FEEDING THREE

The Video:

1. Explain why you chose the blog topic.

After a long discussion we finally decided as a group that food would be the most appropriate topic for our blog. We chose the topic of food as it is something that we all have in common and something we all enjoy on a daily basis. In choosing our topic we decided to keep it broad and not just focus on a particular segment of food i.e. food recipes, restaurant reviews and interesting facts about food. Keeping our topic broad meant that we were able to cover just about any aspect of food meaning that all three of us were able to contribute something to the blog on a regular basis. This also helped attract a wider audience because the topic was not only focused on one aspect.

However even though we didn’t focus on a particular aspect of food we did decide that we were going to blog about 'everyday' kind of food and not the spectacular fancy 5 star food you get at a fancy restaurant. The reason for making this decision was that we wanted our blog to be something that our followers felt comfortable with. Our variety in posts was also to ensure that there was something on our blog for just about everyone who followed us.


2. What were the largest challenges with a team assignment?

After having finally decided that we were going to make a blog about food we began creating the blog only to experience issues with Blogger and email accounts. Two of the three group members were having issues becoming co-authors on our initial blog ‘Glorious Eating’. However that problem was solved quickly through creating one gmail account that all members could use to log into the blog. This is the reason why we had a change in URLs from http://www.gloriouseating.blogspot.com to http://feedingthree.blogspot.com/ .‘Feeding Three’ became our new name as there was only three of us in the group and we’re all being fed everyday.

Even though we had decided on hotmail as our mean of communication right from the beginning of the assignment we were still faced with some initial communication issues. There was a lack of communication between members of the group at the beginning, this posed several problems for us as we weren’t too sure about who was doing what and we weren't aware of the blog progress. As a result of this members of the group were not contributing equally to the assignment and therefore jeopardising the groups potential to score the highest mark possible. Once these issues were properly addressed and discussed all group members became clear on what their individual role was, tasks were delegated to each member of the group in a way that when all tasks were completed all the requirements of the assignment would be met too. The delegation of the tasks was handled by having one member responsible for commenting on other blog posts, another member was responsible for posting regular tweets updating our progress and together as a team we designed the layout, constructed the report and published posts regularly.

On commencing university after our mid-semester break we were faced with yet another challenge. That challenge was an addition of a new member to our group which placed many challenges for the group as we had to reassign tasks so that the workload was evenly spread out between all four members of the group.


3. How did you come up with the final design that you used?

Deciding on a design for the blog was one of the most challenging parts of the assignment as a blog’s design should automatically tell a reader what the blog is about but at the same time it shouldn’t overwhelm the reader with too many images and flashing backgrounds etc. So after looking at various templates we all came to the conclusion that simplicity was the way to go. We agreed that the simpler the layout of our blog the more user friendly it would be as users would be able to navigate through the blog easily. Having a user friendly blog meant that we could attract more followers to our blog as they would be able to browse our blog with ease and not be overwhelmed by having too many gadgets and too many things happening all at once.

We chose to place an image of a plate of food in the header as this will allow anyone who comes across our blog to automatically recognise our blog as one about food. Initially we had also chosen to place our profile, followers, links and so on, on the left side however part of the assignment requirements was that such things were placed on the right side. After making such adjustments we also decided to change the colour scheme of our blog so that it became simpler and so that the colour scheme of the blog was neither clashing with nor detracting attention from our blog entries. This decision was made with the aim that our blog entries are what will catch our reader’s attention and hopefully interest them.

In regards to our blog entries we also tried to ensure that all entries contained a picture which practically summarised what the post was about. A picture tells a thousand words. By doing this we ensured that readers were able to obtain a brief idea about what the post contained and then from that deciding whether or not they were going to continue reading the post. The pictures were also intended to grab reader’s attention so that they are drawn into reading the post.


4. Compare a blog that has similar content to yourself, critically analyse your site comparing theirs.

Site: http://agoddessinthekitchen.blogspot.com/

The blog ‘A Goddess in the Kitchen’ is very similar to our blog in that the content and layout of both blogs is very casual and both blogs seem to use a casual, friendly and sometimes even humorous tone in their posts. Another similarity between the two blogs is that they don't focus on one particular aspect of food, their content is broad although our blog's content is a lot more diverse. The layout of both blogs is also very similar however our choice of header image gives our blog a more professional appearance. However it is quite obvious that the blog ‘A Goddess in the Kitchen’ is a well established one with a lot of experience as well as a decent number of followers in comparison to our blog.

The posts made on the blog ‘A Goddess in the Kitchen’ are also only composed by one person who is the sole author. This means that her posts flow on from one to another unlike our posts since there is only one voice making those regular posts. Our blog on the other hand has posts made by four different individuals with diverse views and voices.

The photographs posted on the blog ‘A Goddess in the Kitchen’ are also of higher quality than those pictures on our blog. Perhaps due to fact that our pictures are not photographs that we have taken personally but are what is available to us through the net. Whereas the photographs posted on the blog ‘A Goddess in the Kitchen’ are actually photos taken personally by the blogger, so she is therefore able to present her work to the reader through the perspective that she wishes for them to see it through.

Now I think everyone has heard this question over and over again. What would your last meal on earth be before you die? I know from experience I've heard it countless times although I've never really made a final decision on what my last meal would be. If I was to be asked everyday what it would be it would constantly change from day to day. So if I was to die anytime soon luckily enough knowing exactly when I was going to die I'd probably spend most of that time still thinking what my last meal would be.

So I would like to take some suggestions from anyone who has made up their mind on what their last meal would be. Would it be a fancy meal cooked by a top notch star chef or one of mum's classics or just plain old indulgence food.

Don't be fooled by the length of the recipe it's actually quite easy to make and I can guarantee you, from experience, one is never enough. You'll be rushing for seconds and you'll be lucky if there's any left.

It seems to me that a large percentage of Australians would much rather feed the bins than feed the needy. The three essential needs in life are food, clothing and shelter, yet so many Australians find it hard to gain 1 need let alone all three.

It is in actual fact frightening and disturbing to see the amount of food we waste each year. Studies in Metropolitan Sydney showed that the average household bin contains 11kg of garbage, 5.8kgs of that being compostable waste. 95% of this compostable matter was food waste. This problem is not only happening right here in Australia.

Imagine the difference it would make if this food was actually put to good use rather than thrown in our bins. There are millions of people out there who would do anything to have access to a proper meal everyday, which we seem to take for granted. Each year 2 million people rely on food relief in Australia at some point. There are plenty of charities and food groups out there who would love for people to donate food they would otherwise throw out. Some of these groups and charities include Second bite, fare share, Oz harvest, food bank and many others.


Now if those figures don't motivate people to do something about these problems i don't know what will, or maybe it takes an individual to experience first hand the feeling of not knowing when they'll eat their next meal to make a change.

So the next time your thinking of feeding your bin perfectly normal food just think of another alternative.