Sharepoint tutorial

Tutorials for Audacity

After our last weekend of classes I became inspired to surf the net for tutorials on various topics. I felt like I gained a little bit of knowledge about several different topics but I wanted to know more.

One of my areas of interest has been Podcasting. I find this to be an intersting concept and the more times I hear about it, see one available on-line or listen to one, the more fasinating they become to me. When we worked with the Audacity software in class, I felt like I gained some knowledge but I wanted to practice more.

I went out on the net and found this awesome resource...really much of what Robin said in class...but I could take more time and see and listen again to how to make a podcast and edit it.check out audacity tutorials

adding sample podcast

here is my audio file

Rube Goldberg turning off a light switch

Here is a video that my son put on youtube

carving pumpkins

Have you ever thought about the American traditions around Halloween? Having an exchange student at our house this year has lead to many intersting questions. I decided to post a few pics!

Lego lovers must

I have been wondering how my son found this lego digital designer that he downloaded for free. Well, after looking around at some free software download sites as part of the guidelines for my class, I found the site.

If you are a lego lover- you need to visit this site, lego digital designer

Question??

I was watching a youtube video the other day about AFS that I wanted to download and use as part of a presentation that I was giving. I was able to download it and save it to a flash drive but I was unsuccessful at getting the sound...

I googled and tried to troubleshoot but the information seemed a bit over my head!!

suggestions?

Using SKype

I had the opportuntity to use some of the free stuff that we have been learning about in class. Yesterday a group of us from another one of my grad classes got together via the computer and had a conversation using Skype.

It was a userfriendly application. Within a few minutes I had gotten it downloaded and talking via a headset!

My only question is...does anyone know how to record a session on Skype??

Sortware called Ortist....cool

I just found this social networking blog through Ning and signed up to became a member of this community. Visit my page . This seems like it will be a wonderful resource to use as I am going through my graduate classes and beyond.

While I was developing my home page, I came across this software application called Ortist-Graphical Scrapbook that is awesome to use. Here is a blog site about it.

I am constantly amazed by what can be found on the Internet.

Creative

Technology is a wonderful and exciting thing. Take a look at this that I recently got from an e mail:

Who but students would have the determination to create such a thing? This is almost unbelievable. See how all of the balls wind up in catcher cones. This incredible machine was built as a collaborative effort between the Robert M. Trammell Music Conservatory and the Sharon Wick School of Engineering at the University of Iowa. Amazingly, 97% of the machine components came from John Deere Industries and Irrigation Equipment of Bancroft, Iowa ....yes, farm equipment! It took the team a combined 13,029 hours of set-up, alignment, calibration, and
tuning before filming this video but as you can see it was well worth the
effort. It is now on display in the Matthew Gerhard Alumni Hall at the
University and is already slated to be donated to the Smithsonian!
video .

I am somewhat of a scaptical person so I decided to check out snopes to see if it was for real. Guess what? It was not. But what an awesome use of technology and computer animation.

It pays to not take everything that is presented as "real" on the internet with a bit of wonder! I like to double check the information and enjoy it for its value!

Another Google feature

I just got an e-mail about another feature that Google has added to their tool bag. Google Mail has responded to a problem that confronts many of their users ... sending that email when you aren't quite fully awake (or sober). An optional feature has been added that requires the user to complete a math problem before they can send an email during late hours. Check out this new feature at: wired.com

What is google up to?

Just doing some surfing tonight as I was listening to the radio, and came across this new project from Google for a new search engine. Check out this website.

Expanding our globe right in our own home

If you are looking for a way to expand your world, take a look at this website AFS . AFS is a wonderful exchange program that allows high school age children to experience living life in the home of a family from a different country. We currently have a student from Finland living in our home. It is amazing how small the world is becoming with the use of technology.

When AFS started 90 years ago, children that came to live in host families in the US had very limited contact with their birth families. Those children looked to their host families for everything because they were the people that would be able to assist them in meeting their needs. This year, our student has an e-mail account, a facebook page,Skye and a cell phone to name a few of his "connected toys". He can literally talk to someone from back home every day if he chooses.

I see technology having a huge impact on the experience of these kids, both positive and negative. They may not be as homesick due to the readily avaiable communication - yet it can get in the way of their "bonding" as quickly with the host family. Children will sometimes turn to their birth family to help them through their struggles in the host family community when it may be more effective to ask thier host parents.

We have grown as a family already and look toward seeing how technology will impact us as our student settles in and than when he leaves..... what I do know is that he is making friends and taking up valuable computer time for the rest of us!

Decoding text messages

A source that I found to have more abbreviations than I will ever use is decoding messages

Texting

The other thing that I have been giving more thought is text messaging. We have a high school exchange student staying with us this year and at times I think he and I are on the same page with texting.
My kids fairly fly over the keys as they text their friends. I have now finally learned how to use the T9 feature on my cellphone which makes the technique much easier but it does not help me with what the abbreviations stand for.
Our exchange student has the same issues. He is asking one of my children what kids are saying to him in the text messages. I came across a site that listed several tips for "decoding text messages" that I have decided to use. I also found some programs that I can text my kids phones from the computer for free! I am liking that...much easier to use the computer keyboard with bifocals than my tiny little cellphone keypad!

An amazing feature

Ok, I was just "wondering" around in the new Office 2007 Microsoft word that I had installed last weekend. I found this amazing feature where you can click on a new document, create it and have it published on your blog. Wow, so exciting.

I see this making the idea of blogging to be even more user friendly for me. I am still getting into the habit of thinking about things that I want to blog about. I find myself thinking of it when I am doing something else so now I can be working on something and if I have an idea, all I have to do is click on this feature, type my thoughts and it posts on my blog.

Man, technology is so COOL!!

I am testing this out from my new office 2007. I found this feature.

sample

I am a student at Drake University
email me

workplace thoughts

Challenges for using new technology at our workplace that I had not given much thought it is the fact that we do no have anyone on staff under 30.  The younger generation of workers seem to embrace new web-based tools more rapidly than those of  us that have been around for awhile. Adapting our style of learning and doing business thus is going to take a bit of time...just like it took me a bit of time to get used to the idea of blogging!

The pressure is on for me to become familiar with various tools of communicating and collaborating that are driving a new revolution in the work place.  I see this from my children as well. I think that given an open mind- we all have much to learn from each other.

emergency relief

Having been a relief worker for Hurricane Katrina, I was amazed when I read this section in our book. I had forgotten how many people were using blogs and other technologies to communicate about their concerns.

I had no idea how these various technologies were used by innovative people to offer hope in such devastating time. Wonderful way of putting people across the world to work for such a wonderful cause. It is rewarding for me to read about this but at this point it is beyond my wildest imagination for me to be able to contribute as anything more than a data entry person. Yet each role is important!!

work place useage

Having co- workers that work in campus based office space as well as at home offices can make for frustration as we work on different projects.  I see this type of environment being very helpful  on a basic level of just keeping up to date on what projects we are individually as well as collectively working on.  Each of us could add comments or suggestions that would help with the flow of ideas as we go along on a project. My guess is from what I have been reading is that we will come up with creative ideas that may have taken a lot longer to be tapped on our own.

I also see the potential of our class participants that take our classes being able to give us insights on how we could make our product more helpful to them as we are in the process of designing it.  With these additional thoughts and comments we would be able to foresee problematic issues before they take place in class and make it the material more applicable. 

I made it

After reading several different articles about how to set up my blog for class, I finally made it! What strikes me as interesting about this whole process is that traditionally I could consider myself to be a risk taker. Willing to try just about anything without giving it a great deal of thought. However, with processes related to the Intenet, I am not. I devoted two days to studying on how to "do it right" before I was ready to actually take the action necessary to set up my blog.

That is amazing to me. It has provided with me an opportunity to reflect on how different an experience this is for me compared to my "net generation" children. They are eager for interaction and more confident to try new technology of any kind. I certainly find the comment in our text about them being "authorities on the digital revolution' to be accurate. It brings up interesting conversations at the kitchen table as I ask them questions about how to navigate this new media.

Once I have played around on it for awhile, I gain confidence and am willing to move onto trying different functions. That initial hesitation is gone but it has taken up time. I typically do not observe my children taking the time to read something first than moving to the application-they seem to be comfortable moving directly into giving it a try and making mistakes as they learn "live".

My approach to learning related to what I consider "live" open sources of information is different than what I would do with other software applications. I am more cautious when using blackboard discussion boards, discussion threads on line and a blog because I want to know the rules before I post. I find it important to honor the guidelines in these live arenas. However, if I download software off the Internet or buy a program and install it on my computer, I am likely to just jump in and try it without ever reading the directions. I find this difference in my approach to learning interesting and figure that at some point posting will become as comfortable for me as loading software and trying it out!

but for now, I did it!! my first posted is complete.