This week we focused on the Mobile App Software and I also met my team and started discussions and organising for our project. In class we also talked about how people have become engaged in fact checking and verification of information.
In our lab we began to work on out Mobile App Software, for this we used MIT App Inventor. We were shown the basics of how to use the software to get us started on our group project. I found this software was interesting as it was all new to me. As a beginner in this area I was worried that I would find it difficult to get the hang of but I was pleasantly surprised to see it was a lot easier than I thought. We got time to get the hang of the software and try out different tools. After this lab I felt more confident about my group project and excited to get started.
This week I also met my team for the first time. As it was our first meeting we spent time introducing ourselves and then began brainstorming. We all had different and interesting ideas which we wrote down. We did not finalise our decision as we are going to think it over this weekend and vote on Monday. We also spent some time figuring out what sort of skills and qualities we each had so that we could begin allocating roles and responsibilities . As I had no experience in working with apps I decided to use my organisation skills and take the role of scribe. I recorded all the relevant information from the meeting.
In class we discussed the credibility of information. We looked at how people have a growing thirst for knowledge with the growth of social computing and media. People can now, very simply, get the answer to any question they might have in seconds through the internet. Society are not as inclined to believe what they are told without researching evidence.
Monday, 27 April 2015
week 1
This week we focused on some of the basics to help get us started.
On Friday instead of having a lab we had an E Tutorial online.
The E Tutorial focused on two different topics;
How to create and use Wiki on Blackboard and How to collaborate efficiently.
In the first e-tutorial they discussed the importance of working in a group. Working in a group is something one must do the whole way through life and it is a very important skill. The tutorial gave some tips on how to make the most out of working with others and what to consider when getting your group started such as assigning roles and responsibilities. I have worked in groups before in my course so I am not too worried in this area but I did pick up some valuable lessons I can apply to this project.
I found the E Tutorial on how to use Wiki on Blackboard very useful because it is a tool I had never used much of before. The tutorial was very easy to understand and showed me how to use all the different tools available on Wiki. I learned a lot of different ways to make the most of your Wiki which I'm sure will become very useful when filling out my own Wiki and discussing my project with my group for this module. I learned how to attach a hyperlink to your post which will be good to apply to sources or any research our group may use. The tutorial also included some facts about how Wiki was first used and some examples such as Wikipedia. At the end of the tutorial I completed a quiz on what I was just shown. This was an effective way to learn as I went along.
In our first lecture we discussed the objectives of this module. I am excited to take this module as Social Computing and Media is all around us and is only getting bigger. It is a huge component to everyday life particularly in my generation.
On Friday instead of having a lab we had an E Tutorial online.
The E Tutorial focused on two different topics;
How to create and use Wiki on Blackboard and How to collaborate efficiently.
In the first e-tutorial they discussed the importance of working in a group. Working in a group is something one must do the whole way through life and it is a very important skill. The tutorial gave some tips on how to make the most out of working with others and what to consider when getting your group started such as assigning roles and responsibilities. I have worked in groups before in my course so I am not too worried in this area but I did pick up some valuable lessons I can apply to this project.
I found the E Tutorial on how to use Wiki on Blackboard very useful because it is a tool I had never used much of before. The tutorial was very easy to understand and showed me how to use all the different tools available on Wiki. I learned a lot of different ways to make the most of your Wiki which I'm sure will become very useful when filling out my own Wiki and discussing my project with my group for this module. I learned how to attach a hyperlink to your post which will be good to apply to sources or any research our group may use. The tutorial also included some facts about how Wiki was first used and some examples such as Wikipedia. At the end of the tutorial I completed a quiz on what I was just shown. This was an effective way to learn as I went along.
In our first lecture we discussed the objectives of this module. I am excited to take this module as Social Computing and Media is all around us and is only getting bigger. It is a huge component to everyday life particularly in my generation.
Week 10
This weeks lecture focused on identifying trends in social
computing and media and ethics.
We began the class by getting into groups and answering the
quesyions;
1.
Is monitoring employees via technology ethical?
2.
Under what circumstamces is it ethical for customers data to be shared?
3.
Is it ethical for Facebook to display newsfeed stories that increase your mood?
Majority of the class agreed in their
answers where such as, monitoring is ok if it is non-invasive, but this then
posed the question where do you draw the line? Highlighting if there were any
previous disclosure agreements or contracts who is the rightful owner of the
data? For example, Facebook use their control over newsfeed stories as a
marketing strategy, do you accept these terms signing up for it? It is
something that we see as casual and do not put enough thought into. I found
this topic extremely interesting as it is a growing concern.
We were then explained some theory of ethics; Meta-Ethics
- where do our ethical principles come from? Normative
Ethics - study of the
actions, regulate right and wrong conduct.
Deontological
theories -
Duty theory= character traits, virtues. Rights theory= rights all people have
and others are obliged to acknowledge.
Consequentialist
theories- actions are morally right if the consequences of that
action are more favourable than unfavourable.
Breaches of privacy; Spamming, Selling date, poor security
measures, unconsented monitoring, unsolicited correspondance- there should be
an opt in option not an opt out, why are we automatically signed up? We were
given example of debateable copyright infringement such as Facebook nightclub
photos or the KPMG girl video.
Our group met and began putting the information we had each gathered into a presentation.
Week 9
This week we had a guest speaker, Lucie Bohmova, as this week's topic
is concerning 'Social Computing for Business.' Ms.Bohmova is from the
University of Economics Prague. It was an interesting lecture as I learned some
new terms and how technology over the past decade is helping us
progress in Social Media of the business world.
The first of these new techniques that we looked
at was S.E.O. (Search Engine Organisation), which helps saves time while doing
as much as possible, in this case; entering in a specific word into the Search
Engine, without having to go through streams of useless, unwanted information.
Another new term I was introduced to was
'hootsuite', which is where you can schedule when a certain message can be seen
on your page.
We were also introduced to, Erik Qualman, who is famous
for saying: "We don't have a choice on whether we do social on mobile, we
just do it." This is surprisingly true as people do not often think this
but still partake in this activity on a regular basis. Ms. Bohmova recommended some books to us concerning the
topic of ; such as "Tribal
Knowledge" by John Moore, which concentrates on 'Internal Markets' while
other books can be found in relation to the 'External Markets' and
'Conversations' of the Social Media for Business.
At the end of the lecture, we were given a final task where
we got into groups and thought of a company, with a product and unique
name. Next, we needed to draw-up a business strategy and finally, outline how
technology will change in the next decade, as it already has in the past ten
years and how will our product be presented in Social Media in 2020.
week 7
This week we learned that a mash up is a web application that uses content from a various amount of sources to create a single graphic interface. Mash ups are a more advanced version of portals. They are a way of working with data, e.g. pooling data from different sources such as for car insurance comparison sites.
Big Data is the combining of large sources of new data, e.g. government data, Google Maps and weather conditions. This is a term I am very familiar of from doing social computing. We learned about The Semantic Web, which allows information that can be read by a machine to be structured in a way computers can understand them. This was a new tool to me so i found this interesting,
There is many different types of mash ups; data mash ups, business mash up and consumer mash ups.
Big Data is the combining of large sources of new data, e.g. government data, Google Maps and weather conditions. This is a term I am very familiar of from doing social computing. We learned about The Semantic Web, which allows information that can be read by a machine to be structured in a way computers can understand them. This was a new tool to me so i found this interesting,
There is many different types of mash ups; data mash ups, business mash up and consumer mash ups.
Shane pointed out that there are limitations of mash ups as they may rely on information which may only be available for a limited time. We were shown tools such as: Yahoo Pipes - can be used to extract information from other websites to produce something new. In order to access the site's content however, Pipes needed the sites Application Program Interface (or API), and so we did not get to see the software in action. Map Builder which is a tool that can be embedded in a blog. And finally Google Maps API Family - We used this in our Lab this week in Newstead.
Shane also present us to a more recent and humorous Mash-Up called Unhappyhipsters.com
We were to brainstorm ideas for new mash ups before the end of class and my team was still trying to get to grips with what a mashup was. My idea was to have one place where you could compare all the different prices of fuel in your area.
Shane also present us to a more recent and humorous Mash-Up called Unhappyhipsters.com
We were to brainstorm ideas for new mash ups before the end of class and my team was still trying to get to grips with what a mashup was. My idea was to have one place where you could compare all the different prices of fuel in your area.
week 6
We are now in our Week 6 lecture and our Social Project Group, have been meeting up each week to discuss and make contributions to the project at hand - develop a suitable App that will help people in everyday life.
This week in class we began by discussing about Podcasts and their uses - be they 'General' or 'Business' orientated. General Podcasts are heavy with communication, while Podcasts for the Business world are made more particular to deal with marketing perspective. Podcasts are also popular devices for Educational purposes e.g. how-to learning tools and Mobile learning/communication. Podcasts are major factor in the Entertainment industry and are now powerful devices for musicians to dispel their music or radio stations to release their work. Podcasts can also be used as broadcast clips of newscasts/current affairs.
Screencasting is a digital recording of computer screen output, also known as a video screen capture, often containing audio narration. There are even certain YouTube videos where one can learn how to do Screencasting. The site we used was: www.screencast-o-matic.com,in order for this to work the user must have Java installed don their computer. Copernicus is a format of Screencasting made for Macs.
Lastly, we were given tips by Shane about how to go about making a short video for our Group Projects, so we can promote our apps. We have the opportunity to make a 'Vodcast' which is a Video Podcast. The Group must keep the Video to the point and it shouldn't be longer than 2/3 minutes. When it comes to Production, important elements include; Lighting, Sound and particularly Location. We also need to consider all of the different angles, wideshots, close-ups etc. How much time will be needed to complete the Video and what equipment is required to capture the video, for example: Will a camera-phone be used or a legitimate video camera? For editing, we must think of what post-production tool they should use. This will most likely be Windows Movie Maker for the majority of Groups.
At the end of the lecture, my Group met and discussed various names for our App. These include 'The Good Car App' or 'The Parking Aid' - we have remained undecided and the name will be put to a vote. If we have enough time towards the end of our Project, we may include information on Celiac commodities. We are also thinking of including a Vodcast, displaying some of the common parking problem we are put through on a day to day basis.
week 5
This week we were examining different ways of presenting information through pages such as Prezi, MindMeister and Powtoon. We concentrated mostly on Prezi. We met as a group and presented to each other with any work we had completed.
In our lab we focused on how social media can help us to design and present content effectively online, particularly using Prezi. Prezi is a less rigid way of presenting information. This site uses a tool called 'Zooming User Interface'. This is where the page zooms into areas of interest. This is a great way to keep the attention of your intended audience however it is easily overdone. We were told that the site has been criticized for this feature as it may make you feel nausea. We were advised that when using this tool to remember "less is more". The pros Prezi were that it is easily set up. I had mine ready for use in minutes, another pro was that up to 10 people can co-edit the information. The site is also free which makes it ideal for students.
MindMeister was an online mind mapping app. It can be used on mobile devices which is a convenient feature. I found this site had a number of features i was a fan of. You can share your mind maps with others in real-time which made it easy to collaborate with others. You can add images, links, notes, files and videos to your mind map. It was an extremely effective tool to explain and develop ideas with/to others, the layouts made it easy to see and understand. I found it was a lot simpler than Prezi, something that somebody with little computer skills could use.
What stood out for me when using was the modern and attractive designs that were available. Majority of the other features were similar to the other pages such as sharing images, videos, links.
an exception was "quick-Clip" which is a series of two or three slides combining a short sentence and embedded video.
In our group meeting we discussed what we had learned that week and discussed what we might use in our group presentation.
In our lab we focused on how social media can help us to design and present content effectively online, particularly using Prezi. Prezi is a less rigid way of presenting information. This site uses a tool called 'Zooming User Interface'. This is where the page zooms into areas of interest. This is a great way to keep the attention of your intended audience however it is easily overdone. We were told that the site has been criticized for this feature as it may make you feel nausea. We were advised that when using this tool to remember "less is more". The pros Prezi were that it is easily set up. I had mine ready for use in minutes, another pro was that up to 10 people can co-edit the information. The site is also free which makes it ideal for students.
MindMeister was an online mind mapping app. It can be used on mobile devices which is a convenient feature. I found this site had a number of features i was a fan of. You can share your mind maps with others in real-time which made it easy to collaborate with others. You can add images, links, notes, files and videos to your mind map. It was an extremely effective tool to explain and develop ideas with/to others, the layouts made it easy to see and understand. I found it was a lot simpler than Prezi, something that somebody with little computer skills could use.
What stood out for me when using was the modern and attractive designs that were available. Majority of the other features were similar to the other pages such as sharing images, videos, links.
an exception was "quick-Clip" which is a series of two or three slides combining a short sentence and embedded video.
In our group meeting we discussed what we had learned that week and discussed what we might use in our group presentation.
week 4
This week we looked at managing information through social bookmarking. In particular looking at sites such as Reddit, Tumblr and Diigo. We also discussed Tag Cloud which was a new topic to me.
Social bookmarking was a very interesting concept. I was already aware of bookmarking and I myself would use the tool often but I was not aware of al the different ways of using it. Using bookmaking increases the traffic to a website which will improve page ranking. Google use the information from bookmaking when they are determining the ranking of a link on their search results. . Social bookmarking makes it easier for other users to locate and use the resources, this is also known as tagging. Many large scale sites and small scale utilise this system as a method of sorting all of the information that comes through in their traffic.While this makes for a very useful feature and saves a user a lot of time, many a times users can falsely tag their content as something trending at the time for the sake of more views. If a page is seen to be using too much spam the page can be removed from Google.
This lead on to us learning about Diigo. Diigo is a personal tool that can be used to organise, manage and keep track of information they have found online and want to be able to refer back to. This site is one of the best for social bookmaking with features like uploading screenshots of a page, highlighting areas of interest and having the ability to sign in on any device so you can search and access your information from anywhere.
This week in our group meeting we made a decision on how our app would look and together we started to put it together. It was hard to figure out which would be the easiest, user friendly layout but we are happy with the decision we have made.
The class also generated a word cloud using PollEV on the sites we use for social bookmarking.
Tag Cloud is a stylized way of visually representing occurances of words used to describe tags. Examples include Wordle and Tag crowd
Social bookmarking was a very interesting concept. I was already aware of bookmarking and I myself would use the tool often but I was not aware of al the different ways of using it. Using bookmaking increases the traffic to a website which will improve page ranking. Google use the information from bookmaking when they are determining the ranking of a link on their search results. . Social bookmarking makes it easier for other users to locate and use the resources, this is also known as tagging. Many large scale sites and small scale utilise this system as a method of sorting all of the information that comes through in their traffic.While this makes for a very useful feature and saves a user a lot of time, many a times users can falsely tag their content as something trending at the time for the sake of more views. If a page is seen to be using too much spam the page can be removed from Google.
This lead on to us learning about Diigo. Diigo is a personal tool that can be used to organise, manage and keep track of information they have found online and want to be able to refer back to. This site is one of the best for social bookmaking with features like uploading screenshots of a page, highlighting areas of interest and having the ability to sign in on any device so you can search and access your information from anywhere.
This week in our group meeting we made a decision on how our app would look and together we started to put it together. It was hard to figure out which would be the easiest, user friendly layout but we are happy with the decision we have made.
The class also generated a word cloud using PollEV on the sites we use for social bookmarking.
Tag Cloud is a stylized way of visually representing occurances of words used to describe tags. Examples include Wordle and Tag crowd
Wednesday, 22 April 2015
week 3
This week we met in the Daedalus building and began our second lesson in Mobile App software. In class we discussed the outcomes of using user generated content and the result of developing content collaboratively.
In order to see how our app will look on our devise we had to install a programme to our computers as we were all using apple devices. As a group we decided on our app idea. As we were all drivers, we all had often had the same problem with parking in the morning in UCD. Our solution was to set up an automated email to a driver to warn them of a any problem that may occur when parking, such as; if you are parked illegally, if you are getting clamped, if your window is down, etc.
However after discussing the idea with our lecturer we learned it would be very difficult to do and we were advised to set up a forum instead which we all agreed would be a good idea. We are now working on different layouts for the app and trying them out on our devices to see what works best.
User generated content has become massive with the growth of social computing. This week we explored the different models of content such as creative content (eg: Twitter, Flikr, YouTube) , Small-Scale tools (eg: mobile phone apps) and Collaborative Content (eg: Wikipedia). I found this topic was interesting as it related to why there has been such a growth in fact checking and verification which we had covered last week. In class we also spoke about developing content collaboratively and how it has both positive and negative outcomes. Leaders play a crucial role in ensuring success with collaborative content, however if the leader doesn't full fill his/her job in the right manner it can have a huge negative effect on the outcome. Collaborative systems also have an advantage on the traditional approach as they are more economically and timely sound. The internet is used a lot in the production of this content, it can be used by groups to share their information and is also home to one of the main examples of collaborative content, Wikipedia. This was an interesting week as the topics effected us directly as we are working collaboratively with our group project.
In order to see how our app will look on our devise we had to install a programme to our computers as we were all using apple devices. As a group we decided on our app idea. As we were all drivers, we all had often had the same problem with parking in the morning in UCD. Our solution was to set up an automated email to a driver to warn them of a any problem that may occur when parking, such as; if you are parked illegally, if you are getting clamped, if your window is down, etc.
However after discussing the idea with our lecturer we learned it would be very difficult to do and we were advised to set up a forum instead which we all agreed would be a good idea. We are now working on different layouts for the app and trying them out on our devices to see what works best.
User generated content has become massive with the growth of social computing. This week we explored the different models of content such as creative content (eg: Twitter, Flikr, YouTube) , Small-Scale tools (eg: mobile phone apps) and Collaborative Content (eg: Wikipedia). I found this topic was interesting as it related to why there has been such a growth in fact checking and verification which we had covered last week. In class we also spoke about developing content collaboratively and how it has both positive and negative outcomes. Leaders play a crucial role in ensuring success with collaborative content, however if the leader doesn't full fill his/her job in the right manner it can have a huge negative effect on the outcome. Collaborative systems also have an advantage on the traditional approach as they are more economically and timely sound. The internet is used a lot in the production of this content, it can be used by groups to share their information and is also home to one of the main examples of collaborative content, Wikipedia. This was an interesting week as the topics effected us directly as we are working collaboratively with our group project.
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