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.