Making my move!

http://adamjwilliams84.wordpress.com/

Finally got bored with this and have made the move to wordpress I just like it so much more! sadly one of the things that google needs to improve drastically to get me to come back!

27/9/11 Drama teacher arrested

Really considering a shift over to wordpress as I hear good things about it.

It has literally just taken me about 40 mins to find out how to post on someones blog. It had to do with the way I was logged in apparently......

surely if I'm logged in I'm logged in, I'm just saying.

anyway paddy over and I should probably write about what interesting things my journey has thrown at me today.

well I suppose the first and most interesting thing (probably) was that the drama teacher was arrested............

Don't worry! It's all an act you see. For our year 7's, new to a big school, they have spent the last two weeks on a murder mystery themed event. and it turns out the drama teacher dunnit.

What has been occurring has been a massive baseline evaluation of students collaborative, personal and technological skills. Without them even knowing it! sneaky I know, but asking a year 7 to sit a load of tests in the first weeks of term is probably a bit harsh. And plus ofsted absolutely lapped it up!

I (being with them in their ICT lesson) have set up about a million prezi accounts (prezi.com) for a new way for them to present their evidence. One of the good things about prezi is that students can share their prezi with other students (which is weird when someone is editing a prezi you are working on at the same time!)

I suppose the main reason I like prezi so much is because it just looks better than powerpoint. It has a massive canvas for you to work on and it really doesn't require much structure when you are starting off as powerpoint does. Ideas can be linked together after they are in rather than having to shift slides around. It is simply a click - job done.

Highly recommend it.

Still stressed out about this online tools module. I have read though it so many times and I just don't get what is being asked of me. I have made references to some online tools here. Read all that I am supposed to read (and a bit more). This whole 1250 words throws me a bit. Does My learning journal need to be 1250 words? or do I need to do a structured piece of essay writing?

Hopefully I wont get into too much trouble for not having done it yet as there is still 2 weeks left and

26/09/11

So today I have looked at the online learning tools section and I can still make neither heads nor tails of it.

I am guessing that I am supposed to be looking at new online tools....

Does this blog count? If it does then I suppose I should probably give a review.

Being new to the world of blogging I have only ever made one blog which had three or four posts in it. (it was a new years resolution, it lasted about 3 days!) I got very confused with the whole thing. Even now as I write this, I know for a fact that when I publish it will not look even remotely the same as it does now. The formatting of it will be all over the place and when I put a return in, I can pretty much guarantee that it won't come up.

Like this see!

There is a button on the top for some advanced persons who like to spend their life looking at HTML code. Whilst I have nothing against this in principle ( I have played with html when I was younger) It still seems to me that that is just too much like hard work.

my second complaint would be - why when I press publish does it not just publish! first it asks me if I am sure, and then it asks me to select the posts that I wish to publish............ didn't I just do that when I said publish?!?

There must be far better ways to blog than this. otherwise blogging wouldn't be so popular as all the people who do would have topped themselves.

I seem to be digressing into grumpy old man mode.

Although I can see lots of negatives to the user interface. I can see that if I was only bothered about getting the message across in text form this would do the job quite well. (I myself like to find a happy medium of informativeness and prettiness)

I found something that could possibly make my life easier. I can link my phone to blogger. It seems to be a much simpler interface and when you press publish, it does just that. The only downside to the phone interface is that you end up wif lots ov speling mistaks.

Something I read in the IWS discussion board from my tutor Shirley made me think a little bit.

<1st sidenote spent ages looking for it on G+, IWS and all other possible places of communication to find it in the posterous section. grrrrr>

<2nd sidenote on blogger WHY CANT YOU CUT AND PASTE ?!?!?!!? grrrr>

so below:- hand copied like some kind of cave man without the use of the time saving ctrl+v

"The wider your audience, the more thought should be given to ethical issues - how much info should be published, protecting your own privacy, respecting the privacy of others"

These sound like wise words so I did a little bit of digging.

If this blog is public (which it is) Then I have a potential 2,095,006,005 people online (internetworldstats.com/stats) who could be offended by the things that I write.......

This really scares me if I am honest.

Now while I am sure that not all of these 2,095,006,005 people are homicidal maniacs. The possibility of there being at least some definitely exists.

Even one percent of that is still 20,950,060.1 people.

That's 20,950,060.1 homicidal maniacs that I don't want to offend!

Now putting the homicidal maniacs aside for a moment (please don't hunt me down and kill me!)

Lets assume that every other person on the Internet is OK. a decent person, a stand up dude or dudette.

I don't want to offend any of them with my ramblings either. So at what point do we draw that line? I am quite hard to offend. but I do get offended. Is it fair that some 28 year old man hiding in his man cave behind his keyboard should be given the opportunity to offend people? A question worth thinking about. What is there to stop me really?

I feel like I have left the realms of learning log, but I want people to understand what I have thought about today, and more importantly what I have learned. So I think it still has some form of relevancy

I wanted to look at the bit about privacy. Is there such a thing anymore?

I watched a programme on tv the other day (thats a lie it was Iplayer, haven't watched tv in months) and it was about super injunctions. During the course of the program various hints were made to which people had them and which ones couldn't be mentioned because of it. Yet a quick search on twitter brings up an absolute gold mine of gossip.

Yes there were talks about prosecuting every person who mentioned anything to do with them, but is that actually a physical and logistical possibility?

A quick search on youtube brought up this http://youtu.be/LE9GfqoKws0

and I have to be honest I agree with this dude. "Sometimes people have to bow to practicalities" but at the same time that doesn't make it right!

Wrapping this learning log up now as its tired and I'm late so in summary:-

Blogger - Cool little online app, I'm sure that somebody has a use for it. For me however it just seems overly complicated or I'm overly incompetent.

Things I have thought about and researched- The internet massife, privacy, ethics, homicidal maniacs and how much is too much to share.

I think tomorrow I will put together a better log for the online learning tools module as I think this one went a bit awry if I'm honest.

I'm off to publish post - are you sure? - select posts - publish

and I'm sorry if I offended anyone.

24/09/11

So today I properly started looking at the module data.

I had orignally only been picking up e-mails and occasionally commenting. Having ofsted in this week I had sort of lagged with the communication side of things. And seeing as the course had barely just begun when I had the original influx of energy, I figured that I would be ok being just a passive user for the time being.

anyways,

I sat down in my man cave, ready to work.....

Having such a large t.v. in the cave I thought this was ideal to be able to work, while still being in relative comfort of the sofa.

1st problem.

all the wireless devices that I had didn't really offer the kind of experience that I was looking for.

skip forward a few hours and after a trip to maplins (very unhelpful staff.....again) I had a shiny new wireless keyboard and mouse.

all plugged in, set up and working.

I sat down in my man cave, ready to work......

this time I was flying along working well on a mindmap using bubbl.us a peice of online software that I had only just come across.

2nd problem.

All of a sudden the youngest comes in whinging about how his brother had pretty much beat him around the head or something like that I wasn't really listening.

So I sit him down on the end of the sofa and try to carry on with my mind map. still the whinging persists. This called for some drastic action. VNC to the media server and try to put peppa pig (lifesaver) into a big old playlist.

3rd Problem

This version of windows is not genuine!!!!! Lies Lies Lies

Reinstall windows. check product key. all hunky dorey. reinstall XBMC, Peppa pig on big old playlist. Job done.

I sat down in my man cave, ready to work.......

4th Problem

The other boy comes in whinging about being bored. Sat him down on the sofa with peppa pig, sorted!

So I carry on with my mind map. Takes me ages to sort all the nodes into the right places and make all the colours and layout look right.

I go to check the module content and see if I am doing things right.

To my shock there is a sample of the kind of thing that is expected. It looks very simple compared to my very pretty mindmap. (I felt a bit stupid as it had been there all along)

Load up posterous (another piece of software I am relativly new to) and add some comments asking if what I have done is ok. and wether I should still upload it. With it being the weekend I guess I am unlikely to receive a reply. but heres hoping!

While browsing a little bit more in depth. I find a link to another module (!!!!)

This was one that I was unaware of and it seems like there is a lot of words involved!

So its now 6 o'clock. I have a whole module that I wasn't aware of, a pretty mindmap that could possibly be a waste of time, and a massive feeling of dread over the coming months of my Higher education.

I will persevere, and at some point this evening will resume work....... in my man cave.