I received my tutor's report on Assignment 3 on 7th January and, by and large, I was delighted with it. He begins by saying that "This has been a successful assignment Mike and the unit as a whole seems to be playing to your strengths." I have to say that I am enjoying being a part of the art world beyond the life of a student and, although hectic, preparation for my exhibition in March is exciting. Robert goes on to say that "the text reads fluently and Assignment 3 is another informative and highly readable report of your recent forays into the art world." I was congratulated on the success of our Open Studios event and for the associated press coverage. On the subject of my reporting on the work of Harriet Tarlo and Judith Tucker, he commented that, "It's refreshing to see such a range of contemporary practice in your log." He went on to say that in a separate post I could dig deeper into what it is about their painting and writing that attracts you, other than you are working in similar areas. This I shall do.
On the down side Robert commented that he finds my Blogger site quite clunky. He feels that the layout seems basic and the typeface too small. He points out that menu items move when you click on them on the menu bar and the header image seems rather uninspiring. Tags, he says, would help visitors locate things while Wordpress provides a 'like' button for visitors who want to register that they have read and liked a post but don't want to comment. He suggests that in terms of the quality criterion and taking my practice forward generally, it would be good to have a look at this over the next couple of assignments.
In response to this I have begun to change the blog posts to a larger font which, although quite time consuming, is straightforward and I shall complete the task. I have changed the header image and also the other image on the homepage. I have also changed the title on the header to make it, perhaps, more like a photographer's blog than a student's. I agree that the menu items appear to move when you click on them. They actually become smaller but move upwards, thus indicating which tab the visitor is on, so from that point of view I think that this is useful. However I have noticed that level 3 colleague Hazel Bingham has the same menu tabs, but hers don't move. She is going to let me know how she set this up and I will experiment.
Robert suggests that Tags would help visitors locate things. I wonder if this is the same as labels. I notice that there are labels at the bottom of my posts which when clicked will take the viewer to the appropriate page. On Colleague Yiann Steven's (Yiannitsa) Wordpress blog there are Tags at the bottom of her page, but these function in the same way as my labels.
I discussed this with my Hangout colleagues yesterday and the general feeling was that I had too much work on my blog to convert it to a Wordpress one, although Yiann has sent me the instructions to do so, warning that it is a complicated process. I have also read on student forums of the problems other students have had with Wordpress so have always stuck to Blogger. The Hangout Group suggested that I experiment with different Blogger templates which I may do. In the meantime, I hope that the changes that I have made will make the site less 'clunky'. For BOW assessment I provided the assessors with a written guide (hard copy and digital) to my blog with links to the posts that I particularly wished then to see. I intend to do that again for SYP assessment.
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