Web 2.0 Final Project-Web 2.0 Effects

Sound Cloud

Sound Cloud is what MySpace use to be for independent musicians. I just created an account and started my site exploration.  The interface is great and very user friendly.  The Welcome tutorial emphasizes that this is not your Nana's FTP site and more importantly there is no file and cloud size limit.  It is graphically exquisite and appears to be very easy to use.  In addition, it does link up with other social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and eBlogger.  


I am in the process for generating some random tracks for uploading.  I will keep you abreast of my experience with this.  In the meanwhile enjoy the track below.

Cloud Surfing (Album Version)

Chapter 4 - Communicating Online

GoAnimate.com: Online+Communications by vlayag


Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!

The World Wide Web ushered in a number of online tools that allowed users to communicate, collaborate, and share information in a number of ways.   There is email, instant messaging, chats, wikis, blogs, and a variety of social and special interest network sites.  Chapter four explores and explains these tools and how they are used by the online community.  The most popular of all the online tools used today is email.  Every business and person that I know today, including my 90 year old mother-in-law, uses email as a way to communicate.  This form of communication appears to be replacing sending correspondence using snail mail or the phone. 

The biggest take away for me was in the email section of the chapter where the differences between email protocols were discussed.  I first subscribed to email in the mid-nineties through my ISP. It did not matter that it used POP mail servers since our family only had the one computer in the house and one email account. But this began to change as we approached the 2000s.  DSL finally arrived in our area and the Web became more than just a dalliance.  It was now a tool that we all used for research, banking, shopping, and more importantly communication.  We purchased a second computer for the house and along with it my husband and I created our own YahooMail accounts which used HTTP servers. This protocol allowed us to get our mail on any computer that had Internet access.   

Today, email is the most preferred way to communicate with my colleagues and other associates at my job in the local school district.  This also includes our constituents, the students’ parents.  Currently, the only correspondence that we send to parents via email is the weather and emergency related school closings. However, we are in the process of generating parent portals that would facilitate online communication between the district and parents.  Similar to online banking, we would use email as a way to notify parents of important information that would appear in a secure Web-based parent portal of our SMS (student management system). It appears that parents are looking forward to this and are anxious of its eventual implementation.

I was just taking stroll through GoogleDocs and have generated a quick survey. Here it is below, please give it whirl. This is an anonymous survey. I assure you that I do not have access or receive any respondent information such as email address and name.

Chapter Three Search Exercise

Mobile device use in business is actually a very interesting subject to use for our chapter 3 exercise. It is current and extremely relevant to what is happening in many types of businesses.  Well anyway I did my searches through Google News to find articles on the subject for my blog.   I typed in “mobile devices in business” which resulted 13,200 hits.  I then narrowed the search to anything written about the subject in the past week.   This is how current the discourse is about business mobile device use, the hits only decreased to 11,100.  


As you can see from the sources I cited in my previous blog, I used mainstream and well established sources to base my blog.  There was one that I did find intriguing and it was from the Sacramento Bee (www.sacbee.com) an old and established newspaper from Sacramento California.  I liked the article about security with mobile device business use, but as it turned out it was a press release by a content lifecycle management company called Litera (www.literia.com).  At least there was a disclosure added by the publishers of Sacramento Bee.  Although informative, I would consider this unreliable source of information.

Screen shot of "article" from Sacramento Bee Website
Please take a look at the top gray area, there is a disclosure about the "article."

I then followed the link to PR Newswire.  As it turned out this is a firm the specializes in public relations.  

Screen shot of PR Newswire site.

Business and The Mobile Device

Tablets (more specifically the IPad) and smart phones (more specifically the IPhone) have given the anemic mobile device sector a desperately needed blast of excitement and energy. I have not seen so much fervent bustle and buzz since Netscape’s release paved the way for the ordinary non-techno household to access the new frontier called WorldWideWeb. Imagine, armed with a mobile device and the Internet, a user can access work, school and personal documents of all types, communicate through voice, text, internet phone using Skype of Facetime, or email, work collaboratively with colleagues using cloud based applications or through VPN, use the GPS to get directions, take pictures and record video and audio, write notes in a “new school way,” and so much more.


Whether they are for profit or non-profit, all businesses look for ways that would help their company improve productivity. So it is no surprise that businesses would look to mobile devices as a tool that would improve and streamline workflow. The user’s location away from the office will no longer play a role in completing tasks. In addition, as data communication infrastructure improves, it is possible to access to the most recent and accurate information in real-time. With these enhancements offered by mobile devices, the company’s workforce can work collaboratively with colleagues and team members unencumbered by geographical and time constraints.  


Improving the operational workings of a company is not the only role mobile devices will play in businesses. According to Joshua Michele-Ross, learning how these devices work and are used by their customers is essential in understanding customers’ behavior and expectations. Such knowledge is crucial to making adjustments and changes to a company’s CRM system (customer relationship management). In addition, as the business models integrate mobile devices and mobile device management systems (MDM), senior executives and top managers may gather data from these sources to use in their company’s strategic planning.  


Now that we know mobile devices can benefit businesses, there is one major disadvantage to employing them as part of a business model and that is security. Yes many agree that generating, sharing, and saving work digitally is far more efficient.  And because of the portability and ease of use mobile devices offer, users are quicker and more responsive. However, there are two factors that these devices are more vulnerable to intrusion and data loss. The small size of the devices makes them easier to lose or be stolen, and second mobile device OSs are not as secure and do not allow for management like the traditional laptop operating systems.  With the popularity of these devices, these issues have CIOs and their technology staff scrambling to find solutions to address them. 

In spite of the risks, mobile devices are not going away and will dominate the computing scene.  As the usage grows, there will be a greater demand by businesses, individual, and quite possibly the government for the makers of these devices invest in ways that will make it safer and secure for all users.  



http://www.cio.com.au/article/402859/iphone_ipad_security_human_element/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46622066/ns/technology_and_science-security/
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/28/tk-ios-gives-developers-access-to-photos-videos-location/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha25
http://www.forbes.com/2010/01/15/iphone-twitter-computers-technology-breakthroughs-mobile_2.html

The Search for a Search Engine

Search engines have come a long way since the mid-1990s.  I recall the time when my 5^th grader was doing research for her Women’s History Month report on author Zora Neal Hurston. When she typed in Hurston’s name in the query field, some of the results were unsavory and downright pornographic. I am not sure why that happened, but it required that my husband and I check the sites before our daughter viewed it.  

Today searching the Web for virtually anything is common place. Users are more skilled on how to search in the Web and search engines have become more specialized and accurate.  According to www.thesearchenginelist.com there are over a thousand search engines of varying specialties, categories and types and over a dozen all-purpose search engines such as Google and Yahoo. Some make it big and others last only a few years before folding. In addition, there are search engines called metasearch engines, such as Dogplie, that use the results of the leading general search engines and return the top results to the user. 

RIP page for Viewzi, a graphic heavy search engine

Any form of information, whether it come in an image, text, video, and audio, on people, events, and things in general can be found on the Web.  Open a browser, navigate to any search engine Web site and type in a person, place, thing, or event and within seconds hundreds if not thousands of returns will pop based on that query.  This can quickly become too much information and some of which is really not good information which is detrimental to its efficacy.   As a result most users will typically not go beyond the first page of results.  From there, they begin to filter through the results and drill down on the information.    

Presently information overload is not the only concern with using search engines, the discourse among Web users is the matter of target marketing and privacy.   Google has been making headlines with its revamping of it user privacy policy.  The mega search engine giant has widened their services to include social networking, online cloud computing with it roll-out of document applications, blogging, medical records repository and much more.  With an awesome amount of services (most are free to individual users), they have become experts at target marketing and data mining as a means to generate revenue.  Ixquick (www.startpage.com) is a metasearch engine that claims to be the world’s most private search engine. They do not capture the user’s IP address and drop cookies to use for target marketing. I think I will begin using them to support their mission to protect user privacy.  

www.ixquick.com or www.startpage.com privacy protected search engine

Symbaloo and Go Animate

GoAnimate.com: Water OFF!!!! by vlayag

Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!

The only utility and management tool that I really used for the Web was a browser and search engine. I did not think I needed anything else to navigate and find what I needed on the Web. In addition, like many folks that use the Windows OS, I used the default Internet Explorer as my browser.  


However, this complacent attitude changed when I subscribed to Netflix's streaming service.  Watching streaming content using IE was very frustrating. It continually glitched and had to rebuffer through out the movie. I thought the problem was with my Internet connection; however, Netflix support did not agree with this assessment. As it turned out my Internet access speed was appropriate for their streaming service and they suggested I try another browser. I downloaded Chrome and alas, movies without interruption.  

Fast forward....I am now beginning to appreciate and use Web 2.0 tools. I have broken out of just settling for what is the available default, and I am discovering that there is a better way to manage and complete tasks using a variety of Web 2.0 tools. So far my favorites have been Jing and Symbaloo although I enjoyed using GoAnimate to post a message on my Web 2.0 blog.  

Symbaloo School WebMix 

I am in the process of building out my Symbaloo WebMix; I added a Personal WebMix and will eventually add a Work WebMix. Since it it this class that introduced me to this, School is my first WebMix.  

PLN (Personal Learning Networks)

source:  http://www.connectivism.ca/

I have not experienced any new pedagogical theories while I was a student in elementary, middle and high school.  Or at least I don’t think I have.  So when Professor Ferree introduced this concept of learning to our class, I was wondering….how can I break-out of the instructor lead learning expectations and routine?  Okay, at this writing, I am somewhat intimidated by this whole concept.  I am uncertain on how to begin with building my own network for knowledge attainment.   

So I watched the video, read some definition of terms and discovered Connectivist teaching.   It is in line with the way people today access and process information with the use of technology.   We have changed the way we communicate (email and Skype), manage our finance (online banking and trading), buy goods and services (etailers and amazon), and socialize (Facebook and Youtube).  Why not change the way we deliver learning to students.   I think it is an endeavor well worth pursuing and I would very much to participate. 

Here are the two sites that I have visited so far to determine to help with my building my own PLN.

http://change.mooc.ca/

http://www.connectivism.ca/

Browsing the Web

People from all walks of life that want to access what the World of Web 2.0 offer must know how to use a Web browser.  It is the gateway to the Internet for most of the world's users.  Today there are so many browsers Internet consumers can choose from and many are free.  Although they basically possess the same utilities, they do tend to showcase some feature that may be unique to their browser.  It then becomes up to the user to determine what features are important to them and which browser provides it.  

Image of first Web browser WorldWideWeb
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WorldWideWeb_FSF_GNU.png

Browsers have come a long way since the first one developed by Tim Berners-Lees in 1991. This browser was really not built for the public and was only released to a small community of physicists. On the right is an image of what the GUI looked like.  This was a far cry from the command line style of the Internet.    




It was not until 1993 that Marc Andreessen released the first cross-platform browser for commercial use.  The GUI and the function of the Mosaic browser is the vanguard of how browsers of today will behave.  It allowed for inline pictures, the use of images to line audio and video.  Andreessen created and released a Web page that demonstrates the functionality of Mosaic. 


Today's browsers are far more sophisticated and allows for more user interactivity. Users can customize their tool bars, homepages, and shortcut menus. They can employ built-in utilities that protect the users identity and leave no trace of browsing history. Web pages can be printed with user options of what to include in the print job.  Also, browsers allow users to have multiple ways at their disposal to access Web sites, for example they can type the URL in the address bar or restore the pages from their last browsing session.  


The World Wide Web seems endless and infinite, so we need the gateway to this world to be as sophisticated and "usercentric" as the Web sites that it leads us to.

Net Neutrality Wordle

Net Neutrality Brian Stelter and David Gallagher on Timescast

I am posting this video because it gives you an overview of the arguments that are for and against the issue of net neutrality.  As for me I have always been on the side of  the "purist Internet user."  Because of the environment that the Internet and Web fosters, it encourages creativity and innovation among its users. The language used on the Web is open standard and free.  I recently wrote in in Dreamweaver/Flash blog that all you need is a text editor such as Notepad++, which is also free, and anyone can write a Web site.  


Imagine, if the ruling were to favor the ISPs and telecommunication companies, it would first begin with the slowing of user's access to Web sites that compete with services offered by the provider.  I don't mean to sound paranoid, but does it stop there?  Will providers block sites that they deem offensive?  Who determines what is offensive and vulgar and what is acceptable content.  This essentially takes the choice away from individual users.  For example, I do not like gambling and I choose not to go to gambling Web sites.  As much as I wish people did not gamble on the Web, I certainly would not like my ISP to block these sites.  As I would not like for them to block political blogs I visit because the owner of the ISP does not agree with its political viewpoint and beliefs.  


The FCC, Congress, and Federal courts have to tread on and comb through this issue very carefully and not allow loopholes to be used by a small minority to control the content distributed through the Internet. 

GoAnimate.com: Really smart Smartphones.. by vlayag

Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!

Please watch.... it is kinda fun!!!

Chapter 1: The Internet Reflections

The video above is an example of how far the Internet has come since its inception back in the 1960s when it was developed as a way to protect national security in the case of a nuclear attack.  As the Internet evolved, it was utilized by academia, and the scientific community.  Each of these institutions contributed to further technological advancements.  The military developed TCP/IP as a standard protocol for packet switching, while the academia offered Leonard Kleinrock, the scholar that developed packet switching, and finally the scientific community developed new networks by connecting server regional supercomputer centers. 

However it took a new language and protocol for the Internet to become the WorldWideWeb.  HTML and HTTP, made the Internet user friendly.  Tim Berners-Lee's vision was to make the Internet less laborious for users by using hyperlinks to connect not only text, but graphics, video, and audio on demand.  With the development of a user-friendly GUI, commercial browsers, such as NetScape's Navigator and the Microsoft's Explorer, came on the scene. 

Today there are over two billion users worldwide that connect to the Web in a variety of ways and for different reasons.  For many it is a means to communicate by e-mail, chat, social networks and video phone.  While many engage in e-commerce through retail websites, auctions, banking, and investing.  While others use the Web to inform, learn/teach, and share knowledge through blogs, news sites, and distance learning institutions.  And most recently it has become a major source of entertainment as technologies converge.  

It is apparent that the Internet is so ingrained our daily lives that smartphones sales have increased in the past five years.  Smartphones are cellphones that are also pocket size computers that can access the Web anywhere by using broadband networks.  This is evidence that many modern folks today cannot stay away from the Web for too long. 

  

Hello All,

Welcome to my second blog spot.  I have never thought of creating one and now I created two in one week.  The first is for my Dreamweaver/Flash class.  This should be interesting since I will be managing two at the same time.  It is a good thing I'm a pretty fast typist. 

I will do my very best to reach out to my fellow classmates for advice and I hope that I may be able to do the same.  Good luck to all. 

Oh by the way here is the link to my first blog spot:

http://veronicadreamweaverflash.blogspot.com/