Alex Bullock came on placement with Coleg Llandrillo in September 2020 as part of the first intake of Llandudno Museum and Gallery placement students. Under the direction of her module leader, Karen Thomas, Alex was able to develop her understanding of website content development, copyright, and project planning, which were key skills needed for her course. As a student, Alex’s can-do attitude helped her team to thrive during a difficult placement time which included 2 lockdowns.
In her own words:
My name is Alexandra Bullock and I studied FDA Broadcast and Creative Media level 6 at Llandrillo Menai. During this course, we worked alongside Llandudno Museum & Gallery where our job was to create an interactive map for the museum website. This map was also initially designed to help teach the pronunciation of Welsh place-names around our town.
We began working with Dr DeAnn Bell, Llandudno Museum’s Education Officer, as our client. She offered filming opportunities to Lucy Sharpe so that Lucy could produce a promotional video of the museum as it was getting ready to open. I assisted Lucy with filming. DeAnn also gave us the opportunity to do some object handling while we were at the museum. We interviewed DeAnn and Peter Alexander, a museum curator, to get behind the scenes information about the museum.
To watch the film produced by Lucy Sharpe click here: https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/540126296
In addition to assisting Lucy, my project was to help my team create an interactive map. DeAnn provided an initial list of locations and websites to be researched for the map.
To see the map created by Karen Thomas and the Llandrillo Placement group click here: https://llandudnomuseum.co.uk/map-2/
One of the main placement supports DeAnn offered was one-to-one support during the course of the year via Zoom meetings. During these meetings, she has given valuable advice and help with any problems and has always given enough time to do some editing if needed.
WHY DID I CHOOSE THIS PROJECT?
I want to be a journalist, so my project contribution was to research and coordinate the writing, history, pronunciation, and photographs needed for the interactive map. I also acted as group secretary working closely with my group to keep us all on top of our tasks which has helped me become a better project manager.
OBSTACLES WHILE WORKING WITH THE CLIENT
A few obstacles came about that we faced while doing the placement:
COVID 19 PANDEMIC
During our project, we were faced with several lockdowns. This was overcome by safely collecting materials like photos and footage before the lockdowns so we would have more than enough work to get on with. Having the one-to-ones with DeAnn also helped us get through the lockdown as we could address any issues or concerns remotely. We were able to visit the museum while the collection was arriving, before the museum opened to the public, and finally as a visitor once the museum was open. It was an incredible transformation.
COMMUNICATION AND MOTIVATION
We had some group communication issues during the lockdown. This was mainly due to the anxiety and stress of working from home, not having access to the cameras or microphones, and not being able to attend meetings regularly at the college. However, the group came together to motivate and support each other. If one team member struggled with a task, then we got together and worked out a plan B.
COPYRIGHT ISSUES ON GRAPHICS
I was tasked with writing the descriptions and historical points of the areas that were placed on the map one of my colleagues was designing. Because some photos and information needed to be gathered online rather than created from scratch, we had to make sure that we had permission to use the information gathered by our team. Our module leader, Karen Thomas, really helped me understand copyright and fair use on this project. This information helped me to better research the regulations of copyright and also prompted me to gather my information from dependable sources.
KEEP THINKING OF REAL WORLD ISSUES THAT MAY OCCUR
During the project, my laptop broke down which forced me to borrow a computer from the college. This helped me realise the importance of having a document on a project saved in multiple areas, and always keeping in mind what could possibly go wrong in order to be able to anticipate future problems.
EXPANDED MY CURRENT SKILL SET FOR WRITING, COMMUNICATION, AND MOTIVATION
I have been practising my writing skills with my personal blog, with the map information, and with this blog. I feel I have learned how to write blogs more accurately as well as how to write more efficiently. My next objective is to get some more experience with writing to achieve my goal of being a journalist.
OTHER SKILLS I LEARNED
The skills I have learned during this project have helped me develop social media graphics and to keep on top of project management. These websites that helped were:
www.canva.com
www.freedcamp.com
https://blog.hootsuite.com/understanding-image-copyright/
Alex continues to work in the community, and on her writing, to pursue her dream of becoming a journalist.
Blog Amgueddfa Llandudno Museum Blog 