I really took a lot from this course. I was introduced to some great new tools, such as the circaVie and Eyejot. I hope to be able to make use of some these tools in the future. This was not my first online course with Dr. Yuen, so it helped that he uses the same basic organization in all of his classes which always makes it easier to get around. I especially like that everything is divided into weeks and that all of the assignment due dates are posted ahead of time.
A lot of the network and satellite information was very knew to me. I was introduced to a lot of terminology that I had not experience with. It has made me want to study these types of technologies more and learn more about them.
Overall, this was a great class and was able to learn a lot of new information which I will take with me and use.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Online Presentation
Our final project required us to create a presentation of at least 15 slides (not including references) on slidshare.net. We could choose any topic related to Telecommunications in Education. I chose to do my presentation on Distance Learning. After doing research and thinking more about it, I decided to narrow it down to online learning since distance learning is such a broad topic and would be hard to cover in just 15 slides. The title of my presentation was Distance Learning: An Evaluation of Online Learning.
I have used slideshare.net in the past, so I had already created my free account and had one presentation loaded on the site. I took Dr. Yuen's suggestion and converted it to PDF so that the layout would stay consistent. I think this is a great site, I have often used this site to find presentations on other topics that I am interested in learning more about. It is a great resource when doing research as long as you make sure and give the appropriate recognition to any content you may use.
Link to Assignment: http://www.slideshare.net/guest533473/distance-learning-an-evaluation-of-online-learning
I have used slideshare.net in the past, so I had already created my free account and had one presentation loaded on the site. I took Dr. Yuen's suggestion and converted it to PDF so that the layout would stay consistent. I think this is a great site, I have often used this site to find presentations on other topics that I am interested in learning more about. It is a great resource when doing research as long as you make sure and give the appropriate recognition to any content you may use.
Link to Assignment: http://www.slideshare.net/guest533473/distance-learning-an-evaluation-of-online-learning
Eyejot - Assignment 6
This assignment required us to use Eyejot, a video messaging tool, to create a video message to send to the class. Eyejot allows you to create a free account and create video messages up to 1 minute to send to any e-mail address.
I had never heard of this tool before but think that it is a very cool tool. Sometimes it is hard to put what you want to say in text form and having a video message option can make your messages more personal. This is a great option to send greetings to family members who I haven't been able to see in a while. I am always a little nervous being on camera (no my favorite thing), but I really like this tool. It has a lot of potential.
Link to Assignment: http://www.eyejot.com/mview/964C1EE75E9A43AD20E904F3485ABA55AD5DF4326C99920AC9ADF5AD8AF9112B
I had never heard of this tool before but think that it is a very cool tool. Sometimes it is hard to put what you want to say in text form and having a video message option can make your messages more personal. This is a great option to send greetings to family members who I haven't been able to see in a while. I am always a little nervous being on camera (no my favorite thing), but I really like this tool. It has a lot of potential.
Link to Assignment: http://www.eyejot.com/mview/964C1EE75E9A43AD20E904F3485ABA55AD5DF4326C99920AC9ADF5AD8AF9112B
Webquest - Assignment 5
This assignment required us to create a Webquest about any topic that could be used to guide students to learn while using Web sites to conduct research. It includes 7 different compenents: introduction, task, resources, process, evaluation rubric, conclusion, and notes to teachers. We used Google Page Creator to create a Web site containing pages for each of the above components.
Out of all of the assignments, this was the toughest for me. I had never created a Webquest before and didn't really even know what a Webquest was. In fact, I had never created any assignment for students in K-12, so this was completely foreign to me. It also took me a while to rack my brain and come up with a topic that would be appropriate for K-12. I ended up doing my Webquest about following and evaluating stocks in the stock market which targeted to students taking an economics class in the 11th or 12th grades.
I always enjoy the challenge of trying something new, which this was very new for me, so I learned a lot from this assignment, about organizing and thinking through what you want your students to get from it.
Link to Assignment: http://webquestit648.googlepages.com/home
Out of all of the assignments, this was the toughest for me. I had never created a Webquest before and didn't really even know what a Webquest was. In fact, I had never created any assignment for students in K-12, so this was completely foreign to me. It also took me a while to rack my brain and come up with a topic that would be appropriate for K-12. I ended up doing my Webquest about following and evaluating stocks in the stock market which targeted to students taking an economics class in the 11th or 12th grades.
I always enjoy the challenge of trying something new, which this was very new for me, so I learned a lot from this assignment, about organizing and thinking through what you want your students to get from it.
Link to Assignment: http://webquestit648.googlepages.com/home
Interactive Timeline - Assignment 4
This assignment required us to use circaVie to create an interactive timeline using photos and descriptions of the photos to tell a story. I chose to do my interactive timeline on the albums release by Michael Jackson. I got pictures of each of the album covers and put them in order of release date.
I had never heard of this tools before and I had also never really created anything like this before. I thought this was a really cool assignment. I liked experimenting with the tool and could see how this could be used in presentations and in courses to provide a visual component to content. Some of my classmates said they had some trouble with the site, but I didn't experience any problems. It was very user-friendly.
Link to Assignment: http://www.circavie.com/people/aftmba
I had never heard of this tools before and I had also never really created anything like this before. I thought this was a really cool assignment. I liked experimenting with the tool and could see how this could be used in presentations and in courses to provide a visual component to content. Some of my classmates said they had some trouble with the site, but I didn't experience any problems. It was very user-friendly.
Link to Assignment: http://www.circavie.com/people/aftmba
Create a Web site - Assignment 3
This assignment required me to create a Web site using Google Page Creator. We were to create 3 pages, including a home page with a biography, a hobbies page where I listed my hobbies and links to Web sites that displayed my interests and vitae page where we listed our resume or curriculum vitae.
There are many of the Google apps that I have found to be very helpful in my daily life, such as Google Docs, that allows you to share and edit documents with colleagues, friends, etc. Me and my colleagues often use this when working on projects and it makes it a lot easier to work on documents together.
Google Page Creator, although free, I didn't find very user-friendly. If you need to get a really simple Web page/site up really quickly, it could do the job for you, but I quickly got very frustrated when I was trying to use some of the tools and they wouldn't work the way you would expect them to. They have an 'Edit HTML' option which I even tried to use, but it didn't even render my HTML code properly. Another frustrating thing was when I tried to organize and format the HTML so that it was more readable when I saved it and went back it didn't save my formats, it jumbled all of the HTML together to make it unreadable again.
It was good to get the experience using this tool, but I don't foresee myself using it again.
Link to Assignment: http://aftmba.googlepages.com/home
There are many of the Google apps that I have found to be very helpful in my daily life, such as Google Docs, that allows you to share and edit documents with colleagues, friends, etc. Me and my colleagues often use this when working on projects and it makes it a lot easier to work on documents together.
Google Page Creator, although free, I didn't find very user-friendly. If you need to get a really simple Web page/site up really quickly, it could do the job for you, but I quickly got very frustrated when I was trying to use some of the tools and they wouldn't work the way you would expect them to. They have an 'Edit HTML' option which I even tried to use, but it didn't even render my HTML code properly. Another frustrating thing was when I tried to organize and format the HTML so that it was more readable when I saved it and went back it didn't save my formats, it jumbled all of the HTML together to make it unreadable again.
It was good to get the experience using this tool, but I don't foresee myself using it again.
Link to Assignment: http://aftmba.googlepages.com/home
Create your own Web blog - Assignment 2
This assignment required us to create a blog using Blogger. Blogger is one of the Google apps, so if you have a Google account, you can use that account to access Blogger and create a blog. I already had a Google account, but this was my first time create my own podcast with Blogger. I already have a blog on Wordpress at http://instructtech.wordpress.com/
I have see viewed other people's blogs in Blogger before, so I had a little bit of experience with the layout, but it is always different from the admin side. It was good to get experience with a different blog site so that I could compare the similarities and differences with the site that I already use. Blogger is pretty simple to use as is Wordpress, but I think I still prefer Wordpress. I think Wordpress has more flexibility and options in the design of your blog, but I think it all comes down to personal preference.
I always enjoy getting experience using different tools, so using Blogger for this assignment gave the chance to do that.
Link to Assignment: http://telecominedu.blogspot.com/
I have see viewed other people's blogs in Blogger before, so I had a little bit of experience with the layout, but it is always different from the admin side. It was good to get experience with a different blog site so that I could compare the similarities and differences with the site that I already use. Blogger is pretty simple to use as is Wordpress, but I think I still prefer Wordpress. I think Wordpress has more flexibility and options in the design of your blog, but I think it all comes down to personal preference.
I always enjoy getting experience using different tools, so using Blogger for this assignment gave the chance to do that.
Link to Assignment: http://telecominedu.blogspot.com/
Web Searching - Assignment 1
In this first assignment, we were required to use any search engine to find 5 sites related to Telecommunications in Education and write a review of the sites. We also use a search engine designed to find people and organizations to located information about 2 of our classmates, an author, and a professional organization. Lastly, we used a software search tool to find 2 pieces of software and description of the software.
I am guilty of defaulting to using Google most of the time when trying to find information about something, which often gives me the results that I need, but not all of the time. It was good to get the exposure to different types of search engines that are available to find different types of information. This assignment also helped remind how important it is to evaluate the information that I find to make sure that it is quality information. Just because it is in print on the Web does not mean that the information is correct, which is sometimes easy to forget, especially when trying to find information in a hurry.
This was a good assignment to help remind you of the wealth of searching tools that are available on the Web and good practice in using them.
Link to Assignment: http://ocean.otr.usm.edu/~w305519/Assignment1.doc
I am guilty of defaulting to using Google most of the time when trying to find information about something, which often gives me the results that I need, but not all of the time. It was good to get the exposure to different types of search engines that are available to find different types of information. This assignment also helped remind how important it is to evaluate the information that I find to make sure that it is quality information. Just because it is in print on the Web does not mean that the information is correct, which is sometimes easy to forget, especially when trying to find information in a hurry.
This was a good assignment to help remind you of the wealth of searching tools that are available on the Web and good practice in using them.
Link to Assignment: http://ocean.otr.usm.edu/~w305519/Assignment1.doc
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