Marixa's Blog

I think that with our growing social society, our smartphones have become a big part of our every day technology and lives. I created this post because I think rather than teaching someone how to make a meme or create bookmarks, it will be way more beneficial to teach you how to keep your phone secured from real-life everyday threats, such as hackers. Source here . Ways to secure your smartphone: 1. Use a strong password. It's known that the majority of smartphones nowadays have a passcode to access the phone. Use a number/ letter sequence that's unpredictable, for instance don't use your date of birth. 2. Turn off lockscreen notifications. By switching this off, strangers won't be able to read your notifications, over your shoulder, in the case of a robbery, and someone else gets their hands on your phone. 3. Discard automatic Wifi connections to known networks. There's a chance that a cybercriminal will establish his own fak

For this blog, I chose and completed a learning by H.E.A.R.T (Health, Empathy, Attention, Reading and Time management.) challenge. I chose the topic sleep out of the title "health". Picture of man sleeping Source here . Something I already knew: Before reading anything on the article, I already knew that sleep is crucial for the likes of maintaining good mental health. This includes improvement of mood, memory and focus. In the article The Science of Slumber, it's discussed how a good nights rest can help you to remember things that happened to you throughout the day. One of the reasons for this is because when we sleep, we dream, and our dreams usually consist of objects, or experiences we had the previous day(s). One thing I learned: Something that I learned, but didn't surprise me, was the study on the idea that sleep may be more important than studying. Sleep loss can cause psychological damage because sleep regulates the brains flow of epinephrine,

The aim of this task was to explore a page where students post short notes on the topic of Growth Mindset. This exercise taught me new ways of approaching growth mindset. Screenshot of student growth mindset thoughts forum. Source  here . Some that stood out to me: 1. G.R.O.W - Go rip open windows. " Sometimes in order to grow, you have to seek out opportunities.  You have to force the window open.  This resonates with me because I'm a pretty passive person, so I don't really look for opportunities too often. I need to remember to look for opportunities to grow." This post stood out to me as I tend to live in my comfort zone quite often and don't really seek opportunities to better myself. 2. Take time to grow. " I want to pay more attention to the growth rather than the speed. I always try to learn things quickly and have many times crammed before an exam without actually learning the concepts. I feel like it is important to give yourself

Source here . Game genre: Survival horror  Survival horror is a sub-genre of video games inspired by horror fiction that focuses on survival of the character as the game tries to frighten players with either horror graphics or scary ambiance. I think my game definitely goes under this genre because the player is in a haunted and scary environment, and the aim is to escape and survive. Image of Survival horror game "Haunting Ground" Source here . Gameplay:  These are the features of a video game, such as its plot and the way it is played, as distinct from the graphics and sound effects. My game is set in modern day. The main character of this game is a journalist and discovers a haunted house in the middle of no where. He/ she goes to said haunted house in the middle of a deserted plain to document it and do a little research, without considering the consequences.  It is the middle of the day and there is still sunlight so the house is well il

Game idea: To conclude, I decided that my final game idea would be as follows: In brief, I would like my game to be in first person (e.g the whole game is through the characters eyes). The game is located in a haunted house and the aim is to escape before time runs out and you are attacked and killed by a monster of some sort. In order to escape you must find certain objects and clues to help lead you into the next room and thus being able to progress forward. Each room can be considered a level, and as one moves further in the game I could make it harder to escape, so the further you go the harder the level. Possible Game Mechanics source here . Game mechanics are constructs of rules or methods designed for interaction with the game state, thus providing gameplay. All games use mechanics and it is important to consider what kind of mechanics I should include in my own game. 1. Timed The player must achieve a task within a time limitation. Some achievements

Unity logo Source here. Today I watched two video tutorials on Unity 02 (Episode 4 & 5). The aim of these tutorials is to observe and learn how I can apply useful techniques to my own game, created via Unity. What I learned: Episode 4: - You can put in sound effects for when the player interacts with another object (e.g a coin / gem etc). - 'Play on awake' option means you can have a noise play as soon as you open the game. - Looping allows audio to play on repeat. - Public AudioSource allows you to implement the audio in C sharp coding. - OnTriggerEnter is when the player comes in contact, or hits the object. - CollectSound.Play allows the noise to play. - TheGem.Set Active (false) makes the gem (or your created object) disappear. - Box Collider creates a box around your selected object (you can increase or decrease size), but mesh collider morphs into the shape of the object. This is used when the player crosses the line of the box or mesh collider the

Giving and receiving feedback is a powerful tool, whether it be in school, college or at the workplace. It informs us about our performance and behavior with our work and team. Without feedback, it is easy to get stuck in a state of frustration and uncertainty. It is commonly known that feedback can be positive or negative, but what impact does this have on us? The Difference Between Praise and Feedback by Anya Kamenetez. In this article Anya Kamenetez distinguishes the difference between praise and feedback, and the importance of both but how they're not the same. Kamenetez says that giving praise is similar to giving compliments or approval on someones work, saying things such as "you must have worked really hard on this painting" or "you must be a genius!". This can be very affective towards someones self confidence and self worth. However, giving praise too often can have a negative affect resulting in feeling less compelled to take on new ch

Feedback is valuable information that is used to make important decisions. Effective feedback has benefits for the giver, the receiver and the wider organization.  Thoughts on Feedback For this blog I read " Why rejection hurts so much " by Guy Winch. It was one of the first titles that stood out to me because it's not only very relatable, but can also occur quite often in every day life, as Winch states, we're all part of an online social society, where it is much easier to be ignored, blocked or even verbally abused, as nothing is face to face which eliminates an empathetic feel, leaving us feeling rejected. "The greatest damage rejection causes is usually self-inflicted. Just when our self-esteem is hurting most, we go and damage it even further" I found this quote to be very powerful and thought evoking, but Winch explains that it's completely normal and that's just how our brains respond or react when rejected because emotional

If I was to make a game, I would like it to be simple yet effective and addictive, thus why I came up with the following ideas: 1. As my first idea I thought of something very simple and easy, a game where the aim of the game is to stack objects (e.g different animated animals) on one another, until the user misses the stack or the stack topples over. The objects will keep alternating from left to right, and when the user thinks that it aligns perfectly with the stack underneath they can release the object to fall onto the stack below. It's a very basic idea, but I think it makes it all the more addictive, as the objective is simple and achievable by almost everyone. In terms of levels, I think it would be cool to make different levels that are optional, but only unlocked after receiving a certain amount of points on the first level. These other levels could include like different shapes or a time mode, to see how many can be stacked in a certain amount of time. Another mode coul

Unity logo. Source here . Today I watched two videos on the basics and fundamentals of Unity. The aim of these tutorials is to observe and learn to be able to apply all techniques to my own game, created via Unity. What I learned: - When you open Unity for the first time theres a default layout, although everything is changeable. - There's a hierarchy on the left, this is where you store all your game objects within the scene. - Scene view is whew you store everything visually. - Left click - selects. - Right click - lets you pan around and view your area. - Game tab allows you to see what your game is like when someone plays it. - Project window is where you store assets e.g game objects, textures or scripts. -You can change what platform you want your game to be played on. - All coding done on Unity is on C sharp. - Pressing F allows you to focus in your selected object. - X axis = Red arrow / Y axis = Green arrow / Y axis = Blue arrow. -

Are you already familiar with some of these technology tools? I'm quite familiar with bookmarking sites and image editing due to last year, but only as of recent have I become familiar with blogging. However, I'm not familiar with Graphics Creation, Padlet or Unity 3D. How is this online environment like/unlike what you have experienced in other classes? I would say that it's unlike any of my other modules because not only is my work on display for the rest of the year to see, but I can also view others work and progress. I think that this can be very helpful in terms of relative inspiration for my blog. Are there any technical skills that you really want to work on this semester? Graphics Creation really interests me, I would love to learn how to create my own graphics for photos for my blog. This is Unity 3D's logo, something I will learn more about in my Multimedia module.

What things are new to me? As the year has already started I am already assigned new modules for the semester. This blog was created for my Multimedia module. Blogging is very new to me, I have never done it previously nor have I ever really taken an interest to it. But as I work through my blogging assignments I actually start to enjoy it more and more. Another thing which is quite new to me is the extra credit system. We didn't have this at all last year nor do we have it this year in any of our other modules, never the less I think it's a very good idea. This is the blogger.com logo. I never knew this site existed until this year. What things am I most excited about? I'm most excited about getting to know my class through their blogs. I think reviewing and commenting on each other's blogs is a great way to interact with one another and become familiar with the class.

Photo of a figure managing time.  For this post, I read '11 Ways Unsuccessful People Mismanage Their Time' by Aine Cain. I found the article very useful as it helped me realise a lot of flaws within my own time management mismanagement. One of the ways people mismanage time stated was the problem of getting distracted easily, which I can very much relate to. Whether it be 2 minutes to check my phone, or just looking out the window, I always seem to have problems focusing for a long period of time, and reading through this article made me realise that it can all add up and have a serious knock on affect to my productivity. This problem also links in with the next point raised, which was the act of procrastination, once I start getting distracted it's very easy to start procrastinating and putting off the work that needs to be done. All together there was a strong 11 points that helped me realise not how to do thing right but what I was doing wrong, and by realising

Picture of a brain working out. Source here. Growth mindset is the belief that you are in control of your own ability, and can learn and improve. It is seen as the key to success. Hard work, effort and persistence are all important, but not as important as having that underlying belief that you are in control of your own destiny. How do you see yourself on the spectrum of growth-fixed mindset in your school work? what about in other aspects of your life? Personally, I believe that my abilities lie somewhere in-between a fixed and a growth mindset. Specifically in college work, I find myself outside my comfort zone a lot as it's a huge change from primary and secondary school. Although, with this I learn new ways to approach different subjects and tasks. These new experiences can help develop not only  academic skills but also helps within my life outside of college.  What are your biggest challenges as you set about learning new things? The biggest challeng

My name is Marixa and I am a second year CDM student in ITB. This blog post will tell you a bit about myself and what I hope to achieve in this course. What were my biggest achievements last year? Last year I learned a lot in my course. My favorite module was Web Development, which I would definitely consider as one of my biggest achievements last year! When I started this course I had no idea how to create a website, by the end of the year I had created multiple websites and even learned how to design my finished product! Where did I go over the break? Over the break, I went to many places including Kerry and France, although my most memorable holiday this summer was my visit to Amsterdam. I went over the end of June for the festival "Awakenings". A group of DJ's such as Patrick Topping, Carl Cox, and Bicep were playing at the festival. This is a picture of the festival taken 5 years ago by Geoffrey de Kleijn.  What are my hobbies now? What hobbies would

My favorite game is Mario Kart. Here is an image of the main character of the game: source : Flickr

This is my test post for my Multimedia module!