Friday 18th Feb-Day 30

Spent the last day of my internship filling out a self-evaluation form for their department and also just spending time finishing off my c.v for minor changes, sending Digby my cv for future preference, fixing up loose ends and preping any work for TVU next week.

Thr 17th Feb-Day 29

I spent the day browsing and familarising myself with new software that I will need to use for any future jobs in web design, Digby was ok with this as this was coming towards the end of the internship and there wasn't any point in starting new projects. I looked into adobe products such as flex, indesign and also illustrator. I managed to easily get my head round the indesign and illustrator but the flex was still a bit difficult, at the end of the day I will look further into once my internship finishes.

Wed 16th Feb-Day 28

Towards the end of this internship, I have started to lose motivation due to the fact i've lost the reason to work as i've got nothing to work for. But I still decided to carry on, I decided to give the flash website another go and worked out that looking a little closer at the coding that the website had been carried out in a different software all together. The software used to make the website was adobe flex, a software which I had never heard of before but I took a look at it and was surprised at what I found, I read a bit into and it is a basic of XHTML and actionscript 3.0 put together and it already looks like an interesting piece of software that I will defo look into more. But for the time being I am going to focus on creating this website and will hopefully have a piece to add to my portfolio and leave my mark on when I worked here. Problem is I now only have 2 days to understand the software, understand how it was made and then make it.

Tue 15th Feb-Day 27

Today I was to have a mock interview with our senior manager rachel, it was nice to have a interview done by her as she has loads of experience in dealing with interviews and has been through several in the past on both sides of the table.
I decided to go 2nd this time and based on what I learnt from TVU and Digby I felt I did really well and had a good chance if the interview was real, based on feedback my judgement was perfect, I gave a near perfect answer for 5 of 6 questions, with one about databasing (lack of knowledge) but apart from that she felt I did well.
She gave me tips for the future just in case such as the first 10 seconds as you walk in the room and eye contact will make or break the interview, in the past I always make sure of eye contact, it shows confidence.
This was it for the day really, lack of computers so I struggled to carry on with any work.

Mon 14th Feb-Day 26

Spent the majoirty of the day carrying on with the diabetes project and trying to find more images to use to no prevail, very difficult to find images that can be used for commercial use, was only able to find picasi which is a image website through google that have decent images. I also managed to find a way or downloading our presentations off prezi which is brillant and now due to this I will be using prezi as often as possible in the future.

Fri 11th Feb-Day 25

Today Digby gave me a mock interview to see how I did and also at the same time he went through my CV to see where changes could be made and what I could add in for this current job. I found both parts of this very helpful.
We firstly went through my CV, i discussed with him what people look for on a CV and also he mentioned the 40 of 40 CV (your cv is bottom of the pile and its friday at 5pm and the person looking at your cv justs wants to go home) Digby was telling me the CV has to be brillant and explained to me where I was going wrong.
After lunch we then did a mock interview with a job spec for what the interview was for. As there was another intern with me we decided to be in each other's interview and gives 3 questions to the other person, so for example in my interview I would have Digby interviewing me as well as the other intern who chose 3 questions for me. I went first up.
I am usually confident in interviews and I hope I usually come across like that. I felt the interview went well. On feedback I gave strong answers and came across confidently and a good team player which is what I like to think of myself as.
I felt overall this was a strong day, it is brillant to get an inside track of how to conduct yourself in interviews and also how to present your CV, in the past I have been confident as long as my CV gets me the interview I can then sell myself well, my achilles heel in the past has been my CV but now I feel confident that will help me get through the door.

Thr 10th Feb-Day 24

Started today by finishing off the learning exhibition report as for a couple of hours in the morning the network was down. Once the network was fixed and the report was done, I started a new project which was handed to me which involved trying to find diabetes photos online for commerical use (so photos which weren't copyright etc.) it was very difficult for 2 main reasons, the majority of photos online are copyright on websites which are associated with diabetes, when I do find a website with photo share, the LAN has blocked it on safety concerns so once again was hitting my head against a brick wall. Managed to find a couple in the end thou and will continue on with this tomorrow.

Wed 9th Feb-Day 23

Couldn't do much today as there wasn't enough computers to go round per person

Tue 8th Feb-Day 22

Had the office to myself again today so carried on with multiple projects such as the website, the write up report on the learning exhibition and also a write up on the GMP which I managed to finish.

Mon 7th Feb-Day 21

Asked for a day off today as was too ill to go in, didn't do any work.

Fri 4th Feb-day 20

Came in the morning and thought it would be one of those days where we would have to share one computer again but after a meeting with digby, he handed me a new project to do some extensive research into GMP, more research but at least it gave me a chance to be actually doing something now, a few computers were freed up as well so manage to find a spare room and get to work on researching GMP courses. I pretty much spent the rest of the day doing that.

Thr 3rd Feb-day 19

Came into work felt weird when you take a day off during the week! Helped gerald with the project brief and the more we worked on it the more we realised how much goes into the background of a project and hopefully this part of the experience will be worth it once we have to start getting out and looking for jobs again.
As for the web design, haven't heard back from anyone in our department about helping them. Quite annoyed but as an intern I can't expect to handle major projects.

Wed 2nd Feb-day 18

Decided to stay home and work today to try and work out the project I was working on! Spent all day on it and no luck

Tue 1st Feb-Day 17

After yesterday, I was hoping to get a chance to use the computer to carry on with my projects but that hasn't turned out to be the case, he is continually insisting that he must carry on with his work, I ask if there are any spare places to work and usually in this scenario we have borrowed a laptop to use in last 3 weeks but this has now been lost aparently. So I must now spend another day on the sidelines doing nothing.

Mon 31st Jan-Day 16

We were now in the 2nd half of our internship. I was hoping things would get better but it has turned out to be the opposite. Due to a new staff member joining, I have to now work with the intern in the same room. This I feel is mostly a bad thing, we both have projects we need to get on with and yet there in only one computer, so one of us can work while the other has to sit there and entertain himself. This is going to be a frustrating week I can tell already. I spent the whole day doing nothing.

Friday 28th Jan-Day 15

Today was a nice quiet day, noone in our department was in so had the office all to myself, it was a new and different experience, quite an enjoyable one, you could get on with work without anyone coming in and also you could go at your own pace and have no worries. Tried my best to get the flash website working and I managed to get the program working to the requirements, the only problem I now have is to either a) Put multiple boxes in one file and try and find a way to crack the coding, or b) Put it all in different files but it won't be able to work as the files won't be able to overlap. This means that I will now have to go back to square one which is frustrating.

Thr 27th Jan- Day 14

The day started which would involve us as a team meeting after the first seminar at half 11 but in the end it was only me and another guy. Before I left yesterday, I found out they all met up to discuss who would go to which seminar, I was asked to attend an XML seminar which I was going to go to anyway. I found this very interesting, XML always baffled me and I couldn't get my head round it but this helped me see sense, XML is basically language that can be used both in mobile and pc platforms (mobile devices and pc's can reconise the language and display it) afterwards we were due to meet up but no success. My next seminar was looking at a case study of m&s with using e-learning. I found it interesting but struggled to adapt it to use in my personal life and also the ICHCT.
Next seminar I attended was on how e-learning was used in corporate companies, this was interesting but the speaker didn't want to give to much away and encouraged you to know more by coming to her booth.
Next seminar was on multi-learning platforms which I found very interesting. This learning how to teach via pc's, phones, i-pads and at the end they had a list of almost every available tool to use for e-learning.
Next seminar I attended was about what coorporations were currently looking to do after the recession such as what e-learning technologies they would be using. This was very good and gave me a great insight into what companies are currently looking for and what is trending.
Next seminar was about "serious gaming" which was weird but interesting, a french company make games as part of e-learning for companies such as l'oreal. E.g they wud try to work out different methods of dying hair certain ways and certain colours, if you didn't do it you would lose the game. Very effective tool if it can be used correctly.
The final seminar was about how to improve design and development in e-learning. Very interesting and was looking forward to it as was hoping to take whatever I learnt here into my web design career and I did.

Wed 26th Jan- Day 13

Started off travelling to st marys hospital in Paddington to see some of the eduaction material in action and what is currently being developed and some of it was amazing.
We were given a short introduction on what happens in their department and the main doctor gave a short background on himself!
Once we got into the labs we saw something he was currently working on. He was working on a stroke assessment matrix and also a presentation for doctors and nurses. What surprised me so much was that he said he research for 4 months into strokes which was impressive. His matrix was made using XML language and was a matrix giving mimic strokes, serious strokes and then stating what kind of people could suffer from them e.g over 65's.
We then witnessed a presentation associated with strokes that they were working on. Telling doctors how to assess patients with stroke, how to test for it and how to look after them! All done using flash
Next project which we were shown was a simulation for surgeons. Junior surgeons first operation always involves hernias, so they developed a simulation using java 3d where they help them with a step by step simulation on how to operate on a patient with a hernia from start to finish. Very impressive
After that they showed us a few room where other simulations take place such as bone drilling.
After that we were off to the exhibition show in olympia to focus on e-learning technologies being used or developed by major companies. I spent the day looking at booths and was more keen to look at adobe who I had always thought were ahead of the game. They had a few good ideas! Especially a software which gave you the ability to create a tool which taught how to use other softwares via guide and quizzes. The great part was that the software could even be edited in flash.

tue 25th-day 12

Day started off like yesterday, kinda slow, everyone was out the office so lost enthusiasm to work and chilled a little! Managed to get flash after 4 horrible hours this morning! It isn't what they wanted tick for tack but will run it by them and ask what they think! If time is short, it is good enough to be part of website but I can work more on it to assess problems! Finished off my personal PRINCE2 matrix model, will email it to digby and see what he thinks. For the rest of the day gerald wanted to experiment with flash while I simple updated my blog to help me with my final report, off to learning conference in olympia tomorrow which should be very interesting but also a visit to st marys hospital in paddington to look more at imperial colleges technology

Mon 24th-day 11

Monday I came back and carried on with a bit of everything, firstly tried to get flash working, then typed up report on SEO findings and finally started a report that was handed down to me to find research on GSM. Also had time to work on our project brief which was looked at and handed back with plenty of mistakes! We expected a lot of mistakes as this was the first time we were handling a project like this and our lack of knowledge was kinda shown!

Fri 21st-day 10

Today started off looking into what asked us to look for, me and gerald split the work evenly and decided to work separately. I decided to look into borrowing the journey planner on the tfl website and try and move it into our website. This took less then an hour and made sure an email was sent to TFL to make sure we had permission to use their planner before we go ahead and put it on our website. Spent the rest of the time before lunch still trying to work out how to perform a particular action using the flash software for the other website but just couldn't break the deadlock and was forced to admit defeat.
after lunch ben asked me to look into SEO's, I had a little exp of this in the past but not a lot to be considered a professional at it!! I did a bit of research to look more into it and found results that I thought would turn and results which surprised me a little. Didn't hear back from TFL before the end of the day so that is now on hold over the weekend.

Thr 20th-day 9

Thrusday was a nice basic day. Working with gerald we got working on the PRINCE2 methodology and started on the project brief. It took a while but got me realising how big the methodology is and how difficult it is to understand. Once this was done we had a small meeting regarding the website that was to be made for GP's, ben did his research and tried an "open eyes" theory which is like thinking outside the box and came up with ideas, we agreed what to look into and try and find to carry on with tomorrow.

Wed 19th - Day 8

Was by myself today as the person who is on the same internship as me stayed and worked from home.
Started off the morning sending him the relevent documents for him to work on whilst I was asked to update a couple of documents that would be used on a few NHS projects in the upcoming months. After this was completed I started looking into the flash content they wanted inserted into their own personal website, I knew this would take a while as I haven't used flash in a while and before I knew it I was asked to help out organise some folders which came in the morning and its content needed sorting out asap which I was happy to do.
On top of this I was also focusing on other projects during the day such as simplifying the prince2 matrix that we have, make it easier to use and learn and also making a simple slideshow on c.diff to show the benefits of making a slideshow in flash.
At the end of the day I was very close to working out to create the content in flash that they wanted, I'm sure a couple more hours on it and I will have it planned and ready to create

Tue 18th Day 7

Today was a basic day. I spent most of the day researching clinical education via technology and via using applications.
Second half of the day involved looking into project management and PRINCE2. We were introduced to a few charts and diagrams and it finally started to make sense. I finally understood the grasp and purpose of PRINCE2.

Day 6-17th Jan

Came in a bit late this morning due to signal failures on the trains. So I was immediately behind on this weeks work.
Gerald had already started working a bit more on the database and when I came in we got straight back to work finishing on the web site project and finishing our research. We looked at another couple of websites associated with our purpose of the website and finished before lunch.
Afterwards digby wanted me to do a bit of research into clinicial health education and look into methods, apps and anything else related. I enjoy and am quite good at research so didn't feel this would be a problem I did struggle at first to understand what digby wanted me to look for. Upon talking to him more and doing a bit of research I understood what he wanted and go on with it. The more I researched the more intrigued I was with healthcare and was starting to think of a few ideas myself. At the end of the day we looked into what we would be doing tomorrow and we would be looking more into project management which I feel personally it is a weakness that I do need help with and glad I am getting as it would look good on my C.V

Day 5-Friday 14th Jan

Came in friday morning to carry on working on the database that we were given before. As database isn't my speciality, I let gerald take charge as he knew more about it then me. We didn't create the database but set up an intro, analysis of the problem, what the database would contain and the HCI which would go into creating it. I also spent the day finding out more about PRINCE2 and what it did. I learnt it wasn't a software as I thought before but it a educational tool to help you with project management which most big companies expect us to know or learn. So that would be very helpful to me in the future.
In the afternoon a new project came in which instantly took my interest, it involved creating a website for GPVST. I immediately expressed my interest in this project and asked to be involved which digby happily let me. Ben gave me an introduction to what it would involve and I got to work staright away! I started research on websites similar to the purpose of the website we were building and agreed to sit in a brainstormin idea for more purpose of the website on monday afternoon!
First week was nice, it was both fast and quick and gave me loads of insight on what the department does and what I will be doing for the next 5 weeks.

Thursday 13th January-Day 4

So day 4 and the 9-5 shifts were starting to get to me, Tea has never meant so much to me. Came into work and the day before Paul wanted me to have a small look into free flash software and try to avoid using adobe flash. We had a little luck but came to the conclusion that the best thing to do would be to use a 30 day trial and get the website working and fully developed whilst we still have the 30 day trial.
Me and Gerald were both asked to work on a database project which they had been approached to do, the project involved all 6 hospitals in the Imperial College NHS Health Trust and setting up a database which hosted courses for their staff to go on, sort of like ebay where you can search and purchase courses to go on and then give a review of how the course was. As I lacked experience in databases, I wasn't really sure how to go about this task and as Gerald has specialised in databases at university, I left him and charge and let him show me how it all worked.
I realised that there were some aspects I worked on such as methodologies (waterfall model etc.) and the planning and design. But not enough for me to feel confident with going on with this task. In the end we decided to leave this till tomorrow as Gerald had some books at home with specialised in creating and designing databases.
Paul nicely gave me a copy of PRINCE2 and gave me a rough demonstration of what it was and how it works, he stated how important it was to understand this software and how it works as the majority of companies use it when it comes to project management and if you know it, it will give you a major advantage over other people when it comes to interviews for other companies. It turned out to be a 415 page document and realised how much there was. To sum it up it is like Microsoft Project but a lot more technical but I felt confident that I would be able to use it.

Wednesday 12th Jan-Day 3

Digby was in a meeting in the morning so me and Gerald has the offices to ourselves and set to work on the prezi project that was given to us. We spent the first 2 hours working on planning the presentation and how we were going to set it out. Afterwards we went to work on creating the presentation, we were actually quite surprised how long it took or just how fast time went as by the time we finished it, it was the end of the day. Paul and Digby had a look at our presentation and were pleased at the final product, it was agreed that we would look at a few minor changes (sounds etc.) and then take the product to a meeting where it would be discussed if Prezi could be used as a new tool to teach at Imperial College.
Paul and Digby then sat us down and had a talk with us a little bit more about the projects we may want to take on. The one in particular which stood out for me was the website which they wanted to create, they showed me an example of what they wanted and it involved using flash and JavaScript. I was very worried as my experience of JavaScript was very limited and my knowledge of flash was small and I hadn't used it in a while.Luckily Gerald knew a little and we agreed although it would be a difficult project together on due to the amount of solo work, we would give it a try. We also spoke of the other projects we could work on as at the time they had over 30 projects which they had been given. We finished up the day by discussing tomorrow and what we would be doing, which would contain working on a new project which would involve databases.

Tuesday 11th January- 2nd Day

So it was my second day and today we were given some new software to try out. As well as this we were to be given a tour of the hospital from Digby as well as our ID's. The software we were asked to practise with was called GLOmaker and was created by London Met University. This is also similar to Presi and also Microsoft PowerPoint.
After playing with it for around an hour, we came to the conclusion that the software was good but it wasn't great compared to the others, as it was a free software we didn't expect it to be good, there were a few advantages such as the ability to perform a quiz if necessary and it is easy to use. Apart from that the software won't be used in the near future.
Apparently we had been working 'too hard' over the past 2 days, but I admit I couldn't help it, after being out of work for so long, you just want to get to work and I realise I only have 6 weeks to learn as much as possible before I'm on my own again.
At the end of the day Digby came forward with a few projects for us that we could work on, one of them we would start tomorrow using the prezi tool that we had used on our first day. A presentation was given to him which teaches 'Treating patients with learning disabilities' it was our job to use the prezi and edit it to make it look more exciting and stand out. We would start on our first project tomorrow and couldn't wait.

Monday 10th January-First Day

So today I started my first day working at Hammersmith Hospital. I was greeted by Ingle Digby who gave me a tour of the hospital and then of the office that I would be working out of the next 6 weeks. I decided to keep it quiet that it was my birthday as I felt nervous enough it was my first day of my internship and also the first time I had been working in 7 months.
The company I was working for was the Imperial College National Health Service Health Care (ICNHSHC) and the department I worked in specialised in creating learning programmes for nurses and doctors. The learning programmes could range from a online presentation to creating a database for education purposes.
After the tour Ingle introduced me to the team I would be working with, I was quite surprised how small the team was and where we were also located. We were located opposite HM Wormwood Scrubs prison and our offices used to be halls of residence.
Our team consisted of Ingle (Manager of Education) Paul and Ben (Both head of Interaction and Computing) Rachel (Another Manager) and Anna who is Rachel's P.A
I was given a brief introduction about what the next 6 weeks would consist of and it did sound like it would be a good internship that would offer loads of experience which is what I was looking for when I first joined this TVU graduate internship.
Such things I could look forward to were the following:
i) Creating a website for the office
ii) Going to an exhibition in week 3 to study new e-learning for health and medical
iii) Learning new parts of technology such as databasing using asp.net
On my first day I also had someone else who was doing a internship with me from TVU (Gerald Cole) so it was nice working with someone who was in the position as myself.

Ingle first got us working on a online presentation software called "Presi" which is like Microsoft Powerpoint but with a bit more interaction and less colours. It was a very impressive software. This brought the end of day one and was looking forward to the next six weeks.