Hope to re-connect computers this week

The roof looks like it may have been repaired. This means the conduit housing the electric wires should be safe. Hopefully we can expect to progress our practical work.

Printer back today still no 'puters however

Students still restricted waiting for computer and printer access. However workmen have been on the roof - in the snow - trying to fix the leaks. Hopefully will be done soon and allow students to use computers to progress their examination work. We cannot safely use the computers due to water entering the conduit housing the electrical wiring.

Roofing repairs

The men began working on the roof to stop leaks last Friday and continue this week. Much thumping on the roof and awful smells from the hot bitumen. A torrent of foul water dropped onto the cupboards which house the GCSE work - fortunately we seem to be okay.
All students especially year 11 but also year 10 have suffered.
Using small eeepc laptops has helped - however these remain non-viable for graphic work.
Fingers crossed the roof should be finished soon .... for the umpteenth time.

Progress report

Students working on projects are offering varying responses. Efforts from some boys lacking any commitment. Good news is that those students who are applying themselves are now making real progress with practical work. They have and are still - being restricted with the lack of ICT access.
Cause for concern
NP RCk AJ SH ML - I really want you to do well - please remember we only have a short time left to address the coursework.

Making starts - ongoing lack of ICT due to leaking roof.

It is good to see people starting to show some urgency with making.
Disappointing to see some students acting immature - still time to recover for EVERYONE. Remember we only have 2 and a half months to finish, some time will be set aside to address folio needs such as evaluation and quality control.

Good to see practical work starting.

It is good to see some students progressing their practical work. We must not omit folio work - remember the folio = 30 msrks and the practical 60 marks.
WEARE STILL HAVING PROBLEMS WITH THE ROOF LEAKING. THIS HAS MEANT WE CANNOT USE THE COMPUTERS. THIS SITUATION IS MAKING IT DIFFICULT TO PROGRESS THE FOLIO WORK.
The school is taking action - however this is taking time. The essential ICT work has now been taken away for 3 weeks. Previously we have lost another 3 weeks.
NP and RyanCk still not working as expected. Can I remind everyone that they need to do well if they want to join the sixth form.
Some good work by the majority - so well done to them.

POOR BEHAVIOUR

Hope this does not concern you.
NP excluded from lesson last Tuesday 14th October - worked elsewhere.
Same for next two lessons - ie running up to half term.
Will try NP again post half term.
Disappointing behaviour from boy T who managed to spill coffee all over desk thus ruining important documents.
Also SH - must learn not to use phone in lesson - resulted in being withdrawn from group.
Otherwise students working well.

Work needed for half term

Folios need to be at the stage of rough and final drawings for half term. One week left after this week.

Recap
Index
Intro and brief
Research
and
Analysis
Specification
Rough drawings
and
Final drawings

YOU HAVE HAD 3 MONTHS - WORK MUST BE PRINTED FROM COMPUTERS NOW. LITTLE IN ANY MORE TIME WILL BE SPENT ON ICT AFTER HALF TERM

EXAM coursework VITAL info

Remember the folio represents about a third of the coursework marks and the practical model and extras the remaining two thirds.

The folio must have evidence for each of the following sections.
INDEX number your pages and produce an index.
Make a list of computer software used.

1 Brief and supporting introduction.
2 Research of images and analysis of these.
3 A specification, that is a detailed list of your intended outcomes incl materials used and sizes.
4 SKETCHES and ROUGH DRAWINGS of ideas with notes added.
5 Final drawings - use CAD when possible
( Solidworks or ProDesktop or indeed Corel Draw)
must include an orthographic drawing and possibly a 3D drawing.
Also use Photoshop to create scenes for internal walls, menu covers, car stands etc.

SHOULD AIM TO FINISH ABOVE BY HALF TERM - aim for week ending 17th OCTOBER.

6 Evaluation of all your work - record other peoples views, how would you improve your design?

Also needed an INDUSTRIALLY related section, here we look at risk assessments and the production of flowcharts, quality control and quality assurance.

Folio ANALYSIS of research Mark scheme

ANALYSED THE TASK AND THE RESEARCH MATERIAL LOGICALLY, THOROUGHLY AND EFFECTIVELY
THE STATEMENT DESCRIBES A GRADE A for your folio - it mentions LOGICAL ( think graphs and comments relating to the graphs - for example "from the graph it can be seen that ........") and also that word THOROUGH - relating to business cards perhaps you should consider FONTS are they serif or sans serif? What colour is the text? Remember that comments made by you on your research sheets can count here if you have added an analysis note about images you have submitted.

Reminder of folio make up

This is a review - to obtain grade A for the first section ( RESEARCH ) then this sentence is taken from the marking scheme is what should describe your research section.

USED A WIDE VARIETY OF APPROPRIATE SOURCES
TO GATHER RELEVANT RESEARCH INFORMATION.

Wide variety means a range exceeding 3 areas.
Have you researched more than 3 areas?
Make sure you have done so. ( Think about your main item - for example a car stand or a shop or a telephone BUT also other items such as business cards, logos, keyfobs, identity nabges, - items found in shops like price tags, menus from restaurants, CD/DVD sleeves etc.
Variety of appropriate sources - consider a QUESTIONNAIRE - try to create 10 questions from which you can draw a simple graph ( COUNTS AS ANALYSIS ). Also use books ( make reference to these ), internet ( mention sites used ), use cameras to take pictures, take measurements of table heights if relevant.
Gather business cards and add comments if you are intending to make a business card.
IN FACT ALL OF YOUR INTENDED OUTCOMES need to be researched.

Happy work experience and summer holiday

Well done everyone - you have made a solid start to the course. Some students need to perhaps appreciate that their folio's need to be updated - but enough for now - hope you all have a great holiday - see you next September.
Will try and visit you on work experience week.
Sir G

Lesson on Tuesday 8th July

All boys worked well except SH who remained distracted and rude. Enough said.
3 boys - Tom Ben and Michael spent the lesson with me learning how to a) use Corel draw and b) to use the Laser cutter. We designed a simple square based pyramid net and then cut the net using the laser. Other boys were working on their projects.
Only this week left before work experience week - must use the time judiciously and complete the SPECIFICATION for their topic.
Hope everyone has a great summer, a safe summer and come back eager and willing to work hard and to enjoy the course.

Example of a car stand

Gift token idea

Great idea for another graphic product if you are designing a retail outlet or indeed for a voucher holder for another situation.

Before we break up TARGETS

Most students have grasped the notion of gathering research and to present this research on their A3 templates. The main point to progress is to make sure we all have our list of intended outcomes ( called INITIAL SPECIFICATION ) completed. Some have done this. If you are a parent reading this can you encourage your son to get this done so we can start designing our outcomes in September.
Best wishes to all students and parents for the summer holidays.

Monday 30th June 08

Well done everyone today.
A few more students addressed their initial specification sheets - important that everyone does this before you disappear on work experience. RCk - re:- box on Corel draw - well done - some boxes cut out on laser ready to make up. NPwr - no more aeronautical testing please, you almost worked well all through lesson and did some good work. To all the boys working on the laser - well done to you all. The fishing shop model is looking good.

Photoshop is coming

Will endeavour to enable use asap

Thursday 26th June 08

Today we started and finished the specification for a couple of students using a guide illustrating two projects as examples, a mobile phone and a car exhibition stand. I want to mention that all boys today were constructively engaged - in particular NPwr and RCk. So well done you two. Students using the laser cutter also did very well.
AFTER THE MOCK EXAMS WE NEED TO RE-FOCUS.
We must return to our timetable. Our specification needs to be completed by everyone and it should detail all the projected outcomes for each project by each student. RCk is working on an unusual project and we had a good session establishing his specification which now looks rather exciting - MUST REMEMBER TO DESIGN A FREESTANDING ADVERT IN THE FORM OF A GAME CHARACTER.

Mock Exam results - paper only

Please peruse the aforementioned mock paper results . Overall not a bad effort considering the lack of preparation. What concerned me greatly was the almost illegible answers from some students, this needs attention. Lack of knowledge is easily addressed but is only of any use if your written communication is coherent and readable.

See the 2008 blog and see their OUTCOMES

The 2008 exam groups work is displayed and it will be helpful for you to have a look and assess your own planned outcomes. The work was received favourably by the moderators who visited us last Thursday. The car exhibition stand was considered a good choice with room for students to show evidence of hard work ( rigour ) in their efforts.
Students who have chosen other projects for this group ( 2009 ) will need to be aware of the required outcomes needed to gain top marks. Please remember what I have said about each project and how it needs to have several ( 5 min ) graphic outcomes.

Mock Exam CHANGE to paper.

Forget the mock exam I explained we would do recently. In fact we will take a past paper. We are to follow guidance which requres us to give students a past paper. This will help us to establish information about entry tiers. It is a pity we cannot follow our original scheme.

Change of room for Thursday 12th June - move to ICT1

The GCSE moderator - the person nominated from the examination board to check the outcomes of GCSE students - is visiting BGS. We have had to organise and display all the work of 40+ students in our usual teaching room - so we cannot use it.
Feedback.

Very very hot in this small room - 3 boys sent to use laser cutter.

Others tried to work in the room.

Explained what the mock examination ( on the 18th involved ) briefly showing them the paper and explaining it's layout.

Mentioned the new games shop near M+S / Subway - RC had, in fact been and suggested that it was good value - I mentioned it as some students are looking at Games Shop design.

NP, JT consistently distracted - they are finding it hard to concentrate.

Graphics Exam 18th June

I am preparing a graphics mock exam which is designed to assist students with their individual projects. The purpose of mentioning this is to remind students that they have a little longer to research their projects.
Today all students have worked wonderfully well - so thankyou for that boys.

GCSE GP Friday period 4 after lunch

Boys working well - CM seems to be obsessed with looking at cars, which is good as his project features car stands and car models. Suggested he does his car net research by visiting papertoys.com. All students except AMcF, DH, ML.

Thursday 5th June 2008 period 4 post lunch very hot

Too hot to work - boys did try but some found it difficult.
Some good prints produced using the A3 laser printer, especially by RCk. and AJwt.
RCh JC OH JL SO AT JT all worked very well making mock up models.
NC a little distracting but responded reasonably to comments.

FINISH your research and start your SPECIFICATION

Research should be completed by end of this week - though we can revisit later. MUST get on with our next target which is to complete our SPECIFICATION. This is a list of your final outcomes with details added, for example colour, material, users, sizes etc. Call your first spec. the INITIAL SPECIFICATION.
We are aiming to complete this by 20th June.
NP worked well with the assistance of AJ painting his stadium model, OH worked on making a prototype model of his projector. AG worked well on computers producing a questionnaire. RCh and others all worked well - only exception being CY-T who spent a lot of time looking at school gallery pictures - had a word with him,

Photoshop for GCSE GP

Hope everyone had a good half term holiday.
I can confirm that we have now obtained Photoshop which will help us all very much - we will load on machines for use in September. We need to finish our research and analysis by the end of the week and then get our specification drawn up. Check your timetable. This should be titled " Initial Specification" we will refine this later as it usually needs to be changed. When this has been done we need to start producing drawings of ideas - we need to see some variety of designs - one page of A3 for each end product - good busy pages with comments, colour and imagination.
You have a couple of weeks to draw up your spec so if you want a break from your folio consider, as NP has, making mock ups of your ideas. Try to photograph as much of this work as possible - it is vital for your folio.

Last lesson before the Whitsuntide half term

The group are working well.
Most boys ( excluding only DH and AMcF ) are on computers doing research and analysis for their project.

Using the computers to put research page together

Analysing mobile phones .... and working on folio !!!

Classwork feedback 22.5.08 Thursday

Class worked well -RC,

Helped NP all lesson as others worked on computers.

AG silly at computers disturbing AC in particular - needed to be reminded about behaviour and that he should not be drinking water at a computer station ( or indeed spilling water at a computer station. ).

Unfortunately NP was over exuberant at the end of the lesson and tried to steal / remove the jacket belonging to AJwt - also he interfered with Sam's computer. Will follow up . Ref KS. Done - see record folder, NP agreed and will try to be better.

We made a basic stadium model during the lesson with NP which served to help motivate him and to give him model making practise. Needs, as all students do, to understand scale especially when modelling - for the shops and car stands 1:30 is about right and for the stadium 1:1000 or 1:1250. games consoles and mobile phones obviously 1:1.

Photoshop a quickly done example using layers

Just messing about - background is a close up of a Yamaha with reduced opacity with added layers of text and another cropped reduced opacity group image. The point here is to imagine you could create a similar exercise for, say, an interior wall of a cafe / shop / tv studio / exhibition stand and even of course for a box decoration if you are creating a new mp3 / phone /games box.
Concerning the Advanced Photoshop mag - looks like I will buy these for you and bring them to school. Actually I may evaluate the other popular Photoshop mag " Creative Photoshop".

Have fun.

Mr. Geekie

Magazine for Photoshop

I recommend Advanced Photoshop magazine - this always comes with a CD which has various items to copy - for example fonts. brushes, wallpapers etc. It also has files to help with tutorials in the magazine.
I will endeavour to order this through school ( Mrs Hambleton in the library will action this ).
There is also another mag. Creative Photoshop - similar to the above.
I think we need to investigate a Photoshop Club which would need to run after school in my room T2.
Remember we now have access to a A£ laser printer.

I popped to WH Smith in Beverley this afternoon and bought a copy of Advanced Photoshop and see it as a really useful magazine - not just for us in technology but also for our Art course students.

Sir Geekie

GCSE progress 18th May 2008

Okay - just before lesson started I was told that we can go ahead and order Photoshop Elements which I will pay for via a school fund. This is great. Next - I will get try and organise the library to subscribe to a Photoshop magazine. All this will really help our students with their coursework.
Thanks to Mrs Lambert our school manager for her support.

The lesson today.
NP AJ AC RC JL JT and AW working at desks - not on computers.
AJ and AW working well .
RC finding it difficult to produce any drawings/outcomes for folio.
AJ joined group on computers half way through lesson. Interesting talk with OH about progressing his gamesbox / projector - how to make the model and how we could incorporate graphics elements.

CYT worked well most of lesson but then misused his machine by going on a silly site which morphs images.
Computer group working well, inevitably others talking and being less productive particularly RC and NP.

Photoshop - some more info

Hello everyone,
regarding using photoshop - you may like to know that there are some very good monthly magazines dedicated to developing understanding of Photoshop, most have CD/DVD tutorials - check out local WH Smith or even better, if in York, opposite Betty's Tearoom there is a Borders shop. They go the extra mile as far as selling Photoshop / Art mags.
I will see the librarian at school to arrange to have a relevant subscription started asap.
If any parent uses Photoshop and has old mags that they no longer need then we will gladly take them off your hands.

Sir Geekie

GCSE computer software needs for students

Hello - especially parents,

I have been asked about software which is helpful to support the exam course.
Basically Microsoft Word, Publisher, Excel and of course, MS Paint.

Further to this is a CAD program - I have something called PTC ProDesktop , help file here, ( which I have obtained free for the school and which students may have their own copy). It is my personal preferred program though it needs some practise to use it well - something the students can do easily. I like it because it easily generates 3D and orthographic views from the original drawing.

Another CAD program is SOLIDWORKS which is also free but needs annual renewal - Mr Rowntree can help here by providing students with a disc if they ask nicely and if they can provide a blank disc ( I will also help ) - but the renewal can be a nuisance, especially as it is web based and not freestanding, thus can be locked out if not up to date. ( Unlike PTC ProDesktop ).

I have wanted Adobe Photoshop for the 11 machines in my room for the last few years yet funds have not been available, I have now decided to progress this at my own expense and just today have started the process.. I will arrange to have the slightly less powerful Photoshop Elements ( 95% as good as the full version )installed on the machines. Help tutorials widely available here for example

I think it is vital that we have access to this package which is used commercially and which is thus relevant to use for several reasons. Students will access higher marks and, of course, should they enter the world of Graphics / Creative studies they will have an advantage over other students. It is being actively used in high achieving schools from as far afield a Jersey to Scotland. It will also help the students who are following GCSE Art - as the Art dept have - in fact - the full Photoshop program. As a matter of interest I have seen it advertised as low as £65 approx on Amazon so it may be something for students to consider ( birthday, christmas etc )
Also dedicated Photoshop magazines are available at local newsagents ( W H Smith ).

Hope this helps

Mr. Geekie.
Type of computer?
I use a Mac and use Elements and also a PC with Photoshop ( Full ). I can do as much with either program as the other - especially for school use.

Friday 16th May 2008

All boys working well - reminded them of the research target deadline being week ending 6th June. This gives one more week at school before whit holiday week, and another week after that. So 3 weeks to go incl holiday week. Basically students need to research their major elements and add analysis comments. Most students are acting responsibly and are using the computers to search google for images which are relevant. These are then pasted to their template page. The beauty of this is that we are creating good quality pages which can be printed off using our recently aquired A3 laser printer ( approx 5p a page ). May need a contribution for excessive pages - I will sponsor 20 pages. Folio will end up at about 30 pages - not all done on the laser. Okay now a bit of negative info.,
SamH has produced a lovely logo / letterhead.
CV is working particularly well. Some good pages - maybe could be a little more condensed / busier.
MB caught on a games site when he should have been researching for project. However continued to produce some very good work on researching car exhibition stand.
ML working on laser cutter.
AS caught on a games site when he should have been researching for project.
TE shut down computer before being caught on an innappropriate site.

Year 10 Parents evening 15th June 2008

Hello everyone. It was good to meet so many parents and talk about the progress of the students. I will endeavour to keep everyone informed about the course and the progress of all our students.
Regards

Mr. Geekie

Youtube help available.

Please check out my site for extra tips.

Timeline for whole year

Okay you will soon be given your own copy of the suggested timeline for completing coursework. The deadlines should not be extended - however the various sections can be rearranged within the deadlines to suit individuals. I will be emailing parents with information, help and I guess concerns to help students progress. This year we are allowing more choice and so we will need to work responsibly.

Timeplan for exam coursework

Please note I have finished a timeplan guide for you to use as an aid for completing your coursework. This is on display in the technology block and will soon be on the website under Mr. Geekie's help.

Year 10 GCSE Graphic Products Initial Ideas

I have spoken to the students about their projects - REALLY important to decide what they WANT to do and that it offers enough rigour to be a viable choice. I have given them some ideas which I feel are suitable. There are specific sections in the marking scheme which suggest a linear approach and which is helpful as a guide for students. The syllabus or specification we are using is AQA GCSE Graphic Products and the site can be reached via my BGS site at www.beverleygrammarschool.co.uk - scroll down to Mr.Geekie's help link.
Our first aim is to create a template for our design pages. Using MS Publisher select print set up and specify A3 size and landscape orientation. Save to student login in a new folder called GCSE Graphics. Next step is to design a logo. A nice freehand A3 page is required which shows how your idea progresses. On this sheet notes should be added. Indicate your final logo design and the following lesson, when you have your allocated computer lesson, the design you came up with in rough needs to be reproduced using MS Paint. Then open your template and add the logo to the botoom right hand side corner. We now have a page which can be used in the future either by printing off and working freehand or by using the template and saving pages direct to our login graphics folder for printing out on our A3 laser printer - copies approx 6p each. Over the course students will need about 30 pages which comes to £1.80.
Ideas put to students include
SHOP FRONT DESIGN
CAR NET DESIGN
CAR EXHIBITION STAND DESIGN
MAGAZINE WITH FREE GIFT DESIGN ( LOTS OF POTENTIAL HERE )
MOBILE PHONE DESIGN TO INCLUDE PACKAGEING
RESTAURANT DESIGN
POP UP BOOK
BOARDGAME DESIGN