Assignment+4+-+Reflection

=Assignment 4 - Reflection 1529 Words= =Your Online Identity = //**Identify issues in having an online presence providing evidence and/or examples.**// Having an online presence can come with many issues. People need to consider what they are placing on the Internet and the **security** and reliability of the website. **Identity theft** is now a problem world wide. It is important to protect yourself using anonymous nicknames and only using trusted websites. Giving details like birth-dates and mothers maiden name are common questions when asking for password resets. These really must be kept private. A good article on online presence what it is and an idea to combat issues is: Privacy Butler. Online presence for children/young adults can be problematic as they may not realise the extent of how viewable they are. This can lead to online predation and **cyber-bullying**. A great website for educating children about being cyber-safe is: Hectors World. To help combat these problems; when people sign up for internet or use public internet there should be an information link that suggests how to use the internet and spell out the dangers that are out there. When teaching students in the classroom, this should be taught before the students even have a chance to get on the internet. This may be part of a project to create a safe identity that they can use.

=Working With Web 2.0 Tools = //**Identify tools (other than below) that would be useful for your own professional/personal life and give reasons.**// //Cooklet - Inspiring Culinary Organizer// Cooklet allows for interavtice sharing of cookbooks and personal recipes. This would be useful in my personal life to find recipes at ease by entering the ingredients that I have in my fridge. I can then also post how it went and variations to the recipe that I like. //KnoteBooks - Anyone can Contribute. Everyone can Learn// Knotebooks is a collaborative and customisable self-guided physics lesson web 2.0 tool. This would be very useful in my professional life to expand my knowledge in education. It may be useful in teaching and revising lessons in upper primary. //Mineful - Questionnaire Software, Online Forms, and Analysis// Mineful is a collaborative tool for business which incorporates surveys, marketing and web forms. This would be useful in my professional life in interacting with other teachers, and discussing lessons and gathering information for assessment and Sweetsearch - SweetSearch is a Search Engine for Students Sweetsearch is a safe search engine for students. The users of this site both students and teachers rank and organise the site. This would be great within the class as you can feel safe that the students can research information and use the web in a safe environment. In my personal life I find that Flickr would be most useful. The depth of the web 2.0 and its relevance to my life and how I like to interact with my friends and family is outstanding. I feel that it is very easy to use and creates a real in depth work of photography and telling a story of my life. A picture is worth a thousand words! I also really like the use of the delicious bookmark bar in mozilla, I would definitely use this in my professional life/classroom as you only have to update it once and all computers will have the links. I would also use this in my personal life due to using bookmarks over several locations easy. This is important for University and traveling. I did not find Facebook useful due to having no control over it, and the susceptibility of cyber bullying.

//**Identify ways in which a professional blog/wiki/website could be useful.**// In my professional life I think that wikispaces would be the most useful out of the tools I researched. My main reason for this is the security and customisability of the web 2.0 tool. The fact that you can only allow access to people with a username and password, and that it doesn't come up on search engines is great for school use. I have thought of many applications for this tool in the class room like blogs, updates, newsletters to the parents, keeping track of assignments and student interaction and peer assessment.

=Making a Digital Story = //**What did you learn from this process? (eg, what was rewarding, challenging or frustrating? What might you do differently next time?)**// I found that this project was rather stress free. I did a lot of research into how to create good sound and interesting pictures and practiced it before my interview. I also looked at interview techniques and how to make the interviewee comfortable so they are able to speak freely. It was great that we had the opportunity to do the Radio Cut first, as I learnt I needed to make sure to ask the right questions to create a story. I still found this a little difficult in this project and ended up with out a strong ending. I therefor learnt that I need to ask the same question twice to get multiples of the conversation as sometimes the quality, or structure is not good. After recording the interview I learnt how to use Garage Band. This was not difficult due to the intuitive software of Apple, and the [|great introductory video] at the Apple website. It was extremely rewarding to have created a story that I can show to other people, and also to document someone important in my life. I now have this forever, better than a photo album. The most challenging and frustrating thing was using the program to create my story. Initially I used Windows Movie Maker, but found its constraints wouldn't allow me to tell my story the way I wanted. I then learnt Adobe Premiere ([|some useful instructional videos]), which was a steep learning curve, but was well worth it in the end. Next time I would review programs before I used them, so I don't waste time. I also found it difficult to create the transcript as Elly spoke very fast. I had to use a program to slow it down so I could transcribe it.

//**Discuss two other class stories and say what elements attracted you to them.**// // Abbey James: Digital Story of Brian Western: // I wanted to watch this story, due to they previous work that I had seen of Abbeys, and her great design and layout of her page. I found the story very interesting, well planned and executed. I enjoyed hearing about her grandfather and his life work on the farm, as I grew up on a farm. I found the part about irrigation interesting as this is a hot topic in farming, especially along the river Murray. I found that the voice was very pleasant and easy to listen to and the music added a sense of accomplishment. There was also a great selection of photos, ranging in colours and sizes, and movements, these added to the dynamics of the story. //Evan Sanders: South Australian artist Raphaela Mazzone:// I have been following Evan from the beginning of this course, and therefore looked forward in viewing his final product. I was intrigued even more when I saw the title, as my hobby is painting and drawing. It was great to see a story about a local artist and understand her process and view of the world around her. the pictures that were used we great in emphasing the story. The flow of the paintings were great, starting with the emotion of the artist with the paintings, then a close up of the painting followed by the exhibition and people viewing the paintings. Throughout there was a great consistency with the sound, which made it very easy to watch and get immersed in.

//**In what way might Digital Story be useful in teaching/other professions?**// Digital stories are not something that is commonly used in education. Because of this it becomes a point of interest for students and something exciting and new to do. It is a great project, as it is an accumulation of many skills like; photography, story telling, planning, sound recording, researching, interviewing, IT and much, much more. It is cross curriculum and helps to un-clutter the crowded curriculum by integrating all these skills and topic ideas. It is also great for students that are reluctant to write. This may give them the option to create expressive pieces of work, and/or become confident in the skills and notions so they are more inclinded to pick up a pen.

=Review of the Topic = //**What activities did you find to be most valuable?**// I found that all of the activities to be interesting and valuable for both my personal life, and my future professional life in education. Out of all of them I found that Web 2.0 tools-Wikispaces would be the most useful. It is easily set-up, managed and can be used basically, or as advanced as you like. As mentioned before, it is secure, customisable and could be used for; blogs, updates, newsletters to the parents, keeping track of assignments and student interaction and peer assessment. The digital story was also a great activity that put together a lot of techniques (sound recording, photography, storytelling and computer use) and learning areas into one. This would be great for assessment or at the end of a topic in school.

//**What activities did you find to be least valuable?**// I found the activities in that we personally chose for web 2.0 tools the least valuable. The ones that we made to do were great, but the ones I chose would not be very useful in my professional life (as they are not secure and manageable), and maybe a little useful in my personal life. I feel that it would have been better to focus on web 2.0 tools that were chosen.

//**Summarise what you learned as a result of doing this topic and how this may or may not be useful.**// I discovered a great way to have students collaborate, show/share their knowledge and share information using wikispaces. I also learnt more about internet security and that teaching students this first is important, ie not giving out personal information. I learnt there are many web 2.0 tools out there that are not very interesting and useful. I also learnt of a great way for students to express themselves, or report information using podcasts or digital stories. This would be great for students that are reluctant to pick up and pen and paper. This was a very interesting topic, and I learnt how to use a variety of programs to help me in both my personal and professional life.