The final assignment involves polishing up our websites. For those who have stayed on top of their work this is an easy thing to do, although they are also likely to want to add as much as possible to increase their mark so I wouldn't be surprised if they too were using the last few days to finish their website. Others (who I won't name) and myself are having to do a fair amount of work to fix up our neglected websites.

I have to:
    * Change the information on my home page - get rid of most ...

I took this photo during my first week of university. The semester is almost over so I feel it is time to reflect on the lectures and tutorials of EDN113.

My lectures for EDN113 were on a Wednesday between eleven and twelve. Honestly I think that it would have been easier to combine lectures to make about six 2 hour lectures. I found that the lectures didn't always catch the students attention so some students would skip the one hour lectures. If the lectures were longer, so more content wa...

I am yet to love technology. I almost threw my laptop through a window the other day when I was trying to upload the video for EDN113 Assignment 3a, but first let's talk about creating the video and wiki.

I didn't have much trouble using Wikispaces but I wouldn't rave about the technology either. There wasn't anything wrong with it; I just think there is something better out there. I know that Kelly and Larra had a little trouble logging into Wikispaces and sometimes even uploading things. The...

When I found out that we had to do a group assignment for EDN113 I was apprehensive to say the least. Group assignments have always been my downfall - either I do the entire assignment and get annoyed because the others get the same mark as me, or I do my part while the others don't bother with theirs and I get annoyed because I of the low mark. Either way, I am not a fan of group assignments. I don't mind working in a group but when it becomes an assessment I start stressing.

When it came to...

Today while preparing a speech for another unit I came across the most amazing presentation tool ever. PREZI was used by a lecturer a few weeks ago and I decided to give it a go. It is an online alternative to PowerPoint and can be edited by multiple people. It is easy to use and is a more interesting way to present information during a presentation. I would highly recommend that everyone have a play around with it as it really is a gift: a present (or PREZI, if you will). I have also posted ...

As my topic for assignment 2 is "Using Technology to Improve Rudimentary Math Skills" I have had to use nurmerous different search words to find the resources I need. 
    Technology could be changed to electronic, interactive, smartboard, ipad etc.
    To get "rudimentary math" results I used phases/words such as: basic math, primary school math, classroom math
I found the following resources: 
    Interactive Math Classroom Adds Up to Success (Zugar, 2008)
    SMART Table - Touch. Learn. Togethe...

On the surface assignment 2 is straight forward, but the research takes hours. It's stressfull too, so I had to go buy a packet of M&M's to help me.

(This photo was taken on my iPod and then uploaded onto my computer. I have not been able to transfer pictures from my iPod to my computer when using one with iTunes installed. My laptop doesn't have iTunes so it treats my iPod like a usb and simply opens the files)

I'm still struggling though so I really don't know if I will be able to finish ...

Today on ninemsn there was a news story about a missing girl posting a status update on facebook. This is amazing, IF the post was actually from the girl but you can't tell who wrote it or whether the girl was held at gun-point and forced to write the update. This raises the issue of telling emotion via technology that involves using text (written language). I have always found it difficult to determine the tone in which a text or e-mail is written.

Click here to view the full article.

Faceboo...

I have a close friend, Jess, who is currently on a mission-style trip in India. We all wanted to be kept up-to-date with the latest news. Initially we received fort-nightly e-mails but she found this difficult so she decided to set up a blog instead (to view her blog please click on the Blogger Icon above).

Jess' reasoning for choosing to blog is shown in the abstract below:
"My means of communication so far has been sending out mass emails to family and friends, which, although it does serve ...

I completed my first peer review last week for assignment 1b. I am known for being fairly critical when it comes to marking others work. I developed this habit in high school when some of my peers asked me to check their work for them. They were intelligent students and also my friends so they didn't take any of my comments to heart. They insisted that I point out any mistakes or things I thought they could improve on. In year 11 and 12 we had a tight bunch of students, myself included, who s...

I was going through my website and making everything consistent. As I'm sure you have noticed I have used coloured background panels on all of the pages of my website, except for the blogging page. At first I didn't want to add colour to the blog as it was meant to be more formal but I found that it became quite boring and it was hard to differentiate between my blog and all the rest of the formatting on the page. So I decided to highlight the main text of each blog post (I have found that be...

I added a picture to my banner image for this page. I know that it is slightly different to the others on this website so I will try to fix that up soon.

A few weeks ago when I was looking for a picture to put on this website I found an image of an old blue typewriter. I decided to take a photo of my new laptop while the typewriter image was visible. I did this in order to juxtapose the two pieces of technology as I believe they represent my conflicting opinions of technology.

I own a reasona...

I just went through and checked all my previous posts for spelling mistakes and changed them. Of course I did this the easy way by copying them into a Word document and using spelling check. I have become reliant upon spell check, especially auto correct. I rarely use a capital letter 'I' when typing as I find it unnecessary to press the shift key when the computer program will change it for me anyway. The same goes for capital letters at the start of a sentence, I that I'm meant to use them ...

I still don't like relying on computers so much. When I was typing up my first lot of instructions for creating a SurveyMonkey account I was getting quite annoyed at how much time it took. I prefer handwriting instructions, particularly when they include diagrams, as the formatting is easier to do by hand. In my head I know how I would like the instructions to look but having to produce an electronic copy makes getting the layout correct really quite difficult. I found using the print screen ...

I have finally come up with an idea for this assignment. My idea is to use SurveyMonkey to create a quiz/survey that people invited to my 18th birday party can complete. This would allow me to mix-and-match my own ideas with those of my friends and consquently host a party that everyone has contributed to and had a say in. This is ideal for someone like me whose friends share a variety of interests. This way everyone can at least enjoy the majority of the aspects of the party and I also will ...

This question was raised during the lecture today and the answer was: to create a reflective piece of writing. I believe it is important to reflect on things whether it be a teacher reflecting on their class plan for the day, or a student reflecting on their day at school but I do not understand why it has to be done via the internet. With the internet there is always a sense of someone 'looking over your shoulder' watching everything you type. If you hand write your personal reflections I ho...

I for one prefer paper and textbooks over computers. Let's face it, they don't randomly shut down nor do they slow down when you have too many programs open. The sound of 30 kids tapping away on their own laptops would irritate me so I'm glad I was one of the last year groups to avoid the use of so much technology in school. I don't believe it is beneficial for each student, primary or high school, to have their own personal computer/laptop. I do believe that they should have access to a comp...

I was planning on spending about 10 minutes on making this website, 2 hours later it was time for dinner and I was still not ready to publish it. I intended on completing the basics of the first assignment, but I ended up writing up a fair amount of information about myself. My reason for doing this is that people at the university do not know anything about me, so I took the making of this website as an opportunity to try to describe things about myself that other people in my life know thro...