The document discusses the student's use of various media technologies in their A2 media coursework, including a Nikon camera, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, Prezi, Slideshare, Facebook, YouTube, and Blogger. For many of the technologies, the student was unfamiliar with their full capabilities and had to learn how to use basic functions through instruction and practice. Blogger was particularly useful for organizing their coursework. Technological convergence allowed the student to access different software, websites, and their camera from a single computer to complete their project.

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

2. Nikon Camera
• Before starting to produce my A2
coursework, I wasn’t fully aware of how to
use the video features of a Nikon camera.
Although I had used Nikon cameras in my
coursework last year, it was only to take
photos rather than produce any videos. After
instruction from my teacher on how to use
the camera and its features, it made it a little
more clear on how to use the basic features
of the camera. Once I’d got used to the
camera and became more used to it, I found
it easier to use. However, because I didn’t
have much experience with video shooting
and the camera, I felt that I couldn’t use the
camera to its full potential as I wasn’t fully
aware of what it could do.

3. Photoshop
• Although I used Photoshop last year for my Media coursework, I
hadn’t used it since so when I started to use it again this year, I had
to familiarize myself with the program and get used to it again. I
recognized the features I used last year on the program such as crop,
brightness/contrast, hue/saturation, stroke and other design
features that I used when producing my magazine. Again, like with
the camera and Premiere Pro, I didn’t know how to fully use
Photoshop and its features and because the program is so complex,
it was difficult to teach myself how to use it. I did ask for guidance
when wanting to know how to do certain things, but I felt I didn’t
use the program to its full potential. Also, I wasn’t able to access
Photoshop on my computer at home and could only access it on
certain computers in college. This meant I had to use my time in my
lessons wisely and organize what needed to be done that I couldn’t
do elsewhere.

4. Premiere Pro
• Adobe Premiere Pro is a timeline-based video editing software
application. I had never used this program before this year and I
needed instruction on how to use it. With help from my teacher, I
learnt how to import my video clips, add and remove clips from the
timeline, cut clips, move clips around, import sound and how to
render my clips once they were on the timeline. Knowing this, I and
others in my group started to get used to the program and started to
learn from each others knowledge as well as the teachers. However,
similarly to the camera, we didn’t use the program to its full potential
as we hadn’t used it before so wasn’t fully aware of its uses and
features. As I mentioned in Q1, initially we were going to produce a
narrative/performance video. Another reason as to why we decided
to produce just a performance video was due to the fact that it would
take a lot longer to edit on Premiere Pro, and it was time that we
didn’t really have. We felt that if we just do a performance video, we
could spend the time perfecting that and getting it spot on. Like with
Photoshop, again I could only really access this program on certain
computers so I needed to make sure I got everything done that
needed to be done on that program within the lessons.

5. Prezi
• I used Prezi for the first time for my AS
evaluation last year. Since then I have used it
regularly for work in not just Media but other
lessons also. This year, I have used Prezi to
present my product research and for my
evaluation again. A limitation of using Prezi is
that it is time consuming and sometimes
confusing, however, it is a unique and clever
way to present a piece of work and stands out
more than a PowerPoint or a Word document
and presents another dimension of Media.
Slideshare
• With Slideshare we were able to change Microsoft Office files to a
html file so we were able to upload them onto our blog.

6. Facebook
• We used Facebook to gain our audience feedback for another of our
evaluation questions. Facebook allowed us to easily create a group
where we displayed our music video and invite friends who we asked
to watch and comment on our video. The social networking website
made it much easier for us to do this and made it a lot less time
consuming.
YouTube
• Youtube allowed me to watch any music video really quickly and
easily, helping me when it came to putting together my product
research and coming up with ideas for our music video. I was able to
use 3 videos from Youtube of different genres to analyze for my
product research and this gave me ideas of what I wanted to do for
my final product.

7. Blogger
• Blogger has been a main piece of technology that I
have used throughout my AS year and A2 year.
With Blogger, I have been able to upload my work
and keep track of where I’m up too and what else
needs to be done. I have been able to split my blog
into different sections (Product research, market
research, planning, construction, final products
and evaluation) making it easier to navigate
around and easily find a piece of work. Also in my
A2 year, I have found myself looking back at my
AS blog, which again I found was easy to navigate
around. Without Blogger, I can imagine my
coursework being a lot less organized and clear.

8. Technological Convergence
• Technological convergence refers to the merging of
both old and new media that can be seen as a product,
a system or a process. All of the digital technology that
I have used during my coursework can be seen as
technological convergence. This is because everything
was able to be accessed from one computer. All the
websites I used such as Blogger, Facebook, Slideshare
and Prezi were able to be accessed from one computer.
All the software I used such as Premiere Pro and
Photoshop were able to be accessed from one
computer and the camera used to film our music video
also connected to one computer. This made it much
easier to produce my coursework as I could do
everything in one place at one time.