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    Nov

    24

    WordPress

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    Weblogs

    For my latest E-Learning Toolkit exploration I decided to discuss the creation of my computer audio blog http://www.computeraudioguy.com. Now I have to admit that I had already started this blog about a year ago but I don’t think that should stop me from reflecting on the process as I regularly update my blog with the latest info on the world of computers and music making.

    For creating my blog I decided to use WordPress. I am not sure why I chose WordPress other than to say that someone recommended it to me so I decided to give it a try. Other than a few annoying features, I find WordPress to be an easy tool to use to create a decent looking website perfect for blogging. Since I have little experience using HTML code (none to be exact :), WordPress was a good choice for me as it uses more of a WYSIWYG graphical user interface. I have had some experience using Dreamweaver in the past but I found WordPress to be a little easier to use and therefore more enjoyable.

    In my opinion, what makes WordPress such a great tool is in its ease of use. Combined with signing up for webspace (in my case Go Daddy), I was able to have a basic website up and running in less than a couple of hours. Adding text, pictures, and videos from Youtube was a breeze which I believe is important in any blogging type software. Another advantage of using WordPress is that you can sign up for your own domain name instead of using a domain name provided for you. Furthermore, I also liked how easy it was to create a customized look to my WordPress page due to the access of numerous themes provided. Themes for WordPress are easy to implement and also highly customizable. Just one click of the themes button under the appearance tab and you can choose to download a number of different themes for a great look and easy customization. The other WordPress feature that I found to be incredibly advantageous was the ability to use plugins for further customization. For example, if you want your WordPress to display stats about your blog you can use a plugin to take care of this. You can also use a plugin to display the most recent comments in the sidebar of your site. Check out the numerous plugins available by clicking on the plugin tab.

    For me, the most challenging aspect of using WordPress was the amount of choice of features I had at my disposal. From choosing from the hundreds of themes to adding plugins, you could find yourself working on your blog for days without getting any content uploaded. Another challenge I found with working with WordPress was with formatting. Even with this very blog, I have faced some challenges in getting the header to look a certain way and changing the font size of my buttons at the top of my page. This has led to some real frustration on my part as I have yet to find a solution. Hopefully I will be able to solve these little problems soon.

    As far as surprises are concerned, I guess the biggest surprise for me was that WordPress was so easy to use. Maybe it was because my only foray into website building before WordPress was using Dreamweaver or my overall excitement getting to create my own blog. Nevertheless, even with a few WordPress criticisms, it has been a joy to use in creating a polished looking weblog. Now if only I could keep my blog up-to-date.

    Nov

    8

    Wikis

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    Collaborating with my peers on the wiki activity this week was an enjoyable experience. I found many aspects of using the wiki to be both advantageous to traditional methods of communication and challenging. In the paragraphs below I will discuss my thoughts and experiences with this week’s activity.

    I found many advantages to using wikis for group work. Primarily, I liked how anyone could edit and revise the body of work that was being created. This is quite different in comparison to the static nature of the discussion forums on WebCT/Vista. In addition, working with the wiki was especially easy to use which makes it a great learning tool for students who have had little exposure to, or are reluctant to using technological tools. I also liked that the information that was being created on the wiki was near instantaneous. This function makes wikis a great tool for instant collaboration. In a recent group activity for another MET course, we used a wiki for group collaboration. Due to the nature of online courses, many of the students were located all over the world. Using a wiki provided our group with an easy to use, convenient space in which to contribute to the same document.

    Although I think that wikis are an exceptional learning tool that educators have at their disposal, they are not without their challenges. Some of those challenges are access to equipment (computers and bandwidth), affording the time to create and implement the wiki, and monitoring students’ activity. As well, the type of communication that wikis provide may not be ideal for some students’ learning style. For example, some students may be visual learners and therefore should be provided with an opportunity to use strategies which reflect that. Perhaps a modification to the use of the wiki could provide for that? For my own learning style, I find wikis to be somewhat overwhelming and cluttered if contributors are not given specific directions on where to place information. It could as simple as using a different colour of font to differentiate the contributors.

    There may also be concern by some educators regarding students staying on task and as well, violating copyright. I have found that many students have a difficult time staying on task when working on computers due to the large amount of online distractions. As well, many younger students that I work with have zero regard for copyright law and plagiarism. Giving the students guidelines before starting may prove to be beneficial.

    Another challenge to using wikis is knowing when it is appropriate and beneficial to the students’ learning. Other methods of communication, especially in a classroom setting, may be more suitable and therefore should receive preference over using a wiki. Knowing the best instructional methods to support your students’ needs is vital in providing a proper education.

    Perhaps the most challenging aspect of using a wiki is trying to overcome the reluctance to edit other people’s information. For me personally, I didn`t feel comfortable with revising work that other people had taken the time to write. I didn’t mind adding to someone’s thoughts but revising was another story. Some students may also experience the same feeling when working with wikis. In addition some students may get upset that others had changed their ideas. I believe the challenge for any educator in this situation is defining a clear outline before proceeding with working with wikis.

    Referring back to the SECTIONS framework provided me with a basis in which to critique the use of wikis in an educational setting. I believe that it is fair to say that wikis can provide educators with a different form of collaborative communication in both the classroom and beyond. However, there are some challenges and wikis may not be suitable for all situations. In the future, I can see myself using wikis with my students as they provide an excellent collaborative and communicative platform. Being cognizant of the challenges of using wikis and understanding their best pedagogical uses can provide students with an exceptional platform for collaborative learning.

    Bates, A. W. and Poole, G. (2003) Effective Teaching with Technology in Higher Education: Foundations for Success. New York: Wiley, John & Sons, Incorporated.

    Nov

    4

    Audacity Rocks

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    For my latest E-learning toolkit experience I decided I would try my hand at working with the free audio editor Audacity. As a digital audio enthusiast I will admit that I have used Audacity in the past for basic audio editing needs. I have also recommended Audacity to a number of my clients for its ease of use, excellent features and most importantly, its great price (free of course). It’s been a few years since I last used Audacity so this exercise will be a good refresher.

    I started this exercise by downloading the latest version of Audacity and installing it to my PC. As well, I downloaded LAME MP3 encoder in case I needed to create any MP3’s. Next, I reacquainted myself with Audacity by exploring some of the menus and features. It is truly incredible that such a small free program can contain so many audio tools that many professionals require. Now that I had the software installed and ready to go, it was time to record my voice. I took the advice listed under “Getting Ready” on the ETEC 565 Vista page and created a “Do not disturb” sign to post on my door, made sure that the bedroom of my condo had all of the windows and doors shut, and I turned my cell phone off. In addition, I wrote a brief script on a piece of paper that could be easily followed. I launched Audacity, positioned myself somewhat close to my laptop, hit record and tested the built in microphone on my PC laptop to see if it was working. All was good. Audacity recorded a mono file with perfect levels. It was now time for the main recording. With script in my hand, I hit record again and began reading. After about one minute I pressed stop. In front of me was a perfect recording of my voice that required very little expertise and experience. Although a professional microphone would have created a better sounding recording, I was quite happy with quality I was able to get. I also decided to mess around with some of the built in effects that Audacity has to offer. For my final step I saved my Audacity project and as well exported my audio as both an MP3 and a WAV file.

    In all, the process of recording myself using Audacity was super easy. There was basically no setup and the results were very pleasing. I was surprised the fidelity was so good since I was using the built in microphone on my laptop. Of course there is nothing we can do about my voice. I would caution, however, that those that are new to Audacity may run into problems with their microphone not working on first try. If this happens, I recommend they check their input settings in both Audacity and in the Windows Control Panel (For Mac look in system utilities). As well, they must make sure that they select the right input as some will want to use the line input instead of the built in microphone.

    For me, the challenge was not so much in using Audacity but more to do with creating a quality recording. It can be incredibly difficult and frustrating having to record in environments that are not meant for the recording of audio. Making sure your environment is set up appropriately for recording is most important in creating a great sounding recording.

    Using Audacity was a lot of fun and easy to use. In the future I may just start using it more often to compliment my more sophisticated audio tools. Audacity seems like the perfect tool for capturing some guitar ideas before I lose them for forever.

    Oct

    17

    Picasa E-Learning Toolkit

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    Working my way through the Picasa E-learning toolkit activity was a lot of fun because it allowed me to get reacquainted with one of my favourite pieces of software. In addition, it reminded me of how powerful and useful the Picasa software is. The first step I had to do before I could work through this activity was to install Picasa. Recently, my main computer had died (the screen went black). This forced me to purchase another computer. Since my laptop is so new, I had yet to install some of the software that I usually cannot live without. One of these programs happens to be Picasa. It is quite unbelievable that such a great piece of photo editing software is available for free to download. It definitely is a testament to Google and their ability to create creative, powerful, and fun software. Using Picasa in conjunction with Gimp (another free photo editing software similar to Photoshop) gives me all the photo editing and organizing that I need.

    Once I had installed Picasa I decided to browse through the more recent pictures on my computer to see if I could find something I could use for the tutorial. After a few moments, I decided to go with a picture I took off of the pier in Sechelt, British Columbia. I chose this photo because of beautiful scenery captured in the photo and because it was one of the first photos I had taken with my brand new iPhone 4. The iPhone 4 camera is a treat to use and it has rekindled my love for photography, mainly because it takes excellent photos and because it is convenient.

    Editing my photo was a breeze in Picasa. Cropping the photo was the first edit I made and it really could not have been easier. Once the photo was loaded, there were many editing function icons to the left of the photo. Under the tab “Basic Fixes” is where you can find the crop functionality. Once you click on this function, you take the crop tool, place it on your photo, and drag the cursor over the area of the photo that you would like to preserve for your new cropped photo. The new cropped area will become the darker area of the photo. If you like what you have selected, the next step is to press the apply button and you are set. It really doesn’t get any easier than this, which is one of the reasons why I endorse Picasa so extensively.

    Resizing a photo in Picasa is just as easy. Once the user has a photo selected, all they have to do is click on file, which is located on the menu bar at the top of the screen. Next, find the export picture to folder button. Once done, you can enter the resize t

    I also decided to experiment with some of the other editing features of Picasa using a different photo I recently took. To make the picture more appealing I cropped the photo. I then added an effect called “B & L focal point” which removed most of the colour of the photo aside from a little bit around the middle. The end result was very pleasing and took very little effort on my part. That is why I feel that Picasa is great for blogs and webpages as you can manipulate pictures easily using Picasa’s simple photo editing features. To summarize, I really can’t say that much surprised me or challenged me about using Picasa, but I will say that I am always blown away by the software’s ease of use and extensive features list.

    Oh and did I tell you that it is free?

    Oct

    13

    Interactions to Support Learning

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    I really enjoyed reading the Anderson article for this week as it revealed some poignant information. Having little experience myself with online learning, it was interesting to get Anderson’s take on the matter. As well, I think that the article has provided me with some good insight in how I might structure my own online learning environment in the future to provide for a better online learning experience.

    Like I had previously stated, my experience with online learning has been limited to only the courses that I have taken within the MET program. Looking back at these courses, I am confident that each and every one of them followed what Bransford, Brown, and Cocking believe provides an effective learning environment which they call the “attributes of learning” (learner centred, knowledge centred, assessment centred and community centred).  The one area that perhaps some of these courses could improve is with assessment. While Anderson argues that an online learning environment provides ample opportunity for assessment, within the MET program there have times when I desperately needed more assessment from the instructor. In one course the assessment didn’t come until I was given my final grade. This was obviously a situation which was rather stressful as throughout my MET journey, I have sometimes doubted my abilities to be successful.  I feel that if a learning environment such as an online or mixed mode course is to be successful, that all the attributes of learning need to be in place. This includes an online environment where students feel comfortable and competent. As Anderson states, “…the effective online teacher is constantly probing for learner comfort and competence with the intervening technology, and providing safe environments for learners to increase their sense of Internet efficacy” (Anderson, pg. 4).  I will say, however, that collaboration amongst my peers has always been high in all of the online courses I have taken which has fostered peer assessment. Perhaps this is the constructivist way?

    How I might use the learning technology tools to help create meaningful interactions is through the use of video blogs. I have always had an immense interest in using video in an educational environment. With my grade 7 class a few years ago, I began experimenting with having the students create video blogs about themselves to share with the rest of the students. The students would follow the criteria to create a video blog, and then they would proceed to respond to other students’ video blogs. I feel that this type of meaningful interaction provides the students with a collaborative activity that assists them with knowledge construction. Perhaps in the future, I will use video blogging for a social studies or science unit to help students share in ideas.

    Oct

    5

    My First Moodle Experience

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    Last week I decided to take a stab at working with Moodle for the first time in my life. Although I would like to say that the experience was mainly positive, a feeling of frustration in working with Moodle would be a more accurate description. In the next few paragraphs I will comment on my experience with using Moodle and describe some of the challenges and surprises that I encountered along the way.

    My initial impression with working with Moodle was a feeling of confusion, awkwardness and lacking inspiration. Although a little harsh, I do have my reasons for these observations. For example, as I went through the activity I found adding content to the Moodle site to be somewhat confusing as I was constantly searching for buttons and menus, at times guessing in order to complete the task. I can contribute some of this to my inexperience with using Moodle, which is to be expected with learning any new piece of software. However, after an hour of using the LMS, I didn’t feel any more comfortable than when I first started. This is seriously disconcerting to me for two reasons: One being that if an experienced computer user is having difficulty, how would someone with little experience be able to create an online course using Moodle?  Secondly, I am concerned that I will struggle to create my own course with Moodle.

    In addition, I also found the graphical user interface (GUI) to be rather bland and completely void of any inspiration. The GUI really didn’t speak to me or provide the inspiration that some software GUI’s do. Maybe that is not the intention of the GUI but I am one of those people that are greatly affected by the GUI of software. For example, one of the reasons why I enjoy using Cubase audio software so much is because of the way it looks and feels. In my opinion, a graphical user interface can greatly affect the way you interact with the software, even affecting content that you create. Hopefully I will be able to get around the “look” of the software and focus more on learning the functions and features.

    Even though I found fault with Moodle, there were some positives that I can take away from the experience. Firstly, I thought that Moodle was fairly fast and responsive. For example, I didn’t experience any lag when I added text. Secondly, Moodle, from what I could tell, seemed to have a lot of features and options to create a successful online learning environment.

    I believe that my biggest challenge that I face with using Moodle is the appeal of the interface and finding my way around. Having to create our own course using Moodle will be a great challenge but, nevertheless, I look forward to learning the system and creating an excellent Moodle site.

    Sep

    26

    Creating the DVD

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    This week I decided to take a look at the DVD wiki and use iDVD to create my very own DVD. As someone who embraces the use of technology in the classroom, I never thought about the DVD as part of this technology. For me, DVDs’ have always been a great way to provide my students with pertinent, easy to follow information that always seems to perk the interest of my students. It never really dawned on me how portable and easy to use the DVD format is. Secondly, I never really thought about creating my own DVD to be used in an educational setting. In any event, I thought that I would take the plunge and work my way through the activity. First thing I needed to do was purchase some blank discs as lately I have gotten away from using any type of optical format. This is mainly to do with trying to reduce my consumption and waste. As well, it seems that lately I have been plugging my computer into the projector and playing my media directly from the hard drive. Anyway, after I made my purchase at the local Future Shop I was ready to start, or at least I thought that I was. The problem? Do I create my DVD disc on my PC which has some pretty good DVD creation software or do I use my Mac and go with iDVD? Well after about twenty minutes of pondering and weighing my options, I opted for iDVD. Now I don’t want this to get into a Mac vs. PC debate because I think they both possess both positive and negative attributes but I just felt like using the program that I’ve had a lot of experience working with. Now that I had picked my software, I was ready to go.

    What I really like about iDVD are the various themes that the software comes preloaded with. They are very professional looking. So after browsing through the themes I made my choice and proceeded on. The next step for me was to decide on a video to use to create the DVD. After a few minutes I decided on two; one short documentary video I created about Chinese cities and a Claymation project I had worked on many years ago. Both of the videos were easily imported into the project which made me ready to burn. I almost pressed the burn button when I decided that the project would look better if I imported some photos for the opening DVD animation. So I looked through my Mac photos and found some pictures that would do the job. At last I was ready to burn the project. Nearly forty minutes later and I had myself a brand new DVD. I decided to test the final product on my DVD player to see how it turned out and if it burned correctly.  To great excitement, the disc turned out exactly as it was intended and I am happy to report that it seems to play back on every machine that I have tried it on thus far. The process was quite easy and worked as intended. Now if only I had more video to burn!

    Sep

    24

    SECTIONS

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    Since I am primarily an elementary school  teacher, Bates and Poole’s Sections Framework seemed to resonate a little more with me than Chickering and Gamson’s framework. I am all too familiar with the problems associated with the costs of technology. For example, it can be quite the problem if you are trying to implement a movie-making unit and there is a lack of equipment for the unit to run smoothly. In addition, the reliability and ease of using video equipment pose an equally sticky situation. Furthermore, I think where I have run into problems in the past is in regards to the appropriateness of technologies for a particular group of students. Sometimes I have become way too ambitious with projects and as a result they didn’t go exactly as planned and didn’t enhance students’ learning in a way that I thought the technology would.

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