Tech Tip: Blogger Template

This week Tech task involved browsing through several blog templates and choosing an appropriate one to upgrade to.

After looking through the several templates that where available on the blogger site, I eventually decided to choose the dark theme, which is currently applied right now.

I believe that this theme is more suited to this module as the dark theme is synonymous with a lot of games and gaming styles. The layout of this blog is larger, and it provides a full and more clear sidebar menu of previous blog posts which can now be easily referenced as opposed to the last design. I also like how the dark colours provide a sleeker look to the blog.

Old Blog Design 

Growth Mindset: What I have Learnt from Other Students

The Growth Mindset challenge for this week was to learn from other students. These students posted their thoughts on their student Growth Mindset Padlet.

below I have picked out two quotes which caught my eye and also give me a new perspective to look at when it comes to understanding the growth mindset.

Trying New Things

"Trying new things and exploring new paths is the only way to true growth, and I intend on growing into my best and most well-rounded self I can. "

I like this quote as I can apply it to both my everyday life and also studying in this course, prior to this course I would not have considered myself a gamer , nor did I have had any interest in games and game history, but implementing and learning about the growth mindset has allowed me to be more open when it comes to learning new things in this module and also more open receiving feedback not just from this module but from other aspects of life, allowing me to grow and become my most "well rounded" self.

G.R.O.W

"Go Rip Open Windows = GROW
Sometimes in order to grow, you have to seek out opportunities.  You have to force the window open.  This resonates with me because I'm a pretty passive person, so I don't really look for opportunities too often. I need to remember to look for opportunities to grow."

This student quote caught my eye because it relates to me quite well, something I want to achieve more this year is seeking out more opportunities, particularly where my studies are involved, I want to seek out more learning opportunities and partake in more extra curricular and extra credit course tasks, I believe by seeking these out it will not only benefit me as an individual , but it will help with personal everyday life growth too.

Source

Technology Tools

The new tool that I learnt about from this lesson was the use of RSS feeds, I think it is a great way to compile all the blogs of my classmates, as it will help me keep up with their posts and allow me to comment in sufficient Time. I think I am quite well versed in a lot of the other recommended tools, I already had a prior knowledge of the use of bookmarks, Pinterest, and the image editing platforms like mac preview, I also have a good knowledge of the use of canvas and adobe spark so I think it will give me an advantage as the year goes on.

                                                   picture of man using computer source

Thoughts on Assignments

After reading the section “More About Assignments” on the multimedia website, there was a few sections that I found interesting.

 

·      The section about academic reading I think will be very beneficial moving on in this course, I often find academic journals to be quite wordy and with this weekly task I think it will help me to finally break down and learn how to grab information effectively from the journals.

·      I’m looking forward to the weekly tasks of commenting on other individuals blog posts, I think this is also a great way to not only get to know my other class members, but to see how they are doing in the course and perhaps get an insight into how they are feeling about certain tasks.

·      Lastly, upon looking at the extra credit tasks there was some that caught my eye, and this was the “Tech Tasks” I quite enjoy the idea of building websites and I loved learning that Twitter Widget skill that we did earlier on, so I’m excited to see what other skills I can learn and how I can implement them in my blog.

Photo of Laptop source

Time Management strategies

So after just reading two articles, one on the effectiveness of checklists and the other was about overcoming procrastination, I now think that time management is an important topic, both in this course and in all aspects of life. 

Some skills I learnt about procrastination, that I was not already aware of before was the skill of “removing the first blockade” this is often my biggest enemy when it comes to starting and completing a task, now with the simple skill of just asking myself “why is this so hard to complete” or “why am I unable to achieve this” has been quite useful to help me overcome the blockade and start the task. 

The other article I read about checklists was somewhat familiar to me, as I have been using checklists for the longest time. I wanted to read more to ensure I was getting the maximum efficacy of them, and I learnt that the most simplest activity of ticking off times on the checklist can increase motivation and productivity, so moving forward I think I will definitely continue using them and make them even more task specific.

The psychology of Checklists  By Lauren Marchese

How to beat procrastination by Caroline Webb

                                    

                                                        Digital image of brain source

Growth Mindset- my thoughts upon reading

Before reading and watching videos about the growth mindset I had no knowledge or had not even heard of Carol Dweck. 

 

Upon reading and learning about the growth mindset – was quite surprised to learn that abilities could be developed, and that not everyone has the ability to think like this.

I would definitely put myself closer to the growth side of the growth-fixed mindset spectrum, simply because in my everyday life I like to challenge myself, whether it be in work, school or my daily life, I always strive for perfection and when I don’t achieve that I’m able to take a step back and see what went wrong and strive for it next time.

 

Some personal learning goals I have for this semester that would like to implement to growth mindset into would be to get more in touch with my creative side. I find that that assignments and assignment tasks I like to be given a detailed brief with instructions on how to navigate the work , however with this year I’m noticing that a lot of the work that we have been given so far is quite broad and open for interpretation 

Growth Mindset Animation

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Introduction to a future Graphic Designer

I guess you can tell from the title, the module that I favored the most. Coming into this course I had no intention of graphic design being my most favorite module, I had my heart set on the photography side of the course, but after that first lesson in design and learning about the different styles and elements involved to get the end result, I was immediately drawn to it and knew it was something that I wanted to pursue.

 

Some facts about me! I’m 21 years old in my second year of Creative Digital media at Technological University Dublin. I love all things media related, whether it involves graphics, designing, photography or film it has my interest! I think that’s why this course is so suited to me because it has all those elements. My hobbies including dancing, listening to music, and watching films, I also work in a retail store part time. I’m looking forward to creating more content within this module and for this blog!

       ( image information : personal Image of myself:

               photo from may 2021)

Favourite Game

Growing up I did not consider myself a gamer, I never had the facilities or even interest to play any of the iconic console games that you usually hear about. I was more interested in computer games instead, one of my most played and most favorite computer game was a game called “SIMS Free play”

If you haven’t heard of the iconic franchise of the sims before, let me give you a brief overview. The Game is basically a life simulation for a character or multiple characters that you can create, you are able to control all aspects of your characters life, such as their job, their home, relationship status, hobbies or even if you want them to have kids! Of course, it’s not all that simple and there are many tasks that you must complete in order to gain access to certain features and unlock certain things, such as houses, pets, job opportunities and so on.

The reason why I loved this game so much growing up and to this day is because it allowed me to create and ideal world of my choice, I was able to create a life for my character completely different to my own. I remember one of my characters that created had 5 kids with 4 pets, was living in a mansion and was also working as a surgeon! They had hobbies that included woodworking, and snowboarding, so yeah that is just and example of how great the game is and how you can tailor it to the life of the character that you desire. 

Snapshot from game -Sims Free-play.
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