Week 7 Blog Post

This week, Professor Calderwood started off the class on Tuesday by showcasing Daqri, ColARmix, Aurasma, Drawing Pad, Adobe Ideas,Nearpod, Quizlet, Educreations, and Teamviewer. Most of these apps were foreign to me, but I am familiar with the last two mentioned. Daqri is an awesome 3D model showcase application. It lets you scan models from a printed sheet of paper, and gives users the ability to show them via camera on any mobile device. It was mentioned that users could create their own from scratch as well.

Teamviewer was briefly mentioned, but I have a great amount of experience with it. I am actually writing this blog post using it. Basically, it lets you connect to your computers remotely through any device capable of hosting the application. It gives you an array of options to mirror the experience of actually being on the accessed PC. It is an invaluable tool that performs a great service, for little to no cost.

As a project, we had to create a presentation in Educreations. My group did a tutorial on how to make french toast, lasting two minutes in length. The web based application was too glitchy for my use. I resorted to using the iPad version because I had spent around two hours recreating the same tutorial, trying to iron out the flaws. Overall, it has its uses in displaying visual information nicely, but the creation process was too length.

On Thursday, we had a conversation with Jaime Casap. He is the Global Education Evangelist working for Google. It was an interesting conversation because he has experience within the computer science sector. I had asked several questions, asking for his opinion on various areas of being a professional. One part of the conversation I enjoyed hearing was his reliance on technology to direct his day to day activities. I have felt that my reliance on technology to hold my information would hinder my ability to function within my career. He said that it isn't a bad thing to have things out of mind, because it gives you more opportunity to focus on the bigger issues. It gave me confidence that I am in fact alright when  typing every part of my day into my tablet, and referencing it.

Week Six Blog Post

Presentation Applications

This week in class, we went over the various applications that are available for use. We also had to use one of these applications to present what we were planning to do on Halloween day. The presentation applications we were introduced to were Haiku Deck, Prezi, PowToon, and Emaze I reverted to Google Slides because of my familiarity with its functionality.

HaikuDeck seemed like a more simplistic version of Powerpoint. There is so much appeal with this application because of this reason. The mobility of this application offers individuals who are on the go an easy place to work on, and show the presentation with only a few touches. They offer stock images and allow you to focus on your topic with a few bullet point, rather than cramming too much information on each slide. Prezi, PowToon, and Emaze seemed a little too flashy for me to use in a practical way.

For my presentation, I used Google Slides. I chose to use Slides because of how closely it resembles Powerpoint. My presentation included various animations and media from the web relating to my expected festivities. Everything worked pretty well, and I was pleased to see that the presenter device worked with Slides as well. 

For the App Smackdown, I chose to present Wikr, an encryption based chat application. I went over the uses for it in terms of the computer science student or professional. People want privacy in the digital age more than ever, and Wikr provides that privacy for in regards to direct communication. Wikr takes the text from the user sending a messages, encrypts the message, and delivers it to the recipient without it getting into the hands of any other third party.

In chapter 3 of Untangling the Web , the author goes into presentation alternatives and how to use them effectively. Overloading your presentation with unnecessary information will just make an audience disinterested. Simplistically adding media and animations to your presentation can totally change the way your message is conveyed. Poll Everywhere is something in this chapter that I found very interesting. It makes getting the opinion of your audience as easy as them whipping out their phones.

For the Livebinder reading, I chose "10 Best Powerpoint Alternatives Comparison ." The video presented by PowToon explains that using pictures will scientifically make your audience remember your topic better. People only hear 10% of what is said, in comparison to 60% of what they see. The article goes over additional tools, such as Keynote, Prezentit, and SlideRocket. Jordan Pepper provides the pros and cons of using them.

Week Five Blog Post

In class this week, our focus was on communicative applications and the benefits they offer to the consumer. Then, we grouped up and presented the benefits of using communication applications for our specific majors. We also had the privilege to speak with Adam Taylor, a high school science teacher, and Caleph Wilson, a cancer researcher.   

  In class on Tuesday, we went over applications, Skype, Google Hangouts, and Google Helpouts.  Matt Waldron and I were grouped up to discuss and present what we thought would be the best tool relating to our major. Each providing their own functions, we thought Google Helpouts would serve best for the computer science student/professional. After reading Matt's blog, I do agree that we both were a little surprised by being called up to present randomly. Also, Since I plan on eventually opening a small business, I thought the article " How Google Helpouts Can Help Your Small Business" looked pretty neat. The article goes over how as a small business owner, you can offer services and ask question that will be answered by professionals in your field. I know how easily it is to run into problems when trying to fix hardware and software that doesn't seem to budge. I think Helpouts is a great asset for any small business. 

On Tuesday, we did a Hangout session with Adam Taylor, a high school science teacher from Tennessee. He's been teaching for 11 years and has got an award from Nature Magazine for connecting scientists through twitter. He listed a few hastags related to my major, such as #compsci #bitcoin, and #code. He also shared with us his experience with his creation of #scistuchat. Then, on Thursday, we spoke with Caleph Wilson in another Hangouts session. He's researches HIV at Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute. During the conversation, he answered many of our questions relating to his experiences as a scientist and using social media all the while. He also advised us to not post anything we wouldn't want our employers to see. Both conversations were enlightening! 

Week Four Blog Post

Week Four Blog Post

In class throughout week four, we were introduced to a few new applications to add to our toolkit. We also had an "app smack-down", which was pretty interesting. Tools that were introduced include Zite, Feedly, Pocket, and Evernote.  The first three mentioned, serve as a personalized news feed including a mash-up of your favorite sites. It really comes in handy when trying to stay updated on your professional area, or if you just want to waste some time. Evernote, being the odd-man-out, serves as a cloud-based notebook that allows you to access all of your notes in a matter of seconds. I have already created various notebooks within Evernote, including various lecture notes. 

I also have read up on Michael Hyatt's article, "How to Use Evernote If You Are a Speaker or Writer". It dives into the practical uses Evernote provides to a public speaker or writer. Throughout college and work, I have had to speak on multiple occasions, and I know being prepared is key. He mentions the documenting articles, digital books, blog posts, and traditional books can be extremely resourceful when writing or preparing a speech. He also mentions the uses of meta tags, so the user can appropriately search past saved documents without hassle.

For our "App Smackdown," I chose Treehouse and Tynker. Treehouse is an application for individuals who want to learn specific coding languages, with an interactive user interface.  It provides in-depth, instructional videos, between each exercise. I presented some code, and generated a preview for the class to see. The next application I presented was Tynker, an education based, coding app, designed for young learners. It presents pre-made games, and allows users to tweak individual components of the game, using code. It gives kids, or even adults, an easy environment to learn visually, rather than the traditional IDE approach. One of my classmates, Matt Waldron, introduced the class to ideone, a cloud based IDE. I think it a spectacular web-based application for both students and professionals. 

Lastly, in our textbook, "The Connected Educator," we were to read chapter two. This chapter focuses on the different aspects of learning communities, and the infinite possibilities for an educator to reach out and network.  These different communities, "local", "global", and "bounded", all have different advantages to others, and offer professional development opportunities.  We are currently participating within a local community in the classroom, where we share our ideas face to face. Professor Calderwood is now introducing us to a more global community, so that eventually, we could enter a more professional oriented network, or "bounded" community.