Sunday, June 7, 2009

Tutorial Eight: Explaining the process of embedding YouTube videos and Flickr Badges onto blogger

On my blog I have uploaded a video from YouTube that i made and a Flickr badge with all my photos. It is very easy to do this on your own blog. I have added two short videos that give you step-by-step instructions to do this.

Embedding a video from YouTube onto blogger

Embedding a Flickr badge onto blogger

Tutorial Seven: Assistive technology

Assistive Technology can be defined as “any item, piece of equipment or product system whether acquired commercially off the shelf, modified, or customised that is used to increase or improve functional capabilities of individuals with disabilities” (Cook & Hussey, 1995).

This week we had two guest speakers who work with assistive technology devices, and were able to educate us on some that they use. This tutorial had us up and about playing with all sorts of assistive technology switches and gadgets, computer keyboards and interactive software.

One that really interested me was the Tracker Pro. Tracker Pro is about $1000, and enables people with little or no hand movement to perform mouse functions. It is a hands free mouse, where the cursor control allows small movements of the head or fingers. There is a camera, which is put on top of computer screen, which traces a 0.3” dot reflective sticker. This sticker can be placed on your forehead, finger, hat, glasses etc, where the motion is tracked. If the sticker is on your finger when you move it, Tracker Pro converts that into computer mouse movement. This means that someone who cannot move a mouse very well can use a computer with just small movements of their finger.

Tutorial Six: The internet and on-line communities

I have been exploring on-line communities and one that interests me is Facebook. The website is www.facebook.com

Facebook's mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected. Millions of people use Facebook everyday to keep up with friends upload an unlimited number of photos, share links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet.

This community is based on interaction with others. Every member has their own page, where they can add photos, videos, update people on what they are doing and comment on friends pages. Along with this they can join fan groups and clubs as well as take quizzes and even play online poker. With all of these of these items to play around with Facebook truly is a social networking site.

The sorts of topics being discussed on face book involve what has happening in their lives, social events, activities, what they are going to do in the weekend, where they are going etc, it’s basically a big gossip community . People are constantly updating their profile as their life events change or occur and conversations between friends can last for week and weeks. Then when other friends come online users are able to chat instantly.

The ethical issues that may arise within the use of face book includes;
-users giving out too much personal information and the threat of sexual predators.
-data theft, or viruses that can get
-people can view peoples profile when they don’t want to and potentially stalk people
-identity theft, by people logging in to others accounts.
-creation of fake identity and profiles which result in people become mislead.
-Other people can put photos and videos of you and tag your name without your permission or knowledge

There are many benefits this online community has over traditional notions of community which include;
-provide large amounts of information very quickly
-provides connections over great distances, and able to communicate with people with similar interests
- allow for silent observation prior to participation
-individuals are able to have equal voice
-fast speed of information sharing
- able to monitor and regulate users

There are still aspects that online communities lack in relation to traditional communities which include;
- lack of face to face communication
- there is potential for misuse and often delusions and reliance on virtual communities
- limited to the communication tools within the online community.
- not always valid information being shared
- only people with computers and internet are able to join the communities.

Tutorial Four and Five: Video Production

In these two tutorials we made a short video called Vertical Limit which i have uploaded to my blog. To be able to put it on this blog, we uploaded it to a website called YouTube.

YouTube is another blog where you can upload videos and watch other videos. You can comment on then as well as rate them.

To create a film or video you need to plan it and create a storyboard. a storyboard is a series of drawings of the proposed film as it will appear on screen. These drawings play an important part in film production when making any type of video of film. It helps when there are time restraints (like we had when creating our video). This ensures there is no confusion on what scene is next and what people should be doing.

Check out my video!!

Tutorial Three: Blogging part one

Blogger is a website that gives people a place where they can share information with an online community and express their own opinions, ideas and feelings on any subject matter. People can create their own blog and visitors to this blog can then comment on what they see. Blogs are really useful for travelling, of living away from home, or just keeping in contact with people that you know (or don’t know). It is great for other people to be able to see what you are up to, and you can see what other people are doing too. People can control their own blog by deleting comments they don’t like and allowing who they want to be able to view their blog. Blogger allows photos and videos to be uploaded to the blog and mobile phones can be used to send pictures and text straight to the blog as a new post.

Tutorial Two: Digital Imaging

Digital cameras are electronic devices that are used to capture images and store them in a digital format. Digital camera photos are usually transferable from a memory card to computers where they are stored in files. Photos can be transferred or sent to other people over the internet by email, USB sticks, floppy disks, CD's and posted on websites and blogs like this one.

You need to have cables, batteries, memory cards, printer, ink and a computer to make the most of your digital camera. This is a negative factor as they are dependent on other technologies. Another negative is having all your images on a computer as the computer my breakdown and the photos are lost. A positive is the way we can easily edit and manipulate photos. They are quickly transferred from the camera to other devices which are a plus.

Ethical issues when using digital cameras include people giving consent that the photo can be shared with others. Some people may be in the background of photos that may feel uncomfortable that the photo is being displayed on the internet. Images can also be portrayed differently by editing and manipulating which can be an issue. It is harder to destroy photos once they have been sent and posted on various websites unlike destroying the original negatives.

OT's can use digital camera's when doing housing modifications so they can get an accurate image and then take it away review it and develop plans. They can upload pictures onto websites, advertising and for equipment. They can also be used in the work place for taking photos for staff badges.

Optical zoom works just as a zoom lens on a film camera. The lens changes focal length and magnification as it is zoomed. Digital zoom simply crops the image to a smaller size, and then enlarges the cropped part to fit the frame.

Megapixels are equal to one million pixels. Pixels are the little squares that make up the image.

Flickr.com is a place where you can upload photos and share them with your friends and family. You can also create links to other websites like this blog!

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Tutorial One: Ethics and Information Technology.

In todays society we have a choice from many different devices from the technical world and they keep expanding and getting better. For some like me this only includes the basics such as a computer, a cellphone, a digital camera and DVD players. I am starting to realise these objects are a must have being an Occupational Therapist for information gathering and communicating.

The use of devices that take videos and photos have ethical implications that need to be considered. Images that are shown may loose their intended purpose if they are seen by others and could be ill used by others. Issues we need to consider are who should be able to access the images. There need to be informed consent by those in the photos. As Occupational Therapists we need to let our clients know the purpose of the photos, where they will be stored and who will be able to see them.

As technology becomes more predominant in our lives I need to become more willing to learn and teach. There are many advantages to quickly download information, video and take photo's online but we need to be thoughtful of how people feel about their information being shared.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Thursday, February 26, 2009

BLOG OUTLINE

Hi, this is my first blog! I have created this blog for my Participation in Occupation course for Occupational Therapy. This course will help me produce an on-line resource and demonstrate my understanding of the use it has in relation to Occupational Therapy. On this blog i will talk common place technologies and links to Occupational Therapy.