Development Dairy

As the academic year comes to an end, I have had to work reasonably hard since my last blog post. This is because I am working towards a distinction in all my units, and a lot of the task work has to be done outside of college time.

I feel that I have become a more organized person because of this, as I have had to keep track of my progress in each unit. This year we have studied a total of 9 units. I have put together a spreadsheet that shows the progress for each of these units. I will be continuing the course with another 9 units next year.

Having this spreadsheet has also made me more motivated. When I complete coursework, I can update the spreadsheet. Doing so gives me a feeling of achievement.

Since my last blog post I have been employed. I am now a Catering Assistant at John Lewis in Milton Keynes. I work 8 hours every Saturday, and some extra hours as overtime during the week. I have found it is important to keep work, coursework and my social life balanced. I feel that this job has improved my learning, as I am now keener to get the coursework done in my spare time, thus, giving me more time to do other things.

I am happy with my progress, and I will continue to work towards distinctions throughout the rest of this year. I feel like I have come a long way since my first blog post; my learning and motivation has improved. Furthermore, I am starting to make plans for when I finish college. This is making me think about the future, and so I am working harder to achieve higher.

In the past few months I have continued to keep up-to-date with my coursework in all subjects, despite a 2 week holiday I took during the college term. When I returned home, I admittedly did have to complete a few tasks to get myself up-to-date once again, but I did not find this difficult, and this did not affect my learning in anyway.

I am happy that I took the software strand because the subjects I am now studying are much more specific to the areas of Computing I was initially interested in.

I also received my college report this week just gone, and I was pleased to see I was predicted to achieve DDD (3 Distinctions) at the end of the course. Moreover, I was given positive comments from all of my teachers. This has helped me improve my learning, because I am now more motivated to keep up the good work.

I also feel that I have improved my confidence. As part of our assignment for communication and employability skills, I was asked to do a presentation to a few colleagues. We each performed our presentations in small groups of approximately 5. Our first presentations were drafts; colleagues gave comments and feedback, and we were required to acknowledge the feedback we were given and improve the presentation from this. I feel my final presentation was an improvement because I was more comfortable presenting to the class.

A lot of progress has been made since my last blog post. Firstly, I was asked to make a choice over which strand I wanted to continue with on this course. I chose to continue on the software strand, because it has always been my intention to go on into the software industry rather than hardware.

I have learned all of the material I need to complete my unit 27 assignment for principles of computer networks. This means I can press ahead with the 9 tasks which make up this unit. I have already completed tasks 1, 2 and 9, and plan to spend review week completing the others. I am not required to be in this week at college, but I have chosen to so that I can get it out of the way.
In other lessons, I have been learning in lesson and focusing on my assignment work at home. I have got into the habit of working on week day evenings, so that the material I learnt during the course of that day is still fresh in my mind. This helps because I can complete the work much quicker and at a better quality.

There are very few things which have affected my learning between this and my last blog posts. In general, I have approached the majority of subjects with no difficulty. My motivation has remained the same, and it is this which has helped me to spend more time working from home.

Another factor which has helped me improve my learning is working with my files at home. Previously, I wasted a good few minutes in every lesson making copies of my files, trying to keep my files at home in sync with my files at college. I have now introduced FTP; this means that I can access and edit my files at home from college. I now have just one copy of my files, so I don’t have to waste time in lesson making copies.

I could improve my performance by getting earlier nights when I have college the next day. I find that I feel tired during the college day, and could concentrate better if I had more sleep. I have set a target for myself - to get at least 8 hours sleep every night.

At college, I have made a lot of progress since my last blog post. It has been about a month since I last posted my progression, and during that month I have learnt a considerable amount in both the software and hardware sides of my course.

On the software side of things, I have learnt how to implement validation rules in Microsoft Access databases. This will help me not only in the Advanced Database Skills lesson, but also in Key Skills I.C.T because we are creating databases in this subject too. Furthermore, I have learnt how to do loops in the Visual Basic programming language. For me, this is significant because a lot of my programming assignment will feature loops.

I have also made a lot of progression in Computer Systems and Computer Networks. In the Computer Systems lesson, we have covered the material behind task 2 of our assignment. This includes topics like Operating Systems and the features and functionality within them. Computer Networks has been difficult to learn, but I believed I have coped well. We have covered CCNA chapters 6, 7 and 8 since my last blog post, and chapter 6 particularly is very complex at some parts – it includes a lot of maths. Nevertheless, this has helped my personally because I have had to organise my notes so I can understand them better whenever I need to look back at them.

In other units like Web Production and Management, Communication and Employability and Organisational Systems Security, my learning has, in a way, stabilised. In these lessons especially, we have been learning in class as well as working on our assignment. Task 3 of Organisational Systems Security’s assignment involves my performing a presentation to the class regarding the material I have learnt since I started College. This has helped me review my progress in this lesson particularly, and watching other members of the class has helped me identify the significance of being confident in you. I have completed the slideshow I will use in my presentation, but haven’t yet presented to the class. I will be doing this next week, and doing so will help me improve other personal qualities like public speaking.

I feel that I have also progressed in my personal qualities. I had my first job interview on 27th November, which I feel has improved my confidence significantly. It has also helped improve my idea of dressing smartly in a workplace.

I have tried to keep myself more organised by keeping an online calendar using the Windows Live service. This allows me to keep track of deadlines and also events in my personal life. More over, the service also offers me a to-do list which offers to remind me prior to any events on my list. This ensures that I won’t forget any important work deadlines and college events.

At the beginning of College we were provided with free USB memory sticks, which I begun using to backup my work. Mine broke, but I have purchased a new one so that I can continue to backup my work and keep all my files at college in sync with any work I have done at home.

I have been asked to choose which strand to continue with in semester 2 of the first year. This decision will have a direct impact on the things I learn and the work I do at college for the remainder of my course. Choosing between software programming and networking has been a difficult decision, but I chose to do software programming because this is what I have always enjoyed doing in Computing. Nevertheless, this is not a final decision and I can change my mind freely up until the end of January next year.

College in general is having a positive impact on me personally. My friendship with classmates has improved, and this has also helped improve my confidence. I feel a lot more comfortable at college now, which is good because I can get on with my work well in lessons and socialise at break times.

In September, I began studying for a two year Computing course at College. The course is separated into lessons and each lesson has a number of units. Some of the lessons we are currently studying in include:

- Advanced Database Skills
- Communication and Employability Skills
- Computer Systems
- Key Skills (ICT)
- Organisational Systems Security
- Principles of Software Design and Development
- Principles of Computer Networks
- Website Production and Management

In Advanced Database Skills we have started to learn the basics behind databases and their structures. I have learnt that the tables, rows and fields or a database are commonly referred to as entities, instances and attributes. This has provided me with a basic understanding of the structure of a database. However, this is only the beginning point of the unit and we are soon to dig deeper into the theory of databases. I have also learnt the process of normalization, a skill that is required to correct errors in a database. Furthermore, we have done class tasks which have helped me to understand how databases are used to keep information tidy and organised, and the benefits of this. I have not had any problems learning what we have covered so far in class. I am motivated to learn advanced database skills because I feel like it will help in later life, possibly as part of my career. In this lesson, I could improve my performance and my ability to learn by recovering what I have learnt in the day’s lesson when I get home, so that I am less likely to forget any crucial information.

Communication and Employability Skills is about improving yourself and working towards amending any weaknesses you may have. We learn how to communicate successfully and how we can make ourselves stand out; preparing us for employment. I have learnt that SWOT analysis is important because you are noticing and detecting your weaknesses as well as your opportunities. I have also learnt that it is good to have weaknesses because recognising them will help to motivate you. The things we have covered so far in class I have learnt with no trouble. Motivation affects my learning, because I am determined to do well in life and have an enjoyable career, and this subject will help my chances of this. Nevertheless, I can improve my performance in class and ability to learn by revising what has been covered in class at home.

Computer Systems is very much the hardware side of Computing. We are learning about the hardware components of a computer and how they are connected inside. We are also learning to recognise the differences between hardware products by their speed and other specifications. I am learning in this lesson very well. As a class, we do tests on a weekly basis to assess what information we took in from the previous week’s learning. This has affecting my learning significantly because any parts I have not taken in I can revise. I could improve my performance and ability to learn in this lesson by testing myself after revising.

I have tried my best to improve my skills and personal qualities whilst at college by reviewing what I have learnt at the end of the lesson, and anything I am not sure about I will ask the teacher for assistance with. This has helped me maximize the amount I learn from each lesson. Furthermore, I have used SWOT analysis to identify my weaknesses and work on them. I identified these weaknesses in Task 2 of my Communication and Employability Skills assignment.

The weaknesses which affected my skills and personal qualities included things like messy handwritten documents and errors in body language. I have worked to overcome these by producing a blog which I will update every so often, with 3-4 week intervals. The blog will keep track of how I am improving and building on my weaknesses.

Since the beginning of College, some things have gone well whereas some things could have gone better. The biggest positive thing that has come out of the study I have done at College so far is that I was nominated for course representative. This will help me to interact better with other people and possibly improve my body language skills.

Nevertheless, my learning in subjects such as Networking could have been better because I have missed a few lessons already. The way our schedule is structured means that we have a week’s worth of Networking lessons on one Wednesday, and so far I have missed an entire Wednesday and part’s of others. Although I have made my best effort to make it into College when I’m ill, it has affected my studying slightly. I do, however, catch-up online and with friends on any work I have missed.

In theory, blogging is an online dairy which contains posts (likes articles in a newspaper) the author can submit when they have something to say. It is a space anyone can setup on the internet, so that people all over the world can read about their views on either a dedicated subject or a variety of topics. In a blog, the posts are in a reverse chronological order. This means that the bloggers (authors) newest entries will always be at the top of the page, and the oldest entries will appear at the bottom. Typically, people will create blogs to publish their views without having to write a book. They can be found in a variety of formats, with subjects varying from personal news (e.g. family life) to political soapboxes. Furthermore, blogs are interactive which means the public and viewers of the blog can discuss the posts in a form of a comment.

Blogging has increased considerably in popularity over recent years, making the news environment a lot more personal rather than the professionally state (reported only by journalists and editors) it was in during the 20th century. During this time, news was also one-way - meaning only the journalist’s views would get heard, and the public and people in other kinds of work wouldn't have the opportunity to publish their views.

In my opinion, blogs are a very efficient way of publishing your views. I personally would prefer to read news online in a blog format because I am provided with the option of, not only reading the news, but also discussing it; agreeing or disagreeing - rather than simply reading the news and accepting it, like you would in a newspaper.

My personal experience of setting up this blog was fairly straightforward and easy. It only took a matter of minutes to create my blog and I didn't necessarily require any assistance from anybody. Moreover, maintaining the blog is just as easy because all it requires is a username and password (you choose) for logging in, and from there on, there are a wide variety of features allowing you to edit, add, or delete your posts.

There are many advantages of using a Blog as a communication channel. Because the blog is online, the viewer can interact with the news on the blog page. This makes news dynamic and two-way; not only can anybody publish their views but entries already published can be commented, also by anybody. Furthermore, the publisher can say whatever they like - there are no filters and no limits. Blogs can also be found easily using blog-dedicated search engines such as Technorati and Google Blog Search.

Nevertheless, there are also some disadvantages and even dangers to using blog as a communication channel. Some blogs purposely try to convince people to agree with their views, in the form of propaganda. People who also submit posts or even comments anonymously may say something nasty - this is called defamation of character, where someone will disrepute someone else’s character, making their reputation look false.