Shaun's blog: January 2013

Friday 25 January 2013

Guess the Song!

See if you can guess these songs, I only played a few seconds so it may be tricky!

Post your guesses below..

I've been in Swansea for almost 4 months now, and I wanted to see if someone who can from the same place as me has had the same experiences or feelings moving to a new environment and to learn if the life of a university student is the same for most. I decided to ask one of my closest friends Ben what life has been like so far.

Me: Hey Ben, What and where are you studying?
Ben: Currently studying computer science in Swansea, it's quite hard work at the moment!

Me: Sounds tough, what exactly is computer science?
Ben: It's basically learning what makes every computer work, and the different aspects of how they run, whether it's mathematical, scientific or just the engineering.

Me: So how has it been moving from the Rhondda?
Ben: Easier than I thought! It's only been easy because I have great hose mates and everyone is really friendly, it took a bit of time to get used to where everything is in Swansea - but all I really needed to know was where Wind Street was and McDonalds!

Me: I know them well! and would you say the overall experience has been fun?
Ben: It's certainly had its nights, but I've had to learn how to not go out all the time and set time aside to revise or to complete assignments, and there seems to be a lot of them lately!

Me: Do you miss home?
Ben: Of course, it's always nice to go home after a few weeks of being here, but I can't stay home for too long because I get bored! There's less rain here too which is good.

Me: What have you learnt so far in the four months you've been here?
Ben: Definitely to budget, I remember getting my first student loan and the feeling of wanting to buy everything! but it wold have been a while before i had another payment from the SLC (Student loan company) so I've had to learn how much to spend in a week.

If you would like to find out the experiences of other students in Swansea or anywhere else, 'The student room' is a very handy place to share and even make a few friends.
Click on the link for more information on the forum. http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/forum.php

Best movie of all time?

The movie site IMDb's list of the top 250 best movies of all time has got me wondering.. Does everyone agree on the list? As it stands, the top 10 in the list is:

1.	9.2	The Shawshank Redemption (1994)	900,907
2.	9.2	The Godfather (1972)	650,418
3.	9.0	The Godfather: Part II (1974)	418,204
4.	8.9	Pulp Fiction (1994)	702,309
5.	8.9	The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)	275,870
6.	8.9	12 Angry Men (1957)	221,900
7.	8.9	The Dark Knight (2008)	882,671
8.	8.9	Schindler's List (1993)	464,767
9.	8.8	The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King(2003)	646,012
10.	8.8	Fight Club (1999)

Personally I think Marvel's 'The Avengers' should be ranked at the top of the table, it has anything you could ever want in a movie! Even the girls that went to see it were impressed at it's gripping plot and action scenes that even had scenes that made your sides split with laughter.

Agreed, these are amazing films but everyone is going to have their own version of the top 10, I would like to know what your favourite movies of all time are and comment below!

Music can't get much better than this!

Being a big fan of acoustic music, I've always tried to look out for some of the best musicians on guitar. There's something about the skill of being able to play good music, and I think it can have a strange effect on people's moods or even take us back to a particular memory. There are a few amazing artists out there right now, but I would like to show you just two artists you may not have heard of, and are hidden gems to listen to when you need that relaxed music to keep you revising or relaxing in your room. The first is a guy named Andy Mckee, personally I don't think he can be beaten for pure musicianship and rivals the best of guitar players. Check the video below to see some of his amazing work on the acoustic guitar!

The next artist has to be my favourite of all time, he is massive in America but not a lot of people know of him over here. Despite having a lot of rock/blues songs out, John Mayer's music always have had a feel for summing up how you feel in his lyrics, his song 'Stop this Train' echo the feelings of so many twenty-somethings. We're starting to build new lived, leave old ones behing, lose people and become people. And in the middle of that 'train ride' we feel like we're moving too fast, like we're not ready for the challenges ahead. We want someone to stop the careening speed of the train that is life.

Exam Time? Handy tips to revise

I have a few exams coming up, I haven't really done exams in a while which meant it took me a while to get back into the routine of revising. I turned to the internet in the hunt for some tips to help me get into the swing of things, and found some handy tips!

Don't procrastinate - This one is a big one for me, My mind always tricks me into believe I have more time than I actually have! I've now learnt to do whatever I can however small when I have some free time - This week I've had reading week, and my Playstation and football on the TV has never seemed so appealing, but there's plenty of time for that after I've had the satisfaction of doing well in my exams.
Mind maps - Some people like to take in information visually, and the use of mind maps can be an effective way of storing the information as opposed to just reading it from plain white paper. Remember to make your mind maps as colorful and art filled as possible, for more information watch the video!

3. Be prepared - Remebmer that preparation key, should you ever get lost, you always have something to fall back on. A timetable I've found helps and acts like a rota, it ensures you always find time for every module/subject and you revise everything, you can always add more time to the subjects you find difficult.

4. Take a break - Do not work yourself too hard - if you've given yourself plenty of time to revise you should always find time to keep yourself motivated - I've personally found that even 15 minutes to have a cup of tea or watch some TV helps to keep myself having a positive attitude to my revision time.

Thursday 24 January 2013

A Little Birdy Told me..

Twitter! We all use it and love it. But I'm going to look at if sharing everything really is a good thing, and if it can just be a plain old trouble maker.
What makes Twitter so popular? It's clear that some people like to get their opinions across/heard to everyone, and like to keep people up to date on what they are doing, and when you now have the option to share your thoughts and feelings to millions of people across the globe, why not? with a click of a button you could be chin wagging your way through your thoughts of the latest Dark Knight movie, or how Jennifer Anniston never seems to lose her beauty..
It's also good for keeping your family and friends close, with the option to comment on their 'tweets' it makes it very easy to keep in touch, arrange an outing and with the use of private messaging, keep your conversations private for those who isn't a fan of public conversations!
But some events have got me wondering whether social networking sites is such a good thing..
Remember Ryan Giggs' affair with Imogen back in May 2011? It was Twitter that started it all, with anonymous accounts all tweeting about the affair where local media could not, due to a 'superinjunction'. The company was actually sued for the tweets and the word got out about Giggs' affair. Is it our right to get so involved with other peoples lives? Do we take what people say on the internet too literally or do we just love the anonymity too much to resist? Comment your thoughts below!

Wordle!

A lot of my time as a teachers assistant was spent creating displays for teachers and finding the correct resources to do so, I have recently stumbled upon something that is quick, easy, creative and very fun to look at especially by children. The web site 'Wordle' uses web 2.0 technology that is known as 'Java' and is a resource for creating text clouds such as the one created below. It is completely free to use and has no catches. Firstly, click on the following link to take you to wordle: http://www.wordle.net/create.
Next, think of a topic. Mine was music, and i simply input any words I could think of to do with music, for example; for technology i might type Camera, Computers, Whiteboard, Laptop, Mobile, Phone ect.
Next, click on the "go" button below the text box.

And you're done! Simply customize the layout using the options above the picture!
Tip: The more words the better it looks!

Education, Education, Education

As you all know, I'm in my first year on the Educational Studies in Swansea. Now, I find that education is always changing and I need a reliable source to keep up to date on my knowledge of education, and if there are any recent changes I could impress my lecturers with! A few months ago I found a handy blog that does all this in an efficient way. It comes from the popular newspaper "The Guardian" and is called the 'Motarboard blog'
This site is very useful for seeing up to date news about education in a creative and effective way, it contains media such as embedded videos, images and links to other blogs/sites that are useful. I chose to follow this blog because it integrates friendly understandable language with comedy on occasions, which makes it very easy to read. It also has the option to comment on each post, which is useful for those who extroverts who like to voice their opinions and have a debate! The colour scheme of the page is very eye friendly and always has high resolution pictures, vibrant colours and the information is always reliable - everything you want from a blog!
I would give it one little criticism, and that is they are not too frequent with their posts.. It seems to be a very popular blog with over 300 comments on just one post, and sometimes can leave me waiting a week for the next post.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/mortarboard

TED Talks - Janine di Giovanni

There were a number of talks I wanted to share with you all, but this one really stood out for me.

Janine di Giovanni works as an editor at 'vanity fair’ and with two documentaries about her life, a number of top selling books, she is considered to be a courageous and significant woman in the field of reporting. She has seem some of the worlds most worst places, and have reported live from various places such as Iraq, Israel, Afghanistan and many more. Janine believes her role as a war reporter is “to bring a voice to people who are voiceless & to shine a light in the darkest corners of the world.”
Janine has seen some of the world’s worst horrors, and helps out in any way she can while she’s out reporting. In the video below she talks about rushing people to hospital and dragging people away from being shot at, she endangers her own life doing every day in these conditions but knows that she has an important place in sharing stories and experiences so that they do not go unheard. I urge you to listen to some of her stories in the video below and promote her work!