ePortfolio

Here is a short descriptor of my experience of using mobile technology to access/develop content.

I decided to use my Android phone to access our ETEC Vista site, over my Ipad, which I think is cheating in this case. First thing I noticed is how compressed everything is. I was constantly pinching to get a good look at content. I also found that using a touch screen device is extremely painful when entering in alphanumeric passwords – I probably did it 5 times before I got it right.
Surfing the site was fairly straightforward and I had no problem creating a response to this week’s discussion topic.
I looked in the Android marketplace for an app, but there was none (or maybe there was, but it was buried amongst all the other useless apps). Overall, I would say the experience was not so desirable. Maybe if I was on the road, or away from my laptop, and I needed to access the site for whatever reason, I would use this device. It just takes too much time to use on a frequent basis.

I did have fun with adding content to my Moodle site. It was not very straight forward though. I began by taking a video. I thought I could just upload it to the files right in the Moodle site, but when I went to upload, there was no window or directory present. This must be a java issue. As much, I logged into google docs, uploaded the file there and then created a public linking address to the file. Going back to Moodle, I added the video as a web link rather than a pointed to file. It worked.
Again in this case, there was no app in the Android marketplace for Moodle developing.

I suspect if there were apps available, the process would not have been so painful. From a developer’s perspective, apps have drawbacks. They do not let you see the site the same way a desktop user would. This is the one thing I appreciated about using my phone, is that the sites loaded in full. As mentioned, there is much to desire here. You have to use some realistic thinking though when you have a screen that is only some 4 inches in size.

I have found though that I prefer some mobile sites to full sites because of the use of limited media and add-ons. CNN is a good example of this. I am not sure how transferable this is to the online classroom, where students need to be engaged?

Cheers,
RM

Good day all:

My choice in using Google Maps My Maps was based on a few criteria (some not by choice). I have always felt that Google Maps has much potential. I’ve noticed that students in my classes have just enjoyed playing around with it, something that is not always true of all software. I really believe that it could be used in place of hand drawn maps in social studies (geography). As such, this is why I chose this tool – to take something that I have had my students do by hand and do it online.

Originally, I wanted to use a tool that made use of geotagging. While there are tools that allow you to post pictures online that map where that picture were taken, there is little option to develop a story (ex. panoramio). I think My Maps really allows a viewer to experience the journey or story in a deeper way – those who are viewing may be able to connect to locations and pictures more than they could to a hand drawn map.

While my story is not completely factual (it’s a combination of a number of true stories), the tool did let me develop it in a way where it could be. The tool allowed me to go back to those locations and think of why they were important. It very much streamlined my thinking, putting all events in a linear path. Also, with the ability to shift icons up or down, I could change the progress of the story. In comparison to voice or simple text, I found the tool ignited more memories to use as content for the story.

I could see this tool being used in the classroom for a number of reasons. Yet, I developed my story to match an expectation for the grade eight social studies curriculum:
“create and use a variety of maps for specific purposes (e.g.,to show land use, transportation routes, population distribution,popular tourist destinations)”
(Courtesy of the Ontario Ministry of Education)
The challenge here is to allow students access to Google Maps. As long as they have a google account, they can access the tool. This may differ from school board to school board based on firewalls and internet filters.

In the end, I think students would find this to be a rewarding experience. It gets them working with online tools, developing content, using a camera and presenting a finished product they can share with their classmates. I particularly like that the work is not “islanded” at the school. It can accessed from home, where the parents can share in the experience with their son/daughter.

View In My Neighbourhood in a larger map

So I began with the forum that I have used the most recently, and that is World of Warcraft. Very simply they say:

“NOTWITHSTANDING ANYTHING TO THE CONTRARY HEREIN, YOU ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT YOU SHALL HAVE NO OWNERSHIP OR OTHER PROPERTY INTEREST IN ANY ACCOUNT STORED OR HOSTED ON A BLIZZARD SYSTEM, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION ANY BNET ACCOUNT OR WORLD OF WARCRAFT ACCOUNT, AND YOU FURTHER ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT ALL RIGHTS IN AND TO SUCH ACCOUNTS ARE AND SHALL FOREVER BE OWNED BY AND INURE TO THE BENEFIT OF BLIZZARD.” — notice the caps?

WordPress has a little more refined ToS, yet does little to protect content:

“By submitting Content to Automattic for inclusion on your Website, you grant Automattic a world-wide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, modify, adapt and publish the Content solely for the purpose of displaying, distributing and promoting your blog. If you delete Content, Automattic will use reasonable efforts to remove it from the Website, but you acknowledge that caching or references to the Content may not be made immediately unavailable.”

In comparison, LiveJournal takes the time to be specific about the rights of its users:

“LiveJournal claims no ownership or control over any Content posted by its users. The author retains all patent, trademarks, and copyrights to all posted Content, and is fully responsible for protecting said rights. While LiveJournal will comply with all lawful DMCA claims and remove copyright- and/or trademark-protected Content in a timely manner, it is not responsible for policing said rights for its users. By posting Content to LiveJournal, you hereby acknowledge and agree that you have all rights necessary to post such Content (and for LiveJournal to serve such Content) without violation of any laws or regulations, and/or intellectual property or other rights of third parties”

Lastly, I went back to the first site I ever created a blog on, Blogger:

“Much of the content of Blogger.com and Blogspot.com — including the contents of specific postings — is provided by and is the responsibility of the person or people who made such postings. Google does not monitor the content of Blogger.com and Blogspot.com and takes no responsibility for such content. Instead, Google merely provides access to such content as a service to you.”

With regards to all the language above, it appears that LiveJournal has the tightest terms of service for the user. While I don’t expect students to be writing about material that could be intellectual property (ex. recipe for cold fusion), I do feel they should know that what they compose does belong to them.

Since many of the weblogs online are free, I would find it hard that students could demand that the company owes them something if it is shared with world. Yet, the WoW ToS does make me wonder about property rights. Since I paid for the game, and the monthly subscription, I should feel entitled to using at least something from the game without receiving a legal notice.

Overall, when using a weblog (or forum), the student and teacher must realize they are giving something up in the controlling of content. It would make sense for any educator to read through the ToS of any site, before they allow their students to post content.

— On a side note, I am curious as to why content was spelled with a capital “C” in two of the four ToS’s?

I was thinking of how this teacher could help his students become better at understanding the periodic table.

The first thing that came to mind was an app for the Ipad that is simply called The Elements. While it would require the students to have an Ipad, it would be a great app to have at your disposal if you wanted to familiarize yourself with the table.

Another tool I think would be beneficial is Elementeo, a card game. In the past, I have found that competition has been a great way to motivate students, when needed. While some may be turned off by Pokeman like games, I think this again would help promote student learning.

RM

Hi all:

Well I have been trying to set up these communication tools over the last few days. The Moodle like in the Toolkit would not do anything for me, but open up a working communication room. When I first did this, I found the set up process fairly straightforward in terms of correct software and hardware. I actually really enjoyed our Wimba session the other day – I talked to a number of other teachers at my school who I know are either taking AQ courses or have just completed one and expressed how functional that engagement was.

The Vista shell and live classroom was very simple to set up (surprisingly). I would like to see how it would actually work in real live. I have yet to experience that in this program. More so, from an instructor’s/administrator point of view.

In terms of the other independent software, these are all tools I have worked with in the past, expect for the Google plug-in. I was thinking back to our group assignment and thought how beneficial it would have been to have that tool … other than the text messages we had running in a message board.

Overall, I enjoyed the chance to play around with the Vista sandbox, since we use it on a day-to-day basis for our courses.

RM

Hi all:

So, I decided to return to an old friend of mine called Dreamweaver (DW) to build a website of sorts.

I have not worked in the HTML environment for a long time now, so I was more curious as to how fast I could put together a linking website with some simple text and pictures. I didn’t want to do anything far out, such as toolbars and/or tabs, just nice and simple. I kept the premise easy, recipes, and grabbed the needed pictures from the internet.

I remembered to create an index.html as the home page and built the linking pages from there. It does not appear that DW has changed much since I last used it (2006?). Though I was pleasantly surprised that I could copy and paste Wordart from MS word into the .html files and a source image was automatically generated in the corresponding folder. I was also impressed with the number of templates they have available.

I found the use of tables to be beneficial for keeping items organized and having a template to work from.

When it comes to the Moodle website, I will surely include a more organized/appealing layout.

In total, it took me roughly an hour and half to just to build that simple four page site.

Cheers,
Ryan.

Having just worked through the toolkit, I found everything to be rather straight forward. I do assume it will take time to get use to the layout of the Moodle editing, but it seems rather intuitive. I do like how easy it is to build pages, yet some of the options seem extensive – something I would need to explore. I was surprised at how bland everything looked thought after being published and was wondering how do I go about editing the pages using a program like Dreamweaver.

Overall, a good introduction!

RM

So today, I just realized that I should be posting my observations to the toolkit activities and other rational developments. I might have to work backwards in succession, but I will get on this.

RM

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