ETEC 565 HJD e-portfolio

I started my investigations into the accessibility portion of the e-toolkit early in June. It was of particular interest while I was supporting some students to complete their provincial assessments. Kurzweil was the tool they were using to access the material. They had received some specific training to provide them with skills to use this particular technology tool.  They will continue to use this tool in the coming years.

When I first began the investigation, I was overwhelmed with the depth and wealth of specifications developed by the W3C in their Web Accessibility Initiative.  The World Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are extensive and challenging in their details. As I read through the scenarios provided, I reflected on personal connections with others in my life who face similar challenges as those presented.

A personal favourite web site reader is Readability (found at https://www.readability.com/) (Download it! Seriously!)  This particular support sits on my bookmark bar and comes into use when trying to read a website with many embeded ads or graphics. Sites can quickly be converted into a more readable form by clicking on the Readability bookmark. My interest in website readability led me to jump into the Readability guideline 3.1 (http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG20/quickref/#meaning). I found some interesting criteria to ensure that sites are not only readable but also understandable.

After looking through the extensive listing [http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG20/quickref/] on accessibility makes me wonder how to manage all of those options. How do we ensure a website or online course offering meets all these guidelines? Is that possible? How can I find my very own accessibility quality control specialist? It may be daunting, but it is critical that we continue to work toward full accessibility for all. What is necessary for some is good for all!

Wiki Learning

I have had several experiences creating wikis – through UBC MET course ETEC 510 (http://sites.wiki.ubc.ca/etec510/Hypertext), wikis created for work related projects and also personal wiki spaces to collect information. The wiki done for ETEC 510 was an intense experience that challenged me to code in HTML to get the page to work the way I wanted it to. The embedded images, chart, headings, etc gave me great pride when I managed to get them done they way I had hoped. Using code from other wiki pages and then replacing information to adapt it to the necessary content was one way around coding from scratch. Two interesting items that I discovered while doing this wiki project were the 5 pillars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Five_pillars) and the criteria established for the top ranked ‘featured article’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_list_criteria that make Wikipedia articles effective sources of information.

Using WYSIWYG software like Wikispaces makes it so much easier to get up and organized quickly. I found the wikispaces format intuitive to use and was able to modify structures and content with little trouble. Giving access to others was also easily done.

One challenge that I still experience with wikis is the changing and editing of other people’s content. Unless I am very familiar with the other collaborators, I am uncertain and uncomfortable in editing without permission, either through formal permissions granted or through familiarity of other’s acceptance of changes.

Creating DVD’s 101

Movie making and creating dvd’s is not as easy as the guide books and help sheets make it sound. I realized through this process the importance of understanding the words. I found myself trying to decipher the meaning for some of the words and rereading several times as I puzzled through the process.

After many hours at this, I transferred photos from my cottage collection into iMovie, figured out how to add a background sound file (drag and drop!) and then exported the file into iDVD. There I was puzzled by the drop zone and adding menu text. Deciphering again, I finally created a three item dvd menu with selections to view. Exporting and burning to dvd was the easy but time consuming part.  Process complete! Time to celebrate my accomplishment by sharing the finished results.

Maybe it’s time to take it to You Tube?!

As I was working through this process, I kept thinking about how movies and dvd’s can be integrated into digital learning and teaching. How can educators harness the power of this technology and create items that are interesting, informative and have educational value in a way that is efficient and not time consuming? I came across some interesting video clips about how to video yourself and make the product effective. These four videos, produced by Mark Joyella, present some valuable tips on how to make sure your clip of yourself is the best it can be. We talk in front of the class all the time. But talking in front of the camera is very different. These videos focus on those who may be coaching or mentoring others, but are certainly applicable to work as an educator creating online content. We need to become as comfortable in front of the camera as we are in front of our students.

Video One: http://coachingcommons.org/featured/for-coaches-online-video-coaching/

Video Two: http://coachingcommons.org/featured/online-video-series-part-2/

Video Three: http://coachingcommons.org/featured/for-coaches-create-your-online-video-part-3/

Video Four: http://coachingcommons.org/featured/for-coaches-create-your-online-video-part-4/

My course work has taken me deeper into Moodle and my understanding of this free, open source LMS. I love the word Moodle. There is fun and freedom implied in the word. Playing with the word leads anywhere. (moodles, moodler, moodling, can you moodle? I’m moodling, How’s moodles today?) Not to mention the spinoffs possible with rhyming and word families. The Moodle logo even hints at the fun, playful nature of learning, with the jaunty angle of the graduation cap.

So deeper into playing with Moodle, learning about Moodle and writing about Moodle I go. Like Alice down the rabbit hole…. and I ended up everywhere and nowhere I expected. Some interesting items discovered as I travelled the meandering, moodling path:

• A case for using Moodle
• Moodle philosophy and pedagogy
• Top 10 lists – Myths; Questions to Ask
• 47 Interesting Ways to Use Moodle
• 2 Minute Moodle Tutorials
• Good Moodle Course Design
• Discussions on how to use Moodle with young children

But my Cheshire Cat along the path was this gem of a find on describing Moodle by using LEGO. The definition of the word ‘moodle’ as a noun and a verb caught my attention. Using LEGO to explain what Moodle is all about …. how much more fun and playful can it get?!

I was having heated conversations this past weekend with some colleagues about tracking sytems when using email. Since then, this idea has caught my attention several times.

Cookies leave crumbs…. no matter how neat you eat. When you work in a digital world, the crumbs are there to follow. In my course work, I can us SNAPP to see who is talking to whom, how many times they respond, wether it is inbound or outbound, even get a visual of how the community connects through it’s various members.  In wiki work, the history and editing done is recorded and can be viewed. You can always go back to previous versions of what was created. In blogs, such as this one, there is a trail of changes made. In collaborative project spaces such as Googledocs, there is a record of who wrote what, how it was edited, even when the edits were done.

I recently got an email from Twitter and Facebook asking me to come back to visit. I haven’t been connected to those sites since I set them up (on a whim and some tech support from my daughter) and was surprised to know I’m wanted. So, I’m being tracked there too.

Interesting that the more you ‘put yourself out there’ the more connected you feel, but also the more suspicious you can become. I’m beginning to rethink how quickly I click the “I Agree” button when I sign up for some new web service.