Technology in the Classroom

The video “Did You Know 2.0” touches on a number of interesting facts. One of these are that children are being given technology sooner in life. The example shown was that of the One Laptop per Child Project.  For my first discussion post this week, I have used the shifthappens wiki to search for a related topic. I came across a post where a teacher was asking what other educators were doing to help children be successful growing up in the 21^st century. She mentioned that she was one of the teachers using Moodle in her class. At her institution, this program is voluntary. (XPLANE, 2007; Jennifer_Kolb, 2007)

I saw one response that mentioned focusing on social media. Personally, I think it is a bit scary to think about young children engaging on the social media sites of today, but I can see how it could be useful, if heavily moderated. Individuals and companies across the world use this method of engaging (a big factor in web 2.0) each day. I wasn’t able to look more into the course provided on Moodle, but there was one in socially networked learning. It claims to offer help as far as teaching and learning through the use of social media in classrooms. Perhaps this is an example of how she could visit this topic further. (Jennifer_Kolb, 2007)

Another person made a good point on the argument of technology’s side, mentioning that as long as students are taking the time to learn the material, it shouldn’t matter what way they are doing so. I can see backing this statement up as well. Personally, I am not very keen on classroom settings and learn better in a comfortable and solitary environment. This is a huge reason why online learning has been successful for me. I don’t have the hang up of classroom anxiety, the pressure of needing to make it to class on a specific day or time, and I have many more materials to help my learning process on the internet. (Jennifer_Kolb, 2007)

Overall, I think that learning along with using technology will only be of benefit to children growing up – it’s the way the world is heading non-stop. The challenge is how to not make it such a huge part of their lives, where they are missing out on social interaction and life experiences.

Sources:

Jennifer_Kolb. (2007). Shifthappens - Preparation of students for the future? Retrieved August 31, 2016, from http://shifthappens.wikispaces.com/share/view/1658333?replyId=2000827

XPLANE. (2007). Did You Know 2.0. Retrieved August 31, 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U

Flickr - Web 2.0 Photo Creations

The first part of our assignment this week was to create three photos relating to concepts of Web 2.0. Following their creation, we then had to use Flickr and add them, along with appropriate tags. Then we were to determine how many other photos were using those same tags and describe our experience using the site. My breakdown for each image is below:

Web2.0 had 80,656, but many of the images I saw did not pertain to the topic, as I would have thought. There were photos of just people’s names, nature, baby and pet photography, and random colour swatches. Personally I feel that this tag could have thousands – hundreds of thousands of related photos, but it seems to be inflated.

PrinciplesofWeb2.0 only had my photo with the tag

Oreilly had 47,669 results that were tagged. Many of those photos again were not similar to what my tag intended. There were a handful that were relevant from conference talks, however.

My second photo also used the tag Web2.0 (80,656 tagged photos)

Social Media had 267,424 photos with the tag, and a lot of what I scrolled through seemed to be relevant, but again, I would say in the manner I meant the tag to be used – the number was inflated with photos that wouldn’t have been relevant.

Networking showed 2,550,953 photos with the tag, and had similar results to the above.

My third photo used the tags Web2.0 (80,656 tagged photos), Tagging, WebTagging, and WebTags.

The Tagging tag produced 10,324,992 results, WebTagging, returned 2 results, and WebTags had 270 related photos.

Again, the tags with a high number seems to be inflated to me. Upon further inspection, I noticed that some of the photos didn’t actually have the words as tags. Instead, they were being returned in the search because of the use of the tag in their description.

I created my Flickr account back in 2005 and only used it briefly – I preferred Photobucket. It wasn’t a site I was completely unfamiliar with, so I did not have any issues uploading to my profile and tagging the photos. A feature they did not have previously, was the various copywrite options, which I liked this time around. 

Short Discussion on the Dumbness of Crowds

For this week's forum topic in class, we were given the article "The Dumbness of Crowds" to discuss.

After reading the article for the forum post discussion this week, I can’t say that I am entirely on one side or the other. I do support collaboration efforts, especially since I have come to use so many of them, and find them to be successful in their purpose. On the other hand, I also can see the author’s point of view and agree that not all collaboration works work well.

A big part of creating a type of art, whether it be music, drawing, writing, etc., is the backbone of expression. Can more than one person create some kind of work together and have it be successful? Sure! I bet they could, but more often than not, these types of works are normally completed by single people. Artists of any medium use self expression daily to produce these types of things and 100% collaboration will never be reached in my opinion.

Bringing the discussion back to software programs, which we discussed last week: I still believe that these can be done well with collaborative efforts. While I do agree that sometimes part of the exciting new ideas tend to be left out or stretched out, there is still so much more that people can weigh in on through coding for example. While one person’s new idea may take rise, the efforts of multiple people working on that idea will help bring it to life much quicker than if that person were to do it on their own.

I think the phrase “the dumbness of crowds” goes well beyond us discussing Web 2.0 as well. We are usually forced to collaborate in our daily lives, especially when it comes to our jobs. We either work as a team, or don’t and face the consequences. Of course, if you are in certain positions, this won’t be the case, but it will be for the majority. We are asked to be able to work efficiently alone and to be able to be part of a team. Sometimes this goes a lot easier than others. When there is tension or mixed feelings about how things should proceed, there will be those to take a firm stance, and those that sit back and stay quiet, never letting their opinions be heard.

The article was definitely an interesting read and was about two sides I would have not really given much thought to before. I enjoyed that there were so many additional links to other blogs and resources with articles on the same for future reading.

Source:

Sierra, K. (2007). Creating Passionate Users. Retrieved August 24, 2016, from http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2007/01/the_dumbness_of.html 

RealPlayer or VLC Media Player?

RealPlayer was created by RealNetworks in the mid 90s. It was never really a great program, but it worked and was still popular. I remember using it myself, although I don’t remember why I bothered. It was ugly to look at, had entirely too many pop up advertisements, and I remember there being security issues – going so far as to changing parts of your registry! I had honestly forgotten about this program for a long while and am still surprised to see it updated currently.

The newest version will allow you to use the program free for 30 days, after which you can pay a licencing fee of about $40, for premium features. There is a limited free version, which isn’t worth having, in my opinion, and two versions that sync with their cloud service. They have changed the name of the project to be RealTimes with RealPlayer. The prices for premium are $4.99 a month and $9.99 a month, for unlimited. It has advanced to being supported on PC, Macintosh, the Xbox One, and Mobile smartphones and tablets. You can also connect it with your Chromecast, Roku, and Kindle Fire, if you use it on the television. (RealNetworks, 2016)

The installation on the new program is still pretty aggressive and tries to force you into downloading other programs and toolbars, unless you are paying attention and unchecking those options.  There are also still plenty of advertisements getting thrown at you. I only tested the free version, so I’m not sure if those go away, if you choose to pay. No matter – personally I would still advise anyone looking for a media player to go elsewhere, as there are plenty of others to choose from that offer the same premium features, but for free.

VLC Media Player has been around for some time as well, but is an open source program. This program has much more you can customize and even allows the use of skins, which can make the player look and have the feel of other common programs or fun themes. My personal favourite is dressing it up like the Star Trek LCARS system, which I do with a lot of applications.

You can also play a LONG list of file extensions in this player compared to other programs in the market. As the program has had updates, I see that there are also many more features than when it first was created. You can bookmark certain areas in your playback as favourites, and utilize effects in the menu on any audio or video you might be playing to optimize it to your liking. (VideoLan, 2016)

VideoLan boasts that the program does not contain spyware or user tracking, which is a calming thought. There are also no hidden or bulky advertisements in the program – no ads at all! The program has even grown and evolved so much, that it is available on Android and iOS, in addition to all of the other operating systems it already is supported on. (VideoLan, 2016)

The VLC wiki shows all of the changes made to the project, gives general information, and breaks down any projects that are currently being worked on. You can support VLC in a number of ways, even if you’re not contributing by coding. They do a great job of breaking down these categories and providing examples of what you can do to participate, as well as provide you with the correct people to contact to get on board. (MediaWiki, 2016)

Sources:

 MediaWiki. (2016). Help VideoLAN. Retrieved from https://wiki.videolan.org/Help_VideoLAN/

 RealNetworks. (2016). Features. Retrieved from http://www.real.com/ca/features

 VideoLan. (2016). VLC media player. Retrieved from http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Browsing: Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer

A requirement this week, was to specifically compare an open source browser to one that was not. For this post, I’m choosing to talk a bit about Mozilla Firefox (open source) and Internet Explorer.

While both of these browsers are essentially free, Firefox can be used on multiple operating systems to include Macintosh, Solaria, Linux, OS X, Windows, as well as for Android and iOS. Internet Explorer is provided and only available on computers running Microsoft Windows. As this is included on the system already, there is no need to download, unless you deleted it, or need an update. You will have to go through the download process with Firefox. It’s straightforward, however, and pretty quick.  Both browsers are also regularly updated; the last update was earlier this month. (Microsoft & Mozilla, 2016)

Speed-wise, Mozilla beats Internet Explorer. It also is less resource intensive. If you take a look at your task manager while you have each browser open looking at the same content in any one or multiple tabs, you can see these numbers for yourself.  Mozilla seems to take up less memory by a little less than half of that from Internet Explorer!

I spend a lot of time at the computer, and many hours using web browsers. While neither of these are my first choice, Mozilla is my second. If I have to spend this much time each day looking at pages in a browser, I do prefer that it be visually appealing to look at, to an extent. Mozilla is clean and offers plenty of customization, if using the desktop version. Personally I don’t know of anything that could be worse to look at and use than Internet Explorer. It’s quite plain, and many sites simply don’t look good viewing in it.

I currently haven’t upgraded to Windows 10 either. I read that Microsoft made a new browser: Edge, for this version going forward. Apparently it’s worse off than Internet Explorer is, even after initial updates. I won’t be going into more detail about that, as this post is to discuss Firefox versus Internet Explorer, but I thought I would at least mention it.  (Berls, 2016)

As far as Mozilla goes, there is a wiki page with information, a place to upload files, and history of changes that occur in the coding. While the main page hasn’t been updated in some time, the other relevant links are still currently active. I found it quite interesting that the community of coders hold a meeting every week. They also discuss various related projects and have official representatives who interact with contributors. There are even student ambassadors, who help promote all of the work Mozilla and the community are doing. (MediaWiki & Semantic MediaWiki, 2016)

Sources:

Berls, B. (2016). Microsoft Edge Is Windows 10’s Biggest Mistake. Retrieved from http://www.brucebnews.com/2016/04/microsoft-edge-is-windows-10s-biggest-mistake/

MediaWiki, & Semantic MediaWiki. (2016). Contribute/Coding. Retrieved August 18, 2016, from https://wiki.mozilla.org/Main_Page

Microsoft. (2016). Popular Internet Explorer  Downloads. Retrieved from https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/download/internet-explorer.aspx

Mozilla. (2016). Firefox – Desktop browser, Android, iOS, OS, Hello, Sync, Private Browsing. Retrieved from https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/products/

Gimp and Photoshop – Compare and Contrast

Both of these programs are photo editing software. While Gimp is open source and free to use, Photoshop can cost you hundreds of dollars to own. With the new Adobe Cloud system, you can also rent to use it monthly for less (although if you are a frequent user, it would waste money in the long run). While I have used Photoshop for many years, I did experiment with Gimp previously, and revisited it for this assignment. It seems that Gimp has done well growing and providing some important updates to keep it relevant to use. For those who are not familiar some of the features this open source program provides are:

• Edit photos
• Digital painting tools
• Animation (2D)
• Use of layers
• Customization options for toolbars
• Supports a variety of file types
• Allows the use of plug ins from third parties

Photoshop can go above and beyond these features, but for a hefty price. If you’re just getting into photo editing and manipulation, Gimp is a great start. While it is by no means an alternative to the professional software, it performs well for free program in it’s field. 

Compare and Contrasting

In terms of price, Gimp has Photoshop beat, as mentioned previously. Another big difference is the file size of the program. Gimp requires around 100 MB to download and double of that to run, Photoshop on the other hand is a whopping 1.4 GB to install initially, around 2+GB of updates after wards. Running Photoshop takes over 1GB of memory, which can slow down older computers as well, which is another positive to Gimp - it's light and non resource intensive.  

To keep it simple, the current version of Gimp has many of the same big main features that Photoshop does:

• Layers
• Text
• Filters
• Curves
• Cloning
• Levels
• Sharpening
• Healing
• History (to undo multiple actions)

as well as a few more. Photoshop comes in handy when you need more advanced features and tools. 

While I will continue to personally use Photoshop, as I have for so many years, I would have loved to have the current version of Gimp as a more affordable option when I first started using such a program. It's important to mention again that Gimp is open source, which means anyone can make changes and upload those changes for others to use. I'm willing to bet that further down the line, Gimp will continue to evolve and stay  relevant to those needing such software. 

REV2 Review

I chose REV2 as the second blog to review for this week’s assignment. When I first looked at the blog, I was excited to browse, as it came across as clean and well organized. It focuses more on technology and business start up and news, which can be viewed by subject, latest posts, and popular posts. Skimming through, there are a ton of posts written discussing social media or internet information specifically. I didn't notice anywhere on the site where users could connect on other social media, but you would have been able to share any post through your own Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter, Pinterest, and a variety of other sites. There was however, the option to subscribe to the RSS feed. It looks like the blog isn’t collaborative and involves one writer: Dave. (Dave, 2015)

I was quite disappointed when I noticed that nothing on the site was recent. The latest articles I saw were from a year ago, and many go back to 9 and 10 years. Many of the articles no longer have photos displayed, which makes me question if they were linked instead of hosted (a big no no for web sites). One article that caught my eye was on Dave’s list of most successful 2.0 web sites. He mentioned he started with a list of 20, before narrowing it down to include the following:

1. MySpace
2. YouTube
3. Facebook
4. Wikipedia
5. Bebo
6. Digg
7. Flickr
8. Netvibes
9. Del.icio.us
10. Meebo  (Dave, 2015)

I’m not sure about you, but I’ve been familiar with all of these other than the last three on this list. A good chunk of these still thrive today and keep evolving and delivering to the public effectively. I would have been interested in seeing his top 20 after viewing this list!

Digging a little deeper, perhaps I found something even more irritating than the lack of current articles: SEO. I’m a bit crazy sometimes and like to looks at the source code for web sites. I noticed that the meta data in the code was highly lacking, which may or may not be a reason this site is no longer running (did it do well during it’s life – I don’t know). It seems to have been a package made by another individual, but that isn't an excuse to not be "in the know" with your own meta data. There were not many relevant keywords either. What really irritated me were ones that were included and awfully spammy. Just to give you some examples, there were ones such as get massive followers, junk twitter accounts, app auto follow, chain membership of twitter, and the list went on.  If a site is going to have shady keywords and nothing of relevance to the subject matter, it runs the risk of getting banned from search engines all together. I don’t know how many people search for terms such as these, but it can’t be as many as those looking for actual content.

I didn’t look any further into the blog at this point, because I didn’t feel respected as a reader and didn’t want to waste my time with information that was so old to begin with. 

Source: Dave. (2015). The Latest Tech & Startup News. Retrieved August 13, 2016, from http://www.rev2.org/

Brag About Your Tech Skills

While searching YouTube videos for Web 2.0 related content, I came across this class project video. It is a parody of a popular song. They exchanged the original lyrics to talk about social media and technology. While it isn't the most informative media about the subject, I couldn't pass up sharing this! 

Web 1.0 Versus Web 2.0 Pictures

Today I found a couple of pictures relating to Web 2.0, which I thought I would share. 

(Ahmed, 2015)

(Nickull, Hunchcliffe, Governor, 2009)

Sources: 

Ahmed, O. S. (2015). Web 2.0. Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/olaonyx/web-10-web-20-

and-web-30

Nickull, D., Hinchcliffe, D., & Governor, J. (2009). 3. Dissecting Web 2.0 Examples [Book]. 

Retrieved from https://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/web-20-

architectures/9780596514433/ch03.html 

Review of Mashable

I had heard of the site Mashable  previously, but never really looked around long enough on it before. I surely would have gone down the route of thinking about it relating to Web 2.0. Now that I’ve been introduced to the points of the subject, I think it is a great example! Information is shared on various social media platforms and is aggregated how the site owner sees fit. Not only is it jam packed with articles and external links, but you can customize your experience for future browsing.

You’re able to follow specific topics of interests or authors to see more of the things you like. There is a small bar on every post to show how popular a post is. The more shares according to the time it was posted, the higher it will show up on the site's feed, which separates articles as new, rising, and hot. You are also given the opportunity to sign up for a daily e-mail, which contains content tailored to your preferences. Whether you are always on the look out for trending stories, social media guides, or just general information and opinion on a number of subjects, you should have no trouble finding something of interest here.

Further interaction is encouraged through commenting on the articles provided, but you are forced to connect through a Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Google+ account, which may be the biggest negative factor about this site. Not everyone will want to connect either of these accounts just to interact on a story, which means the site could be losing out on valuable opinions.  This could be somewhat of a dilemma when it comes to children using the site as well. With the growth of social media and the increase of lower aged users, privacy and security may become a problem, as connected users can easily interact with each other publicly and privately. As with any internet browsing, we can only hope that children using such a site will be monitored by guardians.

One great feature to mention is the job board area of the site. Here you can build a resume, search for jobs, and sign up for alerts that meet your preferences. There are some pretty big name company’s listed as well. It was interesting to see both domestic, as well as international job listings. While this portion of the site does not have nearly as many job listings as actual job searching websites, there are close to 200 to browse.

I do have to note, the frequency in which the site refreshes its information is very frequent - about every 15 seconds, which can be a bother. The ads get replaced each time. They are not always even close to being the same size, which can alter the position of things you may be browsing on the main page. 

Overall, even though there are a couple of things that didn't appeal to me, I think it is a great interactive site to spend time on. I think perhaps I might stumble back to it in the future. The articles may not be professionally written, but they don't have the same tabloid type feel to them, as similar sites are loaded with. 

Source of post: Mashable. (2016). Mashable. Retrieved from http://mashable.com/

Welcome!

This is just a quick post to explain the purpose of this blog. I am currently enrolled in a Web 2.0 course, which requires participation in the form of blog posts to complete assignments. Any posts here will be to fulfill those requirements, as I go through the course these next 8 weeks. With that being said, any outside comments and feedback are welcome should you stumble here!