Web 2.0 - Final Blog

Well, this is my last blog for this term.  I have learned a great deal from this class and have tried to implement the new tools in my work, personal postings and with my friends.  It's been an interesting class because it relates to what we are doing right now, and not at some distant time in the future when we forget what we learned because so much time has passed.

At first, I wasn't sure what to do my final project on and had several possibilities but after viewing another classmate's posting, it gave me a different perspective on how to approach it and even have fun planning for my video debut!  I had some difficulty at first but my perseverance paid off and I was able to upload the video to YouTube and even create a custom thumbnail by capturing an image using Jing ... which is my new favorite tool!

I hope you enjoyed my instructional video on Fairy Gardens and create a little magic in your life!  FYI, Pinterest has some great information if you would like to learn more about fairy gardens. 

Wishing everyone well and congrats on your achievements (R & C), I'm right behind you for my BS!

Personal Learning Network -- Update

A Personal Learning Network is something very new to me.  It is a form of independent learning and is intended to provide the most benefits for participants by collaborating and sharing their knowledge in specific areas as well as learning from what others post, sort of  “give and take”.  Right now, I am still in the learning phase and trying to figure out how it can assist me in my professional, personal interests and in furthering my education.   

My starting point was to reactivate my various accounts in Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Facebook, and Google+.  I searched these sites for individuals in my profession and personal life with whom I have common interests.  Some of these individuals are my friends and acquaintances while others are complete strangers and I found them through my connections following them.  

One of the reasons I never embraced “tweeting” was because it was not very well organized and since I don’t have a mobile device, I was missing “tweets” and other activity which left feeling like I was missing out.  Tweetdeck is a free download which allows you to customize your twitter account and provide more organization to twitter feeds.  The one feature which really assists me in viewing my recent activity is the ability to create lists.  I set up a “PLN” list so the activity and tweets for this category are all in one area in a dashboard appearance of my twitter account. I set up tiles on my Symbaloo for both my twitter and tweetdeck so I can view my twitter feeds in either the original twitter format or in the dashboard format. I also set up a list in my twitter to follow architectural posts for another course I am taking.   

A few examples of what I added to my PLN list are Googledocs which I hope to learn some tips on how to use it and I am interested in learning about googlecalendar to use it to track my families' activities. I also added Microsoft to learn shortcuts to MS Word because we will be converting to it exclusively as our word processing program soon.  I am also following a guy named Tom Whitby who seems interesting.  One of my connections was following Rob Mancabelli who is co–author of the book Personal Learning Networks: Using the Power of Connections to Transform Education so I began following him. 

While searching for information on Pinterest, I found a great deal of information about PLNs and began looking at what others had “pinned” about it.  Larry Ferlazzo posted information on how to design your PLN.  What caught my attention was the image he pinned about PLNs which provided icons for various tools available to design PLNs.  I downloaded Diigo which is a social bookmark and it seems similar to twitter in certain ways but different in other ways.  It is stored in the cloud so you can access it from anywhere and you can share your bookmarks with others even if they are not Diigo users. 
   
I have been accessing my LinkIn more often to keep in touch with a few of my friends from ESC and former co-workers who have moved onto other jobs.  My facebook account is primarily used to “stalk” my friends and family both near and far to keep up with the events in their lives.  Just this past weekend, I saw my cousin’s daughter dressed and ready to go to her senior prom in another state.  It's still amazes me at how  instantaneously we can be updated on anything we want to know at that moment in time.. 

My Google+ account was reactivated for this course and I was impressed at how much more it offers than my yahoo account which I’ve had since the time of “you’ve got mail”.  I am seriously considering using my gmail as my primary personal email and my yahoo as my secondary.  Good bye old friend!

I still have so much to learn and understand about Personal Learning Networks but I think I’ve found some excellent resources to help guide me along the way on adding to and maneuvering my Personal Learning Network.  

REFERENCES:

Image retrieved from:  https://www.viralheat.com/blog/2013/02/20/the-unique-benefits-of-social-platforms/ 

Rob Mancabelli's website:  http://www.mancabelli.com/

Understanding E-Business

How cool is to be able to go into your bank accounts with a password and transfer funds on-line from one account to another from wherever you have secure internet access and no more needless worry about getting to the bank before they close. Or, having the ability to do all your holiday shopping via Amazon or some other on-line store at 2:00 a.m., and your packages arrive at your doorstep two days later.  No more having to stand in long lines waiting for someone to assist you with your transactions or having another shopped grab a sought after item out of your hands. 

As more and more businesses move to this format which saves them considerable money in rent expense for a store space, utilities, employee salaries, etc., I embrace the flexibility to be able to do my shopping or conduct other transactions whenever I have the time.  One drawback which concerns me about e-businesses is what will this do to our personal interactions with other individuals in the future?

My place of employment recently conducted a survey on customer traffic in our office to see if we could keep our door closed on certain days or for specific times due to the light traffic we experienced so we could concentrate on other projects. 

While I see both the pros and cons of E-Business, I am troubled because I am a “people person”, and it seems that the type of contact I am accustomed to having with others may be significantly reduced and we may be facing this sooner rather than later.


References:

Image retrieved from:  http://web2tools.biz/2013/08/ebusiness-decision-tree/

Understanding Internet Technologies and Security

Networks – what are they?  Working in an office environment today, we’ve all heard the term “network” at some point. Basically there are three types.  The first is a LAN - Local Area Network which is a computer network supporting users in a small geographical area such as an office building and are configured in be either peer-to-peer structure or a client/server structure.  The second is a MAN - Metropolitan Area Network which connects clients and servers in a region such as multiple buildings across a city.  The third is a WAN - Wide Area Network which is a network covering a wide geographical area such as a business which has branch office in several countries.

There are both internal and external security threats to a network which need to be anticipated and planned for to protect network equipment and date.  Internal threats stem from failure of management to implement and enforce proper security policies such as continuing of operations plans in a disaster, security awareness and procedures enforced with staff and making backup copies of critical data including storage of backup off-site.  External threats include those originating outside the network and include unauthorized network access, computer viruses, natural disasters, etc. At my work, there are strict policies in place for all the above.

The statistics provided under Cyber Security were enough to make me want to update my antivirus software.  Last year, I was counted in those stats because my laptop was infected with 99 viruses and had to be totally wiped clean and reconfigured.  Unfortunately, everything I had saved on it was lost because I had not made backup copies of my data.  Lesson learned.

References:

Image retrieved from:  http://www.techjaws.com/internet-security-checklist/

Getting More Out of the Internet

It seems almost anything can be done through a internet portal from banking to shopping to tracking your personal goals for weight management to taking courses on-line or streaming a video.  Recently for me, the internet has been a valuable tool in assisting me while I am researching specific topics or simply trying to figure out what an unfamiliar term means and how to apply it by using an on-line dictionary.

We seem to have three distinct generations of computer users: {1}the ones with the opinion that they don’t need a computer because they have lived this long without it (my dad); {2} the generation who grew up with DOS, floppy disks, dot matrix printers and were among the first users of the internet but mainly because their jobs required it, and (3) the generation who were essentially born with some sort of PED in their hands.  The youngest generation amazes me in their ability to adapt so easily to the fast changing internet.  

I place myself in the second generation meaning I am savvy enough to search the internet for information, able to use various email software programs, download music, play games, visit social media sites, etc.  At times though it seems like I am five steps behind because of new and improved versions of “social” media websites pop up.  An example is the time I first learned about Instagram or Pinterest which was because my kids were raving about them. Needless to say I was clueless.  It’s like a whole other world residing in our computer monitor and if you don’t take the correct door, you’ll be left behind.

The internet is highly valued by many people and organizations in the daily activities and I believe it will continue to be the source we turn to in the future for managing all that affects our personal, social and business lives.  What will be the next best thing it can do to enhance our lives which it isn’t already doing ...dare I ask?

SoundCloud

This class is providing me with my first exposure to SoundCloud.  When I googled “what is SoundCloud”, the response was: “SoundCloud is one of the hottest services in web audio and yet it gets very little attention from the tech press.”  As I checked around the website I learned that this company was based in Berlin, Germany.  As I tried to get an idea of what to expect and I was surprised to learn about all that it offered including some podcasts about various topics which interested me such as "Business" and "Learning". 

My initial thoughts about SoundCloud was that it was only for music, however, as I was reviewing the different genres, I noticed what appeared to be “categories” of available podcasts such as audiobooks, business, learning, etc.  I listened to some of the posts to learn more about what was being uploaded, I “liked” a few of them and shared this one through Twitter: 3 Things I’d Tell My 20 Something Self by  inspirational speaker, Jonathan Fields.

Another thing that struck me and I found interesting was while there is no video playing, my mind was visualizing how the different sounds were being made.  I became aware of this while listening to a post by “Everything Sounds” under the Storytelling category:

This web audio provides individuals with the ability to share music or create their own audio on whatever topic they want to share with others including their personal connections in social media or complete strangers who happen to see your post.  The site is fairly easy to navigate and it provides detailed information to get you started at:  https://soundcloud.com/messages/89986218:system

References:

Retrieved from: https://soundcloud.com/soundcloudhttps://soundcloud.com/soundcloud

Communicating Online

This chapter provided a great review for the various ways of communicating with others on-line and I learned new terminology such as “e-mail client” which is software installed on a computer which is used to send/receive/create contacts/manage e-mail messages, etc.  E-mail is probably one of the most popular form for all of us in communicating with others on-line. 

One feature I plan to look into is pertaining to organizing my email messages to determine if my work email has the functionality to automatically have messages from a certain individual go to a folder for that particular individual.  I have certain instances where this would be very helpful in managing my messages.

At work, we use LotusNotes and I have two personal email accounts, one being my gmail account and the  

other is my yahoo account. Our employer’s internal controls policy prohibits staff from accessing web-based e-mail such as yahoo.com from our work desktops or laptops.

One of my favorite features in my work email is called “stationery” which allows me to create templates for emails I routinely send out to various groups of individuals.  I create the group which includes individuals who should receive the email.  This assists me in that I don’t have to add them to each email every time and the likelihood that I forget someone is eliminated. Also, because the language is the same except for who the email pertains to, it is a huge timesaver for me in typing the same language over and over again.

Another feature covered in this chapter related to signature block.  A few years ago, our IT Department directed us to include a standard signature block for all employees for every email message we sent out.  A few weeks ago, we were instructed to add a link to a Customer Service Survey (Survey Monkey) so we could find out what our customers, both internal and external, thought about the service they were provided. 

References:

Images retrieved from:
http://d2qpgu1b5rkvmc.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/oneclient2.png 

http://www.onedayonejob.com/jobs/surveymonkey/