Do I Need Web 2.0

I cannot believe that next week is the last class and this semester is almost over. I have learned a lot from this class and it affect my attitude toward the technology as well. I like Kyle's point of view about the emerging technology, especially web.2.0. Technology always keeps changing and even more faster and faster everyday, but one thing that has never change is the fact that whatever technology it's only a tool. Yesterday our tool was static web, today our tool is web 2.0, and what about tomorrow.
It is matter and we have to keep update with the new tools out there since we choose to be in this profession, but we have to be smart to choose and use it.The newer thing isn't always better.

I know that for this class we focus on the new technology especially web 2.0 , but some subject or topic doesn't need web 2.0 platform. It seems funny when someone try to put all the content into the web 2.0 when it's not necessary because it doesn't have any strong idea about interacting activity and actually maybe that particular project still works effectively without any interaction with the user. I still love to go to some websites that have a good content and I learned a lot from all the information they provide, even though I cannot make a comment, or do other interacting activity.I found a lot of website that use web 2.0 and then end up don't have any useful information as they intended.They posted a few information and then a few people left some useless comments.If it ends up like that I prefer to go to old fashion website that has a rich information.Think about it, how many percentage of the visitors want or like to comment? Why they want to go to our website? Do they just want to get information they need and finish or do they want to participate? So, if we find out that mostly users don't really want to waste they time to make a comment or anything, they just want to get information they need why bother to use web 2.0. I think web 2.0 is very powerful tools in many ways but not for everything.

Project Progress

I almost done with my final project but I am not sure how far I have to do. My project is teaching a new language so it has a lot of contents and take a lot of time to complete everything. So all I do is selling my idea and showing some dummy pages to show screen design, information design and interaction design. Another thing I tried to develop is using screencasting software for my project.Mostly people use screen cast for teaching softwares, how to use the websites.How can I use screen cast for teaching language? I have finished this piece of work and it's ready to show. Although it isn't perfect but at least I found another way to use this program for education.

PBworks

I didn't attend class this week because I was sick.I went to ilearn and found that we have to sign up for PBworks and then upload the expert presentation. I heard about PBworks before from classmate from last semester but I haven't had a chance to try, so this is time.First thing I like about PBworks is that it's super fast and easy to sign up which is great. After I sing in, I saw all pages that have been set up and I opened the screencast page, then I clicked upload file. I uploaded the video demonstration on how to use iShowU because Tina already uploaded the Powerpoint.Then I didn't know where my video go because it didn't appear in the screencast page and this was confusing me. I tried to find where was my video; after I found it, I clicked move because I wanted to move it to screencast page but there was no choice for that so I moved it to video folder. I will spend sometime to learn how to use it after finish this semester. I read some reviews about PBworks and this is a link
http://www.appappeal.com/app/pbworks/

Online Class

How can we improve the online live class?

Well,overall I think we did good on our online session on April 15; all the presentors did pretty good on their presentations and we did a lot of discussion and cover several topics. As I have already mentioned in the preious post that I really like to
attend class online for the seminar classes like 830, 801 or 800 class because I don't really like to talk in class due to my bad English.Actually, even the classes in Thailand, I didn't talk much also. Lots of good thing about online class: when we took a 15
minutes break I started cooking and was continue with it while I was listening to the presentation.That 's cool! I put my laptop on the counter top and was able to chat while I was waiting for bringing the soup the boil. I replaced the traveling time by doing my regular stuff and other classes' works. However, there were several issues about the synchronous class room and I think mostly are the technical problems like audio, video, how to use some functions and features.And one thing that bothered me was when a lot of people were chating in the same time because text went so fast and sometime couldn't tell who talked to whom. I think these problem can be fixed by we have to learn about the program and all equipment needed before we start using it but I think our class was someting like on the job training as well because we were learning by doing. I cannot answer the question on how can we improve the online live class by now because I am still thinking about it. I hope we will have a better technology for distant learning in the near future but cost must be another issue.

Class Reflection

I think I should try twitter. After listened to the guest speaker from Socilatext, I feel much more positive about twitter and I want to use it as a marketing tool for my business.Even though personally I don't like this kind of thing,it sounds like a free good tool for promoting. I thought about its ability as a marketing tool as others social networking products before but my negative thought about it stopped me from trying. I found his presentation is interesting since I am interested in marketing and communication tools(education is also another type of communication).

I like the word "A Transparent World" and I agree that the web 2.0 technologies are one of the main force that drove us to this trend.We express ourselves more and wider.Recently, I discussed about political issue with my friends on facebook .One of my friend who I have known her for about 14 years but we have never talked about politic before and even had no idea about each other's attitude about politic.But now we all express ourselves and send our message to even more receivers.
As he said we can use twitter or other social networking tools for:
- status update
- ask
- share
- discover
- monitor
- And also promoting

And have to thank for the good question on why some organization felt when they tried to implement these kind of technologies.He said one of the main reason is they don't know how to use it for.I think this is very important because sometime we want to keep up date with technology or want to be in trend; we want to use because other people use but don't know excatly why we have to use, or how this technologies will benefit us.Then we can end up waste of time and resources.

Class Reflection: Personal Learning Environments

There were a lot of interesting topics from the expert presentations this week(March 25,10): Accessibility by Shri, Netop by Dustin and PLEs Personal Learning Environments by Klye.My most favorite is PLEs because we are all have our own learning environments and Klye did a very good for this presentation.I use igoogle as a mashup and add several windows in it, I have 6 email addresses, 4 free blogs and 3 websites, 3 youtube accounts, sign up for few social networking sites and a bunch of websites, using skype for international call and video chat and more.I keep update things in Thailand from my friends on facebook (and also fighting about political issues), online newspapers,lots of information goes direct to my emails. While I was listening to Klye,I was thinking about myself, my personal learning environment and I felt that my life are more crazy tan ever. I think now it's hard to seperate our private learning environment(outside school) and school environment because we are using almost the same sources of information.We google information for classes'works and for our personal needs. Although,we can say that the ilearn, myitec ning or this blog are for class, it has no rule saying that we cannot use them for personal need sometime.Now I want to organize my personal learning environments; I should eliminate some thing that not neccessary or redundane and add some new tools that answer my needs.
According to Educause, there are 7 things we should know about PLEs
1.What is it
2.Who is doing it
3.How does it work
4.Why is it significant
5.What are the downsides
6.Where is it go
7.What are the implications for teaching and learning
For the detail please visit http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7049.pdf

Xtranormal Movie

Fun! I think this website is easy to use and I like that I can sign up using my facebook account.After finished the movie, there are several ways to share the movie: like share to facebook, send email ,or copy code and embed it to website.I thought I can hit share to youtube and it will go to my youtube account but I think it went to the xtranormal channel instead since it didn't ask what is my youtube account.Moreover,it was pretty slow to render the movie and even longer if we want to download the file.But you can come back and download the file later the web will keep our video file for 3 days, so I got my file a next day after I requested it and I was able to upload that file to my youtube account. In general I think it's a good and fun site.