Evaluating the Interactive Media Product and Self Managed Learning Plan

Evaluation of my Interactive Media Product - http://www.weekendwanderers.org.uk/

Despite my initial disappointment that I chose an easy PHP code to integrate into a website, it to be proved the right decision. The whole month has been more hectic than usual. Working full time as a design manager and being a father of two children, managing my time and prioritising commitments is an everyday task that I am quite adapt at handling however, this month has been even more demanding because the lady who looks after my children for the days I am at work has been in and out of hospital for the past month.

Overall, I am proud of the website I have created because I have done everything, created the logo, organised the content, approved the design, arranged the hosting/domain name and even took the photographs that appear in the slideshow. (D3)

Reading back through my weekly post, I feel disappointed that I allowed myself to get stressed for hours before finally residing to the fact I needed help therefore I posted my problem on a forum. If I were to do this project again, I would work up several more sketches before creating the final screen design and post any technical problems on forums before I get too frustrated. (D1)

Evaluate use of SMLP

Prior to starting the Self Managed Learning Plan, I was apprehensive, not about managing my time effectively, I certainly don’t have a problem there. I was in a quandary, I understood that learning Hypertext Pre-processor (PHP) was the next obvious step, learning it might enhanced my skills while using html and may allow me to develop dynamic webpages I thought however, due to processing no background knowledge how could I determine what to learn?, or what knowledge would be useful in a real world situation?. Realisation of this dilemma allowed me to build research time into the plan. Investigating the impact of PHP in the design industry gave me an understanding about the common uses of PHP and how it works in websites.

In order to develop the skills required for creating the website that utilised PHP, I compiled a list of ten resources. While I was waiting for the books I had purchased to arrive from Amazon, I watched several PHP online tutorials on Killerphp.com these gave me a basic understanding of how PHP could be used to create dynamic websites. Documenting my learning in my sketchbook allowed me to annotate my findings into a language I could understand.

After several failed attempts, I eventually created a PHP environment with local host testing server that worked. Following this initial setup, I mixed PHP with HTML to create a simple feedback form and practiced all the basics from Variables, If Else statements to Indexed and Associative Arrays. Although I found my annotations useful, I decided to create a series of short videos to liven up my learning experience. (Steve: please see video's on CD for assessment)

While I feel happy that I have created a PHP feedback form that works effectively, I wish I had more courage to commit myself to something more challenging using PHP. It is my intention to develop the site I have created further to include a photography gallery that will allow certain users the ability to upload photographs with comments to an online gallery.

Adhering to a well-structured learning plan helped me focus on my learning objectives however, several times I found myself distracted by constantly tweaking the final design or learning other PHP functions I might integrate into the website at a later date.