The document discusses the various technologies the student learned and used in constructing their media product for a course. They found InDesign and Photoshop paramount for creating the actual magazine, allowing them to lay out pages and edit images professionally. Prezi, Blogger, and SlideShare helped in documenting research and findings in an appealing, organized way. Overall, the technologies were essential for developing, building, and evaluating their media product. Without them, the magazine would not have been created and their work would have been difficult to track and present.

1. What have you learnt about
technology from constructing your
media product?
Katie Dutton

2. What have I learnt?
• What I have learnt about technology is that it is extremely
important in the development and construction of your
media product. Without some of the essential programs
that have been used throughout the course, the magazine
itself would have not been created. InDesign and
Photoshop have been paramount in the creation of the
music magazine, (manipulating the images and making
separate elements come together to look like a magazine
itself)- whilst other programs such as Prezi, Blogger and
SlideShare for example were vital in the documentation of
individual findings and research.

3. List of technologies

4. InDesign
• Throughout the duration of the coursework side of the
course we have been using InDesign to generate our
individual music magazines, that in conjunction with
Photoshop to create our magazines as a whole. From using
InDesign (for the first time) I have learnt how to actually
create a magazine (cover, contents, double page) in the first
place as I had no previous experience in doing so. Also, with
the borders incorporated within the program itself, it made
you very aware of what can be placed (and where), how big
things are in relation to other aspects of the magazine and
if they look appealing to the eye.

5. Photoshop
• Throughout the course Photoshop has been a vital piece to play
in the construction of my media product. I needed to use this
program in order to make the pictures I had taken for the
magazine to look edited and professional, and to be in-keeping
with the ‘professional’ tone of the magazine itself. I had some
previous experience on Photoshop, though I had never explored
it as in depth as I did during the magazine creating process.
What I learnt from Photoshop is that it really makes a world of
difference in how the magazine would eventually turn out.
Without the use of Photoshop to edit out the white space from
the image, it wouldn’t (in all honestly) look as good as if it
weren’t used at all.

6. Prezi
• Prezi, is a more appealing and ‘fun’ way of presenting your
work and its findings. After only using it a couple of times I
have found it is a much nicer way of presenting your work,
rather than it be written out as a blog post or simply made
into a PowerPoint or word document. With its different
quirky looking temples, it makes the words you plant on the
slide become alive almost, and makes it far more appealing
to the person who happens to be reading. I have learnt
from using Prezi that the presentation of the work is just as
important as the words themselves.

7. Blogger
• Blogger has been an extremely vital and important part to
play in the construction of my media product. Right at the
start of the media studies course we made an account with
Blogger and used this website to document our work and
findings. Research, essays and drafts have been placed on
my blog, and without this social media platform- it would
extremely difficult to trace back to any sort of work we
would have done throughout the duration of this AS
course. Not only has Blogger been useful in documenting
useful information but it has also helped develop essay
answers, and helped me a lot with certain questions
regarding media publications.

8. PowerPoint
• We have used PowerPoint in this course not as much as
other media platforms, but it is of equal importance, as it is
one of the main programs used to display words and
information concerning media work. Like Prezi, PowerPoint
is a way in using slides to display your findings (although in
a less fancy way) and without it- it would be extremely hard
to place your work and research in a clean and informative
way.

9. SlideShare
• SlideShare is another way in presenting your ‘PowerPoint’
style slideshows in another website such as Blogger. Before
SlideShare it was extremely difficult to upload a slideshow
to Blogger itself (or any social media platform for that
matter) and consequently made it far easier to view.
SlideShare is a great, and convenient way of displaying and
sharing your information in a very precise and neat way-
and has made it far, far easier to display the analysis that
you’ve built up from exploring the meaning behind your
media product.

10. How did these technologies help me?
Throughout the duration of the course these types of technologies have helped
me tremendously in terms of making my actual magazine and documenting my
continual process in terms of what pictures I would be using for my magazine,
the actual making of the magazine itself, and right through to the final
evaluations of both our magazine and what extended research helped us to get
there in the first place. InDesign helped me a lot in terms of producing the
magazine in the correct format. Prior to actually using the program I didn’t have
much insight into what it takes to make a front cover for a magazine, let alone a
double spread as well, yet once I got to grips with InDesign itself it was clear to
me on how I should make the magazine from the one that I had planned
beforehand. Photoshop was another program (in conjunction with InDesign)
which aided me in the magazine producing process. Without the use of
Photoshop the studio pictures that I used wouldn’t have been as high quality as
they turned out after continued editing and perfecting, and ultimately without
using Photoshop it would not look as professional, with the overall look of the
magazine being brought down significantly in quality. Prezi aided me
tremendously in the evaluation side of constructing my media product.

11. How did these technologies help me?
It collectively added all of my ideas onto one professional and interesting looking
format, and although PowerPoint is a clean and straightforward way of
documenting and displaying all your information, the layout can look a little dull
at times, and that’s where Prezi comes in. With it’s different template types it
made my evaluations much more interesting to look at, as well as displaying
diversity in the way my work was being presented. Blogger has been one of the
most integral part of the entire process, being the essential platform for
documenting all the evaluations, drafts, pictures and catch ups for the duration
of constructing my media product. With a blog format it is not only a
professional looking way of viewing your work, but it makes it easy to go back
through all your posts in chronological order, seeing the developmental journey
that your magazine has undertaken through the many months of planning,
making, and evaluation. PowerPoint, like Prezi is a great (and simple) way of
displaying your work in a slideshow format. However it is not as flashy and
exciting as Prezi, with the templates stretching as far as a multicoloured
background, though with it’s simple layout comes a straightforward way of
viewing your written evaluations and separating them into slides corresponding
to different sections of your evaluation. PowerPoint has been extremely helpful

12. for me in terms of the evaluation process, and is aesthetically far more pleasing
to look at rather than a blog post on Blogger for example. SlideShare is the final
program that I used that impacted my work in a prevalent way. SlideShare
helped me successfully upload and embed my PowerPoint’s concerning my
various evaluations (such as my Questionnaire Analysis) onto my coursework
Blogger account, and with the help of SlideShare collectively brought together
all of my PowerPoint’s onto one profile which made it easy to view all of them
on one webpage. Without SlideShare I would not have the option of viewing my
PowerPoint’s on Blogger, as it is not possible to embed them off of the
PowerPoint program itself. Therefore it has been extremely beneficial
throughout the whole process when I have needed to document and display my
findings through evaluations and other sources of information. Overall, these
different types of technology have helped me in many ways, and without them I
would not be able to go by through this course. InDesign and Photoshop have
aided me in the magazine producing front, whereas programs such as
PowerPoint, Prezi, and SlideShare have been extremely helpful throughout the
evaluation process, with Blogger being the sole platform for documenting every
piece of work throughout the duration of the Media Studies AS coursework.
How did these technologies help me?