The students learned to use several new technologies in completing their media project, including WordPress and SlideShare for blogging and embedding presentations. They also learned how to use Apple software like iMovie and iDVD on MacBooks, which were different than their previous Windows laptops. Additionally, they gained experience with cameras, downloading free music and sound effects, and using social media like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter to research, share their work, and get feedback. Overall, the technologies played a big role in their learning process as they developed skills in using these tools appropriately and efficiently for their movie opening project.

1. 6) What have you learnt about
technologies from the process of
constructing this product?
By Imogen and Annabelle.

2. Technology used.
During the course , we have learned to use a lot of
different technologies. Most of which we had not
used before, they all have helped us hugely to
improve our work. Here is some examples of the
main technologies that we have used:

3. Wordpress and Slideshare.
Before this course, we had never used the
Wordpress (www.wordpress.com) website, but it soon became
vital to us. This webpage was used to set up our own personal
blogs that allowed us to electronically track our progress, upload
key documents and demonstrate our progression. Wordpress
was also extremely important in communicating all of our
coursework to the examiner and Mr Scargill (our media teacher).
We learnt the basics through tutorials and then furthered our
knowledge through practicing.
Similarly to the Wordpress site, neither of us had
ever used Slideshare (www.slideshare.net) before. This clever
website allowed us to upload PowerPoint's and embed them on
to our blogs, this helped to make them as multi-media as
possible and demonstrate a variety of different skills.

4. Apple Macbook.
We used an apple
macbook for a lot of
different purposes
throughout this course.
Both of us used to have
Microsoft window
laptops, so this meant
teaching ourselves how
to use the unique apple
layout. Thankfully, we
are both quick learners
and we soon got used
to the differences but
we definitely had to
adjust!

5. iMovie and iDVD.
We used a brilliant piece of software
called iMovie to edit all of our
footage together and to try to make
it look as flowing and coherent as
possible. This software helped us to
make our movie more precise and
have a more professional feel. It
has a number of different uses but
these are the main ones that we
used it for:
 Editing Clips together,
 Cropping or rotating shots,
 Adjusting the lighting,
 Changing the sound,
 Adding titles,
 Altering the speed of our clips.
iDVD is a software that’s
available on the apple
MacBook’s. It is very useful
when burning events to disc
and it made our product look a
lot more professional by
allowing us to choose a menu
structure to show at the very
start of our movie This taught
us that it is possible for media
students, like ourselves, to
create a professional looking
movie. We learnt about this
through other media students
and teachers but we also found
out a lot for ourselves through
trial and error.

6. YouTube and Social Networking Sites.
Youtube played a big part in our
media coursework. It allowed us
to research into our genre by
looking at other similar movie
openings online. It also allowed
us to share our movies, then
embed them into our own blogs
in order to show our teacher and
the examiner our work. Although
we had both used YouTube
before, we still learnt a lot of new
skills, for example, we had never
uploaded videos before so that
was a new experience.
Again, we had both used Facebook
before, but for completely different
purposes. Throughout this
course, we have learnt that
Facebook is a great place to
research and get feedback from
people who could be potential
clients. It allowed us find out
opinions from a variety of randomly
selected people. Twitter is very
similar to Facebook in the way that
it allowed us to communicate with
our target audience to find out their
views. They are also both great
ways to advertise your product and
make people aware of it.

7. Music Downloads.
We used both freeplaymusic.com and soundjay.com to
get a variety of both sound effects and music for
‘The Unknown’. Both of these websites allow you to
download MP3’s for free as they are un-copyrighted.
For a low budget film company, this was very helpful.
We learned about how to find sound effects, how to
download them onto our laptop and then add them
into iMovie to accompany film footage.

8. Camera.
Despite having a few issues with
our borrowed camera, it
helped us hugely and we could
not have produced our movie
opening without it. We learnt
how to operate the different
school camera’s and transfer
the footage to the Mac’s. The
camera that we used to make
‘The Unknown’ was not as
high quality as we would have
liked but we have still learnt
how to do a lot of different
things with the camera, for
example, we discovered that is
it vital to use a tripod to
prevent wobbly un-
professional shots.

9. Conclusion.
Technology has had a big part in our learning over the past
year and we have learnt so much about how to use it
approprately and efficiently. Not only have we been
introduced to new technologies (for
example, Wordpress), we have also widened our skills in
those that we already used (for example YouTube). We can
confidently say that we can use all of the technologies
listed above and that we have learnt how to do so through
taking advice from others and mainly, a lot of practice. We
have thoroughly enjoyed learning how to use these
technologies and widening our abilities to improve our
knowledge. We are very much looking forward to furthering
our learning and building on the skills we have discovered
this year.