Maedhbh's Blog

game over?

maedhbh — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 09:34:50 +0000

With the blog assignment drawing to a close, I thought I might share a few thoughts on my experiences of blogging in an educational context. I don’t see myself jumping on the blogging bandwagon but in saying that I didn’t find this task as onerous as I was expecting to at the start. The following is a collection of random thoughts:

It forced me to think about, and research, aspects of modules that were not overtly assignment related. I don’t think that I would have done this otherwise, regardless of how contentious I have tried to be. I think blogs can be effectively used to encourage reflective thinking and make more associations between different aspects of a course. The necessity of writing two posts a week ensured that my reflective thinking was kept active throughout (most of) the semester.
It gave me access to the thoughts of fellow students and provided me with a means of sharing things that I found interesting. The situation was far more informal than our online discussion forums and people’s personalities were more apparent. People shared personal experiences that were relevant to our course and provided person to person feedback by way of commenting on other blog posts. It was a slightly more personal forum for people where they could talk about the course material that was currently grabbing their attention.
It often provided support for me. Reading classmates’ blog posts and realizing that other people were experiencing concerns and frustrations similar to my own was comforting. The blog supplied a forum where opinions and learning could be shared more informally.
Some things I’d change: I didn’t make much use of the multimedia potentials within the blog; I never really got a proper blog roll up and running; The blog was always the first thing to be forgotten when things were extra busy elsewhere.

That’s all folks. If I think of anything else during the day I’ll add it in. If anyone has thoughts on the topic, feel free to add ‘em.

So long and thanks for all the fish.

sharing my “expertise”!!

maedhbh — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 18:28:37 +0000

I’ve been having a look at some of the tools suggested to us in the week 9 labsheet. One of them, Zoho, was the one I evaluated for the Virtual Team Project. I focused specifically on Zoho Projects, as it combines many of the other applications. I thought it might be good to share my thoughts and findings on this particular tool, given that I spent a considerable amount of time exploring it in depth. Over-all we found Zoho Projects to be an efficient tool for organizing group work and collaboration and I give more specific descriptions of some of its features below:

The tool emphasizes collaboration and productivity through task management. Zoho Projects is easy to learn and use. It is highly compatible with Microsoft Office also integrates with Google Projects, Google Docs, Facebook, Twitter and other online environments and tools. .
Zoho’s various project management and collaborative features are accessible from a project “dashboard.” A dashboard is where users can view a summary of the collaborative activity within the project. Users can add or view tasks and milestones; add to or view the project calendar; schedule or view meetings; and view, edit, or add documents.
Other features included in Zoho Projects are timesheets, reports, forums, wikis, chat applications, and a list of project collaborators. Each project has an RSS feed which summarizes all project activity. Users can communicate in real-time using the project chat feature.
Zoho Projects requires an administrator who exercises ultimate control over all projects and settings. Manager, employee and contractors are other types of users with varying degrees of clearance.
We were able to customize the environment with our logo, URL, theme color and tab placement. The dashboard’s design is straightforward and easy-to-use, which allowed tasks to be completed quickly and easily.
When a task was completed, we simply clicked a link in the reminder e-mail to register that the task was completed. This information was then posted to the shared workspace, so there was no need for status updates through meetings and e-mails. Additionally, alerts were sent to us by e-mail or via RSS feeds which allowed us to keep tabs on progress without having to log in to Zoho at all.
For a very helpful overview of a project, the project stream feature provided a visual representation of the latest activities within the project. We could then filter the stream by date or task status. User Status provided us with a Twitter-like interface where each collaborator could securely broadcast their latest update to the project team. A shared project calendar kept everyone informed of upcoming deadlines and meetings. Using the calendar, we kept an organized account of all meetings by adding notes to scheduled meetings both before and after they occurred.

Hope I haven’t bored anybody too much, I thought somebody out there might be interested in a more thorough rundown of the tool than they could manage themselves, given how busy our current schedules are!

right here, right now.

maedhbh — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 18:11:17 +0000

I’ve been doing some outside reading to try and give myself some relief from the “slowly slowly catchy monkey” process that is Flash design.

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/article/15530/randd/ten-new-spinouts-emerge-from-trinity-college

Four of the products described in this article are of interest to me/us, being e-learning and design oriented. Also, if you feel so inclined, have a look at http://www.pocketanatomy.com/. It’s a very impressive educational i-phone app developed by a friend of mine here in Galway. It’s been a while since it was launched, but Tuesday’s e-learning lecture topic on mobile learning motivated me to have a proper look at it. (I wish I had his skills and talent, the Flash project would be a breeze!) I’m glad I did this bit of research, I find it encouraging to know that there is a significant amount of interesting and innovative e-learning development happening right here on our doorstep.

design it right.

maedhbh — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 14:22:49 +0000

My flash project is coming along, slowly but surely. Along with learning about the functionality of Flash, a big thing I’m learning from this project is the importance of getting the design right from the start. I spent a lot of time planning my movie and everything looked good on paper. I was reusing some images, layouts and colour schemes from previous design projects, things that had worked very well at the time. However, 2 minutes into my flash movie and I’ve realised that the design is simply not working. There are just too many disparate elements in it and it lacks cohesion, it’s basically looking far too busy and cluttered at the moment. So I’ve been faced with going back to the figurative drawing board and making lots of changes to individual elements, which is proving to be a long and arduous task. The experience has really taught me the importance of using a literal drawing board; putting together a proper digital storyboard and getting colour schemes, layout and images right before going anywhere near flash itself.

In terms of functionality I’m quite happy with what I’ve done so far. With a bit of help from online tutorials, I’ve managed to put together a reasonable movie clip of an atom with a rotating nucleus and electrons spinning around the outside. It took a long time to get it right, learning how to use mask layers and motion guides and some basic action script but the end result was worth the effort. If I wasn’t working towards a deadline I think I would really enjoy playing around with flash and trying to master it, but unfortunately life is full of deadlines.

self reflection on peer assessment

maedhbh — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 15:11:45 +0000

We (the E-learning class) discussed blended learning in our lecture on Tuesday. The thing that grabbed my attention the most was the idea of peer assessment. As in, I was previously aware of the concept but I had never put much thought into the ifs, hows and whys of it. I had always discounted peer assessment as something that would not work in secondary school due to teenagers being… well… teenagers. In a higher or adult education context, however, it might have huge potential for improving the learning process. My initial reaction was that given, by definition, that peers are at roughly the same level in the learning process they might not have the skills, or enough of a grasp on the learning material, to be able to competently assess each other’s work. After doing some thinking, and some research, I’m now looking at it from a slightly different perspective. I was looking at it from a purely summative, rather than formative, perspective and I wasn’t seeing the learning potentials. Peer assessment could promote a deeper level of learning. For example, if I was to assess a classmates essay I would have to engage in the essay topic on a deep level. I would need to engage in high levels of critical thinking, and this could enhance my own knowledge of the topic as well as enhancing my ability to evaluate my own work. It would also open me up to multiple perspectives. Rather than just my thoughts and those of the tutor, I would have access to students’ ideas both when I assess their work and when they give me feedback on mine. I’m still hazy as to how grading would work in this system though, which brings me back to my initial reservation. Maybe it wouldn’t work at all for summative assessment, and even for formative assessment it would probably depend on the learning context. It might be a great thing for people like us who are learning about learning, but not so good for, say, physics students.

In an aside, can anyone help me out on the use of the possessive apostrophe with the term “each other”? Am I right in thinking that the noun that follows the expression is the decider? i.e. “at each others’ throats” but “assess each other’s work”? It’s confusing… Cian?

In another aside I’m worried about week 11: Essay 2.2 due on the Monday, Podcast Interview and presentation on the Wednesday and Captivate project on the Friday. It’s probably too early to start stressing about that yet though.

lit review done, time to start flashing…

maedhbh — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 09:48:06 +0000

I’ve finally put my literature review to bed, hurray! Although knowing me it’s probably more likely to get a disco nap rather than a good night’s sleep. I’m fairly sure that I’ll wake up on Monday morning in a blind panic thinking “no, no, no. that’s all wrong” and completely tear the thing apart, causing myself a huge amount of unnecessary stress. There’s a strong possibility that I might benefit from some buddhist relaxation techniques in my life, stress seems to be the daily norm of late.

I’m facing into the Flash project with a mixture of anticipation and trepidation. I’m delighted that we have the extra five days for the project, I don’t think there was any way I would have had it finished by next Sunday. I’ve a feeling that this will be the most difficult of all our assignments, Flash is such an immense piece of software. My project is going to be about atomic structure (protons, neutrons, electrons etc..). Ridiculously boring for 99% of the population, but as an avowed science nerd I’m pretty excited about it. Like everybody else doing this project, I’ve spent a fair amount of time trawling the internet looking for ideas and images. I have to say that nothing I’ve come across has wowed me much. Most of the resources out there seem overly simplistic or overly staid. However, I’ve a lovely vibrant picture in my head of spinning atoms and whirling electrons and now it’s time to start trying to convince Flash to make these happen.

trying to recover from the blue screen of death

maedhbh — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 13:14:00 +0000

Technology really is great up to the point that it fails you. An entire day spent sitting in the library gazing longingly at the sunshine outside, and it was all wasted. A double whammy: not only did Word crash without saving any of the work I’d done all day but then my laptop decided that it had had enough of this world and needed some time off. It’s sitting in front of me now running a disk check and all my appendages are crossed in the hope that it will pull through. I’m also just after realising that because I smashed my headphone port (accidentally rather than in a fit of rage sparked by being subjected to bad music) I’m probably not going to be able to use it for the podcast project.

I think I have my interviewee lined up for said podcast project. He’s the creative director for a Dublin based e-learning company called Learnex and he has won a few design awards. I’m hoping that he can fill me with enthusiasm for my future, he’s certainly very enthusiastic about his job, and give me some insights into what it’s like to work as a designer.

My head at the moment is filled up with frameworks and instructional strategies; communities of inquiry, 5-stage models, ladders, moderation, dodgy metaphors. This week’s lessons include: don’t get complacent with technology; there’s always challenges and flipsides to every theory so don’t get complacent with theories either; frame-by-frame animations of stickmen walking are very hard to get right; and I wish Flash was as easy to use as Audacity.

i decided to freak myself out even more

maedhbh — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 10:26:33 +0000

If you go into your dashboard and view the comments made on your blog, they are accompanied by an IP address. You can then use one of the many free IP trackers to find out more information about the IP address. For dynamic IP addresses the only information they can give you is what part of what country they originate from, and who the person’s ISP is; for example when I look up my own I’m told that it is an Eircom address based in the west of Ireland. For a static IP however, it also gives you the company/person’s name, their street address and their telephone number; I now know where Zoho’s offices are based and can ring them if I so desire! Don’t worry, there’s no way I’m going to check any of your IP addresses, I’ve no desire to get into the stalking/infringement of privacy business. I just thought that people might be interested to know how traceable they are.

The thing that’s surprising me most about all this digital footprinting is not that it’s happening, but that I’ve been hiding my head in the sand up to this point. I think though that, rather than developing an unhealthy obsession and going off to join the Amish community, I’d be better off accepting it and moving on with my life (albeit warily!) so hopefully this will be the last you hear from me on the topic!

YouTube – Digital Dossier

maedhbh — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 12:27:57 +0000

I need to stop obsessing about this! Now how do I get rid of Google buzz? I’ve changed all my privacy settings on Facebook, not that it makes much difference!

YouTube – Digital Dossier

Posted using ShareThis

“team-work” and hermitic thoughts

maedhbh — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 13:16:34 +0000

Following on last night’s post, one of my Floridian team-mates has gone ahead and submitted our report, with further edits, without the approval of the rest of the team. Fantastic, I do love a bit a team-work… Up with that sort of thing…

On another positive note, I found all the talk at yesterday’s seminar about the extent to which google and the likes are watching us and keeping tabs on us quite creepy. Coupled with that, Zoho (that I evaluated for the VTP) took a quote from a previous blog post of mine and posted it on their forum, along with a link to my blog. Without any permission from, or consultation with, me. Now there are completely random strangers from god knows where reading my comment and linking to my blog from the Zoho forum. I do not like this (the reason why I cannot tell, but this I know and know full well) I very much do not like this. (If you are a random stranger reading this post please leave now, thank you kindly…) I’ve been considering e-communication hermitage, which doesn’t bode well for a future career in e-learning.