My publications

The report

I think my report for the PTA is fit for purpose. It summarises parents' opinions and makes some sensible recommendations to the PTA. Mr Kirkham who is a member of the PTA reviewed it for me. He said that it makes interesting reading. He thought the charts and tables summarise my findings well. However, he felt that I should have included some more information at the beginning of the report about screen-based media and the main issues. I think that would have been a good idea. I also think I should have divided the report up into sections with sub-headings and added an eye-catching front cover to encourage members of the PTA to read it.

I didn't really use any secondary sources for the report so I added a list of references for further reading on the last page. Almost all the references are URLs for websites and I don't think parents would want to type them in because they are quite long. It might have been better to leave them out altogether or to have picked just a couple with short addresses.

The leaflet

Despite being done in a rush, I think my leaflet does make children more aware that gaming can be bad for their health and gives them some useful tips about how to play games safely. I didn't have time left to find someone from the target audience to review it for me. Instead, I printed out the leaflet and asked my friend Charlotte who is the same age as me what she thought of it. She said she liked the font I had chosen, the images on the front page and the use of red for danger and green for safety. However, she said there was too much empty space at the bottom of the back page and too much text on the middle pages. She also noticed that I had forgotten to put page numbers on. I agree with her that there is still a lot that can be improved. This version is really only a first prototype. Unfortunately, I ran out of time to do anymore work on the leaflet.

The letter

I am very pleased with my letter. I think it gives the impression that I know more about the subject than the writer of the first letter and have a more sensible point of view. My reviewers (my mother and Mrs Pritchard, my English teacher) both thought I argued my case well and that the letter was good enough to be printed. I agree with them. I think the length is about right for the letters page of a newspaper. I think I come across as a responsible teenager.

The database reports

I learnt a lot about Access whilst I was working on the database reports. I think some of the information I have produced is really interesting and I think my collection of reports does show head teachers how they can make use of the database. I made a few stupid mistakes which I should have noticed. In the first report two of the column headings are truncated. In the third report I've got some repeated data. I printed out the reports and showed them to Mr Hodgson my head teacher. He thought the database would be very useful especially if he could use it to compare his school with others in the area. He said he would need the names of pupils if he was going to use the database to target individual pupils.

The presentation

I think my presentation is very effective even though it is quite simple. It presents the key messages clearly. The animated bubbles draw attention to each point in turn and look attractive. I think the TV screen master slide is very effective. The colours and font sizes work well when projected on a whiteboard and the text is easy to read. The speaker notes fill in the detail for each slide. Ben was my reviewer. He said he liked my presentation because it focuses on key messages and there isn't too much text on any of the screens. I think my presentation would help me convince my peers that teenagers would not be better off if they didn't watch TV or play computer games. The only thing I'm not sure about is whether I could give the presentation without reading my speaker notes. If I was going to do this for real I would have to rehearse.

The web pages

I didn't have very long to work on my web pages and I used them to try out different features of Dreamweaver. I used the same colour scheme as the school website and tried to make my pages look like all the others. I asked my Mum to review them. She said that if I'd had the proper school banner the pages would have looked as though they were part of the main school website. This is what I set out to achieve so I am very pleased. I didn't have to research any new information for the web pages. Instead, I used information I had already gathered. This meant I could concentrate on learning how to use Dreamweaver.

Next time I will use a page template to maintain consistency and reduce time. Because I didn't use a template this time I had to repeat quite a lot of things such as setting up the links between pages. I think my web pages do provide useful information and advice for parents and they have taught me a lot about Dreamweaver.

My eportfolio

I really like my eportfolio. I think it reflects my personality. I hope the moderator will enjoy looking at it. When I started the course I didn't think I'd ever be able to produce anything as professional as this. I love the colour scheme and I think the three-tier menu bar works really well. I hope it will be easy for the moderator to find my evidence. Miss Gaffney, my teacher thinks it is fine.

If I'd had more time I would have produced better commentaries. Some of them are very short. I have tried to chose my best evidence to show what I'm capable of. I particularly like the movies I made to present my database work. I have learnt such a lot from producing this eportfolio and I'm really looking forward to making the next one!