Booked in: sourcing and creating E-Content

Week 10

Booked in: sourcing and creating E-Content

Sorry to see no more emails from Felicity, I'll miss her, and this course was fun but still we all have to move on. I am going to suggest to the others here that are doing this course to share their blogs, so we can all learn from each other, and view the different ways we learn. Also if we collaborated and teach the other staff members what we learned during these last 10 high tensioned weeks.

Aaah well to work....

Scribed:  Sounds interesting, but whenI looked into the site, it confused me (it's Friday and I easily get confused on Friday's) and it seemed cluttered.

Myebook:   Interesting. I looked into one book and the computer would not preview it, I think I'll have to update my library to a kindle or something similar.

Vook:   Getting better and more interesting ... Definately have to invest in updated technology. i found a great looking book here Dracula's guest, I remember seeing a movie of this title as a kid, and am now in the hunt to read it......aaghhh, no kindle, have to find the book and sit in the sun, or under a tree with my buffalo out in the paddock.

Blurb:   This is an inspiring website. I took the quick how to tour and thought of all the things I could put into a coffee table book. I think I'll have to start making books again. They have an Australian site with different books shown but using the same technology for making the books. I loved the following book on the aussie site:

Papa Cloudy’s Laundrymat   


Zinepal:   Checked out the easy1-2-3 instructions.... easy to follow, this I might try.

Flipsnack:   Flipping books, hmmmmm. I viewed examples of a wire-bound and a hardcovered book here. Beautiful is the only way to describe them.

Movellas:   Love it, you can make the font biggere or smaller, read page to page and sit back and enjoy chapter by chapter, the book of choice.

Playtales:   This must be made for me. Has an "available for" format listing under each book as well as trabs for featured, top picks, newewst, and free books. Great for kids (like me), clear and easy to understand. I watched the demo, and thought it would be great for the grankids......oh where is that kindle?

Storytales:   Publish your own book for kids, in apparently easy steps. I read 1 book, I can count to 10, This was bright, colourful, clear and good for younger children. Overall a good site.
Now my effort, hope you enjoy it????
You'll find it at:

http://snack.to/fzh9qupx

Thank you Felicity for all your fun projects. I loved them.

Cheers for now and hope your enjoyed the Kids on the farm

Video killed the radio star

Week 9

Video killed the radio star: Sourcing audio visual content

While going over the days lesson, I kept thing about this course (Web +1) and the Diploma course I have just finished. Both use the Web, in the course activities, the Diploma course use videos and links to some great sources to enhance the learning experience. I will always remember one that they linked to that is on YouTube...... take a look..... Monk needs help opening a book
The one thing I found in quite a few videos online was that the sound quality variance was quite distracting especially as I am deaf. In some cases even having the sound at maximum volume it was hard to hear.

The download speed varied from computer to computer also and being in a remote area, waiting for a 2 minute video to download in an hour makes my hair curl. But this is something unique to Australian remote areas (Northern Territory, South Australia, Western Australia, Outback Queensland and NSW) not people living in major cities.

Delving into KhanAcademy I found it very mathematical and not quite up my alley of interest (I hate maths). In actual fact I really prefer something not educationally formatted for me to learn quicker. In other words ...... "Make it fun and I'll learn"........

The Apple platform looks interesting and innovative  at iTunesU but not having an Apple anything I can't really check it out.

The various sites suggested were interesting but I think YouTube is the one I would still use daily for learning purposes. In fact YouTube EDU has a good video on English slang words, The 1 I viewed was on the word "Suck" and it described it quite well. In fact I think think I'll go back and view more of their slang words. Even though it is quite Americanized.

It was interesting looking at these sites But I think I prefer to..... Read a book

There are more in books

Re-search : Top Search Results Don’t End With “oogle”

Week 8

Re-search : Top Search Results Don’t End With “oogle”

I didn't know there was so many different types of search engines out there in the great land called Web. Some are so good but they all have there little secrets and idioms.

Sweet search:  really cool, precise good for studies and when (as it should always be) reputability is of the essence, and you can share your search results….. cool.

Twurdy: This has a gradient according to the difficulty of readability, this would be good for the Indigenous students here at Batchelor with low reading skills and definitely one search engine to keep in mind.

Blekko: says it eliminates spam but I found several results that were from advertising sites trying to sell products.

Qwiki: a quick wiki? Create videos for cyberspace on what interests you….. you never know someone out there may like it too!

Dewey Digger: Good but uses old edition of DDC (not DDC23).

Wolfram Alpha: Good, specific search engine good for research.

Zuula: When using this search engine it was surprising how many different sites appeared on different search engines. One to keep in mind and also highlights the need to search further afield when you want an answer. Not just in one place.

DuckDuckGo: I like the name. Not having to go to the next page is a bonus and the custom search morph with a ! gives exact results. Great.

Dunno: I was instantly turned off by being a Apple Mac App. (I don’t use Apple Mac’s).

I have always used meta search engines such as Dogpile until now...... I think I will expand my searches and experience more of the great sites above.

Searching till I drop          

 

Presently Surprised

Week 7

Presently Surprised : Making Memorable Presentations

Wow was I presently surprised at how easy this could be. I first tried SlideRocket and could not get any graphics of any sort to upload from either my computer, the web or anywhere else, this I found frustrating to say the least.

I then tried Prezi and wow! easy the hardest thing was to decide what the presentation was to be on???? In the end I went for a procedure that I had to develop for the Batchelor Library on Disc Cleanups. By using this and adding an extra slide the presentation was done in a couple of minutes. Easy.
Check it out at the following

http://prezi.com/u5nlgtr2vjs3/disk-cleanup/

I'm now ready for the next big leap (as long as it's not too hard), maybe not, I think I'll have a cuppa and think about that for a while.

Week 6

Picture pop:the image culture

This is my cup of tea, pictures I like…. Mmmm, my photo albums in the clouds, interesting concept.

“This is where I’ll become the mad professor and run screaming more, more, give me more!!!!”

Picasa  interesting this is something I will definitely investigate more and utilise to the max.

Flickr   not quite me

BeFunky         easy, fun and gives good effects

While playing here this is what I came up with:                                                 

   

Original miss attitude

Adjusted / played with Miss attitude

Pixlr     similar to Photoshop which I could never get my scrambled brain around

PicMonkey      cheeky, fun I like. Extra features are provided with registration.

Zoom.it           I couldn’t get it to work properly with what I uploaded, my fault, I’ll try again with something else and upload a picture of my own.

Taggalaxy        groovy, fun. Picking your topic, defining what you want then watching the globe spin as you check out your photos.

morgueFile      loved it (plenty of cow pictures here). I’ll definitely use this again in my work that I have to do regularly making covers etc. I will definitely keep this in my favourites file.

Ffffound         sorry this site can stay Llllost as far as I can see

Visualizing.org            not my cuppa either.

While searching the www I found tips and tricks to use on the above sites and photobucket which appeared interesting too.
Tips include:   
http://www.helpwise.com.au/help/google/google-picasa-web-albums.pdf

http://www.allcreativedesigns.com.au/downloads/picasatutorial.pdf

Photobucket    for uploading, downloading, sharing, linking and finding photos, videos and graphics. This site hosts all your images and videos for free; you can share them by email or

on social sites like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. Store thousands of photos and hours of video. Access on your mobile phone, create and share digital slideshows, collages, copy and paste links to share your photos and videos on any profile, forum, blog or website, share with family, friends, and your favourite sites, unlimited photos and up to 500 videos, add captions, effects and more with our easy-to-use photo editor. Organize your albums. Follow the albums of the people you care about, and get notified whenever they add new stuff. Print your photos, create gifts

There are some exciting sites out there, so I’ll just have to keep looking

Week Five

Condensing resources managing time

Time management is what I need at the moment, what with 2 lots of study going people going off sick and on leave at work and lazy workers on the farm that I have to cater for........ time management, a whip and a chair would be a good start.

While browsing through the weeks work I noticed that TopicMarks was being discontinued as at The 25th July 2012. This I find is a problem with sites,  they discontinue use and disappear after a while whether through little use, expensive to keep going, being hacked and security breaches or some other reason. I often wonder what happens to all the information that you put into these sites only for them to disappear. on the TopicMarks site it has the following notice:

"To all our valued customers, supporters and friends,

We want to inform you that Topicmarks will discontinue operations on July 25th, 2012.
We will securely dispose of your account, personal information and documentation, including all materials that have been uploaded.
The entire Topicmarks team would like to express our gratitude to everyone who has supported us in our adventure.

Very Best Regards,
The Topicmarks Team"

I also wonder how secure is "secure"?

I think I prefer to source information for myself rather than utilizing some of these sites as my interests and criteria change from day to day for sourcing different topics within my work both in the library and on the farm.

I had a play in Paper.li and found it easy to create a paper but after creating the paper how do you upgrade it to include other sources of information? Aha in the settings (top right) and then edit on the left. This takes you to page to update your paper. Not hard once you wknow how.

I like the idea of a newspaper version of your searches, it gives it an old feel about searching the net (or I think it does any way).
I couldn't find any other interesting catching or condensing sites so I think I'll take a page out of lil Digger's book and kick back and relax

Week Four

Finally here, this is getting a bit hard with no computer or Internet at home and an overwhelming work load at work.

Searching through Diigo, I found it easy to manouvre through and signed in using  good old Google. I joined up and am now following 1 person who has similar interests, checked out the community and started making a reading list of 4  interesting sites and articles which I added to my library.

As I'm not a real group joiner I did not join any groups..... yet. although I would not discount it for the future.

I also looked over Instapaper and found this to be a useful tool for me reading articles.
I added The Library of Utopia to be read later in a folder I named "work related" and America's Last Prisoner of War in my "general interest" folder.

The one thing that urks me about the web and all the tools we are learning about is the fact that they all seem to be Americanised. I know America has a big user base and companies like Apple and HP are based there but hey how about some Aussie, Pommy, or bright New Zealander coming up with something like these sites..... we do have intelligent people here too, its not a Yanky syndrome.

Week 3 Social awareness

Learning about tweeting and how it has killed the RSS feed to some extrent. But I don't know I prefer to be silent in a lot of cases (except when something gets on my goat) and just read posts and make up my mind on the content with out replying and getting into a conversation about things. I also think that I get too many emails now with work and would like to cut them down, also it bugs the "h" out of me when people say they would like to friends or they have added things to Face book and other sites and I can not view them because of blocks on the computers at work....

Trending topics in twitter sounds a bit more to my sytle ( not following but reading things that are being discussed)..... After having a good look at twitter it does not really interest me at all.

Now for "Pinterest" reading about this sounds a bit more interesting... a pin board about my intersts (boring.... playing and talking with animals ... hey they make more sense than people most of the time).

With Pinterest can read the stream and if you find something you like you request an invite and then comment or find the actual start of the stream (recipe of hint) and add this to your pin board.

This is definately more me but where are the cows??????

I did sign up for pinterest but am awaiting an answer on my invite request...

Well that about does it for the day... have a beer with Red and Doug and I'll see you later.

Week 2: Day 1 Google Reader

Still on the cuppa?

Just finished perusing Google reader and the RSS feeds. I found this an interesting site and although I am already signed up to get some feeds through my email I thought also signing up for the CSIRO feed would help in purchasing for the library.
The recipe feeds look interesting but I try to use only the produce we grow on the farm and it's hard to grow strawberries in the tropics (too hot) except for a couple of months a year.
The google reader and google docs sites were both confusing and hard to navigate at first but with a bit of practice they would become easier.
With the Google Docs I tried to share the recipe for comment with the course coordinator but I don't know if this worked as all the emails I send her keep bouncing back as undelivered mail.
I thought the Google Reader site would have more feeds available but maybe they will add to them in future.

Well I'm off now to do some more work.

Relax til then like my little friend above.

Week 2 Day 1 Google Documents

Searching google docs I had trouble at first as all the system wanted me to do was download to the computer  hard drive. This I can/t do as being a work computer all downloads are blocked until the IT personal actually come down to unblock them as an administrator.
It took me about 30 minutes before I could find my way around this and a way into to actually make a document and save it without downloading......... aaarghhh.
I made a recipe card for my banana bread which I make for the farm visitors a picture of this below.

This would be a good way of keeping my recipes away from the insects and weather here in the bush and also a good way of pulling them "out of the air when my kids want them for their munchies....

Grab a cuppa coffee and some bread and I'll be back soon with more updates.

Week 1 Day 3

While lying in my bed last night I suddenly woke up thinking Face Book is really a "Blog" for many people on one site.....

Looking through the web I even found  there was a site for the top 100 Australian Blogs at http://blogpond.com.au/top-100-australian-blogs-index/
take a look it's interesting.

Or if you are interested in other new Australian blogs try http://www.australianblogs.com.au/
while investigating Blogs I kept stumbling over the word "widget". These I found are a handy, easy and simple way to add some flare to your blog. Whether you’d like to display the number of currently online visitors to your site or simply the weather report for Los Angeles, you can do it with widgets.
There are many site offering free widgets one interesting site I found was at mashable.

I thought I might try to add a weather widget to this post and see what happens, it is supposed to be live and give accurate readings on the temperature...... I'll keep an eye on it and see if it moves, it is 28 degrees C at the moment so so far so good.

Now I have to figure out how to move the widget to a margin??????
The weather widget I found was at widgets for free and was easy to use.

Ooops out of time ...... back to work.

See you next week as there is no Internet on the farm. Boy do I enjoy it out there!

Till then keep the coffee brewing.

Week 1 Day 2

Day 2 of the web 1 course and I am going to fiddle with the buttons on the post settings.
I'm a great one for fiddling, exploring and getting lost at the same time but it is one way that I learn.
I've found the spell check and am going to add a photo.
I've noticed that every time I stop typing a sentence that it automatically saves my work without selecting the save button on the top....great.
I've set the location on the post settings and now blogger wants to track me.... interesting to find out where he says I am.
Now for the picture, let's see if it works???????

Yippee!!! it did.

Now Alignment has changed on the page to the centre, can I now find left alignment? Yep.

The picture is of the first calf born on the farm and his mother.The 2nd calf was born early hours this morning 24th  May 2012and I will try to get a good picture of him this afternoon.

Oh well back to work til tomorrow for my next play.

Til then

Week 1 In the beginning

So far so good.....

I had a bit of trouble at first, as both my email addresses have google accounts and had to log in to create yet another blog spot. But it was well worth the bit of extra thinking........

I'm here now, so settle back, grab your cuppa and start reading

First some background on me:

It's a little difficulty for me as at home we have no radio, TV, phone, or Internet access, so when I enrol in a course like this it has to be done mainly in my lunch hour (aaahhhh typing with a mouthful of spaghetti cabonnara). I said difficulty but do I want access to these modern aids to the western world...... NO. .... I scream I'm happy leave me be in my un-invaded world at home.

What I have learned so far:

Wikis

Wiki is a Hawaiian word meaning quick.

Wikipedia is 90% accurate.

A wiki is a collaborative site that collects as much information as possible about a specific topic in one place, from anyone.

Blogs

There are a lot of blogs out there on the Web some give good information on all manner of topics. Some companies and domain holders host blogs on their websites, in the form of forums.

The success of a blog is measured by the amount of traffic that passes by and clicks through the site.

Blogs make money (I never would have though this but everyone wants to be seen these days).

The term blog is derived from “web log”.

I think if I had the choice in the work place to have either a Wiki or a Blog, I would have the Wiki with privacy settings, then at least I could check the information going up to the Web for accuracy, but on the other hand a digital diary in the form of a Blog would be good then at least you could see the thought processes and all the answers to your problems in your topic.

Till next time