Evaluation – Communication Technology


When I look back to the beginning of the communication technology module I was looking forward to getting a chance to use new software. It was also a chance to broaden my understanding of technology and how it’s used to communicate as well as a form of interactivity.

I think that it was useful to base the brief around technologies that we love and hate as it got us thinking what technology is used for and how we relate to it. I took a lot from one of the initial sessions where we had a group discussion about where we thought technology would be in twenty years. The discussion gave us a chance to see how each other felt about technology and it got us thinking about the good and bad sides of technology. This session started my thought process as to what technologies I love and hate.

The five that I settled on were the Polaroid camera or Polaroid in general, the Gameboy, Tetris, Treadmills and finally the computer game Second Life. When I look at my selection I can see common themes linking both my loves and hates. My loves (Polaroid, Gameboy and Tetris) all stem from a sense of nostalgia and things that I enjoyed when I was younger. Overshadowing that is the fact that I like the idea of keeping old technologies alive. Technology is now at a stage where it is constantly evolving and at a rapid pace. This can result in technologies being forgotten and I think that it is interesting to carry on using technologies, even when some people ay consider them to be obsolete. Both of my hates are also linked. They revolve around the idea of replacing reality or something that already exists. In the case of Second Life it’s creating another virtual life over the Internet. Treadmills mean that you can run inside and get nowhere and are replacing running out in the real world. I thought the best way to represent my loves and hates was through a website. The website would just be a way of providing information about my loves and hates and a means of explaining why I love or hate them, in a very straightforward way. Web design was something that I’ve wanted to learn about for a while, so I was looking forward to learning to use Dreamweaver.

This brief meant that we would have to learn how to use a variety of different software’s, some of which we may not have even used before. Personally I was looking forward to getting to grips with programs like Dreamweaver, Final Cut, Flash and DVD Studio Pro. I felt that Dreamweaver was the most important program for me to gain an understanding of. This is due to the Internet being many people’s first port of call when it comes to finding information, shopping as well as communicating to other people. So as a visual communicator in today’s society I feel it is vital to have some knowledge about web design, so that in the future you can get your work out into the world and promote yourself.

I found Dreamweaver a slightly restricting program to use at first. I was expecting to be able to place images and texts wherever I wanted on the page and have no parameters as to how a page could look. I quickly learned after the first session that html coding restricts web design. This lead to a newfound appreciation for well designed web sites because I now understood the effort that must have gone into making it. This resulted in me changing my design ideas for my website. At the beginning I had grand ideas that involved using various bits of flash that would actually be incorporated into the navigation of my site. I got as far as creating a small animation in flash of a cube that I was planning to use as the main menu for the website but didn’t know where to start when it came to actually making this happen. I soon realised that I was seriously deluded and was getting far too ahead of myself. My idea changed into a more basic design that had a more hand designed feel to it. I thought this was far more achievable for a first website and I could make it look a lot better than a website I tried to make look very professional. I did this by handwriting the headers and then scanning them in. I did try handwriting all of the information on my website but the results weren’t always clear so I chose to use a computer font instead. Looking back this was the right choice as I feel I have created a website that has a personal feel to it and it actually relates to my feelings on technology.

Along with Dreamweaver I also used Flash in my website, albeit for one small animation on Tetris. This is down to the fact that I found Flash a tough piece of software to just pick up and start using. Unlike Dreamweaver where we were having taught sessions I had to tech myself (with the help of a book from the library) how to use it. This meant that the learning curve was a lot bigger and it took me longer to get a basic understanding. It’s a different way to go about trying to learn a piece of software and one that I wouldn’t recommend, I found that I got there in the end it just took twice the time. Ideally someone who has a high understanding would show me the basics and then through trial and error I would get better at using the software.

Making the DVD wasn’t as high a priority in my eyes as the website, however it is still something we need to know. The most valuable thing that came out making the DVD was learning how to use final cut for both animation and editing film. I wish I had maybe focused a bit more attention on the DVD as I really enjoyed the whole editing process and it’s something I hope to carry on and get better at. I ended up using idvd to author my DVD so it isn’t as personalised as I would have wanted. Out of all the software we were asked to use I found DVD Studio Pro the most complicated. It also didn’t help that I was concentrating more on making the website and ignored the DVD until the end of the module. Another contributing factor could be that I didn’t have any footage that I felt passionately about and really wanted to put onto a DVD. With all that said I’m happy with what I edited on the DVD and kept the design basic and to the point.

I have found this brief extremely useful. I now know how to make a website, create a DVD interface; edit film footage and also some basic animation. Some of these processes I have taken to better than others but overall I feel that I am in a better position now when it comes to computer technology than I was before. The brief has also left me wanting to continue some of the processes such as web design. I now want to take what I’ve learned and make a portfolio website to promote my work and myself.