Evaluation

As an overall statement, I'd say that the Self Managed Leaning Plan has been a really valuable exercise. It has provided an opportunity not just to learn a new skill, but also develop techniques and methodology for teaching myself crucial abilities.

The reason I decided to learn PHP throughout this time is simply the demand for it in industry. My research prior to the beginning the SMLP showed that a large number of jobs in the web design industry require applicants to have a knowledge of PHP. This was backed up by my research in the assignment I wrote as part of my SMLP. As such, I concluded it was a skill I needed to develop in order to make myself more employable.

As I had no previous experience, the aim I set for myself was to learn 'introductory PHP'. I felt this was a attainable goal in the time we had, and would give me a great platform to extend my knowledge in the future. Looking back now, I feel I have met the target of learning introductory PHP, and maybe gone a little further into more complex functionality.

I tried a few different methods of learning during the SMLP. My first approach was to use books to learn the basics - my first choice being SAMs PHP in 24 Hours. This approach was great for me, and a technique that I have used in the past for learning XHTML/CSS. However, this method became a little frustrating after a couple of weeks as I began to feel that despite learning the theories and techniques used, I wasn't putting them into action.

As I became frustrated with not creating any functioning PHP, I decided to undertake a different approach, and used a more proactive methodology. I began to develop the relevant functions needed in order to create the website I would be building in my creative brief. I found this to be much more fruitful, as I began to understand how the language actually works in practice - reading about it is one thing, but using it in a real situation is completely different.

Part of the learning process was to record what I was learning. Whilst this is necessary for evidencing what I'd done for assessment, it became a little frustrating, as it seemed to detract from my concentration on the actual learning. However, as it was necessary I got on with it, and I feel that it effectively records what I've done over the weeks.

As mentioned previously, including some real life experience whilst learning is important in understanding how PHP works. I therefore acquired a client for the creative brief part of the assignment, my former colleague Dan Cooper. Dan is a graphic designer and wanted an online portfolio to display his work. Learning through actively building a live and professional site proved to be challenging, but very rewarding. I felt this put me under pressure, and gave an edge to the project as I needed to ensure my work was done well and that it reflects kindly on me and my skills.

An interesting aspect of the creative brief was working with Dan to design the website together. As Dan is a designer himself, the ideas generation was more of a collaboration than I am used to, with ideas being put together to develop the site. This led to a very different ideas generation process than usual, with the full development being done in the course of one meeting on an evening.

A problem with this method of ideas generation is that it could be perceived as contradicting my SMLP learning objective, which is termed 'use a full ideas generation process'. As the development was done in one evening, with limited sketching, some could argue that the full process was not used. However, I would argue that a full process was used. Dan came with set ideas, and these were then developed to be relevant for the web using my knowledge. The fact that a final product was created and that it is of a good standard is testament to a full process being used. Working with another designer has proved a very valuable experience in used collaborative and communication skills, as well as showing how a process can be used between two people successfully.

Overall, I feel that I have succeeded in meeting my SMLP. Firstly, I have met the first learning objective of producing an essay on the use of PHP in the interactive media industry- which has proved to be a useful insight as to why developed skills with PHP could prove crucial in securing myself a job after completing the course.

I have managed to get an understanding of PHP: it's capabilities, it's limits, it's structure, it's semantics. I have also begun to get a foothold in being able to develop my own PHP functions, creating an image upload, gallery, and delete function, as well as a contact form with PHP validation function.

The creative brief has been a success, with Dan very happy with the results. The website complies with relevant W3C standards, and uses a number of PHP functions in order to operate. Whilst the design isn't something I'd necessarily go for myself, it meets Dan's needs and comes from his own ideas. On the whole, I believe the site meets professional standards in terms of technicality.

I have also met the fourth and final learning objective by entering an evaluative post on my SMLP blog each week, as well as posting this final summative evaluation. I feel this has been beneficial throughout in pointing out where I needed to change my learning methodology and adapt different techniques in order to effectively meet my learning objectives.

Word count: 944

Good Progress

This week has been a good week for making a lot of progress. I've met up with Dan, designed the site, and built it. All that remains is for Dan to add his portfolio and for hosting to be organised.

I've also built a user interface which matches the website itself, and password protected the upload PHP file. This will protect the website from others messing around with it.

The process of designing this site has been very different from the usual ideas generation processes used. As Dan is himself a designer, he came with many of his own ideas - and it was a case of him listening to my advice as a web designer in order to make his ideas work online. As such, I've had limited control over the basic aesthetics of the site, but control over the content, layout and formatting. It's been strange, but a valuable experience in learning how different situations can function.

This has made a slight issue in that the wording of my SMLP, for this learning objective, was 'full ideas generation process'. However, I believe that their has been a full process, it's just been very different to normal - and as such, it has been documented very differently.

Successes

I've really enjoyed myself this week. Got stuck in with some PHP, and feel like I've got a lot from it. Having decided last week to forget the processes of going cover-to-cover through a book and actually get stuck in, that's exactly what I did.

I've successfully created a contact form which validates the users input and sends an email. I've also, after many hours, now got a nice image upload system which creates thumbnails. Whilst the backbone of this came as a download, I've spent time looking through the PHP learning what it does, and I've added additional functionality. The script I downloaded deals with only the uploaded and thumbnailing - but the images now go into a lightbox-style PHP image library and I added a PHP function to add a text description to appear in the lightbox display.

The downfall to the approach of getting stuck in is that it makes recording my learning much more difficult, as I often end up being distracted and get too engrossed in what I'm doing. However, I've got evidence that needs printing out and annotating - and the product I've produced shows my learning through an end-product.

Dan, my client for this project, was unavailable to meet up this week, but I've made this a priority for this week, and it looks as though Friday will be a good opportunity to meet with him.

A few problems...

If I'm honest, this week hasn't been the most productive. I've struggled to settle into the rhythm of working through the PHP in 24 Hours book, although I have got a few of the chapters done. If I'm honest, I'm beginning to worry now that I won't get the stuff I need to learn done in time.

So what am I going to do? I'm going to take a more pragmatic approach to my learning. Rather than going cover to cover through the book, I'm going to focus on learning the stuff I need to in order to complete my creative brief. This will start tomorrow at College.

I'm also struggling a bit with self-discipline at the moment. I'm sat doing the work but often find myself tired and this makes it hard to keep my concentration up. As such, I've taken action this week to cut back on commitments in other areas of my life. It's important that I focus on my study over the next few months, and hopefully by freeing myself up at key times I'll be able to work more productively.

As well as working hard on PHP, I'm also hoping to meet up with Dan Cooper, who I'll be building the website for, during this next week. As he's a designer himself, the creative process is going to be different to usual, as it will be a much more collaborative effort. Whilst this may turn out to be difficult, I'm really looking forward to the new experience and challenges this can bring me.

First Week of Self-Teaching PHP

Welcome to my journal to help me record and evaluate the process of learning PHP, as part of my study on the HND Interactive Media (soon to become FdA Web Design). After completing the written part of the assignment, I've moved onto the actual learning of the language.

The first week of learning PHP has proved to be a bit of a mixed bag. My priority for the week has been to become familiar with the language itself, in terms of it's syntax & semantics. I feel on the whole I've done this, and have also gone further in exploring functions and how these operate. However, I feel in order to keep up with the pace of the assignment, I may need to work much more quickly and effectively.

I think the most productive way for me to learn thus far has been using SAMS PHP in 24 Hours. This has had a clearly laid out process for learning PHP in 24 chapters. I have found, however, that 24 hours is very optimistic... in fact, most chapters have taken closer to 2 hours to complete.

I have also tried to get into reading Programming PHP, but this has been less fruitful - I feel the language used in this isn't as plain and it seems to assume a prior knowledge of programming languages such as C - something I don't have. As such, I feel I'm going to leave this book for a while to revisist later.

On the whole, I'm pretty happy with the progress I've made this week and feel happy with how my knowledge has grown - although I'm honestly finding it harder than expected to get a grasp of it!