Analysis Of Previous Students Blog.
- 2. Ellie Zambakides’ Blog ★ I looked through Ellie’s A2 blog to see how she had presented all of her work throughout the year. What I initially noticed was the considerable amount of different posts she had made, which immediately allowed me to realise that she must have documented everything she had done in the build up to completing the final product, allowing us to see the full journey her video went through. ★ Her blog really stood out to me due to the fact that all of her blog posts went into a significant amount of detail, and also how her posts varied in the format in which they were posted, overall making her blog a lot more interesting. ★ In addition, I also thought her blog was set out in a very organised and pretty format allowing me to easily navigate through the different pages looking at all of the different elements of her work whilst making it look appealing!
- 3. Ellie Zambakides’ Blog ★ Furthermore, I wanted to continue looking at the different posts she had made on her blog due to there being a large variety of formats used, for example: some posts were visual (videos/photos) others were written. I also felt as though she definitely chose each format carefully as they all seemed very suitable for the different types of posts she had made allowing her blog to not only be organised but also have a very professional appearance. ★ Overall, I would use this blog as a good reference for when I start to make my own posts on my page as I feel as though if I begin to struggle I can look back and see how she had completed whatever I am struggling with, and use her ideas as some inspiration for my own work as I can see that she put in a lot of hard work and it clearly must have paid off in the end.
- 4. When you initially open Ellie’s blog this is the first thing that we are presented with and these pictures and headings also enable the user to navigate around her blog as you can click on either of them. Not only is this feature of her blog convenient for the user, but it also has a very organised and pretty appearance following a black and white colour scheme which looks very sophisticated. Furthermore, the fact that she has used her own images (possibly screenshots from her final video) also gives the user an insight to what her theme/video is about making them become more intrigued. As we are able to see, Ellie has clearly put in a significant amount of effort into her blog posts, as there is both a lot of detail that has been included whilst also including different visual features to make the posts look more appealing for users if a large quantity of text has been used (for example: the post on the left hand side.) As well as this, even if her post has been formatted in a multi-media format such as a video (the post on the right hand side) she has also chosen to include a written description below in order to summarise the post and give the user an insight to what the post is about before they watch/listen to it.
- 5. Planning Page ★ Whilst I was browsing through Ellie’s planning page, I instantly noticed how detailed everything was. I saw that there was a variation of different medias that has been embedded into her blog and a lot of her posts also had large descriptive summaries placed below them allowing the users to get a bit of an insight to what each post was about before actually reading them. She has also included a lot of images to not only show her progress along the way but also to make the posts look a lot more visual and interesting. I think she has completed this section very well due to the amount of detail she has chosen to include and the very professional standard in which her posts have been made to. ★ Sometimes during the creation of a new product ‘planning’ can be seen as messy, however she has been able to present rough drafts as very neat and tidy.
- 6. To the right hand side are just a few examples of the posts and features that have been included and posted on Ellie’s planning page. Just from these three pictures we can clearly see that not only has she used a good variety of different formats for her posts as she has used a photograph of a sketch that she had drawn, and has also embedded a word document, but not only this, she has also managed to make everything look very organised and tidy throughout. For example, if a user was to hover their mouse over the ‘planning’ tab another three tabs would appear below the main tab, further separating her work into different categories making her blog even more user friendly and easy to navigate around the blog. In addition, as I previously mentioned she has also chosen to include a typed summary below some of her posts giving the user of her blog a quick insight to what each post is conveying. Overall, her planning page has definitely shown the progress she was able to make along the way of creating her final product, it has made clear the amount of skills and confidence she was able to pick up with the practice
- 7. Research Page ★ Ellie had clearly put in a lot of effort for her research tasks, which was definitely a good idea as it meant that she was able to look into pre-existing music videos and find multiple ideas that would possibly inspire her. She evidently took a lot of time on her research as she has documented multiple things even if she didn't use all of her research, she still documented it for her own reference to look back on if she ever got stuck and needed some assistance. ★ My favourite research post that Ellie made was the ‘research into music labels’ post as although she simply formatted this post on a slide-show the amount of information and images she included made it a really interesting post and I myself was able to learn a few things that I did not already know which will now probably be a help to me when completing my own research tasks.
- 8. I found this blog post on her research page to be very interesting even though it was just simply formatted as a slide show due to the fact that it included a large quantity of detailed information and different images to go with it, tying all of the information together and allowing it to look a lot more visual. As you can see multiple images, logos and post formats have been used to make her blog more interactive and interesting for the users which I think makes the research section of her blog definitely look highly successful and as though she has put in a lot of time in effort into completing it! Which clearly paid off as she made a very successful music video at the end of the project.
- 9. Evaluation Page ★ In my personal opinion, I feel as though Ellie’s evaluation section is one of the strongest sections within her blog, as although all of the other sections do include a lot of detail, this section does include great amounts of detail where she is also being self critical about her own work and it was interesting to read what she thought about the whole experience of making a music video from the start of the course to finishing all of the tasks. ★ She not only formatted some of her evaluation as a magazine using the site ‘issu’ but she also included a very detailed video which was made to be even more interesting by having visual aspects pop up on screen as she was talking about them, keeping the video lively, interesting and entertaining. Overall I thought her evaluation was done to a very high standard!
- 11. Why Was Her Blog Successful? ★ I believe that Ellie’s blog was successful as she clearly put in a whole lot of effort into every single post that she had made on her blog. Overall, this means that she had completed every section of her blog to a great standard including the planning, drafting, research, evaluation and the final products. She had a very strong foundation when it came to making her video as not only was all the planning and research there, but it was all completed to an exceptional standard, allowing her to have a lot of great work to look back on! ★ Her blog was also successful due to the variation of formats she had included, as this made her blog that little bit more interesting and different to your ‘typical written blog.’ As well as this, all of the posts were presented in a very organised and elegant fashion making her blog look very attractive.
- 12. What Can I Learn From Her Blog? ★ Ellie’s blog will be very helpful to me as I think I will most definitely go back to looking at her blog at different stages of my music video creation to look more elements of inspiration that I could possibly use in my own work. I am now aware that I will need to use a variation of different medias for my blog posts varying from slideshows, videos and prezis. ★ I would also like to take on board quite how much detail she has put into each an everyone of her blog posts, she discusses many great things that I would probably would have never thought about myself. In addition, she has chosen to put a lot of pictures on the different pages of her blog to accompany the large quantities of writing which allows the blog to look a lot more visual and appealing, allowing the users to find it more interesting altogether.