Category Archives: Blog

Do You Remember Your Pre-Internet Brain?

“In the last few years I’ve been saying I miss my pre-Internet brain, and I think people know what I mean. And then lately I’ve been realizing I no longer even remember my pre-Internet brain. This technology has rewired my own brain, and I mean that in a genuine neurological sense, but it’s also rewired everyone else’s brain the same way.”

– Douglas Coupland

Image by parm27 (CC-BY)

Image by parm27 (CC-BY)

Douglas Coupland is not the only person to comment on the way the internet has impacted our thinking. Michael Wesch’s video, “Information R/evolution,” shows how digital information is different than written information. Consequently, the way we think of information is different as well.

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Interactive Timeline

Creating an interactive timeline using TimelineJS 3, is straightforward, yet there is still enough flexibility to customize some formatting, and to add content to the timeline using HTML code.

As indicated on the TimelineJS 3 website, there are only four steps to create the timeline:

  1. Download the timeline google spreadsheet template document provided on theTimelineJS 3 website and follow the instructions to populate it.
  2. Publish the Google spreadsheet.
  3. Paste the published Google spreadsheets url into the Timeline JS generator and select formatting options.
  4. Embed the code into your website, or blog.

Here is a sample of a timeline I created for a project in the ETEC 540: Text Technology: The Changing Spaces of Reading and Writing course.

The drawback with creating interactive timelines using this tool, is that links can be broken as content is removed or moved online. But that is a common issue when referencing online content and resources.

The Mindy Project: Media Study Guide

Our first assignment in the  ETEC 531:  Cultural and New Media Studies was to create a media study guide based on a television series, game series or a theater show. Since we are all fans of the show, my group selected The Mindy Project as our subject. We created the guide for students in grade 10.

All the media guides created by our class will be included in a section in a book created by ETEC531 peers. My group and I created the study guide using Lucidpress, which, as I’ve mentioned in a previous post, is an online publishing software.  If you would like to use the media study guide for your training, click on the image below to access it , or download the pdf file.

from: http://pub.lucidpress.com/4fcfdf86-dc41-4f66-931f-3a24f2f2708a/

from: http://pub.lucidpress.com/4fcfdf86-dc41-4f66-931f-3a24f2f2708a/

Media Literacy Education

I am learning about media literacy in the ETEC531: Cultural and New Media Studies course. The question of whether media education important enough to be requirement in education is something that interested me. I recall a point made by Sir Ken Robinson, in his Do Schools Kill Creativity Ted Talk (2006). He mentions “education is meant to take us into a future we can’t grasp”. We are walking into the future, but trying to base it on the past. Because of this, and the rapidly changing technologies, teaching media literacy is particularly challenging.

That being said, it does make sense for media literacy education objectives to cover the past practises, in addition to the most current practices, to serve as a foundation for future knowledge to be built upon. If educators focus on digital media which is only 20 or 30 years old, the affordances of newer forms of digital media will not be fully understood or appreciated. If the previous forms are neglected, then the context, progression, and development of those technologies would not be understood or valued. Experts have noted this difficulty to “fully capture the diversity of ‘past’ ideas and experiences that shape our practices” and “how can we capture the ‘present’ state of media literacy education worldwide”.

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Canva

Canva is an online graphic design platform which makes it easy for anyone to create designs that look professional. Users can choose from professionally designed layouts or create their own designs. It’s drag and drop interface is intuitive so anyone can create posters, infographics, social media graphics, brochures, flyers and business cards. The designs can be downloaded as graphic files (JPG or PNG) or as print or web optimized PDF files. Continue reading →