Tutorial 8: Posting YouTube Videos and Flickr Badges to Blogs: Explaining the process

In today's tutorial we are looking at how to embed different types of media (video and photos) into our blogs. YouTube is an amazing site which contains lots of how-to videos. Whatever you want to learn how to do, there will almost always be someone who has uploaded a video explaining it. So I went into youtube.com to find a how-to video for embedding YouTube videos and Flickr badges. It's really easy, but I guess many people would benefit from a video to follow (Visual, Aural, Kinesthetic learning!)
Here's what I found:

This first video shows how to embed a YouTube video into Blogger.






Okay I changed my mind. There was a video on YouTube explaining how to embed a Flickr badge but I thought it was unnecessarily convoluted. And strangely there was only one how-to video. Perhaps I was using the wrong keywords or not enough alternatives. Anyway the Flickr website takes users through the step by step process of embedding a photo badge. It's quite straightforward. Just start with this link, which is the Flickr Badge Generator. You'll be asked to sign in, then it's a simple 4-step process and at the end you get a chunk of html code which you simply copy and paste as per how you did it for embedding the YouTube video, ie go to "New Post", click "Edit Html" and paste the code there. Go ahead, you can do it!

Tutorial 7:Assistive Technology

This tutorial had us up and about playing with all sorts of assistive technology switches and gadgets, computer keyboards, interactive software and finally getting together in the House/Motel to see how it could be wired up to be practically entirely remote controlled! Rather interesting. We as a group also made pikelets using assistive technology such as a remote controlled (or special switch operated) food processor. Heaps of fun!

So what is Assistive Technology?

Cook & Hussey (1995) use the term "assistive technology" to refer to "a broad range of devices, services, strategies, and practices that are conceived and applied to ameliorate the problems faced by individuals who have disabilities" (p.5).

One piece of equipment introduced in the assistive technology tutorial was a little red plastic thing that I was tasked to record the steps for making pikelets into. It's called a "Talking Tin" according to the star-educational website. It's also known as a "label" for visually impaired people. It allows the user to record multiple messages up to 30 seconds in total and like I did, record a recipe, or "label" a container with the name of its contents. The user pushes a button and it plays back the message, which could be "flour" or "sugar" or "peeled whole Roma tomatoes" or whatever you like. It costs $24 and comes with batteries (replaceable). It's small enough to grip in one hand and has magnets on the underside to attach to metal containers in standard sizes. Adaptors are also available to make it compatible with bottles, sprays and plastic containers. See here for pictures and details.

This chosen piece of equipment increases functional capacity for the user. By being a small handy portable gadget one could use it in any part of the home to tell the user the contents of any container they might need to use, or it could be used to record something the user might need to be reminded of, such as a list of tasks or steps to a task. This piece of equipment increases functional capacity of visually-impaired users, or users with cognitive deficits such as memory problems. 

Tutorial 6:The Internet and Online Communities

The topic of this tutorial is one that must be close to most of our hearts, after all, we're using the Internet right now aren't we? That's you and I! 

For this tutorial I chose a community that gave me quite a lot of entertainment, tips and encouragement last summer. The URL is http://sustainability.govt.nz/forums/standard 

This community doesn't really have a name, but I guess it's the government's sustainability forum community! 

The brief or focus of this community is sustainability. What's that?

Well, to quote the little subtitle on the website, "Living sustainably means living smarter. Through this site you’ll learn how to reduce your impact on the environment and save money."

There are a few broad areas that are covered, namely, Rubbish, Water, Building, Energy, Transport, Climate Change. But in the forum people pretty much talk about anything to do with sustainability in as broad or as narrow a sense as they want. 

There are a number of articles about the various topics, including links to outside websites if they are relevant. There are news articles about related topics as well and people obviously express their views, comment on other's posts, ask for help/tip/advice and dispense the same quite freely. It's a bit of a portal with useful information from either the articles or other users which then helps direct one's search for information or how-tos or useful contact details of companies or agencies who provide services. 

In the lecture we learned that there are four reasons people join online communities, namely, anticipated reciprocity, increased recognition, sense of efficacy and sense of community. 

These seem to be relevant to this particular community as far as I have experienced. Reading through the posts of other users, one gets a sense that the community is quite active and people post quite regularly, some frequently. One can see which thread of discussion is hot, attracting many replies, and how many replies, as well as when the last reply was posted hence how current this thread is. While users don't get a category/label based on how many posts they've made as some other forums do, which is the recognition mentioned earlier, one does get a sense of the really active ones. People also post back thanks or feedback or updates after others have given their two cents worth and this imparts a sense of efficacy to those who have taken the effort to answer, as well as benefitting them as everyone can read alternative ideas that others have. Definitely there is a sense of community as although the posts can vary in topic quite a lot, they are linked by a common thread, and people care about sustainability and are trying to live sustainably, indeed they are here to learn how others do it and how they can do better or do more, which is something they have in common.

An example of the kinds of topics might be helpful. Well okay upon entering the forum, you are presented with a whole list of threads and here are a sample of the latest ones...

Urban appropriate utility style bicycles and cycling in New Zealand	urbanbicycles on 20 May 2009	0	n/a
Water Barrels	Samantha on 17 May 2009	0	n/a
Pushmower blues	robert.crump on 10 December 2008	3	6 days 10 hours ago by robert.crump
Thinking about composting? Which system should I choose?	Tink on 24 April 2009	5	1 week 2 hours ago by Rosie
easy way to make your fridge more efficient	mady on 19 December 2008	5	1 week 4 hours ago by Valerie Jabir
My WWOOFing holiday	Tink on 11 May 2009	1	1 week 8 hours ago by Lindis
What you eat or where you buy? – Reducing food’s carbon footprint	Tink on 11 March 2009	9	1 week 3 days ago by prowall
Kids Can Learn to Recycle Reduce Reuse in a Fun Way - 2009	Neko on 11 March 2009	4	5 weeks 4 hours ago by Tink
Blog: Climate Change and What Difference Can I Possibly Make?	Francoise on 26 March 2009	4	6 weeks 1 day ago by Lindis
New case studies on water saving and vege gardening	Andrew on 6 April 2009	0	n/a
Shampoo and hair care

As you can see quite diverse, really.

The ethical issues that apply to any non-face-to-face interaction are relevant here. A person only needs a valid email address to register and start posting. They can use a false name, pretend to be a totally different person or hold multiple accounts to create false impressions. Even with non-malicious users, anyone can post any kind of answer to questions or any quality of advice. It is a case of reader beware, or to put a little more faith in the marketplace of ideas, it might be that others speak up to expose a person's lack of wisdom. However this mechanism may not always be reliable as people tend to be respectful and courteous and differences in opinion are largely tolerated - there is no one single "right" way to be sustainable and what works for one may not work for another, and that's accepted. 

This community has some benefits that traditional communities do not, such as it allows people with similar interests to "get together" and exchange ideas, experiences, tips, advice, information from all and any part of NZ. Hence while it can complement a local sustainability interest group, it can also unite people across the country and provide perspective on various topics of interest. For example, local councils deal with rubbish, recycling and rearing chooks in the backyard differently and this community provides an opportunity for people to learn about what other people do differently and what other options are out there. Because anyone can register and join, large numbers of people can communicate at the same time whereas traditional communities would find it hard to host so many people with so many different ideas all talking at the same time! Finally, it's more egalitarian as one does not have to be an expert/celebrity to have a "roomful" of people listening to what you have to say.

As for limitations, traditional communities are more multi-functional whereas this online community does only what it means to, and that is allow people to share and exchange ideas. People can't see one another, they can't read the other person's body language or see their facial expression. Neither can they have secret conversations or private discussions. In this community, people can't really direct their words at a targeted audience (one person or a group) but what they want to say is put out there for everyone to read and respond to and if someone responds in a way you don't like, your only option is to close the window. 

 

Tutorial 5:Video Production Sessions Part II

Part of the preparation for going out and making our own videos involved first sitting down and storyboarding our idea. What's storyboarding? Well basically, each shot is planned as it will look and the shot is drawn into little boxes with a short written description on the side to give the cinematographer (or the camera-person) instructions about how the director sees the film in his head. The director is the boss, you see, but in many cases well-respected and talented cinematographers have much expertise to lend the director, for example, in order to achieve the look/mood/atmosphere the director wants but in a better/different way. That's his/her area of expertise after all.

Well our group weren't made up of award winning directors or cinematographers, just three enthusiastic girls keen for a bit of fun. So we got our idea and sat down to talk about how it would go. First we came up with the general idea, then narrowed it down to sequences or scenes. And when we were all agreeable we could come up with the individual shots. 

This was, and is, a lengthy tedious process, especially for non-artists like us. If you take even a 30 second bit of film, that would have quite a number of shots in it. Shots can be as short as a few seconds (24 or is it 25 frames to a second?) so there can many, many shots in the shortest of films. Ours, as it turned out, was just a *little* over 30 seconds. Ahem.

I think that taking the time to talk about and agree on what we wanted saved time "on location" (as it were) and having the shots figured out beforehand also saved time. Of course we were flexible and open to new bright flashes of inspiration when they occurred and we worked some of them in; some of our planned shots "worked" better than others. Flexibility is important and many things look or turn out different than in your head! But on the whole lacking a director with a Strong Artistic Vision, it was back to good old teamwork and planning beforehand. 

Because each shot may take a few takes to get the one that is just perfect, filming itself takes a lot, lot more time than it may appear to the untrained eye. Do not be fooled! A huge, huge amount of raw footage (called "rushes" because they were traditionally rushed to the film processing labs everyday) goes into what finally comes out as a 30-second clip, 5- minute short, or 2-hour-long feature film.

Tutorial 4:Video Production Sessions Part I

For these tutorials, we had a great time! We got together in small groups, came up with an idea for a short film around the theme "Overcoming Adversity" and then grabbed our gear (after careful planning and meticulous storyboarding of course) and headed out! 

I shan't spoil it with any spoilers but here it is! 

I think it came out pretty well especially the clear tape when we later thought maybe we should 

have used big masking tape instead. Oh well.

We were also asked to summarise Youtube's services.

Well, to be very, very brief, Youtube allows people, anyone, you and I, to post, share and watch 

videos of virtually any topic, style, level of professionalism, genre etc... and it's all free!

If you want it straight from the horse's mouth, here you go...

(click me!)

The Machine is using us, is it?

While we're on the subject of technology in general, here is a really good video encapsulating certain positive concepts to look forward to. I find this rather encouraging and hopeful, and I wonder if the hope I feel is slightly different from the usual "hope" (though not the usual word perhaps) associated with more speed, more convenience and more... technology.

Enjoy!

Tutorial 3: Blog Creation Tasks

Today is tutorial 3 and we were required to add some elements to our blogs. I added a Hangman game (at the side) and also, here is a bit about Blogger, the site hosting all our student blogs.

Blogger is a blog hosting service that is free for anyone to sign up and create a blog, in a simple straightforward process. Once the blog is created, the user can customise the look of the blog in terms of layout, colours, elements and so on. There can be multiple authors with permission to add posts, while readers may be the general public (anyone with access to the WWW) or specified people invited by the authors. Posts may include text, pictures, videos and links to other websites.

Another blog host that is rather popular is Livejournal.

And that's the end of this post for today!

Tutorial 2: Digital Camera Use & Applications

I didn't attend this tutorial because I was sick but I would have enjoyed it. Digital cameras are a big part of my own life and that of my friends. Having a number of close friends who are professional photographers or serious hobbyists, I have been part of quite a number of discussion around the demise of the 'art', now that photography is more of less "de-mystified" and everyone from little Johnny next door to Grandma has their own little point-and-shoot, the old art and craft of photography seems to stalwarts, to be sadly disappearing.

"A new technology is rarely superior to an old one in every feature." In comparing digital and traditional film cameras, here's what I came up with about digital cameras...

Plusses:

- Less marginal cost of film

- Images can be viewed rightaway, or even before taking

- Images can be edited and post-processed in infinite ways

- More photos can be taken and stored without "supplies", ie great storage capacity than the old 36 exposures and endless canisters of film

- More accessible to a wider market, perhaps because of the "point-and-shoot" types

- Photos can be theoretically stored indefinitely with little deterioration

Minuses:

- Sense of artistry or craftsmanship is lost because of easy access for all and sundry

- Irresponsible/indiscriminate use of digital images

- Reliant on user having computer/viewer and any number of accessories and associated costs increase

- Necessary skill is diminished, photo quality is also diminished

- Post processing undermines photography as old art form because errors can be "corrected"

Digital images can be stored using storage devices which include hard drives, floppy disks, thumb drives, memory cards eg Memory Stick, Compact Flash, SD, mini/micro SD, CD-ROMs, DVD-RW, transferred and manipulated using other communications technology. They can be transferred via networking (ie LAN, intranet, WAN), physically copying on and off a computer, via the internet (email, upload/download). They can be processed using a huge range of software.

Because this is so prevalent, it is important to consider the ethical issues. For example, consent of the human subject for the photo to be used in commercial purposes is legally obligated, but morally and ethically there are considerations around disseminating for any purpose, and especially in the event of uncontrolled distribution, eg once it's on the WWW it's out of your control. Issues also arise around copyright if the subject is an object with copyright "remediating". Regulation is difficult to implement and enforce especially if it no longer has to do with traditional "suppliers" controlling distribution but is now up to "consumers" to exercise personal integrity when acquiring images from the "public sphere". There is no one to implement any other person's right for compensation in exchange for use anymore, unlike in a shop. How can we regulate what every person does at home on their personal computers?

In occupational therapy practice digital images may be used on websites, for education and training of staff and clients, such as to illustrate techniques or equipment, for online catalogues of suppliers and on blogs of practitioners.

Flickr is a service that allows users to store pictures and videos, edit them online using editing tools, share content with others, place tags on images, form groups with other users, create albums and slideshows. Other than Flickr, there is also Picasa, which I like for how easily I can post pictures onto blogs.

Optical zoom works like a zoom lens on a film camera whereby the focal length is changed and the subject appears larger in the viewfinder. On the other hand, digital zoom is applied after the photograph is taken by magnifying a selected area of the original photograph. This results in a loss of picture quality and the more the picture is digitally magnified, the greater the loss of quality shows.

A pixel is a contraction of "picture element" and is the smallest unit a digital picture is made up of, or a dot on the computer screen. This is a unit used for measuring picture quality or resolution. The greater the resolution, or the greater the number of dots, the better the picture quality (and to link to above, the more you can digitally zoom before you perceive the grainy-ness of the image). A megapixel is a million pixels.

Tutorial 1: Ethics & Information Technology

For the first tutorial of this course, we discussed information technology and its merits and disadvantages. Being a class of young Gen Y people (ahem) this was of course a subject that was close to our hearts and certainly a big part of our lives. I thought the issues raised around ethics were very interesting, as being cynical me, or maybe having gone through the phase of embracing any technology just because it's technology and later thought about it over the years, I have somewhat more concerns and reservations about technology being the be-all and end-all of modern life as we know it. But anyway, here are some concepts and ideas we discussed...

Information Technology (IT) is defined as:

The study or use of systems such as computers and telecommunications for storing, retrieving and sending information.

Compact Oxford English Dictionary. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.askoxford.com:80/concise_oed/informationtechnology?view=uk

IT is very prevalent in our society and getting increasingly so. It is the basis for much of our "modern tools" in the realms of business, education, entertainment, infrastructure, defence, transport, healthcare and so on. It's everywhere!

Personally, I feel comfortable and competent using devices such as telephones, Mobile telephones, MP3 players, Computers (including emailing, search engines, blogs, downloading, social networking), Televisions, Pagers, Faxes though pagers and faxes may soon become obsolete.

In Occupational Therapy practice, IT is common enough too. Organisations have corporate websites, informational websites, use email and some have integrated patient management systems across the organisation encompassing more than one physical site/building. Evidence for practice is retrieved via online article databases. Time use is also managed using a central system to collect and store information regarding how staff are using their time at work.

Of course, there are ethical implications which arise from the capturing, sharing and transferring of information via IT devices (e.g. mobile phones) or systems (e.g. internet). Other than the obvious issues of privacy, child pornography or online stalkers, there is a broader issue of the increasing inequality of the power balance between the "haves" and "have nots". As with any other tool, those who wield the tool benefit, often to the exclusion, if not outright exploitation, of others. In this era information IS power.

The old structures of terrestrial laws, regulations and boundaries are now obsolete, with the virtual global village. Geographical lines are irrelevant. This creates problems of monitoring or regulation. Who will make the rules? Who will benefit from these rules? Who will enforce the rules?

Here are some other concepts we discussed...

Computer Ethics is defined as:

A set of moral principles that regulate the use of computers.

Retrieved from http://www.techterms.com/definition/computerethics

Intellectual Property is defined as:

Intangible property that is the result of creativity (e.g. patents or copyrights)

Compact Oxford English Dictionary. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.askoxford.com:80/concise_oed/intellectual property?view=uk

Social Justice is defined as:

The virtue which guides us in creating those organised human interactions we call institutions.

Center for Economic and Social Justice. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.cesj.org/thirdway/economicjustice_defined.htm

Informed Consent is defined as:

Consent by a patient to undergo a medical or surgical treatment or to participate in an experiment after the patient understands the risks involved.

Retrieved from http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=informed%20consent

Since it is so rampant and contains great potential for good as well as harm, understanding the issues and implications of ways of using IT will form the basis for sound, safe and ethical practice in our practice and daily lives.

There are both advantages and disadvantages to using any tool or technology, and considerations must be made on all levels from the individual to the organisation or society, as well as factors from the economic, social, political, cultural and moral aspects.

A blog is born

Hello, world. :)

Stay tuned...