Peer Review, Peer Review, Wherefore Art Thou Peer Review?

Image Taken by Brayden

This week was peer review week for Task 2 and it was certainly full on!
Thankfully I had finished my website well in advance so it wasn't something that I needed to stress about this week. I has tested all the hyperlinks, watched my instructional video multiple times and created multiple Google accounts to ensure I could find my event. All that was left to do was upload my website link to peer review system and peer review another persons work. Uploading my website link was rather easy, and I also found reviewing another persons work somewhat fun. If I could have, I would have stayed up all Wednesday night peer reviewing, but I was incredibly tired so I opted for sleep instead. The one problem with the peer review system is that it got to Thursday morning (the close off time for system) and I still had not got a review, something that I was heavily relying on in order to see if I needed to fix anything up or change things around. Thankfully Jenni realised there was a problem with the system and acted quickly in order to try and fix it so that everyone, or at least most people, would get a review. During my lunch break at work on Thursday I thought I would check if I happened to get a review, and surprisingly enough I did have one and I did really well! They found no faults in my work, and gave positive (but no constructive) feedback.

I never knew there were online system for peer reviews, and I think it's a rather fun way to introducing marking to students studying education. I also think that this system can be introduced into the classroom where students are able to grade other students work, and then work off the constructive feedback given to them by their peers. This type of system would be best implemented in upper primary classes and all the way through High School where students have an understanding of what a marking rubric is and how to follow one.

I am looking forward to task 3 coming up, and seeing how it will all pull together within my group.

Brayden.

Choosing My Multimedia

Image Taken by Brayden Cook

Imge Take by Brayden Cook

Multimedia can defined as exactly that, multiple medias. The online Dictionary defines multimedia as the use of multiple forms of media, such an animations and sounds combined together in computer applications. For task two we had to choose a form of multimedia, whether that be images and text joint together or video and sounds combined together, in order to give instructions on how to access and contribute to our social media space. Due to previous assignments I completed during my schooling, I already knew that I did not like the sound of my voice once it had been recorded, so I automatically ruled out doing a video for this task. Other forms of multimedia that had been suggested were a PowerPoint presentation using images and text to explain how to access and contribute to the social media space, some form of animation, or even an interactive task. My first thought was to do the easiest one possible for me, and that was to take screenshots of every step and then annotate it using text. After attending the lecture in week 6, I found out that although I was able to pass using text and images, the chance of getting any form of a 'decent' mark was rather low, so I had to do what I already knew I did not want to do, and that was to create a video (or screencast) using one of the programs that Jenni mentioned in the lecture and annotate it with sound.


When it came to choosing a screencast program, I honestly did not put much thought into it whatsoever. I chose the first program I liked the sound of, downloaded it, explored how to use it and then used it. Later on I found out that I truly did not choose the best program whatsoever and should have looked into each program and website more carefully. The program I used was Jing, I will openly say that there is both positives and negatives to using Jing, according to me at least. The positives of it is that is was easy to download, set up and start recording, problems started occurring when I found out that the program records to video as an Adobe Flash or .swf file. The problem with this type of file is that it is not considered a video file so I was unable to upload it to YouTube. I also tried multiple websites and free programs in order to try and convert the file into a video file but all of those attempts were unsuccessful. Finally I decided to try and upload the flash file to my Weebly site, but yet again I reached another problem; Weebly will only accept flash files that are smaller than 10 megabytes (MB) and the flash file I was trying to upload was in excess of 50MB so I could not upload it that way. Thankfully Jing has a built in feature where it automatically uploads the video to your Screencast website. From the Screencast website you are able to get the embedded code and embed it into your website.

Huzzah, I have finally uploaded my video to my website and everything is running smoothly, well so I hoped anyway. Upon looking at my website, I realised the embedded video is far too small. Thankfully I knew how to change the size, but yet again another problem emerges; Each time I try and adjust the size of the video, half of it ends up not being viewable as it is off the screen. After playing around with it, I figured out that I had to remove the columns on the page and then embed the video after all the writing rather. The finished product is finally looking good and I am rather happy with it.  

Social Event and Social Media

Last week I started considering what event I may do for my Social Learner. As my mum and step-dad recently moved up to Karratha I thought I would create an 'event' that revolved around them. My first idea was to simply have a family catch up with my siblings for Easter, but a this did not require much from the participants, I opted for a new idea. My new idea was still going to involve mum and Mark (my step-dad), however the idea was now going to involve more participation from those who are accessing the event. Instead of the family catch up, I thought that a surprise family holiday would be a more unique idea that would require the people accessing the event to get involved through finding cheap flights to and from Karratha on the particular dates set out.

Image Taken by Brayden Cook

Now that I had the social event planned out, I had to decide on what social media I was wanting to use. The options are almost endless with websites such as Socializr, Google+, and many more that enable the user to create an event for people to access and contribute to. As I already have a Google account, my first thought was to try and use Google+, however I found it difficult to create an event that would be easily accessible for others. As I was getting frustrated with myself being unable to use Google+ I decided to move on and try a different approach. I ending up searching on Google for Online Event Websites where I thought I would be able to create a page where people would be able to RSVP as well as contribute to the space. I signed up for a few different websites to trial them such as Splash and Eventbrite but none of the websites did what I was hoping they would be able to do. Instead of creating a page where I could like people to so they can RSVP and contribute to the event, the websites I tried were more for concerts or other big events where people could sell tickets online, allow a particular amount of tickets to be sold and other similar information. As none of the websites did what was required, I went back to my Google+ with a fresh mind in hope that I would be able to finally figure it out. Thankfully, I got there in there in the end, I finally created my social event on a social media website! Now that I have completed my social event, I will need to start considering what multimedia I will use and how I will use it.

Brayden.

Task 2: The Social Learner

Image Taken by Brayden Cook

This week I started looking at task 2 for my unit Living and Learning with Technology.
For this task I am required to find a Social Networking Site, provide a multimedia resource for a peer to follow so they are able to connect and contribute to it, as well a complete a peer review on one of my peers' social learners. The first part of the task will require me to think of a social event where I can use a Social Networking Site to create and organise the particular event. Secondly I will need to find the appropriate Social Networking Site to use and create my event on that site. Finally I need to create a form of multimedia that provides clear instructions so that my peers can access and contribute to my event with ease.

I feel as if the Social Learner task will be a relatively easy task to complete. I think the peer review part of the task will be interesting as it is my first experience marking another person's work. This part of the task is my first little 'taste' of what it will be like to be a teacher. I am rather excited to get a start on the task where I will be exploring many different social media sites as well as hopefully creating an interesting event.

Brayden.

Digital Citizenship

Poster Created by Brayden Cook

This week I started the 'digital citizenship' part of Task 1. This part of the task required us to research one aspect of safe, ethical and responsible use of ICT in an online environment. At first I was unsure what all those terms meant, so I had to do some research. An example of unsafe use of ICT is cyber bullying, for ethical use it may include acknowledging the works of others in an appropriate manner and an example for responsible use is thinking about what you put online and how you present yourself. The thought process of what aspect I wanted to use was rather simple, cyber bullying is something I have always felt passionate about, so researching and creating a poster about it seemed like the right thing to do. After some research on CyberBully I found some statistics about it on the Queensland Government website.
Figuring out how I was going to create my poster proved difficult. I have previously made posters using Microsoft programs such a Publisher and Word, alongside Adobe Photoshop. As I have previously used these programs I wanted to explore other options, and decided to use an infographic website. As there are many different websites to be used, I tried a few different ones such as Piktochart, Infogr.am and Easel.Ly. I signed up for Piktochart, however the website was running incredibly slow, so I thought I would move on to the next website. Yet again, I had the problem with websites not loading so Infogr.am was out of the question also. As these two websites, that others recommended to me, were not working, I ended up researching some free infographic tools for myself and came across Easel.ly. Easel.ly is an easy to use website, which I highly enjoyed using and would recommend to others. I have finally uploaded my poster to my website as a PDF, as well as providing a link to the online copy.

Brayden.

Making My Website

Today I started Task One for Living and Learning with Technology. This task requires us students to create both a website and a blog documenting our work throughout this unit. With creating a website many problems may appear due to multiple different reasons, one problem I faced was being unsure of what website I should use to build and create one for myself. In order to solve the problem I asked a few of peers what sites they were using to create their own and whether or not they thought the site was easy to use. From the answers I was given I decided to try out both Weebly as well as Yola, unfortunately Yola has a 3 page limit with its free version so that website was not suitable for the task I am completing. With Yola being out of the question I have decided to use Weebly to create my personal website. From what I have seen and heard in both the lectures and tutorials, as well as what I have read in the Unit Guide, I feel as if this unit as a whole is going to be interesting and I hope that it will broaden my mind with ideas of how to integrate technology into the classroom. As it is only the second week into University I am yet to find another area where a website may be a suitable way to present information, however I think throughout the next four years and throughout my future teaching career both a website and a blog will be used as a unique way to present a task.
Below is an image of the home screen of my website.

Brayden.

Image Taken by Brayden Cook

Introduction

Hello and welcome to my blog. I am currently a student at Murdoch University where I am studying Early Childhood and Primary Education full-time. I am currently doing 3 different units, two core units and one elective unit. As part of a task for one of the core units, Living and Learning with Technology (EDN113), we have been asked to create a website and a blog documenting our studies throughout the unit.

This blog will be dedicated to documenting on different tasks throughout the unit. Each post I create will be marked on a criteria based around: Unit content, Learning and/or problem solving strategies, thoughts and/or feelings about our learning, networks and communication, connections and extensions, use of technical knowledge, visuals, hyperlinks and finally writing, spelling, grammar and punctuation. I am aiming to cover all areas of the criteria in each post in order to receive the highest grade that my effort is able to get me.

I hope you all enjoy joining me in my learning journey. Please feel free to leave me comments and feedback.

Brayden.