Online Presence

My online presence has undergone a huge transformation over the course of this module, going from a tacky black style with very little relevant information, to the current stage, with a stylish red white and black motif applied to all of my websites with short and concise information relevant to the course and the subject in question.

Transition from old to new

As can be seen in these images, the new website is a lot less over powering and dark, and instead is simple and light, with more relevant information.

while my website is still mainly a fairly simple and informal style, I think it still maintains a professional look, and is a nice easy to navigate site, whereas the original site was slow to work and was generally unprofessional looking, due to the cartoon style buttons and bad quality banner.

Banner and logo Development

These images show the growth of my banner and online logo throughout the course of this module, starting with the original banners, going onto my Yo-yo logo with a blue background, then white background, then changing logos to the red hooded top, with text, and finally, getting rid of the text completely and making the hooded top the only element in the banner.

I chose to get rid of the first design for the same reason for getting rid of the rest of the site, because it looked awful and didn't give a professional vibe, and I didn't like it enough to make it a logo for my "brand"

the yoyo was the first real logo, which I chose because of my obsession for Yo-yo. Had this logo been a little bit stronger in terms of design, it may have stayed as a logo for much longer, however, I didn't take enough time over it as I should have done, and so when I thought of the new logo, I was happy to get rid of the Yo-yo in place of the hooded top, which I chose due to the fact that I often wear one, and I feel it is a good logo for a student.

I like the logo so much that it also became my twitter background and my YouTube background, which gave my online presence a good house style which stayed consistent throughout all of the websites I use.

What next?

Now the the module is drawing to a close, I feel I have created a good online presence for myself, and I feel that it is something which can last me a long time, and while I will no doubt improve my website further, even within the coming weeks and months, I still feel like my brand and presence for the moment are perfect for me and the message I want to give.

The next step for me will most likely be to perhaps go back over the assignments of this year, and improve them, so that they can go onto my website portfolio and show my skills to anybody who sees them, and then keep improving things as my skill improves with different programs, to show how I am advancing throughout the course, and to improve my presence.

Dat 101 Manefesto

Everyone should play a musical instrument

In this manefesto, i present to you the idea that everyone yin britain should play a musical instrument, i shall provide and argument for and against this point, and add my personal opinions

I feel that every british person should have the chance to play a musical instrument, be it guitar, bass, drums, or anything that could be considered a musical instrument, why do i think this?
My passion in life is music, which to me takes a priority over many things, with the exception of friends and family, and obvious things like food and shelter, My love for music is very strong, so i feel that everyone should have the chance to play an instrument, and be able to express themselves in a way which many would not consider possible, and describe their emotions and feelings through music, i personally feel that many people would benifit from music, particularly on an emotional level, as i feel that playing music should be considered a therapy, as it allows people to do something their way and exactly how they want, and then share it with others should they so wish.
playing music is like painting a picture, but where as many people do not have the skill or ability to make physical art, everyone has the potential to create sonic art through an instrument, and whether they are skilled to a high level or just starting, whatever they create will be theirs, and can be made in a short amount of time and in many cases, without a lot of skill needed.
However, it can certainly be argued that many people do not have the time or money to pick up an instrument, but to this i ask nay sayers to look at government funding, and in recent years, it seems that the arts have been widely disregarded, and now it has come to light that MPs have been claiming expenses on things which aren't in anyway essential, so i say that instead of MPs who already earn good salerys being allowed to claim everything as an expense, the government use the money to provide funding for musical instrument schemes, suh as school purchase schemes, thus allowing children to access instruments at a young age and have the chance to do something that may stay with them for life and enrich their life.
of course, there is the factor of the credit crunch, well i feel that if instruments are funded then many businesses will benefit, think of all the businesses involved in providing musical instruments, from building them, shipping, designing, making components and selling, many businesses will benefit from this. No, it wont solve the credit crunch, but with everyone being able to express themselves in a way they may not have been able to before, i feel that this may open up carreer oppurtunities for many people, and there are many examples of people who have been stuck in dead end jobs who took up a musical instrument, and then became stars, so its not impossible at all!
Overall i feel that while this may be very idealistic, i believe that if everyone played an instrument then the culture of britian would be much richer and varied that it is today, in a country where our culture is made up of aspects of others, music would set us apart from anyone else, and everyone in britain would be better off even if they only experience it once.



New Manefesto

Video games and films are not to blame!

In this manefesto i shall argue my point that murders such as the murder of James Bulger, (allegedly inspired by the film childsplay) do not mean that video games and films should be banned or censored.
Video games do not affect the majority of the audience whom they are distributed to and while these killings and crimes are very tragic, it is only a very small amount of people who commit them..
The very idea thaat children and even adults are exclusively impressionable and affected by the images shown in films and video games, admittedly there is an amount of evidence that some people do become influenmced by media such as video games and movies to an extent that they may perform some act of violence based on the events portrayed in that media, however, the amount of people who have not acted upon these things far outweigh the amount that have, and many of the people who do have eventually, under tests, been digagnosed as mentally ill, so it is no surprise that they are affected.
And then, there is is the argument that if these people are so highly affected, then surely thing such as bbc news should be banned, when they show scenes of suicide bombing and war zones, are these not worse than virtual scenes? the scene that is reality surely has much more effect than a scene that is fake? if we go to such a length to try to outlaw virtual reality, then surely we should attemp to outlaw reality which is much more horrifying due to the fatc that these things are actually happening??? the very idea of attemping to ban something intended to be entertainment is idiotic, they are meant for enjoyment, when these games and films are in production, it is not the plan to inspire mentally unstable people to go out and kill, the objective is purely to entertain, and for the very large majority, they are simply entertained, and nothing more, they do not act upon things which they are shown within this media, they simply view it and that is all. So please, i ask you, do not blame video games and Films of inspiring murders when they simply dont, the murders are down to the murderers and people who commit acts of violence, not a virtual relity world intended to entertain.

DAT101 Subjective writing & Rhetoric, argument and persuasion

These are some of the other things we have covered in the DAT101, during lectures.


Subjective writing

Define yourself in 3 words
Irresponsible, loud, friendly

Define you position in 3 words if china were to declare war on britian
Scared, angry, wimpy

5 lies i tell about myself

1. my feet are size 14, they arent, they're size 13, i just dont like the number 13
2. i can swim, No i cant, not at all, i just say that to avoid questions
3. i wake up at 7 am every day, massive lie there, only when i get woken up by somebody else is that the case
4. i can play drums. No i really cant not in any way i just like saying i can
5. I love hot food, im not brilliant with it, and i've never really had proper hot food, i just think it sounds impressive

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Rhetoric, argument and persuasion

Rhetoric
one of the 3 original liberal arts in western culture, alongside grammar and logic

Grammar is correct language use

logic is testing and inventing new knowledge through question and answer

Rehtoric is the proper presentation of ideas, it was taught by the ancient greeks and romans in the medieval and renaissance eras
now in modern times it is coming back into poularity

Important in public speaking and politics

Notable Rhetoricians

aristotle
Ethos, Pathos and Logos


Ethos: The way the personality and credibility of the person speaking may affect the audience to make them believeable
Pathos: emotional appeals to audiences judgement
Logos: use of reasoning to construct an argument

Although we wouldnt name these things the same way aristotle did, i think they are very much still in use today, and a particular example of this is with reality TV, whereby members of the public become attatched to partiipants in television shows, and then will either vote for them to stay on television for a longer amount of time, or to get rid of them, and all of this is based on how the participant presents themselves, and trying to appeal to the nation with a background story usually describing a upssetting upbringing or similar, so that the audience may feel emotionally inclined to support them.

Quintilian

5 canons how to make an argument
Invention: the process leading to an argument being made and perfected.
Arrangement: organised to have the greatest effect.
Style and presentation
Memory: the speaker recalling particular part of an argument in his speech
Delivery: the way it is delivered to engage the audience to the greatest level


Techniques of rhetoric

Contrasting points.
Lists of three: short and consise, but with enough information to give a good overview.
Combination of these two.
repetition: pressing a point to an audience more than once to keep in in their minds.
Alliteration.
Anthropamorphism.
Antithesis: words that may be contradicting, to create a balanced effect to the argument.
Climax: build up matters ending with the most important.
Hyperbole: Exaggerating a point to make it obvious that it is important.
Innuendo.
Irony.
Metaphore: Saying something is something else to add effect to the description, e.g. "Islands are jewels in the ocean", they are obviously not, but it references the beauty and perfection of a jewel and gives the island the same beauty.
Parallism.
Rhyme: appealing to the audience and a light hearted and catchy way of presenting something.
Oxymoron: two contradicting things combined e.g. "little big".
Simile: similar to metaphore, but rather than saying something IS, saying something is LIKE, e.g. "That house is like a palace".
Symbol.
Advocacy: short and consise points.

Dat 101 Mind map

Very late updating, but never mind, this is my mind map



























This mind map basically describes me in a way that i feel is simple but informative. I chose to keep the content simple as i think that it described me better this way that if i had decided to go into detail about every little thing, and so i kept it to what i personally feel are the keypoints.

A rough run though of some of the points.

Music
I only put a few, but in reality if i had listed all of the music i like then the entire page would just be a list of music, so i kept it as short yet descriptive as possible

Hobbies & interests
I kept these organised by splitting them up into different sections with lots of offshoots, so that they were tidier and it werent just lots of random sections in one

Influences
This one was the most diffiult setion for me to do as i didnt really know who inspired me in life, so i put the obvious ones, like parents, and then added other less obvious ones later when i had thought about them, I.E the philosphy branch and the Chi Cheng branch, i put the philosophy segement as i studied it during A Levels, and it had a big effect on the way i looked at life.
The Chi cheng segment almost didnt get put in, but since his life has had an influence on me, i think it was good that i put him in there.

Dislikes
I deided that i should put Fears in dislikes, as i reckon that they can describe people in a very personal and honest way, such as the fact that i am afraid of very odd things, and i think this is a good way for people to know me, because i am telling people something very personal to myself.

Overall
I dont think that this was the most detailed or best mind map that i saw, but i feel that it was good for what i wanted to do, which was to show myself in the simplest way possible, which i think is showing a lot of points, with a small amount of detail to each rather than a few very detailed points. and i think this way people learn more varied stuff about me than just learning about one part of me.

Dat 101

Personal Development Plan


Goal

1. Academic: improve my team working skills by involving myself more within a discussion or presentation.
2. Academic: have a basic understanding of the key areas of the computing modules, particularly Dat102, and in particular, improve my knowledge of coding languages, such as HTML and JavaScript,so that i can produce better projects, and so that i can work more efficiently.
3. Academic: Contribute more to my blog and keep it up to date by blogging new developments in my modules when they happen so that i have as much information as possible.
4. Career: Have a job that i can use all of my skills in, not just academic skills, but personal and social skills also, and if possible, have a career involved in stage/production lighting.
   

Action

1. Take part more within lessons and lectures, ask questions instead of guessing something, work with and help others to overcome problems, socialize outside of lessons.
2. use reading material to extend my knowledge, ask questions about things i am unsure about or want to know about, keep attending lectures, work outside of university by studying and going over lesson notes and lecture presentations again, also regularly attempt extra exercises, such as building websites, so that i gain experience.
3. take more notes in class, blog at the end of different sessions so that i don't have to do it at a later date, add any information to the blog no matter how small, and keep the content interesting by updating on previous parts of the blog
4. Focus on the course as much as possible, so i can achieve higher grades, and also understand more from the course, but as well as focusing on the course, also make sure that i perhaps get a job before going on to my ideal career that is in a similar area, then advance to a full career within that area of work.

Evidence of Achievement

1. i will be able to work well with groups of people, and be able to take the initiative straight away even if i do not know the people i am working with, and also listen to other peoples ideas as well a putting my own forward, and be able to present these ideas well in a concise manner
2. when i am able to create a website fully with my own knowledge and not have to check anything on the internet, and not have to refer to previous exercises for help with making a page, and pretty much be able to do it all myself quickly and well.
3. my blog looks professional and informative, with several updates which are posted often.
4. I will be in a Sector of work that i enjoy and will be working to the best of my ability producing good work
   

Dat101 and such

Biographical statement!

My name is Mark, but you may as well call me Marcus, everybody does.
I was born in Right here in Plymouth, in 1991, which makes me one of (if not THE) youngest on the course of digital art and technology in Plymouth Uni.
I have lived here my entire life, and I went to school in the local area, so I thought I may as well carry on with the trend and go to the "local" uni, and I'm glad i did, even though this course wasn't my first choice by a long shot, but I'm happy to be a part of it, although I'm not exactly an academic, I never had amazing grades so I'm just amazed I got into uni in the first place!
as well as my interest in the course, my other interests and hobbies include paying and listening to music, which is one of the most important things in the world to me, along side my family and friends , guitar, Young farmers, Driving, and many other things which I do every so often.
I don't particularly know what to write, cos I don't really consider myself an interesting person, but this pretty much sums up what I'm all about, so there you have it!