Darren asked in The Conversation we call Blogging “why do YOU blog and what have you learned by participating in this worldwide community?” Thanks for including me in your list Darren :).
Why do I BLOG?
While it would be nice to be famous or make a lot of money - that is not what make s me tick. I just like helping others.
Funnily enough I did not start off as a blogger, and am not strictly a blogger. When I was first shown blogs, I could not relate to them, or work out what on Earth I would write about and why anyone would want to read what I wrote. It was only when I learnt how to manage reading blogs and became to appreciate the value of reading other people’s blogs that I was able to appreciate why I should blog.
I originally started off as a podcaster (here is my podcast site). Which is really funny because after my first exposure to podcasting I decided why would any TAFE lecturer want to podcast. Several months later I was dragged (kicking and screaming) to learn how to podcast, and after the workshop I forced myself to learn how to podcast. Next thing you know I was addicted to podcasting. What I like about podcasting:
It opens doors - People who would not normally talk to me readily let me interview them.
Great professional development - I learn so much about the topic of the interview because of the time I spent editing the podcasts (which can be hours if it is a video podcast)
Networking opportunities - people contact me and engage in conversation because they like listening to my podcasts
After awhile of podcasting I discovered that I had so much information to share but could not share it properly using podcasts - so I set up a wiki site (here is my wiki site).
There eventually came a time where I had information that I wanted to share, that did not suit my podcast or wiki site and that is when I started blogging. Blogging helps me express my thoughts.
My sites often appeal to different audiences - not everyone likes to listen to podcasts - not everyone likes to read blogs and not everyone likes wikis. But having several completely different types of websites - I can cater to a wider audience and better achieve my goal of helping others (PS Twitter is now forming another way of interacting and helping others).
What have I learned by participating in this worldwide community?
You get out what you put in - you spend the time helping others and others will readily help you.
You get to interact and communicate with more people than you ever would have imagined
If you want to innovate, then the more people you network with, the more ideas you will have
It can make you late for work!!! Running late must go
I have been thinking about the fact that I wanted a Mac now for several months. Why - because I podcast and Macs are meant to be better set up for podcasting. So yesterday my friends in Twitter convinced me that it was time to buy it, they made all the decisions about which one to buy and the lovely Waxlyrical with her husband came to the store to assist me with the purchase. Photo by Waxlyrical.
I was able to purchase the Mac at educational prices since I work for TAFE (discount allowed on one Mac per year). All I had to do was take my pay slip and photo ID, this entitled me to the discount and I walked out with one nice black MacBook (13″), plus wireless mouse and travel bag.
Switching from PCs to a Mac
If you have only ever used a PC before using a Mac is really weird. The first thing that gets you is that as a PC user you have this expectation (probably unrealistic) that the keyboard on a Mac and a PC is the same. Wrong. To do a left mouse click you have to press the ctrl key and right click mouse. So then I was confused because I could not work out why I could not do shortcuts with the ctrl key - the laughing Mac twitters told me you have to use the key with the apple symbol on it. Fortunately at this stage Jason Hando felt sorry for me and sent me a link to the Switchers’ Guide to Windows and Mac Differences and Equivalents and Waxlyrical sent me lots of links for people starting out with Macs. Too scared to ask them where is the missing backspace key (as the delete key works like the backspace key on a PC - what the?).
To be honest the differences between a Mac and a PC are just what happens when you get a new device. The first time I used a PDA I struggled because I expected the Start menu to be on the bottom left not at the top of the screen; and it did take me awhile to how to use a PDA effectively, reality is it will take me awhile to learn how to use a Mac effectively (like I tell the lecturers the more you practice the better you get).
iMovie vs MovieMaker for creating a video podcast
To road test my new Mac I decided to create a video podcast using the Mac’s iMovie. Since I have been using MovieMaker for so long I did not find it obvious what I needed to do in iMovie so I started by watching the online video tutorial’s on iMovie at the Apple web site. These tutorials were really easy to understand however I do think they need to have more videos because some of the things I wanted to do were not in the videos (e.g. how to use themes effectively). Having saying that these are things that I do when creating movies using MovieMaker and are just tricks that I have picked up as I have used the program so are probably not shown in Windows tutorials either.
My thoughts are iMovie and MovieMaker are both easy to use and have different benefits over each other. The best aspects iMovie are:
Can save the video as .m4v format so do not have to convert from .wmv before I upload to my podcast site (if I upload as .wmv it converts the file format to .mp4 which plays on the podcast but does not play the audio on a video ipod)
Able to create Chapter podcasts - so audience can easily move to the section of the podcast they want to watch (not sure if my podcast site keeps the chapters when it converts when uploading - will need to test)
I am sure that as I get better using iMovie, the features of the program that I am less fussed with, will irate me less. Obviously it is also worth looking at other Mac software that might be useful for video podcasting. I have used Camtasia Studio 4 on a PC; definitely is a great program but is much harder to learn than both iMovie and MovieMaker (Camtasia also saves as .mp4 format).
Here is my first video (not a podcast yet as I have not uploaded it to my podcast site):
What I really like about my MacBook:
Small and compact (I am sitting in the lounge with it on my lap)
It easily accessed my wireless network, and the Internet is running really fast using wireless (probably faster than my wired PC). I have not been able to properly use wireless on my work Acer TravelMate 6410 - wireless will drop out anywhere between 5 min to 1 hr then I have to shutdown the laptop and restart to switch the wireless back on (it is my laptop as I tested a work colleague laptop - the same model). Also when I was able to access wireless on these laptops it really annoyed me as the Internet ran so slowly that I wanted to go and use it on my wired PC.
It looks pretty - which is important to a woman
What is next?
Well tomorrow I need to buy a cushion for sitting the MacBook on. Frances lent me hers to try when I visited her - so I definitely need one to make me more comfortable.
And I will have to create an audio podcast using GarageBand.
Plus read all the help information that Waxlyrical sent me so I can start using it more effectively.
After a very busy week it is nice to catch up with my online world. Normally I read new posts daily but this week got the better of me.
Reading webomatica’s My Blogging Reality Check reminded me that ToonDoo had made my Blog, Wikis and Podcasts comic had made Editor’s pick this week. This comic explains why I blog (although would be nice to be rich and famous - but that is not going to happen). So I thought I would go to ToonDoo to see how many views the comic got (not that I am competitive but my 8 year old son’s comic was uploaded the same time months ago and was made Editor’s pick back then - yes I was very proud of him).
While I was at ToonDoo I spotted that they have just added ToonBooks to their site. What a great tool for using with students. Great work ToonDoo.
Sorry ToonDoo, could not work out how to embed in Edublogs so have included a couple of screenshots, I am sure that Rajendran will read this post and come past to tell me the trick for Edublogs :). Meanwhile check out Rajendran’s great ToonBook on ToonBook - How To! at ToonDoo and get creating. As 8 yr old son is really sick today I should get a head start on creating my own ToonBooks before him.
While most people enjoyed the weekend with their families I was working hard at work. Get out the violins please…. Several times a year I get my online aquaculture students to attend f2f workshops so that they can learn aquaculture skills and be assessed on their skills.
My online students are all based off-campus and study their theory online. They work through interactive course material in WebCT which I supplement with fortnightly virtual classes using Elluminate. Most study aquaculture because they are interested in setting up their own fish farms, but are unable to attend classes on campus due to personal commitments (most are time-poor) or due to their geographical location.
A question I am commonly asked is why I don’t use more Web 2.0 tools with my online students….well picture it from their point of view. They want to be fish farmers. Many have limited computer skills…many will go out and buy a computer just to do my program. Just getting them to feel comfortable joining an Elluminate session is hard when you are working remotely with students; for someone who is into technology this is not overwhelming but if you are new it can be very daunting. We do have a blog however it has not been so successful.
When they come to these practical workshops, it is always fun… Why..because while I may have been communicating with them for months I have absolutely no idea of what they look like. LOL on Saturday I saw a person waiting near the area I had specified. So I went and introduced myself only to find out he was from our maritime courses and was waiting for fellow students from his class to turn up. Oops
Here are some photos from the weekend. They all had a great time getting wet with fish!!! And no they did not get to take any fish home……
In the last couple of days I have noticed people blogging on tools that I have been using for quite awhile - I assumed that everyone knew about them - wrong assumption. So I thought today I would post about tools that I use all the time:
Don’t care that it costs money - was worth every cent - they let you download and trial this software for a month - give it a go. Thanks Evil Sue for putting me onto this great screen capture software. This is how I create all the great “How-to-do” images for my web sites (check out “how to create instructional videos” must transfer this to Mobile Technology in TAFE wiki).
All my blog posts are written using LiveWriter. Definitely much quicker and easy than using my blog dashboard. Thanks Frances for getting me to try it. If you have not tried LiveWriter - TRY IT
I use these to locate photos that I can legally use. Lynetter’s Interesting Snippets contains great images with excellent quotes that I have been using for some of my different web sites. These snippets have inspired me to create some of my own. [Snippet by Lynetter].
This site has so many excellent toys that you can use to create posters, badges , mosaics etc from Flickr photos. Thanks Robyn for putting me onto Flickr toys and Storm.
This is a magazine cover that I created using Flickr Toys. Yes - we can all agree that I am not that creative - so I shall not be leaving my day job yet - tip if you want the photo to work it needs to be 619 pixels wide by 800 pixels high.
I use Audacity for creating audio podcasts, MovieMaker for my video podcast (would like to use a Mac for video - but that is a really long story) and SuperC for converting my videos from .wmv to .mp4 format (less problems when I upload to my podcast site). Here are my instructions on “how to create audio podcasts“, “how to create video podcasts” and “how to convert .wmv to .mp4“.
If you have time, please give me your opinion on which tool to use - screencasting software, Photostory or MovieMaker (definitely worth time to read this post and the comments because of the differing in opinion by my readers).
I use Skype, Google Talk, Twitter, iGoogle, Google Reader and del.icio.us to manage my world online. My preferred method of communication is now through chat - have to admit Google Talk is now my favorite because you can search gmail and chat history to easy locate information you discussed.
I am really into my Personalised Google Home page because the homepage makes it easier to manage my online world. Also there are so many Gadgets (Widgets) you can add to your Google Homepage (just click on add more stuff).
If you liked this post on My Everyday Tools then I suggest you read my post on Tools of the Trade (about Web 2.0 tools such as wikis, delicious, blogs that I recommend every lecturer should use and why. I also suggests ways they can use these tools with students).
Well I am on holidays - so it is okay to have some fun… Been playing Scrabble in Facebook with some friends. Shame it is back to work next week so will have less time to play.
Tonight I read Gabriella’s post on ESP (the great thing about Gabriella’s posts is I don’t have to understand Romanian to get the gist of what she is saying)… so decided while I was in the mood for playing (as I am waiting for my friends to play their next turn) that I would check out what ESP is about.
Well, it is a game that you play with a random player - you both have to come up with the same word(s) to describe an image, without using any of the taboo words. Basically you just keep entering words, as quickly as possible (press enter after each word). If you have no idea you can press pass. Tip - use the obvious - such as the predominate color, if there is a ball somewhere obvious in the image then type ball. Please note they do cheat - if they have a color as a taboo then most times it will not let you enter a different color.
I obviously have not ability, in terms of ESP, as I never achieved above NOVICE ranking - although I could blame the other player (lets be honest I suck at Quiz nights because I am always looking for the complicated answer).
Please don’t come back and tell me you did better with ESP
After I posted on the stress of talking about podcasting - Zemina Hasham (Senior Director, Client Services for Elluminate) contacted me and “offered to meet up with me to better understand my presentation and share some ideas on how best to include these and minimize my stress!” So yesterday morning we meet up in her Elluminate virtual office, which was very nice of her since she had just flown from Calgary to USA, and was sitting in a hotel room at 8pm at night.
The main concern I had was playing the audio and video podcasts within Elluminate. She explained which option you choose depends on the file size:
Up to 10MB works well with the Media library (keep a close eye on the indicator so you have an idea of if there is any delays with any of the participants)
Over 10MB then you may be better off using the Web Tour - take them to the website and ask them to click play
She also showed me how the timer feature of Elluminate V8 can be used with Breakout rooms (i.e. put the participants in separate rooms, tell them they have 5 minutes to do the task and turn on the timer - this way they can clearly see how long they had to do their task).
We also discussed that it is more important to be an effective teacher in a virtual classroom as the student can literally step away from his / her computer without disturbing the teacher whereas in a f2f classroom, the teacher can see whether the student is engaged and paying attention. She even suggested some recorded Elluminate presentations that are worth watching to get ideas on being more effective. I think it would be really good if Elluminate had a series of how to be an effective teacher in a virtual classroom on their Training page (as I only found the Elluminate presentations she mentioned by Googling them).
I personally believe that having access to a virtual classroom for remote e-learning students is essential to ensure engagement and interaction. A virtual classroom lets you talk to your students, encourages interaction between both you and your students, direct message your students, take them on web tours, share their desktop, display PowerPoints, do brainstorming activities etc. If your organisation does not have access to a virtual classroom you can always get yourself an Elluminate vRoom.
BENEFITS
Free - absolutely no cost
Available to you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year
Handy to have your own room that you can access whenever you have a need - when VOIP is not enough
Only difference from standard Elluminate is you can not record the session and max. of 4 people can participate
Thanks Zemina for your assistance. I am definitely impressed by the customer service supplied by your company.
John from My Other Blog visited my city (Perth, Western Australia - he is from the East coast of Australia - Geelong, Victoria) last week to attend the 2007 World Conference on Science and Technology Education. His reflection on the conference was interesting - I believe he said there was about 1000 participants - but very low attendances at Web 2.0 sessions (Intro to Web 2.0 had 20 people; workshop setting up blogs aand wikis had 4 people; podcasting had 23 people). Of those that attended the sessions only 4 people had previous experience with blogs and podcasts.
In his reflections he ponders does this mean the majority of participants at the conference already knew about the potential of Web 2.0. Unfortunately like John I believe that most of the participants had no idea what is Web 2.0 or what are blogs, podcasts or wikis - hence how can they understand the potential.
How can we get our teachers to use Web 2.0 if they have no idea what it is about? Maybe we need to tackle showing people the potential of Web 2.0 differently; if our intended audience does not relate to terms like Web 2.0, podcasts, wikis, blogs then we need to think about what terms they would relate to so that they can learn about the potential of Web 2.0.
How can we hope for our kids to use blogs, wikis, podcasts etc at school if we can not get the message across to their teachers. Are your kids missing out - like mine?
Part of my role is m-learning - and yet I have no wireless. How can I talk and demonstrate wireless technology if I have not experienced it first hand. Definitely a valid reason for me to spend my time and hard earned money investing in setting up a wireless network for my home (also thought it would make it appear that I was spending more time with the family since I could sit with them and be on my laptop).
The Woes I have faced:
1. Wireless Access point
Already had a router so thought probably best to get a wireless access point and add to my router. Was told by IT friend that any idiot can set up a wireless access point. They obvious did not mean this idiot!
Purchased a D-Link wireless access point (and my router was Netgear). Tried to configure access point directly with Router and wired directly into two different computers. No luck. Could not get it to detect access point. Waited for IT friend to come back - day later - and nope he could not get it to work.
2. Wireless Router
Went back to Harvey Normans, they swapped the access point, no questions asked. None left so had to purchased a wireless router (D-Link). Great now have two routers - just what every household needs NOT.
Fortunately this time idiot was able to configure and set up router. Was definitely feeling so much better with oneself - now have wireless throughout the house. Great except that wireless keeps turrning off on work lap top.
3. Wireless on Lap Top
Work has supplied me with a lovely widescreen Acer TravelMate 6410. On the front of the laptop it has a toggle switch that you move to turn on wireless. It also has the ability to turn off wireless, by itself, when I am using it andwill not let me switch the wireless back on unless I restart the computer.
Obvious question - must be the new wireless router. Nope . Was doing the same thing at BarCamp and now at Frances’s hourse. After BarCamp I contacted work helpdesk and they installed a new wireless driver in case that was the problem. Has made no difference. How long it takes to disconnect varies. Sometimes a couple of minutes other times will last for up to an hour but most the time will be after 5 minutes.
The Answer?
Frances has tried everything with it. No luck.
I think there is a problem with the wireless switch. So it would be worth me borrowing the same lap top from someone else to bring home to test. That woud be interesting as the College purchased 30 of these; might be a worried if it is a problem with all of them.
Relucant to give to our helpdesk to send to be fixed as the last time I did this with my old lap top it was gone for a month.
Personally what they do in the following video is what I would like to do with the laptop. While I am at it I would add the D-Link wireless router which has lost Internet connection (for my PCs that were directly wired to the router) at least 4 times in the three weeks since I bought it (meaning I had to turn it off and restart it).
But I am controlling my temper - only because there is no snow - and maybe because it is a work laptop. Although I do think this is a really good reason for me to buy myself an Mac laptop - the new wireless should work on it and much better for my podcasting . Wonder if my hubby would understand the need?
You would think, as a podcaster, that putting together a presentation on podcasting would be easy? NOPE! Not when the presentation will be online using a Virtual Classroom which adds so many more factors to the equation especially when you want to make it interactive (which is much easier f2f) and you actually want to play some podcasts (a lot more can go wrong playing media in a virtual classroom than f2f)
Thankfully Philip was nice to spend some of his holiday (again) today with me and we road tested the different options for playing podcasts in Elluminate.
We worked out that:
Web tour did not work - the podcasts I wanted to play open up in another window
Application sharing was not great - the podcasts played poorly (stop, started)
Media library - worked really well especially for the video podcast. I could not get the audio podcasts to play on my PC (kept coming up with debugging error - fortunately when I pressed play it did play on Philip’s PC even if it was not playing on mine)
So media library with Elluminate is the way to go but:
Means I must log into session early and upload all videos and audios (as they take awhile to upload)
Need to ensure participants have Quicktime plugin installed on their PCs before the session
Make sure you check file format if you plan to play video using media library in Elluminate as only some formats are supported.
Still concerned because I need a good Plan B & C in case the podcasts fail to play. Perhaps one option is to have links on standby for them to use directly from the PCs? Perhaps the Classroom Online network facilitators have some suggestions?
Oh well, and just to add to the stress the next online presentation will not be in Elluminate, they will be using a different Virtual Classroom. (
Here is my presentation for the first online session. Any suggestions for changes happily accepted. PS I do know the alphabet - for some reason Slideshare does some weird things when you upload PowerPoints - this time it has changed my letter bullets!
