Ella Corcoran IDM 2021

   This week, for our video task, we were asked to watch four videos on the production process.  Creative Thinking The first video we watched explained what design thinking was and how we can use it. AJ&Smart described design thinking as using a philosophy and tools to help solve a creative problem.  The first stage, empathise, involves interviewing people, researching your demographic and finding out who you’re designing for and what they want out of your product.  Step two, define, involves taking the information gathered in the first step and finding out what your audience needs and what insights you can use to develop your product.  The third step, ideate, means you take the issues you found in the first two stages and you find solutions.It’s essentially a brainstorm or workshop of all your ideas.  Step four, prototype, involves taking the ideas you like and making simple prototypes of those ideas, versions of what you hope your finished projec...

  This week we were asked to watch 5 videos about media compression. The first video described the differences between spatial (intraframe) and temporal (interframe) compression. Intraframe compression only works on individual frames of a video. It breaks the image down into a .jpeg format, making the image smaller. Sometimes, large blocks of pixels can be left behind during the compression process, this is called “compression artefacts” Interframe compression works in an .mpeg format by removing “redundant” information, these are pixels that don't change from one frame to the next. The example used in the video is the large white void edited in behind the speaker. The video also explains that a higher bitrate will result in a higher quality video, while a lower bitrate will give a lower quality video, regardless of compression. The second video we watched showed the difference in the same video with reduced frame rates. The 60 frames per second (FPS) video looks smooth and satisfy...

This week for our reading task, we had to provide peer review to our classmates for the second time this semester. We also had to read a journal about the advantages of peer review.  We had to read a journal about the advantages of peer review for learning. I found the journal really interesting, as students ended up learning more by giving feedback rather than getting feedback. Personally, I find the process of peer review really helpful in every phase, but I do find it interesting that giving feedback is better than getting feedback for the majority of the students surveyed.  Giving feedback is a difficult yet necessary process for me. I find it hard to critique people, especially my peers. I find it even harder to reach the word count without running out of what to say as well, but at the end of the day, I think positive feedback is important too. If I could find anything to be improved on in each blog, I made sure to mention it by using the sparks method. I made my feedbac...

  This week, we were asked to watch 5 videos about technological evolution.  The first video we watched recapped the evolution of technology from the stone age up to current day. It was interesting to see the origins of certain things, but I was shocked when it said speech synthesis was invented in 1796! It was invented by Wolfgang von Kempelen, who also invented the hoax chess playing machine, the Turk. The machine is still limited in what it can say, but it’s still amazing that this type of technology was around in the 16th century! Voice synthesis plays a huge part in some people's lives, Stephen Hawking being a perfect example. Voice synthesis is also key to the “Vocaloid” genre of music, where the singers are all computer programs. It’s truly amazing that this technology has been in development for so long and has gone so far! The second video we watched was a 2 parter about the evolution of media literacy. Part one explained that Platos, a Greek Philosopher, believed tha...

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This week, we were asked to review two of our  classmates'  blogs.  We had to read four articles about feedback before we read the blogs we were given.   The articles put a huge emphasis on the importance of a growth mindset. If we believe we  can’t  change or improve our abilities, if we believe  we are  born with certain skill levels that  can’t  be impro ved, when we  won’t  try as hard as we can when it comes to doing work. If we try to listen and learn from feedback from peers and educators, we can work bette r and feel more confident within ourselves. I found this  insightful  as I can often be quite hard on myself when it comes to getting feedback, however I do agree that working with the feedback we receive is important to the outcome  and improvement of our work.   The first article really stood out to me as well, it used “feedforward” instead of “feedback,” instead of focusing on what someone did w...