Thing 9

Using image generators stretches the imagination and challenges the intellect. Creating a message that will be well received and spark some initiative can be an education in itself. When I first retired from the Navy, I spent some time in marketing. I sold yellow-page advertisements to businesses that had never advertised in the phone book before. 

I would interview the owner, ask him or her what made them unique to the market. I would request further information, and within 20 - 30 minutes, I had a working ad for the customer. Now I am using some of the same skills to create educational comics.

This exercise takes me back to the days of glory when I had to think on my feet. Getting students into a pattern can be difficult. I teach English writing in a traditional classroom setting and online. I hear lots of stories of the paper that got away. On the first day of class, I review my technology standards using the syllabus. I try to discuss how to start a document, how to save the document and how to select the correct format, and how to transport files. 

On the day that the first paper is due, I have about a fifty percent failure rate, because instructions are not followed. Some older students have never used a computer, and the younger ones just do not pay attention. I believe that I can use comics to make the point a little better. I look forward to using this in class in the near future.

Thing 8

Yahoo is certainly attempting to rival Microsoft in its variety of services.  It has staved off two takeover bids by Microsoft this year. Flickr is a great photo web-sharing and blog site. It certainly bears the marks of a Web 2.0 entity. Flickr has several application sites that enhance the digital photography enthusiast.

I used the slideshow feature at BigHugeLabs to create a series of some of my better portraits. I selected a set of photos from my account and edited it to create the following slide show.

http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/slideshow.php?id=55506

Using the Mosaic production tool, I created a mosaic of flora. All photos were taken in either Tennessee or Kentucky by me within the past year. I took several photos at Patties 1880s Settlement in Grand Rivers, Kentucky. Another group of photos were taken at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee. The two photos in the bottom left row were taken in the Austin Peay greenhouse in the Sundquist Science Center. I called the phone number posted by the entrance of the greenhouse and told the professor that I was a grad student. She allowed me to spend about one hour in the greenhouse. The single blooming lily pad is in the pond in my front yard, the group of lily pads was at a museum near Louisville, Kentucky. I captured the two bottom right photos in the early morning in my back yard after a heavy frost.

Please follow this link:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/29989483@N00/2895955381/

I also created a photo jigsaw using a cloud formation photographed about one-half hour before sunset in the rear parking lot at work, Draughons Junior College, Clarksville, Tennessee. The photo jigsaw puzzle can be viewed by scrolling down to the bottom of the web page.

Mashups do provide creative imagery to help focus student attention to the topic being presented. As a writing instructor, I can use Flickr photos and mosaics to stimulate student thinking and assign descriptive writing assignments. I believe that there are numerous training and educational opportunities that can be used in the new School 2.0.

Thing 7

I took the Multimedia class last fall, and was introduced to the world of digital photography. I purchased a small digital automatic 5 MP camera and commenced my latest hobby/obsession of capturing images in full color photos. I had owned several traditional cameras starting with a Brownie, box camera when I was about six years old. I even owned an old Kodak Polaroid camera in high school. But as time went on, I lost my interest in photography. I looked forward with some degree of skepticism to the digital photography segment with Photo Shop CS3. By the end of the class, I was addicted to my new skill set. 

I had established a Flickr account (http://www.flickr.com/photos/29989483@N00/) about a year before taking the class, but had no interest in contributing any photos. I read about Flicker in an article about a school teacher in Texas that had been featured in Flicker. But, by the end of my 5616 class, I had started making contributions to my account. I continued over the Christmas break, and by the following February, I had submitted over 200 photos. One of my projects became taking photos of sunsets in the Clarksville area. I am posting one of my favorite sunset photos taken in Saint Bethlehem in January 2008. I carefully photo shopped the photo to try to restore the photo to the same colors that I recalled during that sunset. 

I made notes about the colors and the full spectrum that I observed. It is one of the most popular photos that I have posted on Flickr. I have developed some good prospective professional contacts and used a photo taken by another Flickr member in a follow on class. I was able to contact the photographer and obtain her permission to share it with the class. 

One associated website that I have used successfully and then reposted to Flickr is www.dumper.com which allows for some artistic manipulations to a photo and alter the image in creative patterns. I altered some colorful photos of flowers, silos, and koi from a friend's pond in north Clarksville. I have posted some examples of Dumpr creations as well. 

I have also incorporated two mapping programs and a photo tracking program on my profile page to give a more professional look to my profile.

Thing 6

The Web 2.o Awards Site contains many interesting options. I have previously used several other of the listed websites, so I chose www.digg.com to explore. I joined the website and followed the link in my email account back to the members section. Digg.com allows for searches in numerous topic areas. It allows for blogging, reading, and searches for podcasts. 

I like the flexibility of the website and searched for several topics including technology on the web, and a particular favorite of mine, the dot mobi web. As an instructional technology student, I plan to develop an educational website using the mobi high end user applications program for people like me who carry a web-enabled cell phone. Many websites now offer content in the mobile phone format. 

Once I purchased my phone, the Blackjack II, I quickly learned that many websites are not mobile phone friendly, and will not allow for efficient searching or displays. I started using my phone to search for topics and used mobi, as a primary search variable. I was quickly directed to several high quality websites that offer the mobi format. I saved each one that I liked in my favorites section of the phone. 

My favorite search engines for educational purposes are www.ask.com and the new site, www.cuil.com, that offers valid content over advertising promotional .com sites located by Google. Using these websites I investigated this mobi style website format. I believe that in the future that students will use their phones to view podcasts, watch PowerPoint with Flash multimedia, download assignments, perform keyboarding functions, create graphic content, do quizzes, and upload assignments to the school server all by using an educational application on their cell phones using mobi technology.

I viewed a PowerPoint type presentation that I accessed using Digg.com that illustrated and explained the technology that drives Digg. I next searched for a podcast that I may consider using with my students in public speaking class. The Digg program quickly located an interesting selection, and I was able to access the podcast. I listened to the CEO of a highly successful company describe how he overcame his personal anxieties associated with his duties as a public speaker as I scanned MSN for the latest economic news. I was able to multitask two items at once. 

Next, I used Digg to locate a current political blog from Newsweek.com, and once I completed the article, I waded into the fray with a blog of my own. I linked the blog back to my Blogger website and my personal account. The link was quick and easy and I was able to complete my thoughts in about twenty minutes. 

My discovery tour of Digg was interesting, challenging, and enjoyable. I searched, learned, and debated using my blogging skills.

 

Thing 5

The next level of interactive learning has arrived. With Web 2.0, the web is no longer a high-tech billboard, it is now capable of creating multimedia experiences in a relatable manner. WEB 1.0 was awe inspiring in its inception, but began to stale as demands for a fresher approach began. Enter the new world of interactive communications and user designed web pages. For many, it began with a guy named Tom and a social phenomena named MySpace. In a short time, web developers were designing a wide range of plug-in tools to enhance the social network. Suddenly, it seemed that everyone was demanding "mini-htlm" animations that appeared to blow kisses or characters that dance a jig.

The obvious demand for more applications and better interactive programs transformed the web from a messenger to a digital meeting place for singles to meet, friends to chat, shoppers to explore, and students to extract meaning for their latest assignment.  Today, a multitude of websites offer interactive games, artwork, digital enhancement, web publication programs, and a variety of educational offerings. 

The interactive characteristics of the new web, coupled with the ability of people to create content for the web and post or publish their content to the Internet are all part of Web 2.0.  The Atomic Learning link provides a multimedia podcast of the development of learning media from the one-room schoolhouse to the information age and a read-only web containing information Web 1.0, so called due to software publishing terminology, to a new information age featuring a variety of options from blogs, to wikis, podcasting, social networking, tagging and RSS options on a read-write web called Web 2.0. 

Web 2.0 offers a rich variety of options to educators to create and publish meaningful classroom content to reinforce more traditional classroom models of lecture and group activities. In his blog, Steve Hargadon champions this new concept in his work titled, "Web 2.0 Is the Future of Education," by presenting his top ten list of the obvious advantages of this method of learning. He highlights the wave of new information, the expansion of online publishing, and the trend towards participation. He optimistically declares that as we expand our knowledge, we should immediately improve our experience by writing about these experiences and publish it on the web.

He declares that social networking presents a vast variety of learning and discussion avenues that students may explore including this excerpt: "from consuming to producing, from authority to transparency, from expert to facilitator, and from the lecture to the hallway..." He proclaims that learning is experiencing a revolution in the new Web 2.0 environment.

The new Web 2.0 expands how teachers can teach on a level that students will naturally gravitate towards, it represents the dawning of a new age in learning.

 

Thing 4

Commenting in a blog is the skill set required to successfully ride the interactive web wave. The ability to comment in an interactive online setting is a desirable trait and a provocative learning tool. Much as the learning contract requires goals, reflection, production, and completion; so the record of student interaction must include the same set of writing skills. School 2.0 is the application of creative learning in an interactive and provocative environment, it relies on the input of teachers who can relate knowledge in a real-time environment.

Intelligent blogging requires teachers, driven to express curriculum to a tech driven clientele. Concise and provocative analysis of a proposed problem is the challenge for the teacher of today. As technology changes, so does the medium and the imagery. Effective commenting brings focus and perspective to the lesson. It provides a landmark of learning progress and authenticates learning achievements. 

The educated commenter is able to express the problem in simple terms and present evidence that demonstrates a depth of understanding of the problem, and propose an acceptable solution. Effective writing represents a complex form of communication in which a problem is carefully  presented, various options are explored and an effective solution is proposed. The writer assumes the role of a defense attorney. The effective writer is skilled  his or her  case selection, developing a reasonable defense, using the available evidence, and persuade the jury to acquit the client.  

Case dismissed.

The same skill sets are employer by the writer in proposing a solution to the problem.

Thing 3

It is important for teachers to post comments to the web. The Internet has become more useful to educators, by allowing for feedback, facts, and ideas to be presented on the web in the form of Web Logs or Blogs.

The specific benefit of writing is its relative permanence and serves as a record of our growth in learning. Writing forces the learner to focus on the subject, make evaluations of the subject matter, and to draw conclusions.

Writing is a complex neuromuscular process of receiving messages, decoding the messages in the brain, correlating and evaluating the message and reducing the process to written form. It allows teachers to collaborate, question, and present information for further discussion and evaluation. 

Blogging is an important skill for teachers to develop for education purposes, because vast amount of educational materials are being transferred to the Internet.

Thing 2

The blog site exercise was somewhat time consuming and challenging. I did enjoy the Pod cast "Seven and one-half Habits of Highly Successful Lifelong Learners." This is the first time that I have set up a blog through Google. I do have a Twitter blog and had a MySpace about three years ago.
Creating the avatar was enjoyable, but I did not discover the instructions for exporting the avatar until I used the screen capture tool and imported the image into the blog.
The selection of screen name was fun, I used to go by JJ, so I added it as my screen name. The title I chose Max Time because this class offers maximum opportunity to learn about visual literacy.

Thing 1

Lifelong learning is a natural instinct for me. I Spent 20 years in the Navy, and have been involved in training for 35 years, and counting. I tend to be a self-directed learner, and love to explore new topics. My strongest areas are learning about history and geography, and my weakest area is math.

My favorite topics in history are US history and Russian history. I spent 20 years in the Navy studying Russian ships and submarines, and took a course in Russian history in my undergrad work at APSU. My travels took me around the world, and I would study the charts and maps for each section of the globe that I traveled through.

My current interests are in becomming savvy in web based technology, website design, and instructional technology.