WEBCAST IT!

Yes I did changed the topic for my final project. Here it is a brief introduction to it:

Webcast It! is an online tutorial committed to sharing knowledge about broadcasting video over the web. It is a website where people can go to get more information about digitizing video; creating, transferring (from a camcorder to a computer) and posting videos on the Internet. Another main characteristic of Webcast It! is the fact that it uses Web 2.0 applications to encourage instructors and learners to collaborate to the lessons and share their knowledge.

FINAL PROJECT PROPOSAL

Title: Create Your Own e-Learning Site Using Moodle

* Topic
Introduction to designing a website that uses a course management system - Moodle.
* Primary audience
Teachers at universities, colleges and schools.
* Secondary audience
Students and workers of universities, colleges and schools.
* Instructional and/or learning problem(s) you are trying to solve
One example: a lot of times during a semester/quarter, teachers see themselves repeating a lot of information that could be posted somewhere. Lack of communication can also be a problem for students and teachers.
* Instructional and/or learning goals
The learning goal of the guide is to intruct teachers (and other users) to use Moodle as an online tool that will help them to organize course material and improve communication in and out of the classroom.
* The methods to reach the stated goals (mention which technologies you are going to use to create learning environment to achieve the state goals. Explain why the technologies you choice are the best to meet your goals.
The delivery method for this tutorial will be a website that showcases a course management system - Moodle. I will use a wiki and blog. Both parts of the website that uses these 2 web 2.0 tools will offer the possibility for the user to interact to with the designer of tutorial.
* How would you determine that the stated goals are met (brainstorm how you would assess the goals, you will not have time to really do it)
I will ask my classmates and the teacher of this class to give me some feedback; in doing so, I will be able to correct and/or improve the effectiveness of the tutorial.

Everyday Design – CD Cases

I chose to talk about something that is very simple but I have thought about the product development of CD cases for a long time. I have them for many years and I can see that they have gotten thinner. The cases are used in different instances. At first it was used mostly for music CDs. Later we started using them for storage of “burned” CDs.

One design flaw that many of us never liked too much as the packaging of CDs, and used by most Music Industry Companies, was the seal that keeps music CDs secure. I believe that such a seal is still widely used to secure CDs. I don’t buy music in physical stores anymore, but the last time I bought one, they were still using a similar type of seal.

Even if the design of a CD case still has its problems, as mentioned before, there has been a few improvements that made the difference for me. I am talking about how thinner the CD cases got. Sometimes I still carry these cases on some of trips, with music/data CDs or DVDs and thinner cases are a great thing to minimize the size of bags that I have to carry.

SocialText - Eugene Lee

SocialText

The CEO of SocialText (ST), Eugene Lee, made a great presentation about Web 2.0 technology in general, the company and products that he now represents – the collaborative Web 2.0 site SocialText.com. The products are named Socialtext People, (ST) Dashboard and (ST) Workspace.

ST is a very interesting company that poses itself as a central station online for companies that want to use secure Web 2.0 tools like wikis, blogs, social networking, widget dashboards, and others. It was an impressive presentation for it is undeniable the passion that he feels for the company, products and technology that he now showcase. Also impressive was his curriculum vitae. He has been working in the field, if I remember his presentation correctly, for decades now. He was one of the vice-president of Adobe, Inc.

By the way, he is one example of the excellent speakers that we have had in our class this semester. It is great that we have speakers coming in, or connecting with us via web conferencing, to give speeches to our class because we get reports about how technology is being used out there in the real world.

Five Frams Story

Click on the image above to play slide show

I am not going to say much about the meaning of the slide sequence so people can find their own meanings... but I want to say that this was a lot of fun to create. First, I tried to find pictures. Then, I found that it was better to draw frames myself. I know, I don't draw that well, but I ended up by doing exactly what I wanted. I know I am posting this kinda late. If anybody has any comments, please add it below.

Thanks,

Henry

STORYTELLING - A Collaborative Work

For me this was one of the best project that I participated in this class. It was really great to use a wiki tool (Wetpaint) to create collectevily this story. When we were working on this project, I couldn’t wait to see where our story was going. I was always excited to write the parts that I wrote. In the presentation, Melissa gave us a great reading of our story. I hope you guys enjoying getting to know the characters of this story.

Henry

Below you will find the link to wetpaint, and part of the text that is on my group's wiki site.

---------------
ITEC 830 STORY ---> http://itec830story.wetpaint.com/

The members of the story team are:

Melissa Taylor-Salvador

Henrique Cordeiro

Daniel Dworkin

Walter Hanley

We moodled around with several concepts including a brief history of ITEC before deciding to collaboratively write a story and to use a wiki page as the collaborative tool. The idea was triggered by a couple of things: a few words Professor Foreman spoke during the 30th October class meeting during which she emphasized collaboration, and a game with of unknown origin in which writers take turns plotting the elements of a story.

We wrote instructions for ourselves---rules of the game---which you will find on the next page. The subpage following the rules contains the story to date. We have never discussed the genre, characters, plot---never discussed anything about the story. We only agreed to write one.
We believe we have captured more than one of Pink's Six Senses; certainly Story is present, but so, too, are Design, Symphony and Play---perhaps even Meaning, if we don't take ourselves too seriously.

Enjoy!

Melissa, Henry, Dan, Walter

Mobile Learning and Location-based Learning

Leslie Rule gave a great presentation about how technology is constantly changing and how students and instructors can utilize it. Last semester, Leslie gave a workshop on Digital Storytelling in one of the classes that I took - ITEC 800. Now her presentation had a new main focus – Mobile Technology. It seems that she is encouraging us, ITEC students, to go out there, with our mobile devices (i.e. iPhones) to produce media and informational materials. She also emphasized that interactivity should be in our minds. The main point that I am trying to make is that she is now encouraging us to be outdoors and interacting with people, instead of producing content indoors only. From what I understood, she was pointing out that with “old style” Digital Storytelling there was a tendency of people that were producing these types of stories, to be indoors and somewhat isolated.

She mentioned how technology is becoming more mobile oriented. More powerful phones and PDAs are available now and their popularity is rising. People traveling, kids and teachers on field trips can now explore and produce a lot of content from their mobile devices. GPS technology is one of the main features that make all this revolution possible. As one is out and about, Google Maps (available in several phones) can guide to find details about different locations. Many links like wiki documents, blogs, websites, photos and videos (and other content sites) are attached to Google Maps. Many phones are also capable to deliver content directly from a remote location. And ... do you know what else you can do with phones with mapping technology? You can also find a pizza place close to you.