Week 9: Last week

I really enjoy this subject because it allow us to think more about usual things in our world. I especilly enjoy talking about the future, the smart machines and to learn more about career. Even if it can be something we are afraid about (for example how new technologies are taking a very important part of our life), it is really good to know that it exists.

I find really interesting the presentations and the essay we needed to do about a specific career. For me, I chose something I am interested in, and thanks to my researches I know now what I really need to go in this way. In fact, I never really look at that before… It allows me to take a new step with this reflexion and now my personal plan is almost clear.

Week 8: My Personal Plan

To continue the article from last week, today I am doing my personal plan for my future.

My goals:
I want to get a master  (BAC+5) in communications and multimedia. I hope I can go abroad one year again, or a least one semester, in North America or Australia to continue to improve my English. Then, if I still want, after the master I want to do one year in Business because it really works with the communication field, and I am also interested about that. Finally, I really hope to work as a public relations officer. It is something I discover this year, but I knew it just a little before coming. It is something I really enjoy because I can use all the knowledge I learn during my studies, either in Creative media, strategy and web fields.

My Plan action:
I want to get my degree here, then for my first year of master, I will try my best to get very good results to try to go abroad in second year. Then if I want to do one more year, I will need to do a competitive entrance examination for the one-year-study in a business private school. This last year will give me a lot of contacts for my future job.

Evaluation:
I think it is something highly achievable because when I want to do something, I always try my best to do it!

Why this plan?
Since I am really young, I love to communicate about my hobbies. I start to enjoy photography, video and editing. This is something I learn alone, playing with software such as Photoshop, Final Cut Pro and Premiere. I never really enjoyed everything I did until the BAC in France. Also, I just learn things I will never use again in my future. Then I find a DUT, which correspond exactly to what I like. Moreover, since I am 12 years old, my dream was to go abroadto study ENglish.I went 3 weeks in a host family in Canada; I did a lot of travels around the world  in teenagers’ camp. This allows me to speak Spanish and English. But it was not enought for me! That is why I really do my best to go in Ireland this year. I am highly motivated with everything I want to do.

Now everything follows my primary goal. The most difficult for me was to find a master I will enjoy because there are so many different masters in France (public or private). I knew that I cannot really do a private one because two years will cost me 12 000€ or more.

My future job:
For me it is very important that I will work in something I am interested in because when I will be working, I will not see the time running. It is going so fast!  The fact that now I have a good level in English will allow me to work in a big company which need to communicate internationally. If I can improve my Spanish, it can be even better for me. I can work in France or abroad.

SWOT Analysis:
– My strengths: motivated, curious, determinated, creative, English, open-minded, hard working
– My weaknesses: lack of self-confidence, sky when I do not really know the person
– Opportunities: go abroad, discovering new cultures
– Threats: do not get my degree if I do not find the work placement, money

Week 7: My life after college this year

I am really happy that I can have experienced one year here in DkIT for my third-year-study. I think that is something really useful for me, as I improve a lot my English during this year. I know it is not perfect but now I can have a real conversation with other people, and I can understand almost everything. I am not worried when I need to talk to a lecturer or to my group work to ask questions or to give my opinion. After this year, normally I will have my degree. I think I am not ready to find a job now because I still need to improve my knowledge through projects like here.

The problem is that Dundalk is not giving us the diploma anymore so I need to do a three-months internship. If I find one, and do it I will get the professional degree from my university in Tarbes. If I cannot find one I will have 60 credits for this year but no diploma, so it means nothing… I hope I can find one and then, my plan is to continue for two more years to get a master. I really like what we are doing here in college, especially everything around communication, design and how to build a strategy like Public Relations course. I will continue in the same field. I do not want to specialise because I think it is something really important to know about everything in a company. You can understand better why there are some problems or everything. If I specialise, I think I will do it during my work experience.

If I cannot find my internship I really do not know what I am going to do because I really do not want to do again my third year degree because I will loose one year and maybe not learn I much as I hope.

Week 6: Augmenting Reality & Smart Machines

Augmented reality « is a live direct or indirect view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented (or supplemented) by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data. » (Wikipedia)

Here is a video about 5-augmented realities App.

This shows how it is working just with a smartphone. It can be more and more impressive when it has a bigger scale. As we are always looking to make progress, everything is going to be improved. We saw the following video in class, which was really interesting but I need to admit that I am a bit scared with all these new technologies. It is good that we can project us in an « other world » but sometimes you need to remember that we are living in a real one. Technologies are going to surpass humans.

We also talk about Smart Machines. I just know one, which is Apple Siri. I like playing with it to know how it is going to react when we I am asking something. It can be really useful for people because when you do not have a lot of time to do researches for example, you can just ask Siri the definition f your word and it will do the research for you. In general, I am not using it at all. It is just to play but if you want to call someone faster you just need to ask Sir « Can you call the name of the person » and it will do it for you. Also, I think it still needs progress in it because sometimes it does not understand everything or just exchange with other things (which sometimes can be funny). But I am sure in few years it will be really different and usable.

Week 4: Digital Network & Society

I wrote an article last week but I do not know why now it disappears from this blog. That is why it is not in the good order.

Everything we do on the Internet is tracked. For example, if we are looking for a flight to come back in France for the holidays; after all the advertising on your webpages will talk about that (offers for travels with your destination) and companies such as Ryanair, Aer Lingus… That show everything you do is saved somewhere without your agreement. Also, I remember, four years ago I want to Iceland for a teenagers’ camp during February holidays. One day, I received a text message on my new smartphone from my father telling me exactly where I was at the moment. I was really surprised when I receive it because he knew that. In one hand it is good for my parents because they know exactly where I am, but I never programme something on my smartphone to allow this. I felt tracked. When I look more in all the parameters, I saw that one option, the geo-localisation one, was ticked since the beginning (when I buy it).

Moreover, as years are going, we download lots of app with Android store, Apple store, iTunes or with Internet. They are more and more directly connected to social media, and post information sometimes even if you do not ask for it.

This is the development of technologies. We are always looking for progress. An other example can be the fridge which is connected. Without opening it you can see what you have in it. Also, if you have a connected watch, when you are running it can be connected to internet and save automatically all your information (date, time, how many kilometres you did…). Everything is going to be ultra-connected.

But do we need to boycott these technologies ? As time is running everybody buy them. It is not because I do not buy them, that they will stop to sell it. As I said, we are always looking at progress. I think we just need to be careful when we buy new technologies with all the new existing functions, and we need to choose which one we want and/or need.

Week 5: Envisioning the Future

Today, we talk more about automation which is something quite interesting.
This is when bots replace human to do usual tasks and even really special one.

I remember few years ago, I went to Paris for a travel with my school. During this travel, one afternoon we visit a famous automobile assembly factory called Flins. During this time we can see all the process until having a real car. I was really surprised when I saw all these sort of robots doing everything and not really lot of humans doing it. This can be good because sometimes, people are doing their work but they use these robots to help them with it. For example, if some parts are too heavy they just push the robot and position it as they want to make what they want.

But we can think about the future. What are we going to do in few years? Do these robots will replace all the human? What about all these jobs?

It is true that this help a lot. We can solve problems, and do things faster with them. But as we are going I think they take a really huge place in the society, and some job are not going to exist anymore because of them. It can be contradictory because we need humans to create these robots. I think as for the use of Internet, we just need to be careful with what we are creating to keep jobs.

This is an interesting article.

Week 3: What Internet change for everybody?

Internet is an international network where people communicate together through their use of computer, smartphone, … It can be really good, but also bad, depending of people’s use. Thanks to it we can have everything we want just in few seconds thanks to Google. It is part of our life since we are young now.
Website like Wikipedia allows everybody to get one culture, and to learn about everything. This website is bring to up by people around the entire world, with their knowledge. People can just go there to pick what they want to know. The only thing is that is not really sure, because there is no control at all for this website.
The bad way of the Internet is, because we can find everything (content, music, film), this entail pirating. It ruins artists’ lives because they are not earning money they normally need.
The other bad thing of Internet and everything we use to be connected is that everything we did is trace. Now people can follow us everywhere even if we think we protect everything. We are always under surveillance. This can be frightening in some points. Like in the documentary, this guy explains us that if we take one piece of data, then we can link it to an other one and then we can know everything.

For example, where I live in France, Toulouse, is the third city in Europe which is the most spied. It is due to the big companies there like Airbus, Thales or Astrium.
Here is the French article about Citizenfour today in La Dépêche du midi newspaper.

Week 2: Plagiarism, Copyright & Remix

In the world, copyright is used to avoid plagiarism. In fact, when someone creates one content, this law protects him about other people who want to copy it. This law was “developed to stimulate creativity and promote learning”.

The development of new technologies makes everything easier. If you need content, you research it on Google and then you can easily copy it. People just take what they want without being careful with the copyrights. If we take some content from one website for example, we need to mention where it is from (referencing). If we use this content in a commercial way, we need to pay something to the authors, depending of the use.

In this class, we saw a video of someone taking just few seconds of songs existing, which have copyrights because they are “the intellectual property of the artist who created them”. Then he transforms them to make his own song. The question was: Is it plagiarism? Is it allowed to do that?
It is not that easy to answer these questions. If songs are transformed and then we cannot say where it is from, it is not considered as plagiarism. But for me I think it is not really fair to allow that because the person uses one existing content without saying where it is from because he remixes it… He just hides these parts of content changing the tone, the speed and other characteristics.
I think the only way to solve this issue is to define the limit of the copy allowed because we cannot stop people to do remix downloading music.

References :
http://script-ed.org/?p=476
http://nkelber.com/engl293/blog/?p=566

Week 1 : Music history

In our Professional Issues in Creative Media class, we learn more about the history of the music and the sound.

I must admit that I was really lost during this first class because I never really learn about audio, music and sound before. It was a bit hard to understand everything. This was more an overview about all the history. Therefore, I cannot really talk about this first lesson.

We are going to see all the time Past, Present and Future for everything.
For one of my CA I have to do a presentation on a chosen career in Creative Media. I need to discuss past, present and future conditions. I choose « Advertising » because it is something I really like and it change since it has been created. I think it can be really interested to show how it moves and how people consider it. I think I will need to focus in our particular aspect like digital, TV, or radio advertising because it is really vast. I will first need to do a lot of researches and then try to make something clear for everybody. I will also write my essay about this subject, and I think I will take as an example my work placement I made last year.