Monday 15th March Extended Project Meeting

Today, at the end of the lesson, I received an email back from Jenny Grahame on possible ideas for improving the newspaper. I started to highlight important aspects of the message in order to hand copies out to the class and get everyone moving on using the information to improve their articles again. We unfortunately ran out of time in the lesson so I emailed what I had done to Pete, requesting he distribute what I had done to the entire class.

Email from Jenny Grahame:

Email I sent to Pete:

Tara had also been busy over the weekend and had gone out of her way to create an initial design for a flyer that I could use to hand out to the delegates at the convention on friday. I looked at it and thought it looked very professional and I liked the logo that she had come up with. I asked her to work with Hayden to see it their corroboration could make an even better piece. I also needed to mention that flyers normally have two sides, and that only one side may not be enough.

Something I was meaning to do in the lesson was set up an email, however when time was running short and I still had too much to do I asked Sam to set it up for me. I still used my email as the recovery email and have the login details myself so I can use the account. I asked Tara and Hayden to change the contact details on the flyer in accordance to the new email. The email is 'MediaMeNewspaper@googlemail.com'.

I then set about with Kirk getting Ash, Philippa, Laurence, Matt Leonowicz and Tim working on the task of annotating people's work and making notes on how they could improve the relevance of the articles relating to the Media Studies criteria. This was one of the biggest problems with the articles so far is that none of them contained much (if any) relevant materials to the exam.

People are starting to seem very reluctant to do their work. One person openly refused to do another article to me today, which annoyed me greatly as there is still very much more to be done.

End of Week Two Plan

Day	Plan	How it went	Still to do?
Monday - 8th	Sort out ideas for what articles will be included in the newspaper along with possible advertisers.	Better than expected. We sorted out all of them and managed to get the contact details of all the sponsors. After this everyone selected their own articles to do.	Email the possible sponsors asking to support our newspaper with an advert.
Tuesday - 9th	Have a lesson with Dave discussing the conventions of writing a newspaper article. Plan out what we’re going to send in the advert request emails.	Lesson went well, took down some good notes. Email planning was slow and didn’t get much done.	Send emails to the possible sponsors.
Wednesday - 10th	Write up questions to send to practitioners. Help with Online Communities article. Assign people to work on the Exam help section of the newspaper.	Wrote up questions and gave Mike Shaw position of exam help. He was happy to do it. Looked over Tim’s article and edited it. Came up with name for newspaper (Media Me).	Work on flat plan, or at least check progress. Need to help Dave and Ash on their article more.
Thursday - 11th	Continue to email clients. Collect in draft articles that have been completed and annotate.	Emailed all of the clients and got some promising results. People haven’t finished their articles however so need to wait.	Get print out of articles and annotate.
Friday - 12th	Have lesson with Barney on linking articles to postmodernism to increase relevance of articles to exam criteria. Hand in annotated article. Organise articles into groups.	Lesson was less relevant to me due to me only contributing to each article in a small way, rather than writing one big article for myself. Handed in article and gave it to Dave to use.	Properly organise articles into groups so that they can be linked to each other.

Possible Comic Strip

Over the weekend I commissioned a friend of mine to do a piece of artwork that will fit into our paper. I decided that it should be comedic, and appeal to the humour of the target audience. So I wrote a script for a boy who is at school being told by the teacher that he will never be a movie star. The boy looks to be very special needs is sitting at his table looking sad. The scene is marked at the top with a banner saying '2005' (the year YouTube was set up). I wanted to add this as a bit of extra information that will stick in the readers mind. It is often that when someone enjoys something it will stick in their mind more, and this information will hopefully be on of those things. It then shows the boy on a YouTube video and finally, the boy in 2009 receiving an oscar. I did a small amount of visual research to give to the commissioned artist.

I gave her pictures of the layout of YouTube, the Oscars and an Oscar Award to work with so as the pictures were as recognisable as possible.

Sunday 14th March Emailing

Today I sent emails off to the three possible advertisers (excluding Media Magazine), Rob Carlton, Jon Wardle and Mike Mason. Here are screen shots of the emails I sent to them.

For each email I used the same template for the message, and just exchanged the details for each person.

I received a reply from Jon Wardle very quickly.

He stated that he was interested in taking out the quarter page advert and asked as to what the dimensions would be, along with how he would be making the payment to our class.

I replied as best as I could and guessed that the quarter page advert would be a size A5 (since the newspaper is size A3) and told him that I would get back to him tomorrow as to how to make the payment.

Here is his reply and the email I sent to him.

Friday 12th Extended Project Meeting

Today with the help of Kirk I collected in all of the draft articles that have been completed so far by the class. I was given an article to edit by Philippa however, I said that it may take a while to go over as I had a lot to do. I also sorted out a draft email with Sam that I sent to our teachers and Jenny Grahame so that they could look over it and decide any changes that should be made.

We started off by having a session with Barney in which everyone linked their own articles to post-modernism and made notes on what aspects of the exam each one related to most. As I didn't have a full article I simply worked in the group I had given my article to.

We decided that the online gaming age predominantly revolves around the 'Media in the Online Age' factor of the exam, whilst also being related to the 'Global Media' and 'Media and Collective Identity' sections.

I also handed in an article I had annotated to help the online gaming group with relevant data. Here is that article:

The article was on browser games, the topic of the small article I wrote earlier on in the project. I decided this would be a suitable subject to work on and to help pad out Ash and Dave's article with some useful information.

Thursday 11th March Emailing

Today I sent an email to Simon Bates today requesting his sponsorship of our newspaper.

Here is the email I sent to him:

It reads:

Hello Simon,

I was writing to enquire whether you would be willing to sponsor our current project. We are in the process of making a one-off newspaper to help students with their A2 exam for media 'Critical Perspectives'. The newspaper is, as I said, exclusive and we are trying to get it distributed to many schools and colleges. The production of the newspapers is very costly however, and due to your cooperation with us in the past I was wondering if you would like to assist us by donating £350 to help cover the costs. In return for this we will be putting the Junction logo on the front page to acknowledge your contribution to the paper.

Many thanks,

Alexander Whitcombe

Email Reply From Jenny

I have received a reply from Jenny Grahame in response to the newspaper features ideas email I sent her previously. The email has been printed and distributed to the entire class to take a look at. Here is what she said:

Hi Alexander

Many thanks for your list – you’ve been incredibly busy! Am going to respond to your ideas one by one in red.

First: some really great ideas here – well done.

One of the most important things you’ve got to persuade your readers is that for the A2 exam they need to be familiar with contemporary theoretical perspectives. This may mean introducing them from scratch – using authoritative sources of information that can be accessed easily. The OCR textbook is a good starting point (I believe your group has access to this?); the other obvous place to go is Pete’s Media Blog, which is really brilliant. His Theory Part 1 and Part 2 has brilliant YouTube clips and some really concise useful summaries. And if you go back down the blog, you’l find some other brilliant examples you can quote and refer your readers to. You really ned to consult these sources yourselves bfore going too much further – you’ll find them really useful.

As you’ll see, I keep dragging you back to your exam topics – not to be boring, but because however interesting, creative or random your material is, it needs to be useful to your readers. Sorry, but that’s the challenge!

Will be happy to talk the ideas through whenever you’re ready.

Best,
Jenny


On 8/3/10 15:55, "Alexander Whitcombe" wrote:

Hey Jenny,

We have been going over ideas and possible features that will be going into the newspaper, I was wondering if you could give feedback on what you like and what you don't like/think we should get rid of from them.

1. A zeitgeist forecast (talking about up and coming media practitioners). Yes, sounds good. What criteria will you ues to identify them? And might there be a case for also including up and coming ‘theorists’?

2. Two pages of exam help (this includes things such as past papers, exam Q&As, model answers and general advice and information about the A2 Media exam).
This is crucial. However you need to make sure your readers know how to answer Q1 on the paper, reflecting on production work. You may need a fair bit of space on this as its a new departure. Pete wrote a really good pece in the last issue of MediaMag (MM31). The problem with preparation for this part of the paper is that it hasn’t been taken yet, so there isn’t a lot in the way of model answers, etc. You might want to interview some of the Long Road staff on this?
Your other problem is how to make this ‘How to’-type fefature interesting and memorable. You might want to think about some graphic ideas here – flow charts or diagrams, a cartoonstrip, Q&A/FAQs -

3. A two page spread character profile (on someone like Simon Panrucker, a recent internet sensation who is in contact with one of our teachers). See 21.

4. Article - "Technical Revolution and Future Technology" Sounds good – as long as you can link it to the spec, rather than just being a general piece.

5. Article on a recently invented Wikipedia game (A good way of learning)
This sounds great, as does No.7, the underground map. Would these go well in the games and learning activities mentioned in 20?

6. Article - "How Twitter Saved a Country" Is this a case study, and if so, of what? Unclear from title.

7. *Probably Unlikely* An underground map showing different Web 20 links. We designed something similar in our first year. (See 5 and 20)

8. An article on Uprising club and 'video mashing'.Interesting

9. Article on Twitter, and how it has changed the way people communicate and see celebrities. Sounds good, as long as its no a Heat-style homage to the Stephen Frys and Kutchers of the world. Am wondeing whether you could pair it with 6., as part of a larger feature looking at the value and potential of Twitter more critically?

10. Article - "Internet Gaming and Downloading Games" Definitely a good topic, but more info needed. Is this a ‘how to’ piece, or a factual overview-type piece? And bearing in mind the vast range of expertise your readers may or may not ave, you’ll have to think carefully about how you position it.

11. Article - Internet 'Flash' Games and the "Return of the Solo Game Designers".As above.

12. Article - "Gorillaz, Rise of the Ogre" Yes – but from what perspective? Is this a ‘fan’ piece, a review, or something that looks at what Gorilaz represent in terms of new media?

13. Article - "Has Facebook Helped Researching Online?"
These two are interesting. You could maybe think about a mini-series of articles here, looking at different aspects of FB, and arguments around them ?
14. Article - "Has Facebook Ruined Student Social Lives?"

15. Article - "Internet Tendencies" Don’t get this – more detail needed.

16. Feature - "TV Catch Up" Would quite like to see somehng on old media here, particularly if you could focus it round TV that tackles some of the Contemporary Media Debates like Collective Identity, Media in an O line Age, WeMedia., etc

17. Article - Website called 'StumbleUpon.com' This would make an interesting piece, espcially if you’re going to focus on exactly whose interests (other than your own) it actually serves. A good one to raise debate.

18. Article about people's preference polarity (How people hate things one minute (the internet, Back to the Future) and love them the next). Interesting – how are you going to explore this one?

19. Article - About Online Forum Communities. Yes

20. A series of games and media related learning activities (we already have a prototype word-search where you have to work out the word from a clue and find it). See 5 and 7. Yes, the more fun you can make it the better.

21. Possible Interviews with Simon Bates (Head of learning and Access at the Junction), Ed Lovelace (A music video director who used to attend Long Road and has recently come back to give talks), Jeffrey Lewis (An American singer-songwriter who specialises in comedic comics and songs, a member of our class has contacted him before for a different project so it's very possible we can contact him again), Simon Panrucker (who I mentioned before), MC Lars (A song mixer), Jake Wynne and Jim Canty (Music video directors who have frequently collaborated with Long Road). I think a couple of features like this will lighten the tone a bit. Make sure you feature people who will have a wide-ish appeal, not just those who are specifically interesting to Cambridge/Long Road. Jeffrey Lewis would be good.

Conference Plan

Wednesday 10th March Extended Project Meeting

Today I had a meeting with Pete about what was happening so far. I explained and then asked him about the trip to London I will be making. The conference will take place on the 19th of March, a friday. It begins at 10AM. There will be a main lecture that 120 delegates will attend and then at 11AM everyone will break off into different workshops. There will be stalls set up, all related to education and learning. Even the media giant Apple will have a stall there.

My job at the conference is to distribute leaflets and give people information about the newspaper. I was told that lunchtime would be a key time to hand out leaflets, if I got there early I could even put a leaflet on all of the seats before people arrive. If I want I can apparently go to some of the talks as they may be useful to me.

The flyers for the newspaper have to contain the following information:

• Must have a name for the paper and a suitable logo.
• Contains a summary of what the paper is and maybe has a list of some of the 'highlight' articles.
• Details on how to contact us and order e.g. 'MediaNews@gmail.com'
• My aim is to sell our product to as many people as possible.

I then had a production meeting with the Quality Control group and explained that we needed flyers, and the first task I set was to come up with newspaper names. We got the whole class to write down a few ideas for a name each on post-it notes. We then took in all of the ideas and started to sort them out. I had written 'Media Muse', 'Media News' and 'Media Me' as my ideas for the magazine.

We then all sorted through them until we came to two possibilities, I was quite shocked and flattered to find out that they were both my ideas 'Media Muse' and 'Media Me'.

We asked the class what their opinion on what the name should be out of the two. After a brief vote it was decided that the new newspaper name was Media Me. We then went about choosing a tag line for the paper.

I'm not sure we reached an entirely confirmed decision by I was firmly set on the tag line 'Get Passed'. I thought it was quick, snappy and almost sounds rude. I think this tag line will appeal very much to our target audience.

I then went about proof-reading Tim's article and made quite a few changes. I quite enjoyed the editorial role as English is one of my strong points.

After this I began to work with Tim to come up with some ideas for the questions to send the media practitioners such as Simon Panrucker and Ed Lovelace. We both read through the Critical Perspectives exam criteria and then set about coming up with questions relating to it that we could ask the practitioners.

Here are some of the questions:

*Directed at Simon Panrucker (who left Long Road in 2005, the same year YouTube was brought out).*

Did you make videos for an audience when you were at college?

Did you make productions for an audience just after college e.g. at university?

If so, how did you get them known?

How long have you been making videos?

How did the introduction of the internet change how you distributed your videos?

How did the introduction of YouTube/Vimeo change your audience?

How has the internet and 'torrenting' changed your current career?

How would you describe what you actually do?

Has the way you advertise your products changed as the internet grew in popularity?

Tomorrow's Lesson Plan

The class was informed today that we would have no use of the internet tomorrow in the lesson. Here is a list of things I need to get done in the lesson.

• Write up an email to send to a series of potential advertisers in our magazine with Sam.
• Go through the criteria for the exam and write up a list of suitable (media A2 exam) questions to ask the list of practitioners.
• Continue to help Dave and Ash with the 'Online Communities' article.
• Plan another email to Jenny Grahame asking for feedback on new article ideas.
• Assign some people to work on the 'Exam Help' section of the newspaper.
• Ask Hayden about the progression of the flat-plan.
• Have a meeting about where we are with the newspaper now and who is doing what.

My Role In Production

So far in the project I can't help but get the feeling everyone is putting on me everything they don't want to do themselves. It seems that most of the people I am working alongside simply have to write an article by friday and get the research done where as I have a great deal more things to be doing that very few seem intent on helping me with at all.

I am writing an article on internet browser 'Flash' games. This is a very thin topic and is incredibly difficult to research. When looking for articles on twitter, or online games the results are relatively expansive, however people never seem to talk about the browser games due to the fact that if you type 'Internet Flash Game Article*' into Google instead of getting articles, you instead receive several thousand pages of internet browser games. Whilst this seems to support the concept of my article it is still relatively annoying that information (aside from just playing the games) is so scarce.

I also have the responsibility of sorting out and organising which articles go (where) into the newspaper. Feedback is hard to come by as whoever I show the flat plans to just automatically agrees with whatever I have written down. However the actual design of the newspaper has been taken out of my hands. Hayden (who really wanted to be the papers art director) was more than happy to be in charge of the papers design and layout, as long as I tell what content should go where.

Another role of mine is assigning the class activities and productive things to do when they have completed what they are doing. Everyone so far seems to be coming to me, if I suggest they go to the Quality Control team, they don't so I find myself repeatedly having to assign things for people to do, quite often things that they flat out refuse to do and request another task. It has been getting easier however, I am beginning to understand people's preferences in work and am able to use these preferences to my advantage to get them to assist me with tasks I need doing.

Keeping up constant communication with the client is a must. I am constantly being reminded (quite rightly) that I have to keep Jenny Grahame updated on anything we choose to do to the newspaper.

Soon I will be needing to travel to London to meet with the client and possibly attend a meeting. As of yet I don't have much information on this so will be awaiting more details.

All of these tasks have to be done alongside homework set for the projects. These can often be relatively time consuming however I have no problems with doing them.

As I mentioned in the below post, advertising is a very large issue. I had a long meeting with him the other lesson (that we openly allowed anyone to join) discussing different possibilities. Arranging advertisement possibilities with Sam is going to become a very large part of my job in lessons to come. Sam however, so far has taken up most of the responsibility for these for now. He has found out the contact details for most of the contacts, with me getting the details of the last five or so.

*Just an example search, I didn't actually use this.

Advertising

So far the only people I know to have taken any responsibility for the advertisements is Sam and myself. Everyone else seems to think that because I am Liaison I have to do everything relating to getting the advertisements in our newspaper myself without their help. Sam was more than happy to offer his help however and together we have set about looking for possibilities (that I mentioned in the above post).

Tomorrow Sam and I will be writing an email that we will be sending to the possible companies. In the meeting with Dave today he made very important points about attracting advertisers.

In the email to them we should put something along the lines of:

Students are going to be trapped in a classroom reading this curriculum material. In all honesty they are going to be desperately looking for something else to read. Advertisements in this newspaper will be just those things to draw their attention and give them a break from the informations streams.

This could be a very effective and exclusive for the advertisers.

We are looking for a pay range of £50 - £100 per advertiser, so hopefully this will allow them to see an opportunity and pay well.

Tuesday 9th March Extended Project Meeting

It todays lesson I started off by going around and asking the class about what everyone was doing and helping people with their problems. For example, for a while now people have been asking around about the questionnaire and I realised I had been sent it by Mike on the computer the day before. I reviewed it and then gave it to Sam. After this I decided it would be wise to get James and Tim to work together and combine their articles (as they are both related to Wikipedia).

Me showing Kirk and Tara the email I sent to Jenny:

I was asked by Kirk at one point what everyone was doing. I was quite shocked by this as he was the schedule manager and he didn't know what was happening, so I had to get my notes and go through most of the people's allocated articles with him. After this he set off putting the writers all into groups and making them go to the right tables so they could bounce ideas off each-other.

I spoke to the other two people (Ash and Dave) who were doing (online, downloading etc) video game related articles. We sat down and decided that we would make one feature relating to online communities. I gave Dave my piece of work so that he count integrate it as best he could into his work on online forums and their communities and Ash's work on gaming online and what it means to be able to download games.

Dave's Session on Newspaper Articles

When writing an article in a newspaper you have to ask yourself; 'Do we need this article?'. Will it be enjoyable and interesting to read? Writing is another very important part though. Dave mentioned that an article can have quite a boring topic but be made to look interesting and seem important. 'If someone takes the effort to write it then there should be someone who takes the effort to read it.' E.G. The articles must be interesting!

A journalist doesn't need to know everything. However he needs to come over as being well-informed on any topic. The key to this - and writing an effective article - is to do the following:

Research

• Wikipedia is always a good start and provides basic knowledge on pretty much anything you may need to know.
• Use the title's of people you know, for example 'Pete Fraser, Chief Examiner'. It makes the article and what goes into it much more impressive and professional to a reader.
• Find experts in the area you are reporting. This is important for fresh and up-to-date information.

Angle

• Look at other articles of a similar topic.
• Come up with a fresh angle for the article that you're writing.

Tone

• Think of the variety of articles you can have in your piece:
• News
• Opinion pieces
• Features
• Interviews
• Advertorial (These look like articles, but are funded by third-party clients and promote the product in question. They are adverts.)

Features are a useful thing to use. They can "break the rules of your own magazine. You can change the font, you can change the layout" and they are a good way of bringing variety to the magazine/newspaper.

All good articles are written in a certain way. The highest paid journalists provide everything the reader needs to know, such as the story of the article, in the first paragraph. The rest of the article is just content, and events leading up to the 'incident'.

The web has its own layout that greatly differs from a magazine or newspaper. There will be lots of text and the odd picture on most information websites. Along-side this when on the internet people tend to read from the top of the page down, however with newspapers and magazines everyone has their own way of reading them. Some people may start at the back, others may skim through until something catches their eye etc.

Monday 8th March Extended Project Meeting

Today I had a meeting with the Quality control team and the group leaders. I started off by asking the team leaders to go and get all of the ideas that their team have for possible articles and writing them down so they can share them with the rest of the meeting group. When they got back each group had made a contribution and we discussed which ideas were the strongest and which were the weakest.

We also spoke about possible advertisers for our newspaper. As I have mentioned before for this project we have to get adverts in our paper to cover the costs of printing £500. Sam and I had been looking around for possible advertisers. We decided that it would be best to have, say, five or six advertisers and charge them each £50 - £100 for their advert in all five-hundred copies of the newspaper.

Here are some of the possible advertising commissioners:

Media Magazine - Jenny Grahame

The Junction - Simon Bates

Long Road - Jane Grant

The Picture House - Tony Jones

OCR - Rob Carlton

Bornemouth University - Jon Wardle

Lincoln University - Mike Mason

Sam and I also managed to get all of the contacts emails as well so we will probably begin messaging them tomorrow.

During the day I checked with the groups to make sure they were all getting on okay. I also finally received a reply from Julian McDougle, shown below. My next move will be to reply to his email and be more specific.

Today I also sent an email off to Jenny Grahame asking her for her opinions of the features we are going to have in the newspaper. I am hoping she will reply soon.

Sunday 7th March Extended Project Work

Today I started a rough brief of my article for the magazine. I started it on internet and 'flash' games, and how the seemingly dying solo video game makers are actually making a come-back through use of the internet. I researched some game websites and used Wikipedia to find out how they are made, I then made a very rough draft/pitch for my article:

Games websites have become very popular in the last few years, especially when kids get bored in ICT classes. With new technology and advancing media people are now able to single-handedly create their own video games and upload them to these websites. Other users can then access these and use them. Whilst these games may be simple, they are still more advanced than the first video games that started being produced by companies. This would not have been possible five, six years ago. The video games industry started out with people making games themselves, and it seems with this new uprising of 'Flash' entertainment this revolution may be going around in a circle. A game may be produced by a company, but once released it is very difficult to patch. However a browser 'Flash' games creator can install a simple Ajax onto his/her game and is able to view any feedback left on it almost instantaneously. He/she can then modify the game then and there and re-upload it to get instant approval for his newly improved game. This ability to swap and change the games as fast as the maker can code is rather remarkable. It is the equivalent of a games designer recalling every single one of the games sold, modifying each one and then re-distributing it.

There is also a certain glamour to these internet flash games. Whether that glamour be nostalgia from when top of the range games were like that or simply the concept that you can be searching the internet one minute and within thirty seconds playing a video game. You don't have to interrupt your surfing, you just have to click on a page and wait five seconds for it to load. This gives the games great 'pick-up and play' value, with any kind of console, even the best it takes at least three minutes to load up a game you want to play, and that's at the best of times. However with these quickly accessible (and free) game websites it seems often to be the perfect getaway for people whether they are at work or simply want something different to do.

I also wrote down all of the article ideas ready to be reviewed by the class on monday. Once we have reviewed the articles (and seen what other people have to add) I can then send an email to Jenny Grahame asking her opinion on which articles are good/bad.

End of Week One Plan

Day	Plan	How day went	Still to do?
Monday - 1st	Organise between us who will be what role.	All wrote down votes for jobs.	-
Tuesday - 2nd	Email clients requesting information.	Sent off emails and waiting for a reply.	Get a reply and give print outs to class with coloured highlights.
Wednesday - 3rd	Research newspaper design to help with flat plan.	Researched, put on blog. Jenny replied, printed out copies for class and highlighted important aspects.	-
Thursday - 4th	Suggest to class idea of flat plan. Give examples and begin assigning interviews with practitioners to class members.	Asked Nick several questions about project. Handed out emails and made a brief plan of the articles and features.	Come up with flat-plan, didn’t complete task today.
Friday - 5th	Discuss with Quality Control team about newspaper features and do project proposal form.	Discussed well, noted down a list of ideas. Project proposal form not complete. Made a very rough draft of the flat-plan. Gave to Hayden to continue work with.	Finish project proposal form

Friday 5th March Extended Project

Today our class started to fill in the project proposal form. We were given advice on how to do it and began to fill it in, due to time constraints I wasn't able to finish and had to send off incomplete, so I will have to come back to it at a later date.

I then sat down with Tara and Kirk and we discussed the ideas that we could put in the newspaper. I took the coloured pieces of paper that our class had written ideas down on and organised them into appropriate sections, each section would be one article.

Me arranging and marking the paper into groups (at this point I was writing what pages they should go on the flat-plan):

Some of the groups I sorted the paper into:

Me sorting out the paper and Laurence looking a little confused...

I then started on the flat-plan of the magazine. I worked out what would go best where, I did all of this most on my own, the others didn't seem too interested, and just agreed with whatever I said.

At the end of the lesson I gave the (very basic) flat-plan to Hayden. Due to his inclination towards an art-editorial role I thought that giving him the job of drawing the first flat-plan design would be perfect for him.

Some groups were also given a task to start a report explaining how teenagers learn to give us a better idea of what content to put in the newspaper and how to write the content. One of these groups I know is Natalie, Ash and Tim. I was going to suggest that they make a student questionnaire and interview students to ask them about their learning preferences. However, when I went to ask them I realised they had already left, eager to get home for the weekend.

Article Plan

• Allocate questions for Ed Lovelace.
• Find a means to contact him (MySpace likely, a reply, not so likely)
• Use his responses about the media industry to construct a piece on new technology
• Talk about how it's easier for him to work now than it would have been a few years ago.
• Talk about the exponential increase in technology advancement.

Flatplans and Next Lesson

During today's lesson I showed Hayden (who wished to be art director at the beginning of the project) my blog post about flat plans, and the process they go through. Concordantly the teacher also spoke for a while about their importance when creating a magazine. I asked Hayden to start on designing a flat plan for the group to reference to. I then went around the other two groups and asked them to choose among themselves one person (from each group) to help with this. I then told them that this person should go and talk to Hayden (who I had briefed) about how to organise and design the plan.

In tomorrows lesson I hope to write up the questions that each person will be sending to their practitioner. We will be using their replies as some of our features in the newspaper.

Thursday 4th March Extended Project Meeting

Questions from class:

Do you know your audiences?

• National Distribution
• A2 Media Studies - Sixteen to nineteen year olds
• Targeting media savvy students?
• Gender balance?
• Differentiation - Not all students learn at the same pace, in the same way or start with the same knowledge base.

Do you know what they want from the study guide?

• E-mailed Julian McDougle for Criteria
• Relevance = Broad Range of Contemporary Examples
• Hand Questionnaires to Students (or potential recipients of the paper)
• Not a Revision Textbook?
• Mode of Address - Not Too Formal?

Do you know how your target audience learn best/want to learn?

• Online Links (Media Age)
• Games?
• Practical Work
• Visuals
• Explanations are detailed/simplified/illustrated with diagrams etc.?
• Methods of Practice That Are Not Repetitive - Variation
• Incentive to Work - (Motivation) - Intrinsic/extrinsic - Competitions?
• Differentiation - Not all students learn at the same pace, in the same way or start with the same knowledge base.

Possible Articles

• Article about how websites like Facebook have changed privacy
• Simon Panrucker - Written Interview
• Articles stemming from the above:
• Pieces on YouTube/Vimeo - How they have changed the world and the media industry
• Web 2.0 Feature?

Researchers/Features

I wanted to give the class something to work on, so I am assigning each person a practitioner to contact. The reasoning may be that they volunteered to contact that particular individual (like Tara contacting Simon Panrucker), or that the person already has been in contact with the practitioner and their relationship with them is larger than anyone else's (like Sam and Jeffrey Lewis).

Alexander (Me) - Ed Lovelace

Ed Lovelace used to attend Long Road. He came to our college recently to give a talk to the students about his career. I think this means that he will be a prime example of someone to contact.

Sam - Jeffrey Lewis

During the Investigation project Sam researched Jeffrey Lewis. At one point he sent an email to him and was surprised when he return to his inbox soon afterwards to find a lengthy reply. Due to this I have chosen him to be a liaison to Jeffrey Lewis and conduct an email interview with him.

Tara - Simon Panrucker

Simon Panrucker has recently become quite the internet sensation combining humour with eclectic music styles. He still keeps good relations with his teacher, who subsequently is now one of our teachers. We are hoping to use this relationship to get in contact with him and arrange an interview.

Tim - MC Lars

I asked Tim today whether he knew any interesting people to contact and he mentioned MC Lars. At the time I had no idea who it was so I have done some research and think that this is the same artist. Due to the new age music I think he would be a good person to interview.

Hayden - Hayden said to me today that he had several people in mind that he could contact who would work well with our newspaper.

Printing Emails

During the lesson today I printed out copies of the emails sent to me by Jenny. I highlighted the important bits and gave a copy to everyone in the class. The printed email looked like this:

Apologies for the bad quality, it's the best I could do at the time.

Contacts

• DJ Yoda? (Idea thought up by Sam, however, unlikely)
• Simon Bates (The Junction's head of learning)
• Jake and Jim (Music video and advertisement makers who have dealt with our class in the past)
• Ed Lovelace
• Simon Panrucker
• Jeffrey Lewis
• MC Lars
• Media Magazine - February 2010: Pete Fraser Interview
• Jenny Grahame and Julian McDougle

Thursday 4th March Paper Planning

Today I am going to suggest to the class that we begin making a flat plan of our paper. We will keep in mind that the writing content of our paper will have a lot to do with the design so it will have to be flexible.

I researched how to make a flat plan and found this website:

Tan Parmar

1. Sketch initial ideas - basic:

2. Extend detail and improve ideas:

3. Start to add titles and main points to the page designs. A lot of writing should have been done now, and what features go where should be finalised:

4. Finalise and print ideas.

A quote on the website says this:

"Of course, budget is a major factor in Contact's design."

I think it is wrong.

Wednesday 3rd March Research

I have been researching different ways to help with the layout of our newspaper. I have found many websites offering useful information but so far the best I have discovered is 'Layout Executive'. It is a website that offers free newspaper layout designs and is definitely worth looking into. Link below:

Newspaper Formats - Layout Executive

Popular Newspaper designs:

The Telegraph (Saturday)

In the image below the paper has been divided so that in this spread 50% (the entire bottom half) has been dedicated to advertisements. Our group should take into account the spacing and quantity of paragraphs as well.

The page below is solely text, but with a single centralised image. Our brief has said that our paper has to be visually interesting, so if we are going to have a layout similar to this there may have to be more room for pictures/diagrams.

The property and money sections are both visually interesting and have a good use of colour, but contain very little information on their front sections.

Magazine Design Notes

Today Dave spoke to us about the process of creating a magazine/newspaper. Here are the notes I took:

'Chain of Command'

Editor

|

Deputy Editor - Art Editor

|

Production Editor - Sections Editor - Section Editor

|

Staff Writers

Magazine Timeline:

Raw Copy - Sub Copy - To Art - From Art - To Caption - Final Check - To Send

|

In this process there is only ever one copy of the magazine in circulation.

General Notes:

Jobs:

Editors job to say 'yes' or 'no' and make final decisions. A good editor makes better decisions.

Art editor in charge of design of the magazine (takes ideas from editor).

Production Editor to make sure everyone is doing their job - can nag editor also.

Production Editor also makes sure flat plan* is filled.

Fashion Editor

Features Editor - In charge of that month etc.

Process:

*First have to make a 2D map of the papers design. (Flat Plan)

Front page - Most important. It has to catch the consumers eye.

(Our flat plan will be 12 pages)

Everything goes through the production editors several times.

Example of Process:

Staff Writers --> Production Editor --> Art Editor --> Production Editor --> Editor --> Production Editor --> Editor --> Send Off

Magazine Deadlines:

Flat Plan Deadline --> Copy Deadline (All writing done, etc.) --> Final Deadline (Check PDFs) --> Print Deadline (Double Checks)

Printing works will have a time slot for your paper. Missing this deadline will cost money.

Reply from Jenny Grahame:

Hi Alexander (let me know whether you prefer to be Alex, or Alexander?)

Thanks for your prompt response to the brief, and your thoughtful summary of it. In fact, I was generally very impressed with the clarity and attention to detail shown in your blog, which I thought ,reflected a very good understanding of the nature of the task and theproduction roles involved. Great start!

Just a few points to add, gleaned from experiences at MediaMag:

• This newspaper will have a national distribution, so you’re writing for an unknown readership, and also quitte a wide age range; your readers may have very different educational and learning experiences from your own at Long Road, and may have been taught in very different ways, depending on the ways their courses have been organised. For example, some may be used to a more directed lecture-type approach, others may be used to being given chunks of text-book-type material to make notes on; not all students will have been able to do lots of practical work (indeed, some may have done very little).

• Do not make too many assumptions about your readers’ academic abilities or media preferences. They may not have covered the same topics or concepts as you, may have looked at different case studies and examples, or may just have different cultural interests. Take nothing for granted!
  

• You’ll need to think very carefully about how you talk to your readers, and the tone and language of your writing. You will need to be student-friendly, accessible, and lively, and as you say, use a wide range of approaches and ideas. You will also have to think about how to explain concepts clearly, and when and where to use appropriate media terminology and references.
  

• At this point, you should be focusing on your content, relevant examples, and interesting teaching strategies; don’t spend too much time thinking about your overall design and layout. That will come later. I may be able to help you out with some market research further down the line.
  

I am very excited about this project, and wish you and your teams lots of luck. Don’t hesitate to get back to me with further queries or ideas.

Best,
Jenny

Tuesday 2nd March Emailing Clients

Today I sent emails to the clients telling them my position in the class and how I would be collaborating with them in the coming weeks. I also included questions to both. To Jenny Grahame I asked whether there were any changes to the pitch she wished to make.

Here is a picture of the email I sent to Grahame:

In the email I sent to Julian McDougle I asked what he suggested that people should learn from the paper, and also asked for a copy of the exam criteria for our class to work around. Alongside this I also asked him whether he could allow us to have past exam papers so we can make our paper informative about what kinds of questions the students will be facing.

Here is a screen shot of the email I sent to McDougle:

Finalised Teams

Planning Department

Liason: Alexander Whitcombe (Me)

Quality Control

Evindence: Tara Cox/Mike Shaw

Reflection: Mike Shaw/Tara Cox

Schedule: Kirk Kemp

Production Team

Red Team

Red Leader: Laurence Smith

Red One: David Pinchen

Red Two: Hayden Martin

Red Three:Matthew Hornby

Blue Team

Blue Leader: Philippa Price

Blue One: Joe Robinson

Blue Two: Natalie Nicoll

Blue Three: James Walker

Gold Team

Gold Leader: Sam Chappell-Winnington

Gold One: Tim Hodson

Gold Two: Matt Leonowicz

Gold Three: Ashley Atherton

Below is a video made by the schedule manager (Kirk Kemp) to show clearly this represented. Nick Potamitis is voicing over:

General Notes:

Final going to print date: April 1st

No Budget

Quality Control Team will have the job of looking over the criteria/learning objectives such as:

Deadlines

Evidence

Reflecting on work

Grids/checklists

Possibility of a demo magazine: One or Two articles.

Using material that we cannot obtain copyright over is not an option.

Language use: Should be consistent. Stylish language? - Fine line between 'cool' and 'offensive' language.

The company printing our newspaper is Newspaper Club

Minimum print is 500 copies for £500

Roles I Have Chosen For People

Click on image below to expand view of worksheet:

Planning Department

Liaison: Alexander Whitcombe (Me)

I think I would be good for this role because I have quite a professional approach when addressing my piers. I am quite linguistic - a talent that enabled me to have a publication in Media Magazine - and work hard when needed. I also regularly travel to London and have a good understanding of the london train network. Due to this I would be happy to fill this role and the responsibilities that come with it, such as meeting with Jenny Grahame in London.

Quality Control

Evidence: Philippa Price

Schedules: Kirk Kemp

Reflection: Mike Shaw

When working with Philippa on a previous project she filled the role of production manager. This involved writing up model release forms, HD camera requests etc. She showed that she can handle keeping paperwork together fantastically.

I would trust Kirk completely with scheduling as in other projects he has more than proven his fervency with getting them finished with the work done on time. He continually comes up with new and interesting ways to motivate the class and increase the marks attained by his group in projects.

Mike, although quite quiet in projects, does always get the work done in an efficient manner. He is organised and often comes up with good ideas. He is a valuable member of a team and would work well as a reflection manager. It would involve being on peoples blogs and keeping people up to date with what they have to do. It will involve a lot of organisation and work and I hope Mike can keep up with that.

Production Department

Red Team

Red Leader: Tara Cox

Red One: Joe Robinson

Red Two: Tim Hodson

Red Three: Ashley Atherton

Tara is an incredible asset to a team. I would have been more than happy to put her on the quality control team however she is opinionated and is good at controlling a crowd. This is very important when dealing with our class as they can often get distracted, I trust Tara to be more than capable to keep people under control.

I chose for Joe, Tim and Ash to be together as Joe doesn't attend class to often, so I'm hoping that Tara can balance that out, Tim I wanted to be in a team with Tara as they work well together and can make a very productive team. Ash works well with everyone in the group but needs the motivation that Tara can provide.

Blue Team

Blue Leader: James Walker

Blue One: Natalie Nicoll

Blue Two: Hayden Martin

Blue Three: David Pinchen

James is a hard worker and it very controlling. This can often be seen to be a bad side by the class but may be just what this group needs. I vote James as a team leader because I think his forcefulness will enable this group to produce good work, as long as the group doesn't object too strongly to James' decisions and go along with what he directs them to do it could be a very good group.

This group of Natalie, Hayden and David excel in most areas necessary for this project. Hayden is very good at artwork, enabling him to create good work on designing the layout and artwork of the magazine, David is very good at writing and was also published in Media Magazine with an article about video games, video games being an industry that is always growing means that this is perfect knowledge to have for this project. Natalie is very skilled with internet usage, along with Dave they both can work very well together, both being skilled in different areas of technology.

Gold Team

Gold Leader: Laurence Smith

Gold One: Matthew Leonowicz

Gold Two: Matthew Hornby

Gold Three: Sam Chappell-Winnington

Laurence is someone I wouldn't have initially thought to be a team leader type. However in previous projects he has shown me and the class that he clearly had motivational and leadership talents. He gets on well with everyone in the class and I would very much like him to be a team leader.

Matt L. is a very hard worker, often works well with Tara which would be good to have when the group is dealing with the quality control team. Matt H. and Sam get on well, but not to an extent where they would not be productive as a result. Governed by Laurence they would work well, although Sam and Matt H. might try and do their own thing I don't think Laurence would have too much trouble.

Question and Answer Session with Nick

In class we were asked to come up with questions in groups and ask Nick them to clarify some of the more confusing situations. Here are the notes I made about these questions and answers:

[Questions in bold, answers not]

What's the deadline for the project?

The paper has to have been completed ready to send off to be printed by the first of April.

The contents of our articles - how 'up to date' must it be?

We are writing a paper for students of our time, and after. Due to this what is mentioned has to be completely up to date. Even things like Napster that we have been learning about is too out of date. We want you to research things that teachers probably won't know about.

What's the budget for this project?

There is no budget really. Part of the project is being able to cover the costs of printing with advertisers etc. You as a class will have to find ways to fund your project.

What are the printing costs of the paper?

We are printing twelve page, full-colour newspapers. The minimum order is five-hundred copies for £500. The price probably lowers per copy the more you order but that is what we are going with.

Can we credit our own work in the 'credits' or so?

Absolutely, you can find places for that no problem. Possibly at the end of every article?

Who might be possible candidates for us to be advertising clients for?

We already work along-side places like The Junction heavily, so them. And OCR and Media Magazine would be highly likely candidates too.

Does the class choose who fits what role?

Well, we will be filling out sheets soon so that you can all vote for who you would like to fill specific roles.

How are we going to distribute the newspaper?

We have the opportunity to sell it with Media Magazine and on the website.

What kind of material can we not use?

Keep in mind the age range - students. So no inappropriate language to be used. Also we cannot use any copyrighted material whatsoever.

How can we attain the content of the newspaper, such as information?

That's entirely up to you. You have to do the research the material yourselves.

Monday 1st March Extended Project Meeting

Today our group met for the first session of our extended project. We were given a brief to work with. We were then divided into groups and asked to write down notes of who we thought would fit best into individual roles (results of my choices shown above). After these, the teacher allocated the students in the class their roles due to who was voted to do what, and how many times. I was voted as the Liaison, a role I am very happy with as it was one I voted myself for.

The Brief:

We have been told that we must produce a twelve page, full colour tabloid style newspaper, ready for print by the 1st April. Its contents must be that of study materials to assist lower years with the OCR Media Studies A2 'Critical Perspectives' exam.

As a team we will have to produce a newspaper consisting of our own case studies, learning plans and lesson activities that we will have to plan and research ourselves. It will hopefully be of use to teachers and students for post sixteen education.

The cost of production must be covered by advertisements in the magazine. To obtain these we will have to go around and look for advert opportunities ourselves. Along-side this it is very important that the paper is visually interesting. This is because it is easy for a (especially younger) audience to get bored with unentertaining aesthetics.

It is vital that the paper remains intellectually engaging throughout, possibly by including such things as comic strips and games etc. Concordantly it must be exam specific and be very up to date. This has to include investigations, simulations, timelines, interviews and info-graphics (graphical representations of information).

The paper should have evidence and analysis of my own research and interaction with real audiences and media practitioners/consumers. Possible help with this may come from investigating video games (a constantly evolving media giant).

All ideas and strategies used in the newspaper must be suited to the learning styles of a sixteen to nineteen year old. We will have to go about trying out these different ideas as part of a case study on responsive learning techniques. From the results of this we will edit our paper to match what is the best and most effective way to teach people within this age group.

The Client:

Our client for this project is a woman called Jenny Grahame. Grahame works at the English and Media Center in London, and is one of the people I will be contacting as part of my liaison role. If what we produce meets the requirements of Grahame and the English and Media Center than it will be distributed via their website.

My other contact will be Julian McDougle, a cheif examiner for A2 OCR Media Studies. I am to contact him about any other queries and advice I may need.