Lesley Anderson

Mobile Computing Research

What is the educational value of online mobile games
and mobile social network access?

Wi-Fi technology advantages for e-learning 

Improving interest and access for many ‘digital natives’ (Prensky, 2001) by employing familiar and flexible modes of learning, e-learning develops 21^st Century skills - problem solving, decision making, collaboration and teamwork through varied content methods such as simulations, games and social networking - effectively changing the face of both teaching and learning.

Using technology and these methods, to access learning across personal, local or world-wide networks, caters better for individual needs and learning styles. No boundaries of distance or time, means students have personal control over their learning. Read the rest of this entry »

Using the Chat Facility at CSU Interact site - 19/8/09

I found the use of the CSU Interact chat facility quite difficult. The size of the chat window was small and that made it difficult to follow the conversation/s occurring.  I did make a couple of requests in the window to see if others knew how to change the window size but it seemed that no-one else from the group had any ideas about how to.  The number of people attempting to chat at once was also difficult and I feel that also contributed to the difficulty of chatting.  

I have used the Interact chat facility before but there have only been two or three people chatting and that is quite a manageable number and I feel those conversations have been quite productive sessions when we have discussed our learning or difficulties we might be having. So I can see how it would be a useful tool to use in a classroom setting, to link learners across classrooms or schools when required, I just don’t feel I got a lot out of this particular session.

Online Identity and Your State of Presence

Briefly explain, in your own words, what you think of the ideas
and solutions presented in Reading A by Dick Hardt.

 I found this a difficult video to follow and had to keep stopping and rewinding to review sections of it. This was mainly because Dick Hardt spoke so quickly and, of course, most of the language was new to me. Basically, though I think he was putting forward his case for a need for an identity management system to be employed over the internet. This type of system would prove a person’s identity on the internet, just as a driver’s licence does in the real world.  Hardt gives several different models of varying systems and how they have changed over time.  I particularly thought the model that he described where a user “registers” with an identity site set up on the internet of some interest and value to help protect a user’s identity. When the time comes and the user needs to input personal information to a site requiring it, the user contacts the identity site, tells them which information they need to release and the site sends the user a token or some type of indication of their identity. It is then the user who sends the information to the site requiring it. A system such as this means that a user only registers information once or updates in one place if and when required. Communication of information only occurs between the user and the trusted identity site. This leaves less chance of information going anywhere but where it is intended to go. Having the user pass on the “token” to the requiring site means that the user is still in control of the destination of the information. Read the rest of this entry »

Create and Record Your Online Persona

Will you have a persistent avatar across all your social
networks and virtual environments ? Why or why not?

I decided to place a photo of myself on my page - I have done that previously on websites etc and not had any problems with them and thought that it might help some of the other students studying 510 to put a face to the name. That is one thing I have found with distance education - you can feel isolated from others. Read the rest of this entry »

Virtual Worlds and Citizenship

I joined second life on Sunday 18^th July 2009. 

My first task was to create an avatar with a suitable persona and name.  I was thinking about using the meaning of my first name to create my avatar name

After much deliberation and searching, I finally decided to use a combination of my first and last names to make Lesander.  When I put these together and did a search for the meaning (if there was one!!) I found Lysander, Lisander and various other forms of the name.  I discovered a whole myth about Lysander and thought it a reasonably intriguing name to use. I realised I am more serious about things than I thought and the whole exercise of finding a name for my avatar has shown me that I am somehow compelled to do things with a purpose!!!  As I was creating my account I was offered a list of last names to use with my first. Again, I thought about which name I would use. I am certain that other people must complete this task much more easily and quickly than me. This particularly affected me when I read that you can’t change your avatar’s name.  I didn’t even think at the time that I could make another account/avatar if I wanted to - who would know?? Read the rest of this entry »

Virtual Environments and Your Cognition

Using Facebook

I joined Facebook on 20^th July 2009.

Going to the Facebook site - www.facebook.com, filling in some basic details - Name, email address etc, I created a password and voila! I had a Facebook page. It was such an easy process to complete.  I found a couple of photos of myself to upload into my “profile photos”, filled in some personal info, such as the names of my husband and children and my page was definitely up and running.  Within a few hours I had requests from 4 people to become “friends”. It appears that being friends enables you to see the photos on another person’s Facebook page, write on their “wall” - a section of the page to leave messages etc and view their personal information.  24 hours later I had 7 friends that included family, past students and colleagues. I was intrigued to see the names that turned up with requests to be added. Read the rest of this entry »

Virtual Environments and Your Cognition.

What do you think is the difference between
social cognition and visual cognition?

Cognition involves a set of mental activities that include thinking, knowing and remembering that enable us to process and understand information.

Social Cognition relates to people using these mental activities to process social information. It focuses on how we encode, store, retrieve, and apply information to social situations - knowing how to interact and behave when together with others.

“It studies the individual within a social or cultural context and focuses on how people perceive and interpret information they generate themselves (intrapersonal) and from others (interpersonal)” (Sternberg, 1994).

Visual Cognition centres round using these mental activities to process the visual cues we encounter such as, recognition of objects, words and faces as well as perception of textures, space and colour and enabling us to understand them in various situations and contexts. Read the rest of this entry »

Using the chat facility on Gmail - Wednesday 12/8/09.

Setting up to chat on Gmail, took some organising. Firstly, I had to resurrect my Gmail account and remember my user name and password. That done, I downloaded the software required by Gmail in order to enable chatting to take place. This was important, as without it Gmail is only an email facility like many others. After that was completed contacts had to be added to the list. I actually invited a few people and then realised that Ken invited everyone into the group chat for us.  Quite a few people turned up to chat. I know a couple of people had technical difficulties getting onto the chat side of Gmail.

Once invited into the group chat we were up and running and the chat was quite thick and fast.  I chatted with a couple of people and then Ken called me for a video chat. Even though I have used some of these technologies before, I am not all that comfortable with video chat. It certainly gives a more personal feel to distance education - putting faces to names etc. Ken and I chatted for about half an hour about various topics such as, location, work setting, general ITC510 stuff etc. Then we both hung up from our video chat and joined the group chat for a while.

The group chat continued for another 15 minutes or so and the log of the chat is included here. Read the rest of this entry »

Using Etherpad 5/8/09

Ken sent  a link to enter etherpad through my normal email address a few days before the meeting was scheduled to occur.

Email:-

Ken Eustace has shared an EtherPad document with you. 

View it here and can we meet there again this WED 5 August at 11am or 7pm AEST?: 

http://cyber.etherpad.com/1 

–

Sent by cyber.etherpad.com at the request of an EtherPad user.

It was a little confusing as when the link was clicked on it went through to a site and then the screen hung with a message in the middle of it that said waiting acceptance. After a while it came up as being denied.  The meeting was scheduled for 7.00pm on the 5^th August so around that time I tried to log in again.  This time I went through to a screen that looked similar to this, although there were more people logged into the pad and their names were listed on the right hand side of the screen. 

Etherpad Screenshot

The left hand side of the screen is for collaborative document creation and on completion can be exported out of the website as html, text or pdf document. The right hand side of the screen is for chat purposes and is much like any other chat set-up.  I find these a little confusing when a large group is using them as you are unsure who questions are being addressed to etc and the chat can often move so quickly that conversation can be missed or lost.After using the pad for a while we were encouraged to create our own pad so that each POD colour group - the groupings that Ken had allocated before these sessions began - could have their own pad to possibly use for online collaboration on tasks. Read the rest of this entry »

No comments POD Exercises

A Heuristic Experience.

I had a few difficulties finding the link to the heuristic evaluation site. I couldn’t seem to find it in the PDF file - none of my links would work.  I did remember stumbling across it as I looked at some of the past files for the course saved on ZOPE. Thankfully I found the page at -

http://oldwww.acm.org/perlman/question.cgi Read the rest of this entry »