Dlight-ful Thoughts and Opinions

I decided to make a Scratch activity that would go along with my Songchild. My song is about playing dress up, so I made a game where you can choose which outfit you want my dog, Scruffy, to wear. Here is a link if you want to check it out:

http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/Dlight/141559

My project has 15 Sprites, and 30 Scripts. It took a lot of tries to make it glitch free, but I think it is pretty good now. I had problems with the opening screen actually being an opening screen, as it would appear once, and then never again. I eventually figured out a way to make it appear every time the green flag at the top of the screen was clicked. I added sounds to the outfits to make it more fun and interesting when children are taking part in the activity. I spent a lot of time on this Scratch, trying out different things to see what would work best. I am happy with the final project, and hopefully it will be used by some people!

I thought I would post about my experience with the Flickr Lab. I had heard of Flickr.com before, but actually was not sure what it was other than it was affiliated with Yahoo.ca. Normally when I am looking for a picture of something on the internet I use the Google Image search (images.google.ca). I found that the Flickr site had many more pictures, and they dealt more with what I was searching for. If you have a Flickr account and want to add me my user name is Danielle.lightfoot.

      I am generally hesitant to add pictures to the internet when I know it is open to the public, so one thing I really liked about Flickr was that there are privacy controls. Even though I was just uploading pictures of my pets and random things in my house it is nice to see that the option is there for pictures that you may not want public. I think that Flickr would be a really good way for posting pictures for family and friends. I have family, who live in Alberta, and we used to send photos in the mail, but once we all had digital cameras we basically just stopped sending pictures. Making an album on Flickr could be a great way for people to share their experiences. When it comes to children using Flickr to find images it is good to know that what you upload has to be marked as safe, moderate, or restricted, and you can apply a filter so that you are only seeing pictures from a certain category.  This way if children are viewing images filters can be in place to only view content which is safe.

      There are many groups which can be joined on Flickr. One of the groups I chose to join is called, "Catchy Colors". I really enjoy bright, vibrant colors, and when trying to think of a group that would be of interest to me I typed "Color" into the group search, and this group happened to catch my eye. One of the requirements to join this group is you have to upload a picture that you have taken which shows vibrant colors. I chose a picture from my gallery of cupcakes that I decorated with all different colors of icing. I made the colors by using different food coloring, and they turned out quite bright and colourful. After uploaded my picture I went back to the group page and it was at the first picture shown. It was cool to see that because there are over 46, 000 members in this group, with over 1 million pictures, so I am sure it won’t be on the main group page again!! I was quite amazed with what you can do in this group. At one section it shows dots of different colors, and when you click on a color, you are taken to a gallery filled with pictures where the particular color stands out the most. I clicked on Yellow, and some of the pictures included flowers, bumblebees, school buses, bananas and so on.

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 The readings for this week include chapter 6 of the text Meaningful Learning with Technology, which is titled ‘Community Building with Technology.” In the reading there is a discussion of Wikis, such as the well known Wikipedia. Until reading this section in the chapter I was unaware of what Wikipedia meant, and how it is different from other information searching websites. I has thought it was a website similar to an encyclopaedia or dictionary website, which contained information about a variety of topics that was reliable and researched. I was not aware that Wikipedia could be edited and contributed to by anyone. I think the idea of a Wiki is very interesting, and had honestly not heard of it, or at least been aware of what a Wiki is. As states by the text, “Wikis offer environments for students to engage in collaborative, coauthored work that can continually evolve and improve.” (pg 107) I think that wikis can be a very valuable teaching and learning resource for teachers and students. Teachers could set up a Wiki, and have students contribute to it, edit, and collaborate together. Students can also collaborate with other students from other areas, forming an online community where information is shared and discovered.

 

Another part of the “readings” for this week was to watch a video lecture titled ‘Hacking Human” by Michelle Levesque. In this video there was a lot of information covered that really got me thinking about technology, the role it plays in our lives, and how some people are very trusting of the internet and are not aware of some people’s ability to hack. Some of the information covered in the lecture include a description of terms and the role hackers play. Hackers are people who use the internet and technology in ways that were not intended. ‘Citizen Lab” is a group of “hacktivists” that run from U of T. Michelle Levesque is a member of Citizen Lab. She explained that many people have “associative authority” when it comes to using the internet, which means that they assume someone else did the appropriate checklists and clearing in order to make it safe to move forward in the world of technology. Some of the information which was shared that was alarming to me is that internet hackers have the ability to track down where you live, information about you, and where you are connecting to the internet from (the IP address). With a small amount of information about a person a hacker can find out a lot about them, such as through birthdates, name, phone numbers, and so on. Internet websites that can find a person’s address or phone number are popular and accessible to anyone, such as the reverse search on Yellow Pages, where you can put in either an address or a phone number in order to find the other which you need. I have actually used this technology in the past to see who a 1-800 phone number was that was continuously calling me.

 

After hearing about the information that was presented this week I started to think about the information that I put on the internet on sites such as facebook, or even live journal. I took my birth date off of this site, and will now think about the personal information I share before making it public on the web!

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Chapter 8 of the text “Meaningful Learning With Technology” discusses designing with technologies such as Scratch. Before reading this chapter I was unaware of the different programs which are available to assist in design, whether is designing games, animations, and so on. Using programs such as these provide an interesting learning opportunity, and would likely engage most children. When I first started using Scratch I thought it may not be appropriate for children to use as it is difficult, but if they were learning step-by-step and with assistance it could be done with little difficulty. There are a lot of things that can be done through Scratch, as I noticed when looking through the project galleries. There are many options and opportunities for creation. I plan on continuing to experiment with scratch, and if I come up with something I will be sure to post it one here!

 

When I first looked into the scratch program I thought that there was no way that it could be for children in kindergarten. I downloaded the program and started playing around with some different things, such as adding scripts, and trying to add a movement to them. I had not looked through any of the scratch projects on the website, or viewed any information on how to get started so I became quite frustrated with the whole process. I decided that I should look at some of the projects to see what it’s all about. I opened some of the projects and looked at how they were made. I also watched the YouTube videos, and tried to follow along with them as they went. This was actually very helpful. I learn best from example, so using a stop and go approach with the videos made it easy to figure out how to make a Scratch. I liked that you can add or make your own Sprite, which makes it easy to modify and make it your own. 

 

 

Chapter 9 of the text is ‘Visualizing with Technologies.” The part of this chapter that stood out the most to me was the section titled “Visualizing with digital cameras and mobile phones.” This section caught my interest as I am a fan of digital cameras, and recently got a cell phone which can take pictures and videos. I thought that the part which discusses digital documentaries was very useful, as it gave a suggestion for an activity which could be done with students. The activity involves having students create their own digital documentary of an event, issue or controversy that is occurring in their community by using digital cameras. The reason for using digital cameras is that the file can be uploaded and used in a word processor, making it easy to incorporate photos taken into their work, such as a newspaper article.

 
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Chapter 3 of “Meaningful Learning with Technology” is about different ways that students can experiment with technology. The main discussion of the chapter is about how to reason causally, which is, “Apply their understanding of cause and effect relationships to generate hypotheses, conjectures, or speculations, and test them.” (pg 44) Causal reasoning is explained as basic thinking skills, where you are making predictions, forming explanations, and provide justifications for actions that they have taken part in. Once forming predictions or a hypothesis you are able to test it out. Throughout this chapter there are examples of technologies which can be used by students to think causally. 

One of the technologies that are discussed is virtual worlds. At the beginning of this course, or even before then we were asked about joining second life. I had always been curious about this program, and thought it would be interesting to join. I did join, but unfortunately could not figure out how to get it to work on my computer. After reading through the section about virtual worlds I became interested in trying out second life again. I find the idea of a virtual world that is similar to real-life to be kind of strange. I have read about people who become so immersed in these types of technologies that they live vicariously through their character. Before attempting to try out Second Life again I thought I would do more research, and one of the articles I found interesting was   http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2006-09/your-second-life-ready

I think that when introducing these types of technologies to children it is important to really go through the process of thinking casually. Children should think about their actions, and what he outcomes of them may be, even in the virtual world. I also think that Second Life may not be an appropriate virtual world for children to take part in, but I came across Second Life for teens. Maybe one day there will be one for children as well. In the mean time the virtual worlds suggested in the book such as Quest Atlantis (http://atlantis.crtl.indiana.edu/). This virtual world was created for children ages 9 through 12, and includes learning tasks aimed at this age group.

 
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Being a frequent user of Google I thought that this assignment may seem tedious, but as I started looking through the lab outline I automatically knew that there was a lot more to Google than I had previously thought. I started by going to the Wikipedia page to read about how Google was started, and so on. As I was reading I came across the part which talks about how Google modifies its logo on the main page in accordance with carious holidays and special events. I actually look forward to these changes, and can say that I actually go onto the Google site on holidays to see how they changed it. I also discovered in the past that you can click on the logo and it takes you to an automatic search pertaining to the holiday/event. I have done this at times when I was not aware it was a holiday or was unaware of what the special event was.

One of the "Google Products" which I found helpful was the "special searches" component, which helps to narrow down your search to a specific topic.  Within this there is a "University Search" which allows you to search for information on a specific Universities website through the Google Search Engine. I thought that this was interesting, as I have found on many occasions that it is difficult to find things on the Ryerson website, and their search engine is not very helpful. I looked on the "University Search" page, and Ryerson is one of the universities that is available to search. I tried searching for "parking" and it automatically came up with pages about parking at Ryerson. As a commuter this information was very useful!

In the past I used Google a lot for finding images. I found a new favourite thing to do on Google, which is  iGoogle, "your home on the web". Here you can make  iGoogle your homepage, and there are many options as to what you can include on it. I chose to include the date and time, weather, top news of the day, Tetris, picture of the day, and word of the day content. There really is something for everyone to add. Some of the other content available is recipe of the day, MSN messenger, currency converter, to do list, many games, and so on.

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Chapter two of the text discusses a lot of information about some of the different uses of technology, and some of the benefits that there are from using it. The part of the chapter which I found most interesting was the section on “Information Gathering with Internet Resources.” I felt that I related to a lot of what is said in this section. One part says, “When students search for predetermined answers, they are not comprehending or reflecting on the meaning of what they found. Their intention is to complete the assignment- to find the one answer that the teacher is looking for.” (Page 15) I have to agree with this comment. In the past and currently I am constantly looking up information on the internet, and many times it is for the purpose of find a specific answer. Like the text says there may not be any concrete learning taking place when this method of research is done.  After reading this part, and thinking about how it relates to my own experiences I was interested in finding out what the text states is a good way to use the internet as a learning tool, and for ways of searching for information. The text goes over a four-step process which is required in order to information search to the fullest, and they are, a) plan, b) use strategies, c) evaluate, and d) triangulate sources. As an educator it is important to know these steps. As mentioned in the text, searching for information on the internet can easily cause students to go off track and be distracted by the many interesting topics and sites that are available. If an educator can guide their students through the research process by using these steps it can result in more information being learned, and teach students appropriate ways of obtaining information on the web.

Another interesting part of this chapter is where it explains the differences between search tools, being search engines and directories. After reading this section I now know that I generally use search engines, such as Google and Yahoo. I have never really used a directory, but I now understand when each of the search tools are appropriate for use.

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Technology has become a big part of my life over the past few years. In my case, using a computer is probably the technology source which I use most frequently, and get the most use from. I feel like it was just yesterday when my family got our first computer. I was in grade 7, and convinced my parents that I had to have one in order to do my homework. I definitely could have continued handing in my work hand-written, but it felt much better having it all typed out and professional looking. These days it seems like everyone has a computer, and it really is mandatory to submit assignments that have been typed out, 12point, and double spaced. When we got our first computer I can remember using it just for typing out assignments, and the occasional game of solitaire or black-jack. The only colors that were used on the screen were black and orange... now computer screens are so realistic I feel like I am looking out the window when looking at pictures.

These days I use my computer for much more than homework and games, although that still takes up a fair amount of my computer-time. Now that we have the internet its like the world is a website away. I can now use the computer for research, directions, music, recipes, pictures, communication, and so much more. When I moved away from home to start University, my computer became one of the only ways I would communicate with family and friends who were far away. You can talk to people for hours at basically no cost. Through networks such as facebook ( I know, I know...) I have been able to come in contact with many friends who I had lost touch with over the years.

Computers and the internet are only one of the many technologies that I use everyday. Almost everywhere you go and look technology is being used. Cellphones, tv’s, DVD’s, cd’s, blueray, Mp3 players, cameras, signs, roads, signs, advertisements, streetlights, vehicles, transportation, methods of payment... technology is a part of everything I do. New and improved technologies are constantly being produced. Cellphones are a perfect example of this. My first cellphone had one purpose, to get in touch with people when there was no land-line phone available. There were number keys, a send/dial key, and an on/off button. Now, a few phones and years later, I use my cellphone for many things. Calling, text messaging, taking pictures, going on the internet, maps, games, music, and more. In fact, one side is a phone, and the other is an Mp3 player/camera/recorder.

In my experiences, its important and worth while to keep up with the newest technologies, because it changes so quickly, and its easy to get left behind! 
 
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