[Running Late] Task 2 Wrap up!

I revisited the unit guide (page 14) for EDN113 and realised that what I have produced is still not quite what is required for me to pass the unit. That is, I have created: webpage with a page that links instructions on how to get to my social media website (forum, here)*, and a how to contribute instructions, but I forgot to show some examples of what I mean.

and here's what I mean.

CC by Cheng Keong, Instructions for Volleyballtips Proboards, 2014

 the image here above on the left, shows a example of what I would like to see in the forum.

and below. shows an example of how to achieve what I would like to see in the forum. It is like a form of 'meta-instructions'.

CC by Cheng Keong, Instructions for Volleyballtips Proboards, 2014

After the big realisation, I decided to start producing some examples and this only came to me when I was doing a review for another student's work. I decided what have I got to lose? If I included more information... (nothing). Hence, started adding examples.

CC by Cheng Keong, Instructions for Volleyballtips Proboards, 2014

Above, there are some threads (above) with videos inside about: digging, setting and spiking.

Despite not getting any feedback from anyone, I'm not too phased about what to work on because I am confident that what I have done will be good.

Some tools and websites that I found very useful was Internet Explorer (I.E.), Youtube, Google and Snipping Tool (Windows). Reasons why I found these useful are: without I.E. Youtube and Google would be inaccessible, Snipping Tool helped me get pictures to show you what I mean (see above). Youtube and Google allowed me to get images and videos for examples to display in task 2.

Of course there were alternative tools and websites that I could have used like: Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Vimeo, Yahoo or Jing, but I did not want to use the 'common' technologies - to build more knowledge about a variety of different technologies.

The new technologies can be used in almost any situation that has a computer, phone or electronic device. By this I mean, browsing searching or researching can be done if your electronic device has a browser: Chrome, I.E. or Firefox. However Jing and Snipping Tool is primarily used on computers, because most smartphones nowadays come with an in-built screenshot function. 

Until next time (Task 3) :)

P.S. " * " means that you may have to log-in to see what it inside!

Task 2 Instructions (Done Correctly)

I realised that the instructions that I have prepared for Task 2, in the forums weren't exactly up to standard, and by that I mean it was more of a plan, so I decided to revisit the instructions and to spruce it up a bit. I deliberated over whether or not I should have redone my instructions because I wasn't sure if I really needed to. Over the weekend I gathered some information from friends via Facebook, which led me to feel like what I've done was not good enough. Hence, the remake that is available on my website at the bottom of the page.

Today, I learnt that the formatting for the powerpoint slides weren't anything special. As in I didn't have to select a particular theme to make it look good, I just had to start a new powerpoint and include information and some images, playing around with the text boxes to make everything fit nicely.

CC by Cheng Keong, Instructions for Volleyballtips Proboards, 2014

Recently a couple of members in our tutorial group (Friday, 10:30-11:30am class) set up a group on Facebook, where we could discuss our ideas and help each other with any questions or problems. In this chat I got to see how they went about task 2; the social web page and the social learning page. From the chat and Jenni's example social learning page, I got the idea about what to write about on the social learning page - context, social situation, why I chose the particular social space and how to get to my social space.

Implications of new knowledge include:

• becoming a more proactive forum user, especially for health pursuits
• using powerpoint to create slides for a simplistic transmission of information.
• setting up communications (online chat, maximal contact-time) can improve discussions and stimulate the generation of new ideas.

Its not much, but that's all for now~

Developing the Framework of the Social Media Webpage

Living and Learning with Technology (EDN113) has been a very difficult unit to wrap my head around. It is unique it its own way, because its not as formally structured as other units like EDN111, BED100 and EXS124. In those units we are instructed on what to do and usually how to do it, whereas in EDN113 we are instructed on what is required to be done and how to do it is up to you. We're required to research the things we don't know how to do and apply it to our tasks.

Today was basically about setting up the framework of task 2, not necessarily doing it to perfection, but getting something up there to work with. Today I came across the stump of, how to create a thread in my own forum. As it was new to me and many forums often have 'how to' sections. The how to section on Proboards.com helped me to overcome my minor problem. I simply glanced over the instructions picking up key points of information and merging it with my existing knowledge on social media forums, namely Facebook and other gaming forums.

Another complication that I hit today was uploading my own image to the forum, unfortunately for me it didn't support uploading direct from the computer like Weebly. So I decided that I needed a place to be able to upload my images and I googled "where can I push my images" but that came up with funny results, so I decided that push wasn't the correct word and backtracked a bit to "where can I" and google suggested "host my images." So I went with that and found Flickr and Hostmypicture. I decided to use hostmypicture instead of Flickr, because hostmypicture didn't require me to create an account before uploading any images.

Hostmypicture.com
CC by Cheng Keong, 2014

Being confused is one of the many thoughts that will always be on my mind in this subject. I was feeling anxious in the beginning, having completed a bit more of the task, I feel slightly more on top of it. The most terrifying part of the task 2 assignment was the beginning because I, and probably the rest of our EDN113 tutorial group, had no idea about what was going on! As time progressed and lectures went by more information was obtained about what a social situation was and what we had to do to complete the task, the task became easier.

To get started, I asked Stuart and Val for clarification to get some what of an idea about task 2. Considering that my friends had little idea about what task 2 was about, I didn't bother to asking them. I relied more on verbal information direct from a person rather than online discussion forums because I find it harder to understand written texts and elaboration from the person online may take some time.


I could use the skills of posting on forums, linking URLs for images, videos and hyperlinks on social media websites including: Facebook, Proboards and Blogger. I would use these skills, to make learning easier for other people, especially people who hate plain old traditional reading like me.

Posting a thread
CC by Cheng Keong 2014

Uploading a picture URL
CC by Cheng Keong 2014

Uploading a video URL
CC by Cheng Keong 2014

That's all for now.

Week 1, Introduction to the Social Learner (Task 2)

Well I am back again, clueless as to what is expected to be produced. Honestly, week 1 for me was completely mind-boggling, juggling other assignments and tasks from other units, leaving little time focus on the requirements of EDN113 (Living and Learning with Technology).

On Friday, the 28th of March 2014, Val Patton and Stuart Duvall lightly touched on task 2 - Social Learner. The main pieces of valuable information for me what was required for the assignment at hand. Which was the: 

• Social Situation
• Social Space
• Instructions
• Review

Above are 4 crucial factors in creating a successful task. Initially, I was going to pick an educational situation, however I decided to pick something I would really be passionate about, and for me that was Volleyball. I felt that if I chose something like how to improve students learning capabilities, I would have died of boredom.

I started by looking for a list of social networking sites via google:
"social media sites"

I basically chose the first hyperlink, because they usually have the most relevance to your search results which happened to be Wikipedia. I found quite a lot links there, however I wasn't able to find exactly what I wanted, because I didn't even know what I wanted exactly.

Then I started looking for a more common 'social space', which wasn't as easy as I thought, because I thought a social space could be anything like Blogspot, Flickr, Instagram, Twitter (due to the fact Facebook was NOT allowed). I knew that we had to use images or multimedia in our instructions, so I decided to go with something like Instagram or Flickr, but I thought it was too mainstream and that videos that were uploaded onto Instagram or Flickr would have to be only a few seconds long. Instagram doesn't really have an easy to navigate directory for instructions, so I preferred Flickr over Instagram, but I thought maybe Twitter would be a good idea because it was similar to Facebook, however there was the character limit (maximum amount of letters allowed in a post/comment) which is very undesirable when looking for a discussion. But... all of this was still in the planning phase. 

Which meant nothing was set in stone just yet..