November major review

in this blog i will be doing a review of my previous blog posts and reviewing my progress and taking note of skills i have developed i will do this review in three stages:

targets achieved or in progress-
notable skills learnt/developed-
points for improvement-

i will also write a summary to give my general opinion on my progress.


Targets:
job-
in regards to getting a job i have put that on hold due to christmas however i am still considering placements at various places.
work hard at college-
this has been supprisingly hard to keep to as i have been getting distracted by my class as well as distracting memebers of my class, this means that not only am i producing less work but my class mates are as well.
get work reviewed and understand my tasks-
since my teachers spend the majority of the lesson helping others who i fell could use there time more effectivley i have taken to asking classmates about the quality of my work and asking them if what i am doing is correct.
organise my time-
i would say i have probably failed on this one because of various things at home such as needing to be a chaufeur for my family as my car is normally first off and last on the drive in the week due to college times, there are also many distraction such as the various networks my computer is linked to and there ability to send notifcation or invitations to you in realtime (facebook, steam, teamspeak) this means that my firends online are able to continuousley invite me to events on games wich distracts me from my work.

skills:
since i have joined the college i have learnt about the construction of a computer and the importance of various components also there appoximate value on the market (online stores such as amazon)
i have also developed to a lesser degree my grammar and literacy skills.

Points for improvement:
i can still improve upon my grammer
my public speaking is also in need of improvement as i have a tendancy to stutter and go off topic when speaking to a group.
there are probably many more of these that i cannot think about at this time. i may come back and edit this post.

summary:
as a general rule i am easily destracted and find it hard to focus on my work for extended periods of time without making excessive mistakes or going off topic

weekly update (week something like 9)

college is looking up i have finally got my unit 1 and 18 (i think) to a pass level i have plenty to do in unit 2 and 4 on the assignments set for them.
pleanetside 2 is out of beta so i want to find a decent amount of time to play that but im worried about not focussing on my assignments. i think that if i setaside time at the weekends to play it and play league of legends during the weekdays when i dont have assignments, this way i will have thursday (soon) and friday free to focus on college work if i have any or persuing personal intrests such as gaming or working on Bluej, which is a instuction course for learning java programming.
i have no aims that i havent stated im my previous post or i havent stated here except maby to cut down on my caffine intake as its causeing me to get headaches when i dont drink tea or coffie regularly.

review of my progress at college

in this blog post im going to be looking at the feedbacks from my assignments

this screenshot from top to bottom shows:
unit 4 A1
unit 18 A1
unit 2 A1
unit 1 A1
unit 1 A2
unit 2 A2
unit 4 A2

now that the boring list is done its time to review the comments.

i shall start at unit 1 and proceed to unit 2,4 and 18

unit 1 feedback is simple and states that i have achieved the P4 P7 but not M2 and P1 (in assignment 2) due to trouble with these two assignments and confusion as to the tasks required for the assignents i was unable to achieve the merrit for the first assignement, so this feedback essentially means i have achieved my maximum mark for these assignments.

unit 2 feedback is also simple however i have not achieved the merrit for the assignement 2 which means i can probably go back to my submitted work and submit a re-written version.

unit 4 feedback is more substantial with comments saying that i understand the requirements for the assignement and can relate my knowledge to the scenario well along with good presentation, this is nice to see my instuctor go the extra mile when marking the work even if it means that i have to wait a while for my work to be returned as i then know if i have things to correct or not.

unit 18 is not yet at pass according to this feedback sheet saying that i have areas to improve upon
i have however submitted a rewrite of that assignment to my teacher and am awaiting a reply.

UPDATE: unit 18 is now at a pass

week 6 at college

week 6 at college i have just submitted 3 assignments that i have been working on simultaneousley or more accuratley have done in sections and have spend the last few hours today assembling and checking my work and prepairing it for submition, i have one more day of college after this untill the midterm break i beleave it is.

im unsure how much detail ii went into about my attempt at getting an office orentated job however ii will say ii dont beleave that ii have the job as it has been almost two weeks and ii havent recieved confirmation saying ii have the job.
ii am considering applying for other jobs.

my friend recently got his own minecraft server and we have been having a lot of fun building random structures such as Geremy the terminatorsheep and the tower of pig spawners.

week 5 at college

this post will be focussed more on recent events in the last few months than on general events or hobbies but will follow a general layout of what im doing as: a student, in my hobbies, what skills im developing (IT or otherwise) and any targets i have-regardless of how nerdy.

since i have started college i have found that the variety of teaching ranges from a very casual-as long as you do the assignemnt im good- to a must work, cant talk, i am a robot beeb boop beeb, you get the idea...
im still enjoying the work as it has a nice variety and seems to be set at a nice pace that i can easily keep up with, i was however supprised to find out that two other students have moved down a group (to the level 2)

I have been trying to organise a new paintballing session however with the weather getting worse and the temperature dropping i doubt i will be able to go paintballing untill springtime next year, however at this point i may have saved up enough money to afford some paintball equipement.
I have also been playing "top lane" and "jungle" champions in league of legends as they are less popular and essentail to teamplay in the game, i am enjoying this as it allowes me to play a new variety of championes in the game.
recently i bought the game counterstrike:GO a team baised FPS for pc and have also been enjoying my time on that despite the lack of fimiliurarity of the genre on pc in general.

with the microsoft course every thursday i find that i am able to do more, faster on programs such as word or powerpoint and i also know things that can be done in the program that i didnt know where possible.
also i have since starting college gained enough experiance on the components of computers that i added a hard drive to my computer.

i have recieved assistance from my teachers essentially saying i need to take time proofreading my work, and may benefit from use of screenshots to assist in explanations that tend to get longwinded.

i have not completed any of my targets that i made in my first blog

what kind of learner i appartrently am

my first blog of awsome

Personal development plan: systems manager 

I want to be a systems manager because of the constantly changing market and the way that the systems need to be constantly updated and changed to accommodate multiple clients and so that they do not fall behind competitors. This type of job is potentially high pay but also flexible as the qualifications required to get this job can be applied to game design and program management as well as systems manager.

Technical skills you already have

 

I have basic understanding of graphical design software

I have an intermediate understanding of Microsoft programs such as word, excel, PowerPoint and access.

These qualifications benefit me in that I can produce and make PowerPoint, Excel and Word documents and make them seem official or attractive

Technical skills you need to develop

 

I am going to need to develop understanding of code languages such as XML or JAVA

I am going to need to develop my understanding of computer components, construction and performance

I will need to improve upon my existing knowledge of Microsoft programs.

These three skills will enable me to perform most of the tasks I will be assigned as a systems manager such as rectifying a bug in the systems current build in use (this method is done in MMO design where snapshots are developed and tested, when a stable on is found that fixes the problem or makes the desired improvement without adding problems it is then moved into the main servers and takes over from the old build)

Soft skills you already have

 

I have good communication skills and I am able to ask questions and quiz people on their knowledge and encourage them to ask me for assistance should they require it.

I have basic understanding of the French language; this will help if the company I will be working for receives a call from someone whose primary language is French

These will help me to get to know people and be of help within the work space.

Soft skills you need to develop

 

I have difficulty with addressing multiple problems as I have a tendency to leave one or more and focus on a single task and complete that before addressing the others.

I can address this my applying myself to tasks that require multi-management or

Multitasking such as simple house tasks or using multiple computer programs simulaneousley.

 

My first blog of awesome

My name is Robert Andrew Mathieson

I am 17 years old and currently attend Mid-Kent College

I am studying IT level three diploma there and am enjoying the course although some of the ways things are presented is confusing, I am also unused to the level of informality about dress code and am amazed at the diversity of people here.

My hobbies are games such as League of legends and planetside2 both are strategy combat biased

Games that require high levels of teamwork and cooperation with friends or unknown players referred to as “random” or randomly selected team member I also play RPG styled games such as Dishonoured and Skyrim and flash style games such as crush the castle.
I also enjoy when I can playing tennis, badminton and sometimes football although I prefer going skiing or paintballing when I can as they are in my opinion a lot more fun and have a certain risk associated with them.

I also follow www.Tickld.com and www.funnyjunk.com because although some of the material on them is crude or rude the majority of it is funny or makes me think (there is a section on both about the goodness in humanity called "feels" or "made me think").

I’m a great lover of humour as well so I also keep up to date on comic websites cyanide & happiness and CAD-comic as they both provide regular funny content or short story dialogue

My targets are to get a job involving office work or involving some aspect of computing, however I will be happy to accept any job that I can fit around my college work as that must take priority over EVERYTHING.

 

My other main target is to work to my best ability at college so that I can achieve the merit or distinction mark where applicable in my assignments this is the main reason for the necessity of any job I have being very flexible so that I can fit it around doing my college work so that I can get the best final grade possible.

 

Other targets:

 

Read the assignment brief to make sure I understand the tasks- this will increase my chances of getting pass and merit on my assignments first time.

Get my work reviewed to make sure I’m doing it correctly before submitting-similar to getting a marking before it gets marked, have the teacher look at the work, check for errors and give you advice on how to improve your work.

Organise my time efficiently so I have plenty of time for assignments and leisure activities-simple yet extremely hard to do properly.