SMLP Skill Learning

In the current Interactive Media industry there are a number of skills required to land yourself a job. Amongst the usual skills of XHTML (Extensible Hypertext Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Stylesheets), is the developing language PHP.

“According to Odesk, demand for PHP programmers is nearly double that for the next most popular skillset. Indeed, PHP accounts for nearly 20 per cent of all IT jobs posted by businesses.“ - source: IT Examiner

PHP is being requested more and more in jobs roles and is therefore becoming almost a required skill (usually being teamed up with SQL). Due to the increase in job advertisements stating PHP as a required skill, this is the area in which I would like to expand my knowledge most. Learning this skill will enable me a better chance of getting myself a job once I finish the course.

Due to the high demand for PHP, a person who is trained with this programming skill is more likely to get a job faster than a developer/programmer who doesn’t. Therefore, this is a skill I would like to be able to include on my CV as a skill that I have and know.

My previous knowledge of PHP is almost none. In the past I have copied and pasted open source PHP code into my work, adjusting it to suit my needs, but have never written any from scratch. During the course so far, I have discovered a like for coding over designing and learning PHP would aid me to delve more into the coding side of building websites.

Due to the many advantages of learning PHP, I have decided that this is the skill that I would like to learn about in my SMLP (Self Managed Learning Plan).

[Word Count: 290]

Second Year, First Half

Getting onto the second year was an achievement for me; initially I thought that juggling college work with family life might be too much and that I may succumb to the pressure. I'm not saying that the second year has been easy, but it's a way of life that I've had to get used to and one that I have now established a routine for. At the end of year 1, I really looked forward to year 2 as it brought fresh challenges in the shape of a CSS assignment and the newly added CMS unit too.

The second year started off with an assignment over the summer, I didn't mind the work over the summer but didn't really relish the thought that 3 of the 4 tasks were essays (I'm not the world's best essay writer!). The business plan, for me, was the best part of the assignment and something I really got my teeth into. Although, stupidly, I referred the assignment due to my referencing and my ignorance to the chosen format - schoolboy mistake!

Returning to college brought along the fresh challenge of working in a team with 3 other members of my class. This is something that we, as a class, have never done before on a scale like this and along the way we’ve had some initial teething problems to sort out. This unit certainly made me re-think my time planning - initially I was spending more time on the team assignment rather than my other slightly short assignment. I eradicated this quickly and a new time planning routine was brought into place.

A key aspect of year 1 was the feedback sessions that we had throughout. I’d like to think that I’ve taken note of all the key points that were mentioned to me in these sessions and this does show in the grade progression I’ve had so far. My first assignment of the second year (not including the summer one) resulted in a Merit, which I am very pleased with.

Although the sketchbooks aren’t an assessable unit, like they were last year, I’m still using them in exactly the same way and finding them as much use as ever. I’m still a bit fazed by the idea of pulling my sheets of paper from them and using them as evidence, but I’m sure I’ll get used to this in time.

I can certainly say that the second year has taught me a lot already, you should never believe that just because one thing happened in a certain way the first year, that it will happen that way this year too. You’re always working towards improvement and this is hard to come to grips but I’m getting there. College work and family life aren’t such a juggling act no more, they’re still 2 separate entities of their own, but neither overlap the other no more – which makes things incredibly easier.

[Word Count: 486]