Assignment 4

Sumary 1

The Teaching Profession: Knowledge of subject matter, teaching skill and personality.

The Main purpose of this article is looking at the importance and comparing the differences of teaching skills. It looks into the personality and body language of the teachers. ‘Profession of teaching is based upon a specialization on a certain field, teaching skills, didactics and some certain personal characteristics that the profession requires.’

The key question that the author is addressing in this article ‘looking into the close relation between the fact that individuals who select teaching profession possess the knowledge of subject matter, teaching skills and suitable personality traits and whether the mission which is attributed to this profession is successfully fulfilled?’

In this article I found most of it important. The article itself didn’t tend to lead off into topics that weren’t really relevant. The article has used a lot of references itself and talks about teacher’s knowledge of the subject matter, stating ‘Teachers who have comprehensive knowledge of their subject matters let their students actively participate in the lessons. These teachers are aware of the problems the students encounter while learning and are ready for any questions put by the students and the answers these teachers provide are not evasive or ambiguous.’ Also the author has talked about teaching skills of the teacher and personality traits of the teacher, and within these areas, it has been broken down into numbered paragraphs going step by step through all the processes.

The author only uses secondary sources to support the argument. The key secondary sources used are mixed between books and journals. The author did use a lot of sources as I found out when I went to read the bibliography. There were no primary sources used in this article to support the argument.

The main conclusion in the article is emphasising that teachers must almost be multi-talented, they must be able to focus and think of different styles and techniques of learning. There is a lot to take in and think about when teaching. ‘A teacher should take up the role of a scientist while acting like an artist while designing the learning environment with the characteristics of a scientist he should add beauty, elegancy, understanding, tolerance and affection to this environment with the features of an artist.’

The key concepts we need to understand in this article are, for effective teaching, a teacher should posses basic quality’s such as ‘expertise on the subject matter, motivating for learning, awareness of student differences, planning the teaching process, knowing and using teaching learning strategies, designing learning environment, effective communication and objective evaluation.’ The author has talked about different qualities throughout the article. It is really interesting to read as some of the qualities that teachers have to take into consideration, I never or have never thought about.

The main point of view presented in this article is the author has clearly showed that to successfully become a teacher you need to have knowledge of subject matter, teaching skills and personality trait. The author has supported this view by using quotes and facts from other authors. For example when talking about planning the teachers process, the author supported the information that he/she wrote by using quotes and references such as ‘ it is within the teachers responsibility to design and prepare learning activities considering the fact that each and every student has a unique way of thinking.’ This technique was carried out throughout the whole article.


Summary 2

Making formative assessment work

The main purpose of this book is explaining formative assessment by attending to the reality and complexity of classroom life. The book, Making formative assessment work, written by Kathy Hall and Winifred M. Burke, explains and exemplifies formative assessment in practise. Drawing on incidents and case studies from primary classrooms, it describes and analyses how teachers can use formative assessment to promote learning.

The key questions that the authors are addressing are ‘What does formative assessment look like in practise?’ ‘How are formative assessment and learning connected?’ and ‘What are the issues involved in implementing formative assessment?’

The most important information in this book is the author has identified three characteristics of learning. These were well explained by Von Glasefeld (1989) in an essay entitled ‘Learning as a constructive activity.’ The three characteristics are ‘learning occurs through active intellectual engagement on the part of the learner.’ ‘It is always in a context and involves constructing meaning.’ And ‘ It involves linking new knowledge with previous understanding.’ The author then goes into more detail and continues to talk about these statements and states ‘As learners, we make our own sense and build on our own connections no matter how brilliant the teacher.’ I think that this statement was very useful as it sums up the three characteristics and its important to take in, think about and remember whilst reading this book.

Throughout this book the author has used a large amount of secondary sources to support the topic. They have used different books, journals and also Internet resources. The author has also used some primary sources such as case studies. ‘Drawing on incidents and case studies from primary settings, it describes and analyses how teachers in regular classrooms use formative assessment to promote their pupils learning.’ This was quite interesting to read as it explains the case for formative assessment with reference to what we know about the way learning occurs as well as with reference to the kind of learning that matters increasingly in schools. Also the authors themselves take it into their own hands and attend to the reality of classroom life. This way they were able to explore formative assessment being used.

The main conclusion in this book is research has shown that the kind of assessment that really matters for raising standards is assessment that yields information that learners can use to progress their own learning. The authors of this book have supported this process by exploring issues that are central to the complex task of assessing learning in away that directly informs and supports learning.

The main points of view presented in this book are, looking at the power and roles of learners and teachers in formative assessment, self and peer assessment and sharing success criteria with learners. Within this book there are individual chapters that explore formative assessment across the curriculum.

Overall I think that the author was looking at providing teachers, student teachers and researchers with a sophisticated gasp of issues in formative assessment, and how they relate to the improvement of pupil learning.

Assignment 3b

For my Dissertation Project I have decided to change mines from Gender and Design to Education and Design. I found personally, Gender and design was quite hard to talk about without always putting your own personal thought and opinion in to it. It was also quite hard to find out facts and also history about Gender and Design.

I am interested in doing Education and Design as I am actually looking to do a post grad in Primary teaching, so i feel this subject would be beneficial. Also its something I really enjoy. And I think I will relate to it well.

Here on my mind map I have looked into different aspects on which I could focus on and look into. I have used different colours representing different fields I could go into. Using different colours helps me not get confused as mind maps do sometimes get a bit busy.

I have also come up with some potential questions which I could use within my Dissertation.

• How Does Design work with Education?
• What benefits do children/students gain fromDesign within Education?
• Do bright colours all over the classroom wall help children to learn and stay focused?
• how does the teachers body language help children to learn?

I am still working on what question can be asked by going over my mind map.

Assignment 3a

One again we all met up to talk about our subjects that we want to choose for our dissertation. We all had a talk about what we wanting to do and everyone put in their thoughts and helped each other to define our area.

I found doing it this way was quite helpful. I liked hearing different peoples thoughts on what I was doing for my topic and i am sure the others appreciated it as well.

It was interesting to hear the pros and cons of each individuals subject after the wiki entry was done. And also interesting to see who was changing there topic and why. Pretty much most of us changed our topic but again its only in pencil for just now.

Assignment 1c

an image here clearly showing the males are represented by the colour blue and the females are represented by the colour pink.

Mr Hermann Orbist (1863-1927) Creator and Founder of "Debschitz School." Mr Orbist was one of the first to accept female student in his Art School.

Here we have the washing gel advert promoted by a male doing the washing and staring in the advert, as a pose to a female which is usually the case.

Here we have the advertising campaign for the new 'Joop' advert, Stating that "real Men wear Pink." Its a very bold campaign and works really well.

Summary

Looking into different areas of gender and design and finding out different peoples personal opinions on different aspects such as colour, type, photography, and overall presentations.

Do different genders relate specific colours to themselves? What about activities, are something’s just for men and not for woman or vice versa? Do certain genders find it offensive if something is advertised more towards the one gender?

In this article I will look into all these kinds of things and also look into why woman weren’t accepted to study art at certain schools, and when and how this all changed. “Design Values make up an important part of what influences a designer, when they make their design decisions, However, designers are not always influenced by the same values and intentions” Is this because of their gender or because of the schools they have studied at? It may well be both, the designers personal opinion to his or hers work or they could have got into certain design habits when they were taught at art school.

History

Gender and design is quite a broad subject. Not much history relates specifically to this, as it is quite self-opinionated. Some people might think that a certain design or advertising campaign is related more to a certain sex whereas other people might not think this at all. It’s just the way the individual mind works.

Women once weren’t allowed to study art and design in certain countries, whereas in other countries there were large percentages of woman students. “The Debschitz School was unusual in that throughout its history, the student body had a large percentage of woman. This was no coincidence: woman who aspired to become professional artists in Germany at the end of the nineteenth centaury has even fewer educational opportunities than their counterparts in France, England and USA.” Whereas “Ecole des Beaux-Arts had begun accepting woman students in 1897.”

Its almost like back in the day it was frowned upon if woman went to study, but that all changed. “ As woman no longer wanted to abide by their dependence on parents, spouses, relatives and society but rather seek to earn their own living, do not want to live echo-lives but their own.”

Also colour is a big issue when it comes to Gender and Design. “Our reaction to colour is instantaneous and has a profound impact on the choices we make.”

How come when babies are born we automatically buy blue if it’s a boy and pink if it’s a girl. According to the website www.genderspecificcolours.com “it would seem that assigning colour to gender is mostly a 20^th centaury trait. It would also seem that at one time, the colour associations were reversed. When colour first came into use as a gender identifier. In fat this reversal of what we consider normal was considered conventional, even in the 20^th centaury.” Apparently at one point pink was considered of a boys colour, as a watered down red, and blue was considered a girls colour.

Gender and Design is very relevant to designers, they must take into consideration their target market when designing. I suppose in some cases it could be quite tricky to design something such as an advert or poster for both genders depending on the product, but in most cases I personally find it easy to be able to design for both genders.

A great example of gender and Design is the ‘Persil’ advert. All those years of similar adverts promoting the same things such as washing powder, washing up liquid, dishwasher tablets etc all used females in their campaigns. This gave the message that all these were woman’s jobs as it was only woman that promoted the product. Until the new ‘Persil’ advert came along, and instead of a woman it was a man promoting the product, This was a great advertising campaign, not only did woman all over the country appreciate this but the men also enjoyed it too, to a certain extent. It somehow made them feel powerful. I personally think it would be great if companies could promote their product by not insinuating that it is either a man or woman’s job, this way the designers would actually be designing for their target market and not just for one specific sex.

Another advert I have noticed is the new ‘Joop’ advert, Promoting men’s aftershave. Although this is aimed at men, and men are the target market, their slogan says ‘Joop…. real men wear pink’ Again this is brilliant. This adverts clearly stating that pink is not just a girl’s colour. It almost got the message out that colours aren’t specifically designed for different genders, but not quite. But it did give the message out that men can wear pink too. It’s a real mans colour.

For so long we have associated different colours with genders, symbols and meanings. But my research tells me that it is forever changing. It also comes down to your on thoughts and feelings towards the design. We automatically associate pink with girls and the new joop advert is starting to change that.

Overall designers must take into consideration gender when designing. This way they wont put the wrong message across to people, for example they wont advertise something for all sexes in a very femine or masculine way but will design something that is suitable and appealing to both genders.

Maybe in the future we will start to see more advertising campaigns that are more open to gender and try to make a change in the sexist aspect.

References

Alexander, Z (2009) Jugendstil Visions: Occultism, Gender and Modern Design Pedagogy, Journal of Design History, vol. 22, no. 3, pp. 203-226, Sep 2009

Kivimaa, K (2007) images of Woman as the Signifiers of the Soviet and National Identity in Estonian socialist Realist Painting and Graphic Art, Kunstiteaduslikke Uurimusi 16 no3 2007.

www.wikipedia(arcatecturaldesignvalues).com

www.genderspecificfactors.com

www.miltonbayer.com

www.genderstudies.cz/download

Assignment 2

I found this assignment really interesting and enjoyed reading my groups wiki entries. I learned quite a lot from this. It was interesting to see how everybody structured their wiki entry and also what they had come up with. The history for example. I think everyone in my group did well and I enjoyed reading all the entries!

well done group 5 :)

Assignment 1b

here I have looked into all asspects of gender and design. I have drawn a mind map to help me get as much information together as possible. From here I will then be able to see all topics I can go into and maybe focus on.



I find mind maps really usful, I think it is a great starting point as I just fill the page with as much information as I can. This is really helpful for starting pionts.



Here is my mind map that I did for this assignment, different colours represent different asspects of the topic, and keep it all together and easy to read.

Assignment 1a

• After meeting my study group in our first lecture of the year, we all decided to meet up the day after to discuss our assessments. We met outside the union on Thursday 16Th September. We decided to meet her as it was easy for everybody to get to, everyone knew where it was and its also always got a friendly atmosphere going on.
  
  Once we were altogether, we had another little introduction so everybody got to know each other.
  we then started to decided which topic we were all going to do, we made sure that none of us had the chosen the same as someone else and then started to discuss our assignment.
  
  In our group, Topics which were chosen were:
  
• up-cycling / down-cycling/ re-cycling and design
• Education and Design
• Corporate identity and Design
• Branding and Design
• and Gender and Design

We then decided to meet up again later on to see how we are getting on and to discuss mind maps but a date has not been confirmed yet.

Assignment 5

Assignment 5(a)

After reading the Tipping Point in semester one, I decided to research into how facial gestures and the body language of the sales man can influence people. For this assignment I am going to take this topic further and look into how I could use primary research to find out more data.

First of all, In semester one, I did some secondary research using mind-maps, brain-storming and also using the libraries cross-search, which was very useful as I found statements from psychologists and doctors which were very interesting, relating to "How facial gestures and body language of the sales man influence people." We also did a lot of discussion on this project and I found that it helped a lot and gave me more ideas to use when mind-mapping.

I feel that if I was asked to do the same now and research into "How facial gestures and body language of the sale man influence people" I think the new research techniques and what I have learned in semester two will benefit me more and I would be able to find out a lot more data.

For this project, as I am researching into peoples thoughts and feelings, I think that interviews would be a good primary research method. I would have to do a bit of brain-storming to come up with questions that I could ask but I would have to make sure not to come out with questions like 'Do you feel influenced by a sales man when shopping?' This sort of question wont tell me anything, They might just say yes,when they have never really thought about it or noticed it before. I think using the brain-storming or mind-mapping technique would work really well and help me come up with questions which are relevant to ask but are also quite disguised so they don't catch on to what I am trying to find out.

Also another primary research technique which I think would work with this topic is the photograph technique. I could source maybe three photographs that are relevant to my topic/question and ask some people to tell me what story they get from these three pictures. Again I would have to do a bit of mind-mapping when choosing the pictures, as I don't want to give away to much information. I will then be able to see what they have come up with and I could also add in another photograph to fit in with one of the stories. I would then ask another group of people to tell me the story that they get from the four pictures this time. I think it would be quite interesting to see if this technique would work and to see if people then came up with the same or similar stories relating to there thoughts on the salesman.

I don't think that I would benefit and find out as much information from this technique as the interviewing technique but I think it would be interesting to do anyway to see what the results would be, No harm would be done.

What I have learned this year, is that the most important technique is discussion. I think that it would be a good idea, once I had decided on what my research method will be, to find out other peoples thoughts about it to see if they could suggest any changes I could make to my research method . For example someone could tell me that I could maybe re-phrase a question, as they think it may give too much away. And then talk about how it all comes together and how it will work.

I think the most important thing to do, If I was to do interviews to find out if facial gestures and body language of sales men influences people, would be to do a test run of the interview questions that I had planned to ask. This way I would be able to see if I am getting the right information from my questions. If not then I think personally I would go back to the mind-map that I had done and see if I could rearrange the questions to work better with what I am trying to find out.

So when it is time to ask my questions which I came up with by doing some secondary research, I would think about my target market, who I will be asking the questions too, In this case I would ask people who buy or have bought electrical goods from shops such as curry's, comet or PC world, Or maybe someone that has just bought a new phone, basically anywhere where the employees work on commission would be my best bet. So therefor I think it would be best to target people coming or going into these kinds of shops.

The only problems I think might happen when using this research technique is having to ask the busy shoppers. Personally I don't like doing question airs for people when I am out doing my shopping, and I think it could be quite hard to get the shoppers to stop and speak to me, especially if they have just been hassled by the salesman. The last thing they would want is to stop and talk to me for five minutes. I think the only way I could solve this would be to target only the people going into the shop or people that look calm when leaving. Or I could ask them to come up to the university when they are free and have time. I think that would be the best solution if I was to have any problems as they would be calm and stress free.

Overall I think if i was to research into "how facial gestures and body language of the salesman can influence people" using primary research, I would use the interviewing technique along with some mind-mapping and discussion. I think that I would get more data from doing this than any other techniques including the photograph technique, I just don't think the information from that would be as strong from the information the interviews. But then again, I don't know that. I could be wrong, but the only way to find out would be to do both and then compare them.

Assignment 5(b)

I have chosen one of the briefs that we were given this semester to look into and investigate what different research methods I could have used when doing my research. I chose the brief "The Origin of food." For this project we were given a fruit, and we had a week to research into this fruit, then make a moodboard containing everything we found out. For there we had to pick one part of our research to focus on and do more research. There was quite a lot of researching for this project and once it was all finished we then had to make a spread sheet with everything that we had found.

I got given black currents as my fruit so I used the Internet to try and find out as much as I could about them . For my end piece of work I decided to call mines 'True or False', this was because I had found out so much interesting information, so i decided to use it all and add in some false information and that was it, it wasn't just a spreadsheet, it was a game.

For this project I found the main research method I used was mind-mapping, brain-storming and also some discussion, mostly secondary research. The secondary research that I used worked really well and it helped me get to my final outcome, without me thinking I hadn't done enough. I mind-mapped and brain-stormed different things and areas that I could look into. I used these two techniques quite frequently while doing my research, whereas I think I could of discussed it more with other class mates, especially because there was tree of us researching into the same fruit, so we could of had good, interesting information to share with each other.

Going into using primary research for this project I didn't really think that it would be relevant and I didn't think I would need to do it as I thought secondary research would of just been enough as it i mostly my thoughts and my project, but the more I think about it the more I realise what I can do and how it will be useful. I think a good idea at his stage would be to do some research on primary research and what kind of primary research would be relevant to my project. Then take it from there, by developing it and deciding what research method suits my type of project best.

What I would do in terms of primary research would be the interviewing method again. i think this would be most relevant to my project than any of the other ones. I feel I would get more out of doing the interviews than any of the other primary research.

First of all I would again do a bit of mind-mapping to see what kind of questions I could come up with. I think I would try to find out "what people think of healthy eating spreads in magazines, and do they read them?" I would then come up with questions that wouldn't give away what I am trying to find out, maybe ask 'what magazines do you read?' or 'what is your favourite food, or favourite dish to cook?' Again I would have to test these questions out first, to make sure I am receiving the information I am looking for. If not, then now that I have done a test run, I am able to see where I am going wrong, so it would be back to mind-mapping for me to change my questions. Once I have completed this stage I would then go on to do another test run of the questions to see how it would go this time, and again if it didn't work like I thought it would then it would be back to mind-mapping for me.


Once all my questions are complete and I am ready to ask people, I would think about who my target audience would be, and then start to brain-storm where I could find these type of people. I think I would make my target market woman of all ages. I think I would get some interesting answers from woman, as they are known to "spent most of there time in the kitchen" apparently and also I think woman are more likely to read magazines and the healthy food spreads within them.

I don't think there would be any problems with using this method, but I don't know that for sure until I try it out. Maybe one problem would be not asking the right questions like I mentioned before, but I know how I would resolve that, and that would be to do more mind-mapping and come up with new questions to suit what I am trying to find out. Another problem that I could come across could be not asking the right audience, If this does happen then it can be easily solved, I will make sure to have questions to ask if they say they don't like reading healthy eating spreads, so that they don't feel left out and also it would be good to receive this information to see why.

Overall I think the interviewing technique would work best with what I am trying to find out, peoples opinions on 'healthy eating spreads in magazines and if they read them or not' This would help me with my final design of my spread sheet as I will know why people read them and why they don't. Hopefully this information will help me create something different and will catch peoples eyes and make them want to stop and read it.

Bibliography

Berry, TR (2008) Getting to know the competition: a content analysis of publicly and corporate funded physical activity advertisements, Journal Of Health Communication 2008 Mar 13 (2), 169-80

Tamietto, M (2009) Unseen facial and body expressions trigger fast emotional reactions, Proceedings of the national academy of sciences of the united states of america 106 (42): 1766-17666

Assignment 4C

When discussing this project it was interesting to see what other people had come up with, and there interviewing questions and techniques.

What I really found interesting was one of the male interviewees said the last thing that he bought was a meal for his wife and child who was also a female, Then when I got down to what T.V programmes he watched, he said, he doesn't have any choice, meaning he watches what his wife and daughter watches. I think this is quite sweet.

Also another older woman said the last thing she bought was a birthday present, which was little boxes to keep jewelery in and also a chocolate hand bag and shoes that she got from asda, When I got down to the magazine part, she said she never read any magazines apart from the asda one to see what offers are on. I don't know if this had any influence on her purchase as I don't know what the adsa mag is like, whether it has everything in it or if it is just food and offers? Another thing is that her favourite website is ebay and apparently she will ask if anybody in her family needs anything and will go out of her way to look for it on ebay.
In this situation I don't really think she is influenced buy fashion magazines or gadget magazines, and has her own style, but i think she is highly influenced by cooking and food magazines.

Another one of the woman that I interviewed said she doesn't go out to buy magazines but if something appeals to her on the front cover then she will buy it. This again to me means that she is influenced buy magz, although she doesn't really buy them, but when she does it is for a specific reason as she has seen something interesting, whether it would be clothes or a story?

Personally I know myself that I only buy magazines if I am bored, or occasionally going to work, because I work in an office so I will sit and read it at my desk, or if I'm going on a plane, I always seem to buy 3 or 4 magazines for travelling to pass the time.
Its funny because in my work there is two drawers full of magazines that have been read buy everyone in the office, but this drawer never used to be there until this one girl started bringing them in, then all of a sudden everybody would be bringing one in. Its like she started a new trend. All the other girls in work were influenced by this one girl bringing in a magazine, and now they are everywhere.

From my research I found that girls tend to buy more magazines than boys as they said they mainly read the paper and don't purchase any magazines. and also the ladies have more links leading to magazines rather than the men.

I have to say that I have never bought something that I have seen advertised in a mag but I have seen a lot of nice things, Maybe I would of bought something that I seen and liked if i had the money, but most of the time I don't! I don't know if that's the answer or not?

Overall I feel that my experiment has shown me that magazines do influence people to a certain extent. More to woman than men but maybe if I had interviewed more people and had equal amounts of both sex then I may be wrong. This is something that interests me and I would like to do more interview to see if I would be right.

Assignment 4B

When it came to interviewing people once I had all my questions ready that I wanted to ask, I actually felt a bit nervous, I didn't want to just go up to random people in the street and ask them as I think I would of been a bit nervous and also I wouldnt like to be turned down. So I decided to go round my neighbourhood scheme. I never went to any houses where I knew the people, So when I did go to there doors I just explained who I was and that I stayed just round the corner and told them I was doing this experiment for uni. Everyone I went to was OK with that and never slammed the door in my face, which to be honest I expected it a little bit.

Overall I asked 6 people. I asked two males and four females and they were all different ages, I think. This is what I found out:

One of the houses I went to I asked both the mother and the daughter and when I asked the question 'are you planning any Major purchases soon', they both had the same answer, a trampoline, this tells me that the daughter isn't actually going to be buying the trampoline as she properly doesn't have the funds as she only looked about 11 or 12, but she seems to think that it is going to be her Major purchase as it is for her.

I found that all the females answers were all pretty much the same when it came to the 'What T.V programmes do you watch question?' It was the usual corrie and eastenders but one said Americas next top model, this tells me that she is interested in the fashion industry possible, she was also Nicely dressed when I went round, I wanted to ask her where her beads were from, but i never.

The two guys had pretty much the same answers, they both bought there partners something, and are not advised when shopping, where as all the girls I asked said they were.

I found this experiment really interesting and I wasnt as scared as what I thought. I really enjoyed it.

Assignment 4A

For this assignment we were giving topics ti choose from and to research into them buy interviewing people that we didn't know. For this assignment I decided to choose "How do magazines influence peoples ideas of taste and design" I thought this one would be most interesting.

I did some brainstorming and came up with some questions that I could ask people without trying to make it too obvious what I wanted to know. I found this quite interesting and more I thought about it the more questions I came up with which I thought wouldn't give too much away. Here are some of my Questions:

• can yo describe the last thing that you bought?
• can you describe the last thing that you brought for someone else IE birthday present?
• does anyone buy your clothes for you?
• are you advised by friends or family when you are buying something for yourself?
• are you planning to buy anything soon?
• have you asked for someone to buy you something for a birthday or event?
• what T.V programmes do you watch?
• what magazines do you read?
• what is your favourite magazine and why?
• do you read any newspapers?
• if yes, do you buy them or read them online?
• whats your favourite website?
• do you purchase your clothes from the Internet?

The coolest water bottle EVER!!

This is the coolest water bottle ever. I love it, I think it is brilliant. It is called Isklar and it is Norwegian glacial natural mineral water.

I think the shape of the bottle is just so different, It really works quite well with the whole glacial water. It almost looks like crystal, especially when the light hits off it. Another thing that pops into my head when I look at this bottle is ice, maybe that's what it represents?

I think that the packaging of this bottle may push the sales of the product, as it is very eye catching and not just like your regular water bottle. I know that the only reason that I bought this water was just purely because of the bottle, I didn't really care what water it was!

I LOVE IT!!

Assignment 3

For this assignment, I decided to go to the Glasgow rally. Thousands of teachers, parents and lecturers from across Scotland were marching in Glasgow on Saturday 6Th March in a protest against cuts to education budgets.

I didn't really know anything about this or even heard of it before until I was telling my mum about this project. My mum is a teacher and there was a bus running from her school to Glasgow on the Saturday morning, It turns out there was plenty spaces left on the bus so me, my sister, my mum and her friend all went, Although I wasn't too keen on get tin up so early on a Saturday morning. We wern't actually taking part in the march we were just going to see what it was like.

Whilst on the bus I didn't quite know what to expect. I didn't really understand what was actually happening, whether it was a parade like thing or if it was just a large group of people standing and protesting or if they were walking around Glasgow? I then found out that the March started at Kelvingrove Park and they were walking all the way to the SECC.

When we got to Glasgow I noticed large amounts of people everywhere. I also noticed that they all came prepared for the typical Scottish weather, as they were all wrapped up with jackets, hats, scarfs and gloves on, umbrellas and also everyone I looked at was wearing comfortable shoes. I recon if I was taking part in this experience then I would be wearing exactly the same, all wrapped up to walk the streets. Coming into Glasgow I actually felt a bit nervous, As I didn't really no what to expect, I had this vision of all these angry people standing shouting in rage waving banners about, I was right to a certain extent but it wasn't as bad as what i thought it would of been.

I found it really interesting to watch, although I was only watching for about 20 minutes to half an hour as they all passed on the road and I was amazed at how many people had turned up. Its not something that I would really take interest to and go and see because I wanted too but after reading some of the banners that were on display It changed my mind a wee bit. The campaign was entitled "Why must our children pay?"

There was people who felt very strongly against cuts to education budgets and were very loud but there was also people who not so loud and just walked holding up there banner but I don't think this meant they didn't feel as strong about it, maybe they were just generally quite people or tired from walking?

There was a mixture of males and female taking part in the rally I wouldn't say that there was more than one sex than than the other as It looked pretty even. This didn't really surprise me at all, I wasn't expecting to see more of one sex than the other.

Overall I enjoyed my day out to watch and observe the Glasgow rally and the people taking part in it. I was very interested to see how different people were reacting in different ways and it also made me more aware of the situation and the damage that cuts to education budgets could cause.

Assignment 2

Activity B&C

I found three random images for www.sxc.hu and printed them off. I then asked several different people from different age groups and occupations to make a short story from these images. My first three images were a bride, a squirrel and some cards.Here are my results:

Male - 20 - Engineer
While the groom played poker an infestation of ravenous grey squirrels set about the buffet, and the bride, upset,ran down to the beach to contemplate how it was all her husband to be's fault.

Female - 45 - Teaching Assistant
Soon after she was married the bride realised she had made a huge mistake. She thought about jumping off the cliff into the sea, but instead stole the money her husband won at poker, bought a cottage in the woods and lived among the squirrels.

Male - 18 - Engineer
Bride was away to get married but her partner stood her up and went to the casino to play blackjack instead. So she killed a squirrel.

Female - 20 - college student
There was a bride who was stood up on her wedding day by her husband to be, who never ever came back from his stag night in Las Vegas. As lonely and upset as she was, she decided to get on with her life and moved to the country.

Female - 13 - Pupil
The bride was playing poker on her hen night with her friends. She got drunk and bought a squirrel. The groom never showed up to the wedding so she ran away to spain with her squirrel and never came home.

Male - 43 - Police Officer
The bride to be found out her husband was a ganster on her wedding day. He was found out by the British police for cheeting at the casino and was jailed for fraud. The bride then called the wedding off as she wanted nothing to do with him anymore.

I think these are all really intresing, although they were all really similar. I think it is quite interesting how each of there stories relates back to there occupation in a way. Also the ages and the genders. I personally think that all the female versions are a bit more believablethan the males.

Activity D

I then decided to use the second story, written by a 45 year old female Teaching Assistant, as my target story. I found an image of a lady stealing some money as I thought this would relate best. I then asked a different group of people to interpret the images. Here are some of my results:

Female - 21 - Waitress
The bride was about to get married in Spain but instead she stole the money that her and her husband won at the casino and moved to a small cottage in the countryside and lived happily ever after.

Male - 21 - Student
There was a bride who was stood up on her wedding day by her husband who had ran away with loads of money that he won playing poker. The bride jamp off a cliff and her body was found at the side of a lake in the country, with all the squirrels and different kinds of animals eating it.
Male - 68 - Retired
A selfish bride decided to stand her husband up on his wedding day because she got lucky at the casino and won a load of cash at her hen party. She ran away to mexico with all the money and her ex-fiancee had nowhere to live, so he found an abandoned hut in the woods.

Female - 20 - Bartender
the bride dressed up in disguise and went to the casino. She was playing with fake money but because she was drunk she didnt think anything of it and ended up winning thousands. The next day she felt really guilty and couldnt live with herself so she jumped off a cliff on her wedding morning and left her dirty money with her husband and there pet squirrel.

I think this activity went quite well. They all came up with similar stories. They all got the fourth picture spot on about the money being stolen, in most cases. I didnt put them in the right order, But i dont think it would of made much of a difference as they were all along the same lines, the money being stolen, the running away and the casino. Although I think people didnt really know what to say about the squirrel picture. That one came up with a few different stories.

Activity E

I then started to add text to the images. First of all I added one word to go with my origanal three images, to help tell my target story. I added the word 'steal' This didnt really help at all as people were coming up with all sorts of different things such as "the bride stole her wedding dress" and "They stole a squirrel." Everything was going a bit off track so I added one word to each picture, For the bride picture I added, 'stole,' for the cards I added 'money,' and for the squirrel I added 'lived.'
This really surprised me as more and more people were coming up with the same idea, They wernt 100% correct but they was pretty similar. I Found this Experiment really intresting and thought it was intrersting how different people who study different things or have different carrers or hobbies will, most of the time, connect thier personal lifestyle and use it in thier own story.

activity 1C and 1D

I found this activity very interesting but at the same time i thought it was a bit difficult. I was given a total of 26 photos of a girl who i don't know very well growing up. I had to look at these photos and find out what they told me, I looked at different things such as who she was with, her style, clothes, surroundings, family etc.

Some of the things I found out about Catriana was that she was:

• Outgoing
• sociable
• creative
• adventurous
• friendly
• likes music
• confidant
• popular
• unique
• cuddly

My notes on my findings:

From what I can see from the photos that Catriana gave me, I think she is quite close with her family. I think she has a younger brother, maybe two or three years younger than herself. Catrianan comes from a family of four, herself, mum, dad, and brother. It looks like she gets on well with her family. In both photos with her and her brother, they are both smiling and look really happy.

I think Catriana may be about 19 years old. I think her house looked quite modern in one of the pictures considering it was taken maybe about seventeen eighteen years ago. It looked like her family had a dishwasher, which is pretty unusual for so long ago?

To me Catrianan looks like a very creative person. there are several pictures of her dressed up, one being her wearing what looked like her mums jewellery. There is also another couple of pictures of her dressed up, one as a princess/fairy? but its not just Catrianan in this picture there is another five of her friends and they are all dressed up the same. This tells me that they were either going to a princess/fairy party, or they were all just really close friends and wanted to be the same as each other.

Catrianan looks like she has a boyfriend, as the same guy appears in three different pictures, this tells me that she is quite comfortable with him.

Looking at the pictures with her and her friends, they are all quite similar and they all look like they have there own style. I wouldn't quite call it a gothic style but maybe along the same lines. I have also noticed that catrianan was wearing pink in some of her younger photos but since she has grown up, it looks like she would never wear pink but has moved on to stripes.

From what I can see from her room (or what I think is her room) is she likes to listen to music as there is a lot of c.d's on her shelfs. Also there is a lot of photos I think on her wall of her friends, which tells me that she is really close with them.

Overall I think Catriana is a very beautiful girl who has a very close bond with her family. She likes to socialise and looks like she is very outgoing and has a lot of close friends. I think her style is unique and her friends are all similar but in a different way. Catriana looks like a fun adventurous person who is also very confidant.

I then met up with catriana to discuss my findings with her and vice versa. It turns out that I was pretty spot on. Nearly all right expect I got a few things wrong, nothing drastic, it was just the wrong house in one of the pictres i commented on, I thought it was hers but it was her gran and grampas. Also There was a picture of her ex boyfriend that I thought was her boyfriend but I never looked at the photo close enough to see that it was a different guy from the other two pictures. They was no observations that I made that Catriana had never considered before.

When Catriana was telling me what she got from my photo's she was also pretty much right. There was nothing she said, or she got from the photos that was incorrect. She also hit the nail on the head when it came to my family, especially my little brother. There was actually things that she got from the photos that I never really considered when I was deciding what ones to give her.

I found this activity really interesting and I think its amazing what people can tell you about yourself, family, surroundings and up bringing from just a few old family photographs.

SCRI-living technology

I recently was given a new brief for semester 2. It is interesting as I was given a fruit, I have to research this fruit in all different ways, maybe how it is grown, how it is used, what it can be used for etc.

This was no ordinary briefing as there was a guest from SCRI (Scottish Crop Research Institute) to talk to us. His name was Phil Taylor and his presentation was very interesting. I found out that SCRI is actually based on our doorstep, just outside Dundee near Invergowrie.

The world was entering a major economic downturn, Evidence of global environmental change is becoming clearer and population growth is also a global issue, with the demand for food expected to increase by 50% in the next 20 years. SCRI is Scotland's contribution to the search for solutions to these seemingly intractable problems.

I think it is really interesting what SCRI have done and what they are doing. I have also found out a lot of information about my fruit product for my project.