It feels like so much has happened since I last wrote telling you all about my fifth week in the Internship, but here we are on Week 8. You can read my previous blog here – https://blogs.edgehill.ac.uk/learningedge/2021/07/16/week-5-a-week-in-the-life-of-a-student-intern/
Monday
It’s Monday morning… I got out of bed, had a morning cup of tea and got ready to greet my favourite team members.
After our Monday run down and a quick catch up, we logged off the meeting and got to work which for me was to make some changes to ‘meet the team posters’. A task myself and Reece (You would have read some his blogs around mental wellbeing, if not make sure to check them out!) have been working on.
This task requires us to create a fun yet professional poster introducing every member of the Faculty of Education to new students. Not only do we have to make sure their 100% accessible but that they meet a professional standard, and the staff are happy with their own individual poster.
Yet this week, we have made so much progress because we have completed 30 out of 63 ready to schedule for tweeting in September!! This took up most my morning and by the time we had fixed some issues, it was time for my lunch.
After my lunch, (cheesy pasta is always a go to) I was focusing on finishing up my digital escape room, well my third, I definitely got the hang of it!! I have created three surrounding Greek Myths, such as Theseus and the Minotaur, Perseus and Medusa and finally Odysseus’ Odyssey. The escape rooms ask students to escape through their knowledge of Edge Hill and the services the university provides as well as some creative riddles – which confuddled some of my teams’ heads.
By five all three escape rooms where perfect and I couldn’t have been prouder of myself.
Tuesday
I always think Tuesday’s go by in a flash. A task I have been given is to identify the sixth form providers in the Northwest of England and see if they are active on Twitter. This task meant one thing… a spreadsheet. Now if you’ve been reading my blogs since the start of the Internship then you’d know that me and Excel were not the best of friends… well now we’ve brought a house and are living happily ever after. I got into the routine of copying, pasting, searching and repeating to the point where this task which at first seemed huge took me a day!
I think this shows how when you can get in the groove of working, you can lose yourself a little. So, right now I’m going to remind you to make sure you’re drinking plenty and that you get yourself some fresh air, especially if you’re working from home!
Wednesday
On Wednesday I worked with Reece on the meet the team posters, completing some amendments and using Canva to make them look visually appealing. I’d like to think that Canva is following me, because if I’m not on it at work, then I’m seeing the advert everywhere!
Through creating the meet the team posters, I have definitely become more creative and can make posters for most tasks, I especially love using all the different elements they provide to create the perfect poster for my idea. For those interested there is great course available on Learning LinkedIn called Learning Canva – https://www.linkedin.com/learning/learning-canva-2/what-you-can-use-canva-for?u=35744052
Of course, we got the amendments done quickly, after that I dove into create some content for A Level Results Day to welcome new students to the Faculty of Education.
Thursday
Thursday always goes quickly. My Thursday consisted of planning for a new task, but first my morning meeting followed by a meeting with the lovely FoE Reading for Pleasure ambassadors, who work together to encourage teachers in training to get children reading for pleasure rather than just at school and as an aspiring author I adore the idea.
Following this meeting I began to research all kinds of different books which could benefit children. I was also tasked to create a thread of books which explore diversity and inclusivity for each stage of education, Early Years, Primary Education and Secondary Education. I found this task very exciting as I love to read.
After researching I moved onto a new task, which Sarah set us that morning creating a brand for the work we produce so they cohesively and collectively fit together.
The team quickly created our own brand kits and presented them to each other, we realised that we all had used a shade of blue, therefore blue was to be in our palette. We drew other colours such as a seafoam green from the Digital Internship logo and added base colours such as white and black and our colour palette was made!
Friday
Finally, Friday! I started my morning with ordering a caramel macchiato and saying good morning to my team.
We discussed which font to choose for our brand image and we found this a little hard as two members of our team, myself included have a visual impairment, and we often found ourselves in the situation where one font was accessible for one of us but not for the other. Personally, I find fonts such as Cambria and Bookman Old Style easy to read but I would stick to Arial if you’re unsure.
So once our brand was confirmed, we could get back to work and today’s task was to create a social media good practice guide for future teachers in training in compliance to the Edge Hill Social Media Compliance Policy. I found this task quite refreshing as I understood most of it due to my experience within the field of Health and Social Care.
But that was my Friday, I logged off at five and enjoyed my weekend which included dinner at a local Italian and shopping!
By Sharnie Bowen (Student Intern)
