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I love you Audacity.

It really is quite amazing how limited your rights are when you use any of these social media sites (SecondLife, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook). In many cases it feels mostly like the companies are protecting themselves instead of trying to rob or steal good ideas from people. But in some cases, the ability to sell the information or further benefit the company seems somewhat disturbing and certainly worth questioning in any educational context.

As for who owns the content posted on most of the sites I looked at do specify that users maintain ownership, however, they seem to reserve the right to be able to take that content and utilize it or build on it in any way they see fit. And while this legalese sounds a little sketchy and even intimidating, I don’t suspect these businesses would stay in favor with the public long if there were ongoing issues related to stealing or pilfering the ideas and intellectual property of their users. However, I also do not suspect that most users have really taken any time (or even care) to see if and how the material and information they’ve posted on these sites is used. If I had more time I would really like to explore any ongoing or precedent-setting lawsuits/legal cases in this area. It would be interesting to see any extreme examples of misuse on the part of the companies.

In terms of deciding which sites to use with students, it definitely depends on the setting and age groups. In some cases the terms of service prohibit students of a certain age from accessing the material, and rightfully so! However, this seems a pretty thin veil and the terms of service also seemed to do whatever they can to limit the particular companies from any liability. However, students are likely to engage with these tools or ones like them at some point in their lives so I think it’s a good idea to expose them to as early as possible and take advantage of the opportunities of having this exposure occur in an educational setting. Even in the case of those sites where mature content can be accessed I think it’s likely worth discussing that with younger students. With older students, there is obviously less of an issue.

In my opinion we have pretty much given away our privacy in general in the 21st-century. There used to be a time when I was very concerned about giving out personal information, or about giving away good ideas, but frankly I think like most of the public, I’ve become worn down and have simply given up trying to protect my own rights. I can’t imagine how many crazy things I’ve agreed to by simply clicking on the ‘I agree’ to terms of service buttons. However, the fact is that the privacy interests of members represented in the sites is poor at best.

Now i can’t wait to find a good audio editor. You’ll figure out why, fast. Anybody know any that are good? And by good I mostly mean free…

Simple

Untitled 85

Feel pretty empowered by converting a few voice files and adding them to my exam. Because it was so easy and I am interested in learning more about voice editing, I think I am going to post a few audio posts on this here blog.

Further to my previous post I find that the checklist represents a little too long a list and am not sure that any site would be able to say no to every single one of these items. Nor am I sure they would want to. Bottomline is that there is no one formula for  good design of any kind including web. The people that break the rules are often the very best.I have gone through many web design efforts and am always surprised at what designs test well in A/B phases. I am even more surprised how difficult it is to find a good designer. Some of the biggest mistakes made are that people (including me) convince themselves that they can do what is a very, very difficult job. Yet design can absolutely make or break the overall experience for users.

That said, the list is a very good starting point. And definitely offers some very sound advice. In particular, having a central focus for users on each page. I also laughed an awful lot at some of the sites on the top-10 bad list. Soooooooo bad! I wonder if any of them still don’t know they are on the list or if they take any sense of pride in it? I could see people I know actually taking great pride in being on this list. Sick webbies!

In terms of what I found from this particular exercise is that I need to be able to get a better understanding of PHP in order to make the tweaks that I want in a finished design/ user experience. I  do love working in a CMS and Word Press in particular makes it so easy to build a page that looks and acts as you want it to. Being able to visualize what you want and then bring it into being so quickly is wonderful. But getting it to 75% and 95%+ of what you storyboard, represents a significant difference. And that demands being able to tweak code, which is doable, but very time consuming and not something I personally enjoy all that much. In particular, ofr this project I found it difficult to try and add a second or third column to a templated one column Word Press theme. I think I found the right place to make that change and the right code to put into that place, but I can’t get it to work exactly like I want it to. Grrrr! Developer! Somebody bring me a developer! Stat!

Based on the criteria, in here,  I am pretty sure this web site sucks! Which is pretty funny. But that list is very long and I am not so sure I agree with everything on it. In fact, I am not sure I can think of or find many sites that don’t make at least one of those design ‘mistakes’.

I had an excellent session with Ken last week. We talked in a great deal of depth about his early educational experiences with both his father and the Irish school teacher assigned to the one room school house near the cannery in the Kitlope. He speaks of both with a great deal of fondness and says that Irish woman taught him some of the most valuable lessons of his life. Other school experiences, not so much. Also, interesting to talk about the influence that Europeans had on Ken’s father. Particularly a Norwegian navigator. That collaboration has definitely trickled down and there seems to be more reverence than remorse for Western education/ knowledge when I talk to Ken about this. Apparently the abandoned cannery school house is still there. I really hope to see it. Something tells me that the spirit and energy of that school house will be valuable to this project.

 

About halfway through my proposal I came to realize that I would likely have  been better to address my proposal to UBC. It feels like I would likely get better support and find more interest in the project. Although I do work for NIC, I am not sure that the proposal would actually meet with approval. I think it is persuasive enough, but would have liked to make my pitch to somebody or somewhere where there is a much more real possibility of moving forward (although i guess you never know with NIC). What is interesting is that the Comox Valley Art Gallery and it’s new media lab and focus on First Nations youth looks like it may end up being a very reasonable and reliable partner on this. That emerged quite late in the process and I wished I had time to focus entirely on working with them through this proposal. Hopefully the current proposal will provide at least a base to work from on that.

 

As I move through the course work and get the chance to review more and more successful educational technology projects, the more I am able to theorize about how to utilize the knowledge. I realize that most of my classmates are educators in the public school system. The knowledge obviously and directly applies to their work. What is surprising is just how much it fits into mine. This switch from thinking about CMSs to LMSs is very stimulating. I am finding some really interesting ways almost every one of my clients could benefit from the integration of an LM$.

As I look closer and closer at the server requirements for Moodle and consider server admin more carefully, I still have difficulty wrapping my head around why more people don’t use third parties? For example, I use bluehost and they make everything in my life sooooooo easy when it comes to web administration. I suspect that there are significant legal issues related to education and student confidentiality that impact this and I know that there is lots of literature available. And I’ve lived through the experiences of the US departement of justice cracking down on some of my clients, which had pretty heavy impacts on their business based on where and how their servers were hosted. However, I would really like to talk in a peer setting about this topic in a little more detail, specifically as it relates to Moodle and Education in Canada,  if anybody is interested.

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