Guest Lecturer - Vice Chancellor - David Warner

Education Policy Due to the sickness of our lecturer Andy Reynolds, we have been having many guests come and cover for him. Today, we had the Vice Chancellor of Swansea Metropolitan University Professor David Warner. This was a fantastic experience to have our very own vice chancellor come and lecture for us. Today, Warner began by talking about the background on higher education, he spoke of the following bullet points: Background on higher education • What is higher education? - The level of work that you do, does not necessarily mean university, could be in institutions. - Who pays you, the number of students studying H.E is not the same as students that are studying at university Once Warner had explained the background of what higher education is and how it came about, he then gave us some very interesting information on the history of Swansea Metropolitan University: History of Swansea Metropolitan University • 1853 – oldest faculty of art and design • Swansea Metropolitan will be spending 7million of their own money to convert the old library. • 1913 – 100 years old next year – Townhill campus • Mount Pleasant – founded by Bishop Gore Continuing on the subject, he the spoke of the history of universities: History of universities • Middle ages - first universities established • 1918 – 22 universities and university colleges • 1980 – 47 universities, including CAT’s a new ‘plate-glass universities’ • 1992 – over 100 universities as legislation enabled polytechnics to adopt the title of ‘university’ • Most universities were established after the Second World War. Why go to university? And student fees: • To enable people to develop the capabilities and fulfil their potential, both personally and at work. Swansea Metropolitan University focus on this • To contribute to an economically successful and culturally diverse nation • To advance knowledge and understanding through scholarship and research – Swansea University focus on this. • To contribute to regional prosperity both through technology transfer and direct contribution? • Social justice? It’s about breaking down the barriers through education - the transformation of the individual. You can break out of what your parents/grandparents did. I found Professor David Warner's lecture extremely interesting. I enjoyed the fact that we learnt about the history of pur very own university not just all the others. I feel that we were all very privileged to have had a lecture with the vice chancellor himself!

Guest Lecturer - Mike Day

Policies in Education Due to the sickness of our lecturer Andy Reynolds, we have been having many guests come and cover for him. Today, we had Mike Day. Mike Day is the Chair of the Education Committee and Senior Cabinet Member, City & County of Swansea. This was in fact, the first time he had taken a lecture for Educational Studies. Mike Day came in to talk to us about different policies within Education. With the different policies that Day had spoke of, he included the role of Local Education Authorities, policy and politics. He explained that education policy is a set of rules and laws that operate the education system. The aim of the policy is to reflect political opinions, tradition and values. Not only that but it is to make fundamental choices. Day had also explained to us about how it is used to create a work force and to produce rounded individuals. It is there to provide guidelines which are sometimes too strict, and do not allow you to do what you want. Considered by the education policy: - school size - school privatization - class size - teachers pay The education policy has been created by politicians and practitioners, within the UK levels and Welsh government. The welsh government cannot control the compulsory school age and teachers pay, but they can control the delivery of Welsh Medium and the foundation phase as these are specific to Wales.

Guest Lecturer - Graham Allan

Education for Sustainable Development Due to the sickness of our lecturer Andy Reynolds, we have been having many guests come and cover for him. Today, we had Graham Allan. His purpose of his lecture was to just give a little insight Education for Sustainable Development. This was the first that we had heard of this subject so it was in fact an introduction to the subject. Allan had told us how Kofi Annan, (2001) head of the United Nations says ‘"Our biggest challenge in this new century is to take an idea that seems abstract – sustainable development - and turn it into a reality for all the world's people" The reason that Allan had told us about Annan's speech is because he wanted to emphasise the topic and considering Annan is the head of the UN and a loss of ESD comes from this group. In contrast to the initial subject that Allan had been speaking about; there is a whole new approach towards the curriculum rather than being separate. There is a clear overlap with the 'citizenship' curriculum as it requires reflection on what to teach. This has been put onto place so that they can; • Establish the childs ability to think for themselves • encourage reflection, debate, and expression of oppinions • Nurturing ones learning that is of relevance to the learner's life experience Although there are more than I would say, 300 definitions of Sustainable Development, being able to come to terms with what it actually means is in fact relative. Allan quoted:

Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs"

- Brundtland, 1987.

Guest lecturer - Jane Davidson

Changes Within Education In The Recent Decade Due to the sickness of our lecturer Andy Reynolds, we have been having many guests come and cover for him. Today, we had Jane Davidson.

Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. But with vision and action you can change the world”

- Jane Davidson (2001) Jane Davidson has been the Minister for Education in Wales for over 7 years. Today, she discussed with us about the changes in education over the past years. She explained how the National Curriculum was introduced in the 1980's by Prime Minister at the time, Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher had introduced this regime to ensure that everyone in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales received a proper education up to the age of 16. This did however, exclude private schools. This then led to controversy in teachers as their creativity became more restricted. Although the subject was controversial, the National Curriculum allowed standardization. This enabled assessments to take place. Assessments then of course lead to school leagues which meant that parents could access and decide which school they wanted their child/children to attend. Davidson then went on to speak about the government policy changes in 1997. This brought a new labour government. Tony Blair famously announced ‘"Education, Education, and Education". He had recognised the restrictions of the National Curriculum and advocated change. With the introduction of the Welsh National Assembly, Education in Wales differed from that of England. In the past however, it was the same.

VISUAL COMMUNICATION SKETCHBOOK 9/05/12

This blog here is every blog for my sketchbook For my Visual Communication Assignment. I have divided this blog into 13 sections in accordance to my sketchbook. I felt it would be easier to see it in one blog rather than 13 even though there would be the equivalent amount. My Sense Of Place - Jocelyn Williams Section 1 - The Botanical Gardens I genuinely love The Botanical Gardens in Bath and thought that it should be a must in terms of including it. For this part, I had many photos as I had spent the whole of Easter gathering photos for ALL of my sections for this sketchbook. As said in the sketchbook, I have put the 12 sections of 1 being the lowest and 12 being the most important (13 being the final idea). As I was going through this sections, I never really realised how much thought I was actually going to have to put into this sketchbook. And so here it begins... Section 2 - City Of Bath Bath for me is one of the best places in the world and if I'm being truthful, in my opinion, its a million times better than Swansea... Yes I probably am being bias, but I know a good city when I see on and I have seen many. My thought process when doing this section was cute, I had to relive those lovely memories of days out in the park, shopping trips, coffee stops in M&S etc, I was really starting to enjoy this project. Section 3 - Weston-Super-Mare Weston, well, I have so many memories of Weston but unfortunately, without sounding boring, if I were to go through all of them, then to anyone who was not there when it happened would sound like 'the same old story' kind of thing. During this section I had to really think about what to include and why I had included W-S-M, it clear to say that other sections were easier and more obvious than others. Section 4 - Javea - Spain Probably the most different memories that i'll ever have, not very many will re-live memories of living in a different country for 4 yrs. It was actually quite emotional doing up this section, just writing up my memories, which is without a shadow of a doubt a part of my sense of place. I almost felt as though those memories should have been left buried within the back of my mind where only I can look up on. Although I have expressed in my sketchbook how lovely Spain was, there are always dark corners wherever you go, even some I wish I could forget forever, I didn't include any negative pointers and my scrapbook is a positive piece of work. Section 5 - Friends A moment of laughter creating this section. I genuinely loved doing this section. I enjoyed it because its not so private, I love to share my friends with the rest of the world just to show how lovely they are. I would have quite happily expanded on this section with many more pages... Section 6 - Boyfriend I blush just thinking about what to say. Although the memories are current and still being made, even now, I love to flick through the freshers photos where I met Perry to make me smile where we fist met. I found this section easy to do and I feel that this really is because it is one of my most recent memories that have not finished yet. Section 7 - My Car Well, I'll expect you will laugh but, I love my first car a lot, so much to say that I have named it Esmee or (Baby Esmee). It sounds childish so I thought it would be better not to include that in my sketchbook. When writing and creating the page on my was also a little upsetting because I currently can't use my car, I'll be happy soon as shes back with me. Section 8 - Family Holidays What a lovely section to write about. I went through and picked the best pictures from my albums so that I could fully explain and show how wonderful our holidays really are. I really wanted to express my thoughts on these holidays so I took my time on this section, this does not however, goes to say that I have rushed on the other sections because I have not. Section 9 - Scouts & Network Probably the most amazing section to express and write about. Its more than true to say that there is never a dull moment within the scout unit. If its not myself asking a dumb question, it's someone coming up with a silly expression cracking up the whole group... Sharing the network page with the group was awesome because I want to show people that being a scout is something you should be proud of not embarrassed of. Section 10 - Midsomer Norton This was a fantastic section to write about. Midsomer Norton is not that well known in Britain and to be able to share just that little bit more and be so proud of the town is amazing. I love this little town and want others to see this too! Section 11 - My House My house, well I didn't really have a problem with sharing parts of my house. The main interior however I did not share because I know that my mother would appreciate if I did not publicize the entire house as its not fair. There are some things that are meant to kept private. I did however, have to mention my house because it really is a massive part of me and who I am. Section 12 - My Family This section is basically who I am... I did however find it hard to display some of these photos as they are family photos and are meant for family, yet at the same time, to fully express myself within the sketchbook, I felt that these photos were needed. Section 13 - FINAL IDEA My final idea came to me only a few sections before finishing my sketchbook and I am so glad it did. I'm glad I waited for it to come to me because I have up with a lovely final idea of me being in my own 'bubble' which is so relevant to me its ridiculous. I am proud of my final masterpiece!

Creating Images

Today is our final session with Mandy. To round up everything that we have done throughout our lessons, we had a rather exciting lesson where we could create text images. The purpose was to create words that represent images instead of the usual images that represent words. For this we used three websites in particular. They were:
1. www.text-image.com
2. www.graffiticreator.net
3. www.tagxedo.net
For these you can use any word that you choose in order to create an image. However, on the tagxedo site, we pasted in our blogspot URL’s and the site itself generated the words that represented us as an individual the most, or in other words, representing the words we use the most by gathering the blogs and picking out the most used words.
I feel that this was a fun session to end with and I also found it very interesting and useful. The reason I found it useful was because I am more than sure that I will definitely be able to use the sites in the future. For example in a classroom in a powerpoint. I think that this is why Mandy has showed us these sites mainly for that purpose. I think children would also find this a fun way to learn as it’s practical, colourful and very visual. Learning but with lots of fun!

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