Brief thoughts about the learning process [21.03.2017 - 05.07.2017]

March, 21 - My first experience with Adobe Education Exchange - I am trying to follow in time but I have difficulties follow the live classes...

March, 23 - The first video about me, it's a huge challenge... I laughed a lot! anyway I recorded, I've created an acount on vimeo, I uploaded, and then I deleted... I have to decide...

Although the exercise sounds simple, I have to say it was not easy for me to make the video. I confess I have a weakness in front of the cameras, I'm uncomfortable! so I've come up with a way to "unlock the subject". I did not want to shoot in my place at work, and it was raining that day, I had to film in the car... As I had a box with documents inside the car, I decided to "stick" inside the box (figurative sense), then open the box and talk to the camera. What was difficult, turned out to be fun!

March, 24 - EdEx experience is very interesting. I'm wandering if it's better to upload this video or make another one...

I found this nice book cover! I love it.

Usually during lunch time I go near the sea and stay in the car listening to the radio, I love listenig music and look at sea (the landscape photo of my "journal page"). I take notes, make little sketches, when I listen something new that I like... for example this young portuguese musician and composer:

March, 27 - I have explored some of my classmates' work... I have not commented yet, I have to found the words and, need some help to translate into English. I edited the video a bit, just to hide the background of the car, and to make it shorter in time (with photoshop...) I've decided, I'll upload the video to complete the exercise anyway.

March, 28 - I had not realized that I needed to take another step and create the public link for this page!... it takes time to understand... Slowly I go, learning the tools I need.

Too much days have passed already, the headshot was not easy, I've tried 4 different places, but finaly I found one fine place.

I'm not sure if I'm going to keep this new version of the logo, as I think it does not work well when it's too small, as you can see in the thumbnail image.

I will, recap all the learning materials provided from this course, for now, I want to highlight this 2 "essential questions":

How can technology and media be used to immerse viewers in an emotional experience? How do changes in media and technology effect artists and producers of media?

My first video spark experience

May, 5

Final reflection

First I must say that I did not always feel the necessity to have an online presence. This awareness is very recent. The turning point was when I started using the Adobe Creative Cloud platform. The openness to the adobe creative community online, set off a will to belong, to take part of this world. In addition, the need to get acquainted with the new programs, new work dynamics and accompanying peers, gave me a great incentive to finally take care of this "parallel life" online.

When I read Grant Friedman's article, although I thought it very usefull and I agree that someone should only show his best work, and plan how to present their work, in my case, I will not follow this rule strictly.

If someone ask me if I would do those works from the past in the same way, I would say that it would hardly happen, I would change many aspects in each of them. But they are part of the growth process. I like this sense of the whole, of the process, of the attempts / errors, the perception of development until I reach the level where I am.

The constant practice and the way we improve our technical skills will influences how we work and the choices we do. Why should we "erase" this historic? I do not want my page to be overclean, it will not have much interest, if we will all start to use the same models as the background of our work. I think there is even an excess in the way we use the mockups, being “fast Creative” in analogy with "fast Food"... beyond the danger of becoming impersonal and too superficial... I identify myself much more with Ashley Wikie’s opinion, who is not afraid to show his past, and not always have followed the trends.

Whenever I can, I take notes. Brief notes that will later connect with other reflections and everything starts to make more sense. It is a rather chaotic method, but it has to do with my "dispersed" way of collecting subjects and objects of interest. Now with all the technology at our service, everything is much more present and available, making it easy to establish connections between the subjects.

The biggest benefit of this course was the clear perception of what is within our reach and how to use the right tools. To wake up for a conscious digital presence. To work this digital presence with strategy and openness to improve every time. The digital world is not a subterranean (hidden) world, it is visual (can we call it immaterial?), It means that we can not be outside of it, at some point we are crossed by it, whether we want it or not, it is best to accept it and "give a body” to our digital self.

I do not know if I reflected enough on the issues / questions "What has been difficult to understand about the Digital Me process?" and "What new understandings or questions do you have after Live Class 5?", but I am sure that the "Digital Me" process is a "work-in-progress" task and I'm grateful for this learning experience!

My ePorfolio is now under construction...