Assignment 1 – Blog Post – March 30

For my final entry here for edci339, i have to say i am completely satisfied with what i’ve learned in this course. i have learned a lot of new technology such as camtasia studio and working with pbworks. i completed a project with kevin, my brother on how to graph a demand and supply graph and did an online presentation as an overview for our project. valerie has taught us a great deal of information on online course work and multimedia that can give us an upper hand for the future. i learned lots of new applications and about technology and this can only be an asset for me. everyone have a great summer and good luck on your exams!

Assignment 1 – Blog Post – Mar 25

I have completed the major project with my brother last week and i am glad that we finished just on time..it was a different project that i’m used to but i am happy i was able to do it. One of the best things about a group project is you learn something new but because my brother is a diabetic, i was familiar with the disease already. I have been quite busy with a lot lately and i’m still working away on other projects but this is actually my final post on this blog. It’s been a great experience with EDCI as i’ve just learned in the past weeks about the expensive machinery used for video conferencing. I’ve never been exposed to that before so this was interesting to learn about how technology can be used to have private chats with others in the building.

I am hopeful and amazed of how technology can really change my life and distance education has taught me how flexible and great learning can be as it helps you learn through in class and online. I thank Valerie for the material she has taught us and EDCI 337 has been a good experience.

Assignment 1 – Blog Post – March.5

I recently viewed the video by John Willinsky, who discussess the idea that open access knowledge is a part of society and everyone deserves the right to have an access to relevant information posted from respective authors. But because posting information has changed since copyright legislation has made information difficult to obtain, it has now made information accessed only through a fee or by membership. He propses that information should be open accessed because with the internet, information is flowing online and people are able to post anything freely and consequently build an audience. However, researchers have found out for a year that the cost to put a journal online was 0 to 600,000. It can either be very costly or free according to what they found out. John also describes his model from open access, open source and open journal systems. He states tht an article that’s open access can get read more often and cited and if used, is 3 times more likely, it would make a considerable impact from one that is not.

In conclusion, open access knowledge can contribute greatly to everyone’s knowledge. If we had information that is widely available, more people can view the author’s material and traffic has increased.

Assignment 1 – Blog Post – March.4

For 2 weeks i’ve been busy with studying for my economics course and reading and understanding the new material for EDCI 337/339. Last week we were introduced to image editing and although i could not attend class that week, i was able to learn from the software given on my own. I have worked with photoshop in the past so i tried to work on irfanview as it was new to me..Unfortunately, i’ve found the program quite similar to photoshop and i didn’t find it that much different but i will consider this program as a back up software to use.

Tech Task – Voicethread

here is a link to my voicethread

http://voicethread.com/share/1763250/

Assignment 1 – Blog Posts – Feb.11

We’ve been studying the past 2 weeks about Audacity and Voicethread.

Audacity is a basic program that allows you to record your voice through it’s software as long as you have a microphone on the computer. It also allows you to edit the audio to any way you want so that you can add effects of your choice. You can download the program through audacity.sourceforge.net for free and you can record your personal audio to include in videos.

We were then introduced to Voicethread found at http://www.voicethread.com, a website that you can insert your own video or audio montage with pictures to the website and share it with your friends or anyone who views your project you have created. It also allows you to comment on others through audio and video or comment into what you are watching.

Together i’ve found these new software valuable because i can incorporate these into my projects for this class or other classes if i ever needed to. As well, learning something new can always be an asset for me as i can also help others if they need something to use for their projects as well.

Asst 1 – Blog Posts – Feb.4

Last Week  i viewed the video Valerie posted on Gordon Booth who discusses the idea of integrating teaching and distributed learning as a way of teaching students in a classroom.  Teachers are able to get across their ideas through a computer screen during live video conferencing with students watching in a classroom. This gives the teacher flexibility on their teaching by using interactive whiteboards, green screens and other methods to give the student a broader understanding of things that the teacher is able to use at their location. Students can only learn so much from video conferencing and the teacher must present 3 or 4 big ideals so that they can take away from the VC. We were also introduced to Audacity found on http://audacity.sourceforge.net/, an open source program for recording, editing and importing/exporting mp3’s free of use. This is a good program to use because it allows you to play around with sounds and edit the way you want for your own project that we were asked to come up with and create due in mid March. A project i’m considering working on by creating a website using html which we were also introduced to.This is an example of Audacity in use

The following week we were presented with a podcast video with the University Librarian Inba Kehoe who discusses copyright and how we should be concerned with using images or videos for personal use since it may be copyrighted. Copyrighted material means those images and videos that are protected by its author so that no one may use for personal use on their websites or for posting on streaming sites such as youtube. unless that video or image is free of use, it is not permittable by users unless you give credit to its author. free images and videos are available as discussed by Alec Courous on http://www.archive.org where you can search and use files and videos for personal use and unique creativity. Alec also talks about sharing your work with others to spread new ideas. on http://www.flickr.com/groups/858082@N25/, teachers are abe to put together educational material for all teachers in the group to share and use for their own students in today’s 21st century learning. He also linked a site to http://eci831.wikispaces.com/NonCredit where grad students and teachers put together their own feedback for others to engage in teaching methods.

Assignment 1 – Blog Posts

In the first 2 weeks of this course we’ve learned the basics of creating a blog and the importance of visual literacy learning from jakes article and how it can teach us to learn from visual imagery and i concur with this analogy because the optic nerve  can transmit more information than the auditory nerve which helps the individual learn in a more efficient manner.

We’ve also learned how to create powerpoint through various resources, as well as copyright from images that can be either free of use for your own personal use or copyrighted which means you must have permission to use or give credit to the author of that image for your personal use. We also learned how to screen capture which can record audio and movement using software such as camstudio. These will be important resources in the coming weeks because we will be using them for our major projects. We were asked to put a group together to create our major projects using the 3 ways we have learned: screen capture, power point and video presentation

I have personally never done any of these ways of creating a presentation so it will be my first time but i’m hoping that it will be a learning experience for me to have knowledge of from here on.

Asst 1 – Blog Posts

I’ve just finished viewing and reading Valerie’s post this past week for EDCI 339 introducing the tools to create a wordpress blog, skype, twitter, moodle and the use of powerpoints from her first instructional video. The second instructional video talks about various methods of learning through different types of teaching such as blended learning, online learning and multi-access learning.
Many of these learning resources aren’t new to me but i have yet to use most them such as small pod video conferencing units or large rollable units for video conferencing. My main use of video conferencing so far has only been skype found on http://www.skype.com
One of the new things i’ll be hopefully learning to teach myself to use which is new to me are programs such as Elluminate that allows audio lectures andan interactive white board for sending messages as well as video conferencing found on http://www.elluminate.com.
I’ve this program most interesting because it does a lot of the things skype can not such as file transferring which i think will be useful for group projects where we can not all be there at once.
I’ve also learned the importance of online learning because it allows flexibilty among teacher and students and gives us time to absorb the material on our own time. There are many websites that allows to connect with one another with primarily moodle but as well as elluminate, skype. New programs to use such as web 2.0 and voicethread for projects and community support from http://2learn.ca and the Uvic Tie lab.
I hope thereby learning these new programs will help me in my studies at uvic and when i’m finished with my studies.

Visual Literacy Learning

I just read finished reading David Jakes article on visual literacy learning.  David Jakes believes that visual learning is the most effective way to communicate ideas to people in the an efficient and quick manner. 

David Jakes proves his idea that visual learning is the most effective by giving visual learning a biological basis for learning.  The reason that Jakes point out is that the optic nerve transmit more information to the brain, then through the auditory nerve.

Jakes also said that visual learning is an emotional process.  If you can bring up an emotion through a visual mean you can sell your idea.  For example in his slide show he showed images of 911 attacks and earthquakes to show how those images bring up emotions and could teach the person.

The process of visual learnings leads to the idea of being a citizen journalist.  A citizen journalist is individual who can report on events and news independently.  The mass access to digital cameras and websites like flicker,Facebook,  and YouTube, people can communicate and distribute their images and video in a quick and efficient manner.  People can now share those ideas and events in matter of seconds to people.

Jakes thinks that to communicate those ideas you have to be able to work in multiple mediums.  An example is mixing a picture, with a link to wiki and google streetviews. Davis thinks if you don’t generate an emotion through this mashing up of ideas you wont be able to communicate your ideas and will be lost in other people trying to communicate their ideas.  Jakes then uses Flickr, Facebook, and other social networking sites to share his ideas.

I agree with Jakes that visual learning is the most effective way of learning for the majority of people.  Images can input more information then through auditory learning.  There is a biological reason that optic nerve transmit more information then the auditory nerve. However, if you can combine both mediums of learning you could have a more effective way of learning and communicating ideas.