we had Microsoft office at our fingertips whenever we
needed it. Furthermore, we were able to use features such as iMovie to present our ideas
which were then uploaded to YouTube.

3. PLANNING & RESEARCH
■ Blogger – During the planning process of creating our magazine we used blogger to record
everything we did in terms of planning.This proved an effective way to keep track of things and gave
us a general overview of how the task at hand was progressing. Furthermore, it allowed us to embed
our work which was an important step at keeping track of what we had made whilst also making it
look presentable. It also enabled us to order everything we had made effectively from task 1 all the
way to the evaluation. It’s user friendly interface was really useful for us as we were not skilled in
creating a website nor blogging. Blogger provides users with a huge array of themes and templates to
chose from. Having these tools made creating a blog super easy!
■ Word & PowerPoint – We used word as a blank canvas when creating our masthead for our
magazine.Word has a number of really useful features which allowed us to remove backgrounds from
text and other images which were less intricate than ones we would have to use Photoshop to
remove.Additionally, we both used word to check our grammar before submitting our work as word
has a built in grammar check feature.Without this we may have run the risk of making grammatical
errors. PowerPoint was great to make presentations on that we would then later transfer onto
Emaze or slideshare.

4. PLANNING & RESEARCH
■ Google – Google was an invaluable resource since we could have access to any information
we wanted in just the touch of a button.We used Google mainly to research existing
magazines in order to get an idea of how we should layout our magazine and provide us
with a sense of inspiration.This gave us an insight into what a regional magazine really
looks like and gave us a larger variety of choices than if we were to just have gone to the
store. Additionally, we utilized many of googles applications to aid our project. For instance
we used google calendars to plan out photo shoot and editing schedules, this helped us be
more organized with our time management and made it easy to check what task we had to
be getting on with on a particular day. Another application we used was google forms.This
helped us when carrying out a survey based on audience consumption of magazines.This
was useful as it enabled us to look at results which had already been put into note form.
Having all these uses under one website made our course work a much easier task and we
are very grateful that we decided to use it. Finally, we used Google maps in order to find our
way to and from photo shoot locations which was a great help since London is a very large
city making it extremely easy to get lost!

5. PLANNING & RESEARCH
■ Emaze & Slideshare (LinkedIn) –We used both of these to present our presentations
which we had created using PowerPoint.These were both very important pieces of
software for us as they enabled us to embed presentations to our blog and share them
online. All we had to do was upload them to the site and they were already configured so
there was little to no work to do when putting them online which was great for us as it left
us with more time to complete our main and ancillary tasks.
■ TimeToast – This enabled us to create a detailed timeline of the history of Regional
magazines.This was an important step in understanding the genre and using time toasts
simple layout, it made making a timeline quick and easy.
■ Padlet – Padlet offers a unique way of making notes and it allowed us to embed and
publish work that we had done quickly and effectively. It’s a fun software to use and
provides a huge selection of layouts and templates which was really important for us.

6. CONSTRUCTION
■ Adobe Photoshop – Photoshop without a doubt was the most important piece of software which we have
both used in construction and in this project overall. Using Photoshop at the start for both of use was
relatively hard to use but once we got the hang of it we found that it is an incredibly powerful and useful
piece of software which really allowed us to create the magazine which we had envisaged. Through a
number of different tools we were able to manipulate and edit images. For example we used the magic
eraser tool to remove backgrounds for images and manipulated the layers, placing the image in front of the
mast head. Furthermore we used the blur and paint tools to create different effects, unique to each edition
of the magazine. We could place guides so we could make sure that our spacing was absolutely correct and
precise. It also enabled us to change the contrast and brightness of images (especially important for a
magazine like ours where the images are what sells it). Overall Photoshop helped make our final product
look a lot more professional and like other existing magazines than if we had used word or publisher, for
example.
■ iPhone camera (12mp) – We used our iPhone cameras for our photography in our magazine. This is because
it was the easiest and most portable way of taking pictures in London. Furthermore, the images were of
quite good quality that didn’t pixilate when blown up to A4 size.These images were used throughout both
of our magazines and look great. However, due to the camera not being professional, we had to make some
adjustments when editing in Photoshop to make them look a little more professional rather than just
amateur.

7. CONSTRUCTION
■ Wix – Wix website creator was used for both of our websites as our ancillary task.This
was a really easy website to use for us as, especially since we had never created a
website before this.Wix had a huge array of templates and we were able to pick which
one suited our magazine best and go from there. It was great as we were able to easily
create different links to webpages through a navigator bar along the top of the
webpage. It allowed us to create many different types of web pages including photo
galleries and even a shop! Overall it allowed us to create professional and unique
websites that looked as if they were real.

8. EVALUATION
■ Adobe Premiere – We used this to create an evaluation video to explain how our media
products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products. Adobe
premiere, whilst initially quite difficult to use, proved very useful in the end as it enabled us
to edit together videos and place text/ images over the video we had filmed.
■ Photo booth – We used photo booth on Lucy’s MacBook to film our video used for the first
evaluation task. Using this was simple as we both knew how to use it and it meant we could
transfer video over to premiere easy. It also meant no need to set up cameras as we could
record direct from the webcam.
■ Prezi – Prezi was a fun piece of software which helped us to communicate our ideas in
other ways than just a traditional PowerPoint presentation. It makes viewing something a
little more interesting and unique. It was important to use Prezi as it allowed us to create a
flow diagram.This enabled us to portray a sense of progression we may not have been able
to achieve through just a simple PowerPoint presentation.