Cash For Kids And College Christmas Market

First thing I did this morning was my lessons for my apprenticeship, learning all about marketing and the business side of working for the college. But this afternoon I have been promoting the 'cash for kids appeal' on the colleges Facebook and Twitter. The charity gives presents to children in poverty who would not normally receive one for Christmas. The college is collecting toys and gifts from the salon for it. I have also been advertising the college Christmas market which is on the 3rd of December. I will be posting pictures from that to my blog when I get the chance so look out for those. 

Omelette Challenge

A bit delayed but yesterday I went down to the Bistro at the college operated by Food Department students to get some pictures of some students doing the 'Omelette Challenge'. This involved trying to make an Omelette and plating it up in the shortest amount of time and comparing it to other students times. The record was 38 seconds! All of this is part of this weeks event 'Maths Week' which the college is taking part in to try and promote the fact that maths is in everything and which I have been promoting on Facebook and Twitter. This photo will also be going onto Facebook etc. 

Tameside College Christmas Market

Today I have started to advertise the Colleges own Christmas fair taking place on the 3^rd of December on Facebook and Twitter which is open to the public and will be selling lots of different things like clothes and beauty products etc. Our graphic designer at the College designed the poster below to be used for Facebook/Twitter and I uploaded with a caption explaining what will be happening to try and attract the general public to come.I have also been keeping up doing some more maths week questions on Twitter and have had quite a good response to it with Droylsden academy students getting involved.

Google Analytics And Maths Week

Today, as part of my Apprenticeship course I have been taking an in-depth look at how Google Analytics works. Basically Analytics allows you to access information about how people are finding your webpage on Google and which keywords they are using when they search for it. For example if you use ‘Tameside College’ in Google those are key words. If you can work out which keywords people are using then you can work out which words you need to include on your webpage so that Google recognises this and ultimately increases the pages ranking on Google search. I have also been down to the catering department to take some photographs of a Maths Week competition in which the chefs took it in turns to try and cook an omelette in the fastest time possible. Plus I have been posting Maths related problems on Twitter/Facebook which people have been answering throughout the day.

           

Paint Spraying And Maths Week

Today I went down to the paint spraying and motorsport department to get some photographs of students in the paint spraying booth. I had to wear full protective gear with a mask and overalls but I managed to get some ok shots. These pictures are most likely to be used in the colleges promotional campaigns (in leaflets etc). I have also been posting on the colleges Facebook and Twitter about maths week today and used some maths questions such as 'There is a class of fifteen and two thirds pass a test. What is the total number of students that pass? #TCmathsweek' to get people interested and involved in maths and what is going on at Tameside College for maths week.

Hyde Clarendon photographs

Today I travelled to the colleges other site Hyde Clarendon a few miles up the road so that I could take some photographs for the public services department to go in some of the colleges publications. I took photos of the students and then of staff and then one of them all together in front of the main building at Hyde to get a good variety of shots. I also got some photos of the students with some of the equipment that the department uses (mountain bikes, climbing ropes etc). I have also been getting together some ideas for our next open evening on the 5th of December on how to promote it on the colleges social media sites such as describing what will be happening in some departments beforehand so that people can see which areas they specifically want to visit.. Plus I have been tweeting about Manchester University being in college today for a drop in session. All in all quite a busy day!

Travel And Sports Facilities

 The two pictures below are what I took today for the Travel and Sports departments to help promote them in the colleges media (mainly leaflets). The first picture is of the colleges own travel shop in which people can book holidays and is run by students in the department and the second is of one of the sports departments physiotherapy labs which is kitted out with treadmills, massage tables and exercise bikes etc.  

SMILT Group Meeting

The picture below was taken earlier today by me at the SMILT meeting for all the colleges in south Manchester. A representative from each college came and presented their virtual learning environments/other programs they have designed to the group to pass ideas on. Our colleges own particular program that was presented was Learning Box 2 which allows learners to access resources online. I also used this picture for the colleges Facebook and Twitter to announce that the event it was happening.

 

Anti-Bullying Week

Its anti-bullying week this week and along with many other organisations the college is going to be putting on several different activities including a visit by local police, Tameside LGBT and off the record plus a screening of the film hairspray. I also have been promoting it through social media (Facebook, Twitter) to raise peoples awareness. There are sure to be some good photo opportunities so I will post some at the end of the week if they are good enough.

Children In Need

With it being Children In Need today the college put on loads of different activities including 'Row to France' which involved students taking turns to try and row the length of the channel on a rowing machine, a cake and biscuit sale and collecting donations throughout the day. It was a fantastic event in the courtyard theatre and lots of people got involved to raise money. I visited the theatre to get pictures throughout the day of the events taking place and used them for Twitter and Facebook. This picture is of some of the staff and students involved on the stall for Children In Need.

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Twitter Banner

We added a new banner to the college's Twitter earlier on. I realised that we did not have any banner image for our Twitter page as opposed to most other colleges in the area so I thought it would be a good idea if we had one too. The photograph was originally taken in the sports department for this years prospectus at the college and includes the Made In Tameside logo. It turned out really great after a few tweeks! Credit goes to our web developer for designing it of course.

Vision Tameside Project

Vision Tameside, the new project that Tameside College together with Tameside Council is planning for the redevelopment of Ashton town centre was announced to the public last month and as part of this I have been tasked to use social media to tell people about the latest developments surrounding it and to give people more information about it. The first picture is an artists impression of what part of the Vision Tameside project (the advanced learning centre) will look like and the second is a photograph that I took at the press conference announcing the project at Tameside Council. At a later date I will post more pictures of what the other buildings will look like. These two images are both on the colleges Twitter and Facebook and more on the project will follow on our social media sites at a later date. Vision Tameside Website

Using Cascading Style Sheets

As part of my Apprenticeship I have just started to learn how to use CSS or cascading style sheets to help me make changes to my blog. The editor on blogger only lets you do so much, so if you want to make very specific refinements or changes it is very difficult or impossible. CSS lets you change almost anything on your webpage/blog and this has allowed me to make my blog a lot more presentable and appealing visually compared to how it was when I could only use bloggers editor.For example I edited the header to include the Tameside College logo and added an aerial photograph of the college as the background and added an effect to make it static whilst the rest of the page scrolls.

Hyde Clarendon Open Evening

  
These are two pictures that I took last Thursday at Hyde Clarendon Sixth Form Colleges open evening. Part of my job is to take photographs at both Tameside and Hyde Colleges open evenings for publicity material. The first picture was taken in the main building of Hyde Clarendon where people are greeted as they arrived and where a lot of the stands were placed for Apprenticeships and Vision Tameside etc. The second picture is of a prospective student in Hyde's graphics department trying out one of their apple macs.

Pink Friday

Today as part of Pink Friday which is aimed at raising money for Breast Cancer Care the college has been putting on several activities including a cake sale in the bakery and donations being collected around the college. These are some of the photographs that I took of what is going on which I have also posted to the colleges Facebook and Twitter.  

Hyde Clarendon Open Evening video

Hyde Clarendon’s Open Evening is tonight and as part of this we posted the video of the last Open Evening a few days ago to Facebook and boosted it to make sure people saw it. The video post was seen by over 100,000 people so hopefully it will be very effective in attracting students to the Evening. I will also be at Hyde Clarendon taking pictures of everything that is going on and putting them on Twitter. Some of those pictures I will post at a later date to this blog.

Health and well-being week 2013

As part of Health and well-being week this year Tameside College has been putting on several different activities and events including gym induction sessions, giving away bottled water, sugar free gum and fruit, putting on podiatrist appointment sessions and holding a fundraiser for breast cancer awareness. As part of this I have/will be taking pictures through the week to post on Twitter and Facebook to show people what is going on.

My Career, My Future event

This picture is one that I took of Tameside College Food and Hospitality Management students preparing some tasters for visitors at the 'My Career My Future' event at Dukinfield Town Hall that took place last month for years 9, 10 and 11. Alongside the pictures I took with a high resolution camera, I also took some pictures with my phone so that I could post them directly to the colleges Facebook/Twitter to show people what was going on as it was happening etc.

Open Evening Montage

This Montage is what I made to advertise Tameside Colleges next Open Evening on Facebook and Twitter. I used some of the best pictures taken from our last Open Evening and merged them together with the banner for the Open Evening. Our last montage was really effective in getting people to come so hopefully this one will be too!

Introduction

Hi, I am George the new Social Media Apprentice for Tameside College. I work In the Marketing Department and help to manage and update the college’s social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+. As part of my apprenticeship I have created this blog to show people what I will be doing. I will be sharing some of what I am going to be doing for my apprenticeship such as videos and photographs that I take as well as events that I go to and any interesting work that I complete. I hope you enjoy it!