Today’s generation of children and students have access to an immense amount of technology that they are always utilizing. Many schools have incorporated technology into their academic programs as a new means of facilitating learning. Gaming, however, although not new to kids in their everyday life, is a new way for educators to stimulate interest in certain material. Many parents view video games as mindless distractions that do not teach anything beyond hand-eye coordination. This is not necessarily true, in that learning is always happening as one is engaged in a game. Many computer games promote problem-solving skills as kids are placed in a virtual world, needing to complete tasks and get to the next level of the game. I think using games in the academic environment can be very beneficial to students but I still believe that teacher to student learning is the best kind of learning and that computer games should only be used in moderation as a way of helping to fuel young minds.
I feel like gaming, as we’ve discussed it in class, can be used in just about any area to teach someone something in a more engaging way. Games can serve as tutorials to teach a concept that will be applied in the real world. Doing it in a gaming fashion first, allows you to practice and understand what really needs to be done. In that sense, I think gaming could definitely be applied to telecommunications because in any field of study, you’re going to be teaching something to at least one person, or “newbie.” Besides that aspect of gaming, I don’t really see any other ways in which it could be related or efficiently utilized to my major or telecommunications.
Penn State Educational Gaming Commons promotes the idea of gaming within the teaching, learning, and research environment. This is their official website that allows you to look into exactly how they plan on implementing this at Penn State University. This site serves as a hub where PSU faculty, staff, and students can work together with educational games to communicate and collaborate. I thought this was very interesting and tied in perfectly with our discussion of gaming in the classroom.
Second life is a 3-D virtual world that was created by a man named Linden Labs in 2003 and it has grown immensely since then, “inhabited” by millions of Residents from all over the world. This virtual world is centered on human interaction. People can use this virtual space for a variety of interactions, including customizing their avatars, creating and selling items, and essentially creating a second life for them to indulge in. Second life can also be used in the educational environment to do thing that would otherwise not be possible. For example, a student can use role playing as an educational tool, by immersing themselves in a Shakespearean setting to learn more about the literature of the author. Though, this virtual world may be beneficial in an academic atmosphere, it does have ramifications for adults in the real world. Some people have taken it too far as to allow their avatars to have sexual relations with prostitutes in this virtual world and it has led to divorces in their real life. It’s the idea that someone needs to escape to another world in order to engage in actions that they obviously think about in their own lives that makes this second life game all to real.
I’m not quite sure of all the ins and outs of Second Life but I do know that it is very unlikely that I will ever use it, neither personally nor professionally. I’ve had a hard time, unfortunately, with this set of blogs as far as relating the material to my field of study because most of the stuff we have talked about recently is mainly applied to education. I did see when I was researching the virtual world of Second Life that some businesses use it to virtually advertise for products or performers and it made me think that in some form or another maybe a news company could do the same. They could simply put a “billboard” or advertisement up in the Second Life world with their logo so that people would see it there and then actually tune in to that broadcast in the real world. It’s possible. I don’t think as a reporter there’s any way I would utilize it, other than maybe doing a report on it someday and how it is becoming too real of a world for some to handle.
The video below explains the virtual world of Second Life and its uses that draw in so many people. It also gives examples of how Second Life is being used in the business world to advertise for real life things. According to the video, Second Life encourages creative talent.
Open source software is computer software that is available in source code form so that other users can study, change and improve the software. There are no restrictions on downloading, accessing or modifying them and all open source software programs are completely free. Open source enables people to expand off of one person’s great idea and continue to develop technology. It is very beneficial to developers and anyone who wants to help software to continue to evolve. Being that these programs, such as Open Office and GIMP, are free to use, makes them extremely resourceful to college students working on a budget or really anyone who needs to save money. Many people spend loads of money purchasing programs like Microsoft Office when these open source programs perform many of the exact same functions.
I believe that open source software is a really great concept because it's perfect for the continuation of technology. I see this being very useful to developers and just anyone who wants to help software to continue to evolve. However, I am struggling to find a way to relate this idea to my major of telecommunications. In one way, considering that open source programs are free, if a news station were using a program such as Microsoft word for documents and presentations they could save a lot of money by using open source programs instead. Then the money that was saved from the programming could go towards the purchasing of new cameras and equipment.
The video below exemplifies the idea of open source software, using examples of a few different programs that could be beneficial to many of us in our every day lives.
Distance education, also referred to as distance learning, is a way to deliver education to those students who are not physically on site. It dates back to the early 1700s in London, where the University of London was the first university to offer distance learning degrees and it soon spread to other areas of the world. Distance education can take many forms including, mail, Internet, broadcast via TV or radio, CD-ROM or through a mobile device. The most common usage of distance education that I have seen is where the student and teacher are separated and the separation gap is bridged through the use of online technologies-like online courses. There are many advantages to distance learning like the fact that it allows you to work at your own pace, it is beneficial to adults who are trying to continue schooling but cannot physically attend a university, it also helps students who attend small schools and want to take an AP course but otherwise wouldn’t be able too. Some would argue that there are many disadvantages as well. Distance education definitely requires self-motivation, but if you’ve got that then online schooling can be very beneficial under certain circumstances.
As this concept is more for the educational environment, I don’t see it being very useful in my field of telecommunications. Obviously, as a reporter, I won’t really be teaching anyone anything, but the overall idea of the distance communication could be applied in general to my field. Communication is a huge part of my major, if not the most important part, and so if I were trying to communicate with someone who was not physically on site with me, I could use the same resources that distance education uses to get a message across to someone in a distant place.
This video that I found on distance education takes us through the history of distance education, all the way up to today. I think it clearly explains all the outlets of distance learning and how this type of learning, that provides so many more opportunities for those with challenging geographical and economical situations, is only going to continue in the future.
This is the to link the concept map that I created using Webspiration. It outlines how five different social tools can be used in my field of telecommunications.
Cloud Computing is changing the way we communicate with one another. This network in the clouds enables multiple people to share and edit documents and other resources through an electricity grid. Cloud computing is a much more efficient way of editing documents and presentations because it allows users to go on at any time, on any computer, and view the material, edit it, and save it. Then the next person can go on and do their share of work all without having to send an unnecessary amount of emails to multiple people with a new attachment (and unclear revisions) every time someone has touched the file. Cloud computing also ensures the protection of your work in the event that an application should unexpectedly quit or a hard drive crashes. With this type of network, your work is saved through the browser and can therefore be accessed from any computer, removing the dependency of having to use just your personal computer to open saved files. The best part of using these sites, like Google Docs, is that they’re free, unlike Microsoft Word and other programs, and their easy to use because they resemble such programs you may already be familiar with, again, like Microsoft Word.
Personally, I think cloud computing in general is beneficial to everyone in all sorts of careers. This may be more-so true for business offices but no matter where you work or whom you work for you will need to be able to communicate efficiently with your co-workers. In my field of telecommunications, which relies heavily on accurate communication, using a program such as Google Docs would allow us to get information to each other very quickly especially in cases where I may be on location somewhere reporting or in another state doing work. Yes, you can access your email from any computer and send attachments, but with Google Docs multiple people could be working on a document at one time and you can see exactly what they’re editing as they go. This way you can get things done faster instead of sitting around anticipating the email from your boss with that new revised attachment that took seemingly forever for him or her to get done. When I get out into the business world and begin working in field of study I hope that cloud computing is being taken advantage of, and if not, I’ll just introduce it to my co-workers myself.
Since I feel like Google Docs is a great example of the advantages of cloud computing, I thought this video, entitled "Introducing a New Google Docs" was very appropriate to share. It talks about the features of this program as well as some new improvements they have made to it, to make it even more efficient. For example, the comment system on Google Docs makes it easy for someone to add, reply, or move comments around within the document for everyone who is working on it to see. Also, collaboration happens in real time, you do not have to refresh the page to see what others are typing. The video also explains the improvements it has made to the other applications on Google Docs such as the spreadsheets and drawing capabilities.
For my podcast, I decided to share a little bit of information about my sorority’s philanthropic event, Clay Classic, which we held earlier this month. It is a skeet shooting competition in which families and fraternities can participate. The event benefits the Painted Turtle, which is an innovative medical specialty camp and family care center for children who have chronic and life-threatening illnesses. I really enjoyed creating the podcast and I really feel like doing a recording on an event like this is a great way to share it with others. I also found it fun, being a telecom major, because I felt like I was recording my own little local news report.
This is the text that I recorded in my podcast:
“On Sunday, October 24, 2010, the Delta Zeta sorority here at UF held their annual Clay Classic philanthropy at the Gator Skeet and Trap Club. It is a skeet shooting competition in which families and fraternities can participate. The event benefits the Painted Turtle, which is an innovative medical specialty camp and family care center for children who have chronic and life-threatening illnesses. This year, the first place winner in competition was Kappa Alpha Order and Alpha Tau Omega won first place overall as well as having the first place individual shooter of the day. It is a wonderful event that helps out a great cause and everyone who came out and participated had a blast!”
A podcast is an audio file that can be subscribed to by listeners in order for them to play the files on their computer or download them to their MP3 players. The use of podcasts and the ability to download them onto MP3 players, such as an iPod, make it a great resource to be used amongst students in classrooms. Duke University distributed iPods to their incoming freshman in 2004 to be used academically to listen to recorded lectures and discussions for their courses. The students were able to keep these iPods and were expected to use them throughout the rest of their collegiate experience. This audio tool is very beneficial to students, allowing them to listen to lectures at their convenience and enabling them to go back and repeat sections they may have found confusing. Apple has now created enhanced podcasting in which listeners can see photos and vodcasting, which allows listeners to see video clips. These two enhancements to podcasts are even more beneficial to students who use them to learn course material and it serves as a cost efficient way to study. Podcasting is a new and rapidly developing technology and is proving itself as a great resource for the classroom.
As a telecommunications major I feel as though podcasts would be a unique way to keep constant news flowing to viewers. News reports could be recorded and an uploaded on to the station’s website immediately for the public to listen too. This would be extremely convenient for those people who like to stay up to date on the news but work in offices all day with no TV access. With podcasts they would be able to go onto the website, download the podcast, and listen to the report as they continue to work. That’s another great advantage to the podcast for my field, it allows people to continue whatever they are doing while just listening rather than having to sit and read through an entire article which can sometimes be mundane. Podcasting is a very innovative new technology and I think it would be beneficial to the telecommunications field to find creative ways, such as the one I suggested above, to incorporate it into everyday news.
In class we watched a couple videos that explained how to use certain technological tools in plain English. I really enjoyed these videos because they did make using each tool a lot clearer and easier, so when I found Podcasting in Plain English, I had to share it in my blog post. It explains how Podcasting lessens our dependency on traditional media and we don’t have to sit around the television at a certain time to watch our favorite TV show. All because podcasting allows us to download these shows off the Internet and have them on our computer, which in turn allows us to download them onto our MP3 players and listen to them whenever we want, wherever we want. Also, it is possible for pretty much anyone to create their own podcast to share on the web and anyone who may be interested in their podcast can subscribe and enjoy. Podcasting allows everyone to have a voice.
This is my digital storytelling video that I created using Animoto. This video shows pictures of the new friends I’ve made and the memories I’ll continue to make as a Delta Zeta sister.
Digital storytelling uses a combination of narrative, photos, sound, and video to create a short, or sometimes extended, video that depicts a life experience of an individual or even their thoughts and emotions towards an occasion. This unique way of sharing an experience is often used in a basic format by people with little experience but with digital storytelling the sky is the limit and with a simple tutorial or workshop, you can begin creating in no time. The slideshows can be persuasive, if used in a business setting to sell a pitch to colleagues, instructional or historical, if used by a teacher in a classroom, or just reflective, to share an emotional moment with friends. Specifically, when used in an educational setting, digital storytelling provides an entertaining and interactive format for an educator to present information on an array of topics to their students. The great thing is, in any one of these circumstances the resources available to incorporate into the digital stories are endless.
I feel like my career choice is a form of digital storytelling all on its own. As a news reporter, it is my job to relay a story to others and obviously the audio comes from me but pictures are used in news stories as well as footage from wherever the scene of the action may be. My field of work is very digitalized and technological and so I look at it as digital storytelling in itself and using other resources available to help aid that job. However, in the context we have been using to talk about digital storytelling where you’re creating a video to share an event, I see that as being a less common tool utilized for the branch of work I want to do.
I found this articleon digital storytelling while I was researching the topic and I found it really interesting because it provided me with a whole other way to look at digital storytelling and its positive impacts on our society. The article explains how digitally sharing a story is an excellent way to engage those students with learning disabilities who otherwise have a difficult time with writing skills. Giving these children the opportunity to create a story with pictures and videos allows them to engage themselves into the activity and because it may be easier for them then writing it out, they continue to give more to the story. This digital format can also help these students with their writing because once they have laid out their story via pictures, video, or art, and their ideas are clear, they can transcribe it using the computer. I think the concept of this article, however, can be applied to any learner because it is much more engaging to be able to tell your story this way than to write it all out on paper.
Where would we be without visual literacy? Our sense of visual literacy allows us to look at photographs, street signs, symbols and anything else that is a still picture and interpret what it means. If we couldn’t encode and decode these visual images, we wouldn’t be able to figure out where the bathroom was or when to cross the street. In today’s society we are surrounded more and more by images and understanding these images is the only way for us to understand our world.The article about visual literacy activities explains how it is important to study photographs with students in order to help them understand the complexities of the world. Becoming visually literate is a process of encoding and decoding images in a way that allows you to express your own ideas in a visual format and understand the meaning behind other images. This is all very important because photographs tell stories and many of us rely on pictures to tell us a story about historical events or even about our daily news. However, it is important to keep in mind that what you see is not always what you get especially in this day and age when people have access to so many computerized editing tools. Not to say, don’t rely on visual literacy to help you interpret events but remember that in some cases, whoever this image came from, may be biased to a particular viewpoint.
The branch of telecommunications I am looking to hold a career in is broadcasting/news reporting and this side of the major your job is to report on stories to share with the public audience. Visual literacy allows people to understand and interpret stories through pictures. Therefore, with the increasing dependency on visual literacy, it is pertinent for someone in my position to use images to help clearly explain the story at hand. I feel like this is a major part of telecommunications anyway but it will become much more important in the coming years.
I chose this video about visual literacy because it refers back to idea that teachers should help facilitate the cognitive learning of their students by providing them with a deeper understanding of images in all subject areas. Kids are shown countless numbers of images throughout their educational career whether it be in their teachers PowerPoint’s or in the textbooks and with the help of their teachers they could gain a better sense of visual literacy for these images, thus helping them better comprehend the subject matter. I can personally vouch for this and say that I wish my high school teachers had dug deeper as to guide me in understanding all those geographical maps, scientific charts, and historical photographs. This video shows a number of images that are seen in classrooms in different subjects everyday and without any guidance, one young mind could not fully grasp the complex meaning behind such images. Visually literacy is a very important concept and educators all around the world have the power in their hands to help their students become successful visual learners.
The minute you create something, whether it be a photo, a written piece of work, a song, or a doodle on a napkin, it is automatically copyrighted to you. When something is copyrighted it means “all rights reserved,” but with creative commons licensing, only “some rights are reserved.” Creative commons allows you to share your work with people all over the world so that they can learn from you and continue to build on your creation, without the hassle of them having to ask you for permission. As this video explains, creative commons gives out free copyright licenses that let people know exactly what parts of their copyright they are happy to share. This is a new world of copyright where collaboration dominates.
Copyright, which is a form of protection to the authors of original works, is a serious matter and it is important to know the laws that come along with it because it could cause you to get into serious legal trouble. However, copyright laws are not the only legalities when it comes to educational technology. The No Child Left Behind mandate, together with the National Educational Technology Plan, put forth a framework of guidelines for schools to follow in order to close the achievement gap. The No Child Left Behind act came about due to the declining reading scores in America and has four basic reform principles: results, local control of local issues, effective methods that bring about results, and choices for parents. The philosophy of the NTEP is to use technology to better meet the needs of students, teachers, parents and administrators. They will ensure that teachers are trained and prepared on how to incorporate technology into their curriculum, which will also help in the closing of the digital divide-the gap between those who have access to technology and those who don’t. The goal is to integrate the application of technology into the classroom so that all students can have the same resources and take part in a more dynamic learning process.
In this weeks readings we also explored the issue of copyright and fair use and because of the fact that the No Child Left Behind mandate doesn’t pertain to my major, I am going to explore how copyright does. In a field such as telecommunications, which is all about communication and getting issues out to the public, it is absolutely necessary to watch what you say. It is important that I make sure to use my own words when telling a story, especially if it is something I’ve researched from another source. Even if I were to use some cute catch phrase to conclude a story I was reporting on, you never know where that phrase may have originated, and it may in fact, not be mine to use. Being in a field that has you in the public eye, whether on TV or online, it easy for people to follow you and track everything you say so I will definitely be researching the laws on copyright and where fair use can be applied.
I felt that this video called The Digital Divide, although it is only 38 seconds in length, has a powerful message! It switches back to the topic of the digital divide and shows us how unfortunate many people are, especially those in other countries. It basically asks us to think about our lives without digital technology and how we would be living if this trend had never started. For 300 million people it hasn’t started. Hopefully with the integration of technology into more and more classrooms, some of those less fortunate will be able to experience what the vast majority of us take for granted everyday.
It is unbelievable to think about how computers and the Internet have evolved over so many years. The first computer was created in 1959 and could only perform one task at a time…could you imagine? The Internet has come a long way since then and evolved into the vast networking system we know and love today.Rapid change and growth will continue to define the future of the Internet as we continue to become a more and more technological world. There are billions of people connected to the Internet in this day and age and that doesn’t necessarily mean through computers. Internet usage is departing from computers because so many individuals have access to it through their mobile phones. With our constantly moving society where people are always on the go, it is so convenient for them to check their email, network with friends, and get updated on the recent news stories all through their cellular devices. Kids, today, are growing up in this expanding technological trend, essentially growing up online, as the Frontline series points out. Teenagers use the Internet to talk to friends and create their own profiles on websites such as Facebook where they can network with people they know and even people they may not know. This is a rising concern for parents who worry about their children’s safety. Educators also have to step up their game in the classroom because with all the media that kids consume it is hard for teachers to keep their attention with a chalkboard and lecture. This generation of students no longer reads the newspaper and as Steve Maher, a social studies teacher, says in the article that goes along with the Growing Up Online documentary, "We almost have to be entertainers."
This expanding Internet trend and mobile usage of the Internet could really be beneficial to me in my field of telecommunications. Being able to access information in a matter of seconds will allow me to look up a fact that I may need to find to produce a better report for my viewers. Whether I have access to a computer or not, chances are, I’ll be able to look up anything I need to find online and that will make me a more knowledgeable professional and allow me to do my job much more efficiently. Specifically, field reporters, who do news broadcasts on location will definitely benefit from the ability to access information from their mobile devices. It would also enable them to update the news online on their news website immediately after they have reported on it. Such advancements in technology and the Internet will allow me to get my message out quickly so my viewers can follow my reports and I can be superior at my job!
When talking about web technology, I find the expansion of mobile technology to be an exciting trend in the way we live our everyday lives. I found an article on mobile technologywhich kind of explains the idea in greater detail and what it allows us to do and the benefits and drawbacks of such. It does, however, relate it specifically to the business field and how it can be useful to professionals but I see the same ups and downs applying to a lot of career fields. It explains how mobile technology gives you the ability to connect to the Internet wirelessly, therefore giving you the power to access information and ‘customer’ accounts quickly. Just as businessmen and women can update information away from the office, as a news reporter I could also update on-site news stories to the web while away from the actual news desk or office, like I mentioned in the previous paragraph. Although it can get costly, the growth of mobile technology is increasing flexibility in the work force and lets individuals connect to the digital world at any time, in any place.
When designing for instructional media you want to keep it simple, clean, and concise. The acronym C.R.A.P., lays out the four key guidelines for instructional media and those are contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity. Points should be clear to the reader, bold in size, and visually appealing! There is no need to overcrowd the slides with too much information and/or graphics or to use obnoxious slide backgrounds and fancy transitions. It is okay to use transitions and graphics in moderation but too much of any of these things can be distracting from the points you are trying to convey in your presentation. The focus in any layout design should be the material and making sure it is organized in an effective way rather than the features that will appear on it or the background of the power point.
I’m only a second year telecom major and therefore am not completely invested into all the aspects of my field yet, so it’s a little tricky for me to relate this subject to my studies. However, telecommunications is all about communicating in a clear and effective way and there are also different tiers to my major; it’s not just in front of the camera. The web designing guidelines would really be useful to help make sure a news website is easy to follow and not crammed with too much information as to distract the readers. It’s never good to use too many graphics but putting a picture alongside a news story, in some cases, may be very helpful to help make sure the viewers are really making sense of the event they are reading about. Properly designing for the web is very important in order to communicate effectively with the public and keep them coming back to your site for more news updates.
The key feature of modern web design is simplicity. It can’t be stated any simpler than that and this article continues to emphasize the importance of that for the current style in graphic design for the web. I thought this was a useful outside resource because it shows examples of some excellent graphic design technique, allowing you to really understand how a clear and easy to follow web page should look. This article explains that you should design the content, not the page. Graphics should be used sparingly, alignment should be centered, text should be nice and large for your audience and there should be plenty of white space. Seems like we already know these facts but they truly are the main guidelines to follow for excellent web design. This site just lays it out in a different way and helps you make a design from scratch.
The partnership for 21st century skills is a national organization that has created a framework of skills that are beyond those of a student’s core academic training. The partnership wants to share this with educators in order to expand the skills in which student’s in this day and age are learning, to better prepare them for the future. The Framework for 21st Century Learning, as this vision is called, focuses on the importance of critical thinking, problem solving, communication, collaboration, innovation, creativity, and technological literacy. It also emphasizes the idea that 21st century interdisciplinary themes, such as global awareness, economic literacy, and civic literacy, should be woven into the core content students are learning, like English, mathematics, and science. It is important that students leave school with a more dynamic educational background to allow them to thrive in our ever-changing social atmosphere.
Being a telecommunications major, I feel that 21st century skills go hand in hand with my studies. Having all of these skills would prove beneficial to me in my field but there are a few that would aid me more so than the rest. Communication and collaboration are two main aspects of my major because I am hoping to be a news reporter and it is essential to the success of my career. I need to be able to communicate clearly with my team about the ideas that I have for our broadcasts and as a reporter it is of utmost importance that I am able to clearly communicate ideas and information to my viewers. I also believe that information, media, and definitely technology literacy are very valuable to my selected major. I may not start off as a broadcast reporter as soon as I step out of the collegiate realm, I may be working behind the scenes with cameras and computers and such. Technology is constantly changing and becoming more complex and it is pertinent that I can use it appropriately in my field.
In this video, 21st Century Learning Matters, the speakers continue to emphasize the concepts of 21st century learning and how it is important to incorporate these skills into students’ education. It can be learned, but not unless we change the framework of learning that is tradition. It is mentioned in the video that this is a systematic change and it is important that we overcome the inertia we are already used to in order to open ourselves up to the idea of these 21stcentury skills. This video has a lot of qualified speakers who support the change for 21st century learning and want to make sure that kids in all parts of the world are getting the education they need to succeed in their future, in a digital world!
