Jack’s Online Communication Blog

The two main things that I did this week dealt with User Access and the Final Project.

 I read this article that dealt with roles and capabilities for WordPress Blogs. A few roles that are on blogs are: Administrator, Editor, Author, Contributor and Subscriber. Basically, the Administrator is the only role that has full capabilities. All of the other roles have capabilities, yet they are limited.

I feel this is very important when I develop my project more. I hope that my page can be used after I leave this school so I hope to be able to pass my web site on to new Natural Helpers for them to use. By allowing certain roles, the capabilities of users are limited which is helpful because every user can not have supreme power.

I think that I’m at a good spot with my Final Project. Phase 1 was to basically set up a dashboard with a theme and enabling widgets. I enabled my plugins and I feel that the web site is ready to put content up on, which concerns Phase 2.

Looking ahead to Phase 2, I am looking forward to working with my teacher on what to put on the page. I’m going to begin by making a rough written copy of what I want to put on before I type it up.

Another thing that I hope to be able to put on my web site is a slideshow. Throughout various Natural Helper events, many pictures were taken and I think it would be really beneficial if I can find a site that creates slideshows from my pictures. Then, I could take that code and put it on the blog!

Apparently I missed this blog entry on this article concerning Teen Violence.

 I remember hearing about this event on the news that eight teenagers beat a girl and put it up on Youtube.

I agree with the quote that violence has been more widespread because of the internet. I think that some kids think they are invincible on the internet and think they can put whatever they want on it, when realistically, they’re showcasing it to the world. So, I agree that kids putting videos up on the internet, or even just text information, is a growing concern in teen violence. Anyone can read or watch what they post and use it against them, whether that be online or in person.

 A lot of people seem to think that Youtube should be responsible for what they allow posted on their websites. I disagree that Youtube should be fully responsible for this because it was the kid’s choice to post this, which is why they should be the ones to get in trouble and hopefully punished. I do think though that a step in making sure that the online world is more safe can be taken by sites like Youtube.

 It would be impossible for Youtube administrators to watch and approve every video posted on Youtube…there are just too many. However, I think they need to come up with some type of filtering system that can detect what is acceptable and unharmful as opposed to letting anything get posted. Youtube has a lot of silly stuff, but it also has a lot of good videos that can be used for educational purposes. I wish that our school allowed Youtube because there’s a lot of good resources on Youtube that can be used for the classroom. It’s a shame that some students have to ruin it like these students did and put these kind of videos up.

 I feel this incident is absolutely horrible. I don’t think anyone is to blame but the people who caused it. They had the choice to attack this girl and they also had to choice to put it on the internet. I am not surprised this became such a national issue because it really reflects how some of human kind act in unfortunately, a negative aspect. I don’t think Youtube should be punished because as I said, to have a group of people watch every video is just virtually impossible.

From this article, I learned that Hot Spots are parts of the web site that visitors view first. These hot spots are in the top left corner and the middle of the right side of the page.

I switched around my widgets based on importance so certain aspects catch the eye faster than others. For example, the Voki is important because it welcomes the viewer to the site. It also fits perfectly in that corner of the page. I put the search next because if the visitor wants a specific topic, it is very useful to have that search box. Lastly, the pages was the next most important thing because it’s used for navigation around the website. The rest were pretty much the same so I just listed them as is.

On the other side of the web page, I put categories first because I feel that is the most important part of the web site. It allows the reader to find any post that was made and that’s ultimately what a web site is used for, displaying information. I think that recent posts is second most important because it’s a quick click if the information was in the last view posts and very convenient for visitors. E-mail subscription is important so you can get people to subscribe to you if they like your information.

I felt tags was the least important because to me, tags are just an extra feature for organization purposes.

This week we concentrated on two things: 1) Our Blog and 2) The Final Project

 I think I am off to a good start on my project since I already have a basic plan of how I want my final project to look like and where I want to go with it. Also, I’ve been Mrs. Hart’s CERTO for two years now and we have a great relationship to get a lot done on it.

 I learned how to get more Javascript on my blog like the Voki that is on it now. I think this is a really cool and fun feature to add different messages to your blog. I think it’s something fun that readers will enjoy seeing once they come on, and it’s easy to add! I am definitely going to incorporate that into my final project.

 I also learned how to add text widgets which made it possible to add the Voki. With the text widget, I was able to add my blog on a text only basis. I find this incredibly helpful, being the owner of an object that can access the internet: the iTouch. I know how some web sites have a ton of images on them and loading them on my iTouch is difficult so it’s great that we have this text only option.

 I also learned a little bit more about HTML while I added those text boxes. I copied a code off the Online Communication page that led me to this web site: Code Resources 

From that web site, I was able to get the text only code which allowed me to add it to the widget.

 I feel like I learned a lot this week that will be fantastic to use during my final project such as the Voki Javascript and the Text Only box!

Sorry it has taken so long to update…edublogs does not work fantastic on my laptop.

Throughout all of the week before break, I did a group project with Mary and Tom using Microsoft Encoder. All in all, I think we worked well together. Each of us had different roles that added to the project.

Mary and I drafted the entire presentation writing a script to read off of when we recorded using Encoder and we planned everything all out.

Tom was the recorder of our group and was ultimately responsible for the success of the video.

Our project came out better then I expected it too. I barely knew Tom and have never talked to Mary before so we all did not know each other going into the project. However, we were able to successfully finish it and create, what I think, is a good tutorial on Power Point.

The article talks about the internet and how safe students really are on it. This shows the view that there are more benefits to the internet that outweighs the danger that it could potentially have.

I agree with this article completely. The internet has almost everything on it that is important for school. I also feel that game sites, which are mostly blocked, should be allowed. School may supposed to be educational, but why can students not do what they wish on their free time during a study hall? Our school has virtually everything blocked and even to research stuff, you sometimes can not get on a web site you need. I understand why everything is blocked, but it gets to be a little extreme at times. Youtube doesn’t even work here!

 I feel that it is the responsibility of the student to remain safe whether they are at school or online. At the high school level, teens are smart enough to make the right decisions. It is just unfortunate with all the liability issues that kids who need sites to learn are denied to them.

 I take many steps to be safe online. Every once in a while you see on the news people being abducted due to myspace or facebook. However, I make sure anything that I have that is personal online is password protected with only people that I know. There are many privacy options that make this easier that everyone should utilize.

 Staying safe online is extremely critical. If you talk to people you don’t know, you never know who they really are. On the internet, anybody can be whoever they want to be, not necessarily who they say they are. Is it really worth the risk of danger to yourself or your family? I don’t think so.

Manon recently blogged about using the new Wiki on the online classroom for our tutorial project.

Wiki World

 I agree with Manon on a lot of the points she mentioned. The wiki is an easy way to transfer and save material from school to home.

 The Wiki also helps organize everything for our project because of different pages you can add.

 Expanding on what Manon said, the only thing you have to be careful of with Wiki’s in general (not so much the one we are using for the tutorial) is that anyone can edit it. This is especially important to remember when you get information. Even though wikipedia has everything and is very easy to read, you may be getting misleading information!

 Remember, anyone can edit a Wiki on Wikipedia!

Today in class, we didn’t really do too much but review our blog. I uploaded the Blog Rubric to the blog so it’s easier to access then going to the File Share.

Blog Rubric

 Our group is going to do a tutorial on Microsoft Power Point. I think it will go okay however, I know that I am not 100% familiar with how Power Point works and how to make good presentations, so I will have to spend some time learning some more about the program.

 I also do not know my group very well so hopefully we all work well together and create a successful project.

This week, we were assigned a new group project where we are to create a tutorial using Microsoft Encoder. We will be creating a video tutorial like the ones here on edublogs. Our group brainstormed and decided we all have a decent knowledge on how to use Power Point. Since creating an overall tutorial on Power Point is very general, we decided we would focus on the presentation part of it including backgrounds and animations. I know that I was never great at making Power Points look appealing but I have learned about it using it over the years.

 By doing this project, I will gain more knowledge with Power Point and hopefully others will as well! Our group is off to a great start with most of the steps already finished on how our tutorial will go.

 Also this week, I read up on Microsoft Encoder. It seems like it shouldn’t be extremely hard to use, but being a new program at a school where many things can go wrong with the Internet, it will be interesting to see how it turns out.

So last year I was on track, and unfortunately can’t do it this year due to other obligations, but I hope to do it next year. In order to prepare myself better, I read some tips on running faster but more importantly, in a healthy way.

http://completerunning.com/archives/2006/09/12/100-beginner-running-tips/

Another site that can be useful for tips on distance running is:

http://www.distance-running-tips.com/