Dance Show: Identity Crisis

BTEC Performing Arts students are performing 12 dance pieces in their show 'Identity Crisis' this week on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evening. 

They have had a week of rehearsals and have been stretched, cajoled and inspired by Dance teacher David Hudson.  Performing arts tutor Nicola Blake explained,  'dance week provides a fantastic opportunity for students to work intensively in various dance styles from tap to contemporary encouraging professionalism in rehearsal and performance.'

The poster is made up of four faces edited using Photoshop software.

Abingdon and Witney Art Foundation

All three of our foundation art and design students that applied to Brookes to study Architecture have been offered places which is amazing as Brookes is now in the top 5 in the country for Architecture.

 

Soni Gurung has been offered a place at Cardiff to study Architecture which is ranked second in the country. 

 

Here is a link to the foundation web-site which has lots more information about this course such as how to apply.

 

http://www.abingdonandwitneyfoundation.com/

 

 

Dark-room

Medias students have been working in the dark-room developing film and experimenting with enlargers and learning a variety of processes. This is where the magic happens and the essence of all lens based media is laid bare as essentially 'playing with light'.

Storytelling

 

On Wednesday 5th March both level 2 backstage production and level 3 performance  learners will be involved in performing a range of fairytales for local schoolchildren. The flats are painted and innovative in design. For the 'disease' flat a performer will burst through the paper.  Hopefully no children will be scared in the process!    

 

The performance will be in the round with up to 150, 5-7 year olds seated on the floor.  This will allow an immersive experience and no doubt the lessons of these age old fairy-tales will last in the memory.

Work Experience at Nicholsons nurseries

Second Year media students from Witney took photographs as part of a location recce at Nicholsons nurseries near Bicester.  They were given an informative and educational tour and gained a sense of what their client is looking for in terms of a filmed production which promotes the company.  the sandwiches were excellent and we now know a lot more about trees and horticulture.  Spring has come early this year and trees are advanced for the time of year so there is a lot of work going on in preparation for the year ahead. 

Employer Aware Event

Once called 'Taking the Plunge' this event held at the Kassam stadium allowed students to meet employers and to gain skills for success in the job market. The video contains a series of interviews with students and business volunteers involved in the day.

http://vimeo.com/86623916

John  Blackwell, pictured above presenting to students, from Quora Consulting has since been back into the College to offer work experience to some students who particularly impressed him on the day.  Computing and business students have been offered the chance to assist with a two day conference to be held at Canary Wharf. John is looking for people who can clean and update databases and work with social media to aid the smooth running of the conference.  Event management skills along with creativity, literacy and tenacity are essential.

Brian Rutherford of Jack FM

On Monday 3^rd Feb, Media students at Abingdon Campus were treated to a visit from former student Bryan Rutherford from Jack/Breeze  FM

Bryan was a student at the college in 2009, and went on to take a private radio  broadcasting course before starting his career as a news presenter on local radio.  He  recently secured a new post as a radio journalist for Radio Scotland, but managed to find time to visit us before he moves north next month.  Rutherford is a Borders name, 'ford over a river.'

Students watched a video of Bryan’s average working day ,rising at 3 am to prepare for his first news broadcast at 6:00 am

Students also produced a running list of real news stories for different audiences before making a mock broadcast to their peers .

Work Experience - Media

Jonny Hodgetts graduated from Creative Media Diploma in 2009.

Since then, he has gone on to work on a range of major motion films such as 'Fast and Furious 6' as a Production Assistant

Jonny has recently signed up as 3^rd Assistant director for the next 'Avengers' film.

 

 

On January 26^th , Jonny came and discussed his career and work practices with the current Media second years at Abingdon and Witney College as part of their unit on the Creative Media Sector.  Jonny was so impressed with the students' passion about film production that he is offering 5 students work experience in sound design and cinematography on a local independent film he is directing next month.

Film Oxford

Film Oxford are a partner of the College and work with our students to provide experience of the film industry. Media students,  Hasena Ali and Marc Hackett were involved in a series of Saturday workshops which enabled them to work alongside film-makers to improve their practical skills using cameras and film equipment on a live project in Oxford.

www.filmoxford.org.uk

Local film-makers can network at their 10:10 evenings which encourages young people on our courses to get involved with local projects and find possible opportunities.

There are regular training events on subject such as technological advances in film production such as using DSLR's to shoot film. 

Staff development is available which allows for placement within industry and a chance to hone technical skills and expertise. We will be linking with Film Oxford in June and July to allow staff to be creative and gain an understanding of developments in the film industry.

Students can apply for residentials with the national film school and take on Arts Award training with film Oxford. 

 Opportunities are available on the Film Oxford web-site.

Pitt Rivers Museum Project

Media and Art and Design students in Witney are beginning an ambitious project linking with Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford. This prestigious collaboration will involve art students creating artefacts and media students documenting the events through film and photography.

www.prm.ox.ac.uk

Android App Development (Enrichment)

As part of the Study Package for all students on the Level 3 courses at Abingdon and Witney’s Witney Campus there is the opportunity to attend a 6 week program on Android Application Development. The program focuses on understanding the structure of the Android Mobile Operating System Apps, a little about Android’s history and also how to approach the development of an application for this operating system.

The first run of this program took place in the second half-term of the 2013/14 year (November to December 2013). The program was full (12 students) and once they had looked at the basics of Android development the students split in to small groups to create an application of their choice. The main result of this first program was the creation of two Android applications;

1)     Text to Morse Code (Beta) – an application that allows the user to input a sentence and receive a translation of this sentence in Morse Code. The application is being developed to include audio and visual feedback through the use of the in-built device speakers and LEDs. The students have also started to develop ‘quick buttons’ with common phrases that may be useful.

2)     Asteroid Assault (Beta) – a game where the user tilts their phone/ tablet to control the movement of the spacecraft and touches buttons on the screen to fire missiles as the on-coming asteroids. The aim is to destroy the asteroids. The students are developing the game to include a scoring system and potentially a ranking system too.

To help students see a result to their work it was decided to setup a Google Play Store account. This has allowed the students to get their applications published on to the Google Play Store so that anybody with an Android compatible device can download the applications and use them.

To help in the testing process for ‘Text to Morse Code (Beta)’ the application was downloaded by students from Public Services courses at the Witney Campus. The application was used by these students to help learn about Morse Code as a method of communication.

The students working on these two applications are continuing to develop them as part of the Android Development Enrichment program and the versions available on the Google Play Store are updated as progress is made. The program itself is in the second run and more students are taking an interest in the topic as it progresses.

Oxfam Guest Lecturer

On Monday 20^th January 2014 the Futures Project between Business and Computing (year one) students at the Witney Campus welcomed a guest lecturer from Oxfam. The guest lecturer (Santanu Chackrabati) heads-up the ‘Insights’ team at Oxfam’s Head Office in Oxford. Santanu’s job is to investigate, and understand, how and why individuals give money to charities. This includes a large consideration of psychology and how this can be used within the work that Oxfam do.

Santanu spoke to the students for around 90 minutes and provided them with a detailed overview of the different (key) elements of psychology and how psychology is used in marketing and media to ‘lead’ or ‘convince’ people in to doing different things. Examples given included the use of priming and framing information as well as understanding how an individual views/ perceive the world around them.

The information collected from the guest lecturer’s visit will be used to support students in their overall project which requires them to create a marketing campaign (physical and digital) for a specific product. The guest speaker has also said that he would be willing to re-visit the students at the end of their projects to provide feedback on their finished campaigns.

Working with the Women’s Institute

In the 2012/13 academic year a local education provider (National Institute for Women: Denman College) (NIfW: Denman College) enquired as to whether computing students from Abingdon and Witney College would be able to provide in-class support (similar to that of Teaching Assistants) to their students who were studying computer based courses; primarily ancestry subjects. The students who attend Denman College do so on a residential basis and in many cases they are using computers for the first time. The vast majority of students to Denman College are aged 65+ ladies and are members of the national Women’s Institute organization. 

During the second and third terms of the 2012/13 year a number of students (around 10 2^nd years) volunteered their time to provide students at Denman College support as they investigated their family histories. The events took place at weekends and would run between 9am and 6pm.

Although the original hopes for supporting Denman College was to allow computing students to experience providing support for computer users, especially those with little or no experience, more has happened. During the ancestry courses students were not only able to provide the support that they were there to give, they were also able to learn about the backgrounds and histories of the ladies in the room. Whilst working with these ladies the students discovered more about the history of society in the country (i.e. the class system), social acceptability (e.g. relationships and children born out of wedlock) and the information that can be collected through documents such as birth, death, wedding and census records. The students fed back that they found these sessions extremely enlightening and they thoroughly enjoyed learning about the history of individuals and the challenge of using the ancestry resources to find information.

During the 2013/14 year the approach to students supporting Denman College has changed. Previously the setup had required staff members to be available to attend sessions on weekends under the requirements of health and safety. This has now be changed and Denman College is now registered as a work experience provider for the college. As a result the support that can be offered by students from Abingdon and Witney College can now be more responsive. In addition to this the support does not need to be only offered at weekends but can also be done during the week.

 
In January 2014 the first group of Work Experience students (2^nd year Extended Diploma students from the Witney Campus) visited Denman College to provide support. This was very well received by all parties and has re-ignited the partnership between Denman College and Abingdon and Witney College. The new arrangement will allow students to provide support for a range of different subjects too. In addition to ancestry there are e-Bay courses, Photoshop courses and others. The intention is to continue developing this partnership so that it can become a staple opportunity to all students in the computing department at Abingdon and Witney College.

Oxford Careers Fest

 

 

Local schoolchildren  had the opportunity to try out the green screen technology at an event held at the mini plant in Cowley.  The activity included presenting the weather while class-mates watched the simulation on a large screen. 

http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/NEWS/10953100.2_000_Oxfordshire_teens_take_part_in_careers_event_at_Cowley_Mini_plant/

Work experience opportunity

Nicholsons http://www.nicholsons.gb.com/index.htm  is a horticulture business based in North Aston near Bicester. Julie Hillier and the owner Liz Nicholson would like media students to create video content for a web-site to promote arboculture and horticulture.  They will direct a team of students during a day spent filming and interviewing in a variety of locations. It may involve learners getting their hands dirty and picking up some landscaping or gardening skills also.

These opportunities need to be acted upon so that you can build your CV and show-reel. It is also a way to network with local businesses in Oxfordshire.  Log this on pro-portal also.