Hello!
I am now studying BTEC Level 3 Extended Information Technology! I have a new blog that I will be posting on for the last year here at Norwich Develop. You can read it here.
Tuesday, 8 September 2015
Thursday, 18 June 2015
Life is All About Living for the Opportunities and Memories we Create Altogether.
Ohayoo gozaimasu!
(Good morning!)
This morning, I came into college and firstly submitted everything in the submitted folders along with the final Scheme of Learning and Observation for Unit 2. As my work becomes completely finished, I uploaded everything onto Google Docs for a second online backup (cloud storage). I also helped Brandon proof read some of his work.
When the lesson began; firstly "Jovial John" showed to game trailers/previews from the E3 Convention for Valkyrie Gameplay and Star Wars Battlefront and of course we would have the weekly Thursday quiz! For this, it was about No Man's Skype - Live Gameplay from E3 2015. From a total 10 questions and 12 marks, I got a total of 6 as the game play was intriguing so I didn't make much notes, oops. The winner was Jordan B and Ashley P for a total of 9 but Jordan B won! As "Jovial John" didn't have an official reward, he gave Jordan a packet of Haribos from his lunchbox,
l-o-l.
I then spoke to the "Amazing Adam" and planned the entire end of academic year event. Together, we discussed the location, transport, cost, date, and time as well as additional information. The only part we are uncertain of is the payment process; which Adam as contacted the staff and will wait for reply. As a result, I created and sent a new email thread containing all the important information of this event. When the "Amazing Adam" gets back to me, I will reply and update everyone on the thread. All sorted.
Afterwards, I spoke to Catherine about personal statements - e.g. how would I get her to check it throughout the summers. We have both decided to start reviewing it in August. Throughout July I shall start some drafts for personal practice. I also decided to not attend the UCAS Design your Future event in London November 2015 as I have enough information already. Thus, the travel would be a pain.
For the remaining part of the day, I messed around and did nothing. I had a good day annoying everyone and I hope everyone had a good day! If there is anything needed to be done, I will come in to make sure things are completed.
End of Year Review:
Banter:
As of the end of year review, I have learnt a lot, I mean, a lot, literally (overdose of comma's there). Throughout the year, everyone has become friendly with each other as we would always have a theme in a class, for what our generation call "Banter". We got along perfectly fine and the atmosphere was full of fun! No falling outs, no arguments, no disagreements, just a road of feels and emotions. Throughout the year, I have been creating meme's of the current situation. From meme's making fun of tutors (for the banter) to making fun of people who came in to speak to us, or at peers.
We had lovely moments such as birthday parties, jokes, banter, humor, and just me learning a bunch of disturbing impure words, which... I shouldn't list. A lot of people will be leaving next year, and I wish them the best. However, for those who are staying I will be able to have one more year's of laugh before hopefully advancing to higher education.
Course Content:
We had nine units in total, from written work to group work to coding to designing to making. A ride of creative activities. For my grades, I got 1 Merit and 8 Distinctions, resulting in a lovely D*D*, which is higher than my predicted grade of D*D. At times, our work load was off the roof and we stressed like mad mans but at times, it was simplistic and certainly achievable. No one underestimated this course and realised that despite its fun, it can be difficult as it is equivalent of A-Levels, therefore I always gave my all. We would have our weekly Thursday quiz, games and competitions of unit work. It was relevant yet also irrelevant at the same time, amazing stuff.
Events:
In the first year of this course, I became the student rep (or head boy they call me), and I have had many great discussions of how to make Develop a better place for everyone in Learners Forums. Ideas have been discussed and passed on. Events were planned and held. Trips were fun and long. And lessons has been exciting and explosive. It was a pleasure to help other peers as it not only helps them but it helps me with social interactions (I live in a cave, of course as I never go out).
Essentially, this course is a recommendation from me if you want to go into design and or computing. I'm glad I took on this course and I regret nothing, no ragrats. A lot of chain of events happened and there's too much for me to mention. So I'll leave it with this: life is all about living for the opportunities and memories we create altogether. Banterlicious.
P.S: As I am planning for university, I'll post updates here to keep you in check FYI.
Monday, 15 June 2015
Completed the Computer Systems Unit!
Hello!
Firstly, as "Jovial John" have been active and marking people's work really quickly, he sent me back some A3 re-submissions (and forgot to attach document, lol). This morning, the first thing I did was download the attached file and started to amend the review comments. Catherine also sent us an email about the future UCAS event in London November 2015 to further plan and get additional support for our applications. Despite having a lot of knowledge already, I will give it a consider and hopefully attend to be even more prepared.
At the start, "Jovial John" showed us a kick starter advertisement for Gloveone. This device essentially allows the user to sense and feel things within virtual reality (with Occulus Rift's help). If you are interested and are willing to help fund for their starter program, check out the hyperlinked website. For the proper starters, "Jovial John" once again told us to go to Kahoot on our phones and play a game together. There, we answered different questions from computer systems to country names quizes. Some of them I was terrible at but in the end I had learnt something and found it fun because ot is a competitive game and encourages other people to focus more, this is a good start to the day and I hope he does it more in the future.
Once the first lesson began, I continued with U2A3T1 to make the changes. Once done, I then moved onto U2A3T3 and aimed to complete it for submission. Throughout this task, I was writing up the distinction part which was for us to recommend improvements and justify how it can improve the performance of the computer system we worked on. For me, the main components I was interested most in was the RAM, HDD, GPU, and OS. However, mid-way through my work, the "Amazing Adam" told me about the end of academic year activity. I was notified that the extended level 3's intend to spend their last moments together as a group and have a meal out. As a result, we would no longer hold a BBQ so I had turned to SurveyMonkey and created a survey to help identify what everyone would like to do. (The options were: BBQ, Bowling, Paintball, Quasar, LAN Party, "Kid games" e.g. Stuck in the Mud (lol), and "others"). In the end, everyone decided to do paintball as it had the most votes. Whilst I continued working, Pete, Adam, and Rebekah started to plan this event out to really make it work.
Afterwards, when I was just about to get back on track to work. Joe B told me that my Website Production work I submitted is no longer there. Either someone had deleted it or someone accidentally moved it elsewhere. To be safe, I discussed this with "Jovial John" and quickly made another folder with my submitted files. In addition, since I have practically completed everything and am not compulsory to come in much now, Catherine spoke to me about how well the center was and I had filled out a sheet for this. Then it was lunch.
After lunch, our mini starter was Geoguessr. This is a website which will give you five random locations and asks you to guess where you are based on observational statistics. For this, "Jovial John", challenged us and I got around 6.6k score whereas he got approximately 7k. If you would like to attempt to beat him, click here! All it requires is an email and you're good to go! When I finally got back on track with work, I completed the third task and sent that in for "Jovial John" to mark. In the mean time, I used this time proactively to complete the end of unit survey and to fill in the Scheme of Learning for this last unit.
During our independent study time, I spoke to Rebekah, Pete, and Adam about the event we are planning. For starters as it is my first time, I broken up the process into steps and have decided to firstly ask for a definite answer of who is willing to go and who can potentially become a driver. I also spent this time completing the final and last resubmission for U2A3T3. This means that I have finally completed everything, woop!
For my Chinese exam, it felt like I did extremely well. When I get my results within two weeks, I will post an update here for you guys (if I remember). For the current course, I'm done! (Almost). And for my art lessons, they're going to begin again! Things are going well because I have completed Completed the Computer Systems Unit! For tomorrow, I have a dentist appointment so I will not be here in the mornings. I will return here in the afternoons to submit everything into the submitted folders and will further plan ahead the event.
See you!
Firstly, as "Jovial John" have been active and marking people's work really quickly, he sent me back some A3 re-submissions (and forgot to attach document, lol). This morning, the first thing I did was download the attached file and started to amend the review comments. Catherine also sent us an email about the future UCAS event in London November 2015 to further plan and get additional support for our applications. Despite having a lot of knowledge already, I will give it a consider and hopefully attend to be even more prepared.
At the start, "Jovial John" showed us a kick starter advertisement for Gloveone. This device essentially allows the user to sense and feel things within virtual reality (with Occulus Rift's help). If you are interested and are willing to help fund for their starter program, check out the hyperlinked website. For the proper starters, "Jovial John" once again told us to go to Kahoot on our phones and play a game together. There, we answered different questions from computer systems to country names quizes. Some of them I was terrible at but in the end I had learnt something and found it fun because ot is a competitive game and encourages other people to focus more, this is a good start to the day and I hope he does it more in the future.
Once the first lesson began, I continued with U2A3T1 to make the changes. Once done, I then moved onto U2A3T3 and aimed to complete it for submission. Throughout this task, I was writing up the distinction part which was for us to recommend improvements and justify how it can improve the performance of the computer system we worked on. For me, the main components I was interested most in was the RAM, HDD, GPU, and OS. However, mid-way through my work, the "Amazing Adam" told me about the end of academic year activity. I was notified that the extended level 3's intend to spend their last moments together as a group and have a meal out. As a result, we would no longer hold a BBQ so I had turned to SurveyMonkey and created a survey to help identify what everyone would like to do. (The options were: BBQ, Bowling, Paintball, Quasar, LAN Party, "Kid games" e.g. Stuck in the Mud (lol), and "others"). In the end, everyone decided to do paintball as it had the most votes. Whilst I continued working, Pete, Adam, and Rebekah started to plan this event out to really make it work.
Afterwards, when I was just about to get back on track to work. Joe B told me that my Website Production work I submitted is no longer there. Either someone had deleted it or someone accidentally moved it elsewhere. To be safe, I discussed this with "Jovial John" and quickly made another folder with my submitted files. In addition, since I have practically completed everything and am not compulsory to come in much now, Catherine spoke to me about how well the center was and I had filled out a sheet for this. Then it was lunch.
After lunch, our mini starter was Geoguessr. This is a website which will give you five random locations and asks you to guess where you are based on observational statistics. For this, "Jovial John", challenged us and I got around 6.6k score whereas he got approximately 7k. If you would like to attempt to beat him, click here! All it requires is an email and you're good to go! When I finally got back on track with work, I completed the third task and sent that in for "Jovial John" to mark. In the mean time, I used this time proactively to complete the end of unit survey and to fill in the Scheme of Learning for this last unit.
During our independent study time, I spoke to Rebekah, Pete, and Adam about the event we are planning. For starters as it is my first time, I broken up the process into steps and have decided to firstly ask for a definite answer of who is willing to go and who can potentially become a driver. I also spent this time completing the final and last resubmission for U2A3T3. This means that I have finally completed everything, woop!
For my Chinese exam, it felt like I did extremely well. When I get my results within two weeks, I will post an update here for you guys (if I remember). For the current course, I'm done! (Almost). And for my art lessons, they're going to begin again! Things are going well because I have completed Completed the Computer Systems Unit! For tomorrow, I have a dentist appointment so I will not be here in the mornings. I will return here in the afternoons to submit everything into the submitted folders and will further plan ahead the event.
See you!
Friday, 12 June 2015
We Only Find It Fun In The Last Moment
Wa tashi o-genki, desu ka?
(I'm okay, you?)
Today I have a lot to cover in this blog so let's get on with it. Firstly, I completed two different surveys sent from both John and Catherine. The first one is about helping next year's students by providing opinions from us of our experiences and educational thoughts. The second is about the end of summer term survey (units in general). Though time consuming, it was a good feeling to go into detail and act as a senior for next year. In addition, the University of Hertfordshire sent me an email with an unlisted thank you YouTube video. There, I commented and thanked them for the organisation of the open day.
For today's starter, we played a multiplayer game on our phones with the class (interactive game) called Kahoot. There, it gave us a series of questions about hardware components and logos. It was extremely fun because it had competitive aspects. Especially when I attempted to overtake Sami H and ended up beating him. However, Ben R was rivaling Alex S and surpassed him in the end.
When we returned to work, I continued and finished the resubmission for U2A2T1. I made simple changes and then sent it to John. He eventually marked up and gave me the critieras, woop woop. Next, I had finished the first task so I moved onto the second one of the third assignment (U2A3T2). I started explain the different routine maintenance that I have undertaken; these include different software utilities such as disk defragmenter, disk cleanup, antivirus, and back up. However, as I finish each task "Jovial John" recommended to send it as I work along, (within the same email thread).
Eventually, we had another Kahoot quiz which was about cartoon characters and another computer hardware. In this, one was easy and the other was difficult - pretty self explanatory right there. For the end of the day, I started to work on the third task of the last assignment (U2A3T3). I have also went to the submitted areas and have created a folder structure for my final submission. However, I have only put in resubmitted and marked work for the time being.
Overall, today was mega productive in some way and also fun. I hope more Kahoo quizes are implemented before the summer comes and for next academic year. I will aim to complete the last task on Monday and submit everything then, along by filling out the Scheme of Learning. All I remain for the weekend now is 100% focus on my upcoming Chinese exam. As time flies, we only find it fun in the last moment.
P.S: Connor P returned.
(I'm okay, you?)
Today I have a lot to cover in this blog so let's get on with it. Firstly, I completed two different surveys sent from both John and Catherine. The first one is about helping next year's students by providing opinions from us of our experiences and educational thoughts. The second is about the end of summer term survey (units in general). Though time consuming, it was a good feeling to go into detail and act as a senior for next year. In addition, the University of Hertfordshire sent me an email with an unlisted thank you YouTube video. There, I commented and thanked them for the organisation of the open day.
For today's starter, we played a multiplayer game on our phones with the class (interactive game) called Kahoot. There, it gave us a series of questions about hardware components and logos. It was extremely fun because it had competitive aspects. Especially when I attempted to overtake Sami H and ended up beating him. However, Ben R was rivaling Alex S and surpassed him in the end.
When we returned to work, I continued and finished the resubmission for U2A2T1. I made simple changes and then sent it to John. He eventually marked up and gave me the critieras, woop woop. Next, I had finished the first task so I moved onto the second one of the third assignment (U2A3T2). I started explain the different routine maintenance that I have undertaken; these include different software utilities such as disk defragmenter, disk cleanup, antivirus, and back up. However, as I finish each task "Jovial John" recommended to send it as I work along, (within the same email thread).
Eventually, we had another Kahoot quiz which was about cartoon characters and another computer hardware. In this, one was easy and the other was difficult - pretty self explanatory right there. For the end of the day, I started to work on the third task of the last assignment (U2A3T3). I have also went to the submitted areas and have created a folder structure for my final submission. However, I have only put in resubmitted and marked work for the time being.
Overall, today was mega productive in some way and also fun. I hope more Kahoo quizes are implemented before the summer comes and for next academic year. I will aim to complete the last task on Monday and submit everything then, along by filling out the Scheme of Learning. All I remain for the weekend now is 100% focus on my upcoming Chinese exam. As time flies, we only find it fun in the last moment.
P.S: Connor P returned.
Thursday, 11 June 2015
I See Nothing but Progress!
O-genki desu ka? (Hello, are you fine?)
For yesterday's UCAS convention, I traveled with Catherine and Sami H to the University of East Anglia's Sports Park. There, we lined up and eventually made it into the in-door sports hall where we get to ask personal questions. For me, I explained my current progress and asked for advice on my next steps, e.g. Portfolio. I obtained a lot of knowledge as it was an informative event. However, I only spoke to the University of Hertfordshire and Norwich University of the Arts as promised. Furthermore, I also begun filling in my UCAS personal details.
This morning, "Jovial John" showed a video about a holographic projection using the principals and physics of light to reflect back the output in every direction. So a user can project their 2D Skype call to a 3D output (impossible?) Afterwards, "Jovial John" did the weekly Thursday quiz. It was an interesting Ted talk by Andy Yen about how we lost our privacy to the internet (such as now as I am blogging my life... irony?) He spoke about how we can encrypt emails using ProtonMail, newly method and email server he and his team coded. However, the one issue with this is compatibility to other email types as well as accessing the private email. If you are interested in this, watch here and check their website out here. At the end of the quiz, I got 11 out of 14 with 12 questions in total. The winner was Ben C and Liam B at 12 marks, but Liam B won the rock paper scissors and won the reward.
For the blog stars (yes it has returned!) is myself, Sami H, Ben R, and Ben C. I am proud of this another achievement that I have now lost count as I put a lot of effort into this. Blogs help reflect and helps boost longer term memory for the person as they are required to remember more. Afterwards, "Jovial John" went through U2A2 resubmission as most of us got some fundamental parts incorrect. I took this opportunity to create notes for later. Once the discussion was over, I worked straight onto completing the almost finished U2A3T1 and ended up proof reading it too.
For a small break, I took a small section of my time to complete the survey for the UCAS convention as well as for YDG BAFTA competition I joined (though my game will most likely not win, I attempted) and can be another thing I can mention in my personal statement. For the rest of the day there on, I worked on my U2A2 resubmission, which was quite difficult due to a lot of simple mistakes being made. I asked "Jovial John" the most confusing parts and attempted the rest myself.
At the end of the day, I managed to get everything I planned for today completed. Though we didn't do anything in particular, I enjoyed sitting down and getting work done. My plans for tomorrow and Monday are to complete U2A3T2 and U2A2T3 for Tuesday's predicted deadline. Right now I see nothing but progress. Now, more revision!
Tuesday, 9 June 2015
Lets Finish This!
Konnichiwa!
This blog will be shorter than usual because today I have primarily focused on working my U2A3T1 annotations. Using the photo evidence I have renamed at home yesterday, I started annotating my hardware and software installations. In a new word document, I chronologically listed the steps I undertaken and explained them in detail - despite not using all of the photos I have taken, I have only used the ones which are more self-explanatory for simplistic understanding.
In addition, today in class we had some pretty weird moments. I was asked about a word which I won't state and I did not understand its definition. After asking "Jovial John", everyone laughed and I felt my purity has been banished by impure beings (heh). Eds Banana also resurrected and placed a holy banana on Matthew T's car.
For tomorrow, I am heading to the Norwich Train Station with a few of my peers, including: Sami H, Brandon B, Jordan B, Alex W, and Billy B to the UCAS convention. Tonight, I and my girlfriend will plan some questions and ask each university station. For me, I am particularly interested in the University of Hertfordshire and Norwich University of the Arts.
During independent study time, I have been working and finishing off the first task of assignment three. I will also continue my Chinese revision preparing for the exam. Currently, everything seems to be going according to plan but lets finish this.
See you tomorrow!
This blog will be shorter than usual because today I have primarily focused on working my U2A3T1 annotations. Using the photo evidence I have renamed at home yesterday, I started annotating my hardware and software installations. In a new word document, I chronologically listed the steps I undertaken and explained them in detail - despite not using all of the photos I have taken, I have only used the ones which are more self-explanatory for simplistic understanding.
In addition, today in class we had some pretty weird moments. I was asked about a word which I won't state and I did not understand its definition. After asking "Jovial John", everyone laughed and I felt my purity has been banished by impure beings (heh). Eds Banana also resurrected and placed a holy banana on Matthew T's car.
For tomorrow, I am heading to the Norwich Train Station with a few of my peers, including: Sami H, Brandon B, Jordan B, Alex W, and Billy B to the UCAS convention. Tonight, I and my girlfriend will plan some questions and ask each university station. For me, I am particularly interested in the University of Hertfordshire and Norwich University of the Arts.
During independent study time, I have been working and finishing off the first task of assignment three. I will also continue my Chinese revision preparing for the exam. Currently, everything seems to be going according to plan but lets finish this.
See you tomorrow!
Monday, 8 June 2015
Things are going smoothly!
Hello reader, hajimemashite!
To recap over my weekend, I attended the open day for the University of Hertfordshire. To sum it up, I have taken in a lot of informative information and have started to prepare furthermore. I am currently ahead and I believe I need to be so in order to feel confident in making my final choice in a years time. I also updated my Google Docs and filled in all of the information I have acquired from doing other curriculum outside of college as well as going to many different open days. In addition, I also registered my own UCAS account but got stuck where I needed a 'buzzword' to continue. From there on I decided to make some notes and ask Catherine via Gmail and on Monday morning.
So during this morning, I got a response from Catherine and she had told me to update the information to the right copy of Google Docs. She also told me to take my time and consider wisely as my decisions might change, which is true as I will not confirm my decisions but will only prepare for university. I also took this opportunity to ask whether or not I should give myself another curriculum outside of college (National Citizen Services). However, we concluded that it was not needed as I already have a lot I can talk about in my personal statement. Thus, it wouldn't benefit me for the course but only for traits such as confidence etc.
At the beginning of the day, I got the camera I had used last week and told John that the update took longer than expected from U2A3T1. Before we started and cracked on with the day, "Jovial John" showed us some news from the BBC that might interest us; including technology advancement on our devices' capacitor charging by Wi-Fi signals and a prototype bike that hopes to fly. "Jovial John" also recapped parts of U2A1T2 and U2A2T1. As I have already done all of my outstanding work, I moved straight onto U2A3T2 and U2A3T3 practical. Throughout the second task, I have backup up the computer system (but failed due to lack of storage space), used the disk cleanup utility to delete temporary files (88.4MB total), and de-fragmented the (C:) HDD. For the third task, I have tested my configured computer system for functionality. Some of these include: testing the computer speed by running the benchmark system one more time, testing applications after installation, and checking web browsers.
When done, I transferred all of the files from the SD card to my documents and renamed all the images in chronological order - this will allow easier identification and explanation when I begin to annotate the three tasks. However, as I do this I had to install separate defrag software's in order to improve my computer system overall. A bit more work but in the end I managed to get the most time consuming part done. Furthermore, Catherine also spoke to me and several others about the UCAS Convention on Wednesday.
Throughout this week, I will be working on my Chinese exam revision and completing coursework within college time. With all the evidence collected and 10 days till submission, I am confident I can spread out my work load and time and complete everything within the deadline.
So at the end of the day, things are going smoothly.
To recap over my weekend, I attended the open day for the University of Hertfordshire. To sum it up, I have taken in a lot of informative information and have started to prepare furthermore. I am currently ahead and I believe I need to be so in order to feel confident in making my final choice in a years time. I also updated my Google Docs and filled in all of the information I have acquired from doing other curriculum outside of college as well as going to many different open days. In addition, I also registered my own UCAS account but got stuck where I needed a 'buzzword' to continue. From there on I decided to make some notes and ask Catherine via Gmail and on Monday morning.
So during this morning, I got a response from Catherine and she had told me to update the information to the right copy of Google Docs. She also told me to take my time and consider wisely as my decisions might change, which is true as I will not confirm my decisions but will only prepare for university. I also took this opportunity to ask whether or not I should give myself another curriculum outside of college (National Citizen Services). However, we concluded that it was not needed as I already have a lot I can talk about in my personal statement. Thus, it wouldn't benefit me for the course but only for traits such as confidence etc.
At the beginning of the day, I got the camera I had used last week and told John that the update took longer than expected from U2A3T1. Before we started and cracked on with the day, "Jovial John" showed us some news from the BBC that might interest us; including technology advancement on our devices' capacitor charging by Wi-Fi signals and a prototype bike that hopes to fly. "Jovial John" also recapped parts of U2A1T2 and U2A2T1. As I have already done all of my outstanding work, I moved straight onto U2A3T2 and U2A3T3 practical. Throughout the second task, I have backup up the computer system (but failed due to lack of storage space), used the disk cleanup utility to delete temporary files (88.4MB total), and de-fragmented the (C:) HDD. For the third task, I have tested my configured computer system for functionality. Some of these include: testing the computer speed by running the benchmark system one more time, testing applications after installation, and checking web browsers.
When done, I transferred all of the files from the SD card to my documents and renamed all the images in chronological order - this will allow easier identification and explanation when I begin to annotate the three tasks. However, as I do this I had to install separate defrag software's in order to improve my computer system overall. A bit more work but in the end I managed to get the most time consuming part done. Furthermore, Catherine also spoke to me and several others about the UCAS Convention on Wednesday.
Throughout this week, I will be working on my Chinese exam revision and completing coursework within college time. With all the evidence collected and 10 days till submission, I am confident I can spread out my work load and time and complete everything within the deadline.
So at the end of the day, things are going smoothly.
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