The old and the new

The old and the new
A shed from 1957, and a truck made in 1997

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Posting You Tube Videos and Flickr Badges to Blogs: Explaining the process

Explain the step by step process required to embed You Tube videos into your Blog. Consider using Youtube help or a tutorial from Youtube or Slideshare.



Explain the step by step process required to embed a Flickr Badge into your Blog . Consider using flickr help or a tutorial from Youtube or Slideshare.

Assistive technology

Provide a definition of Assistive technology (your Cook and Hussey reading may be helpful with this).
Assistive technology is used to give function to people who have lost this as the result of an impairment(physical, physiological or anatomical) and an environment designed to suit the dominant population resulting in the individual being disabled. Assistive technology is available in many forms- devices, services, strategies and practices.
During our tutorial we looked at a number of assistive devices that are used with children from Kimi Ora School. The definition of an assistive device from the Cook & Husey (1995) reading defines assistive technology as....
"Any item, piece of equipment, or product system whether acquired commercially off the shelf, modified or custimized that is used to increase or improve functional capabilities of individuals with disabilities".

Describe one piece of equipment introduced in the assistive technology tutorial. Provide information on size, cost and functions.

An example of an assistive device is the Big Buddy Button. These can be purchased from http://www.star-educational.co.nz/ for $123.75.They are available in a range of colours and designs.



Use to activate- -
electrical appliances via an environmental control unit
battery operated adapted toys and games
a computer through a switch interface
AAC device through a switch port.

Specifications-
63mm activation surface
Height 18mm
Equipped with a 2m cable


How does your chosen piece of equipment increased functional capacity for the user? Provide examples here from the tutorial and lecture.
The Buddy Button can be used to switch on and off appliances. I've seen this switch being used in a school to make scones. This can be useful to teach children about cause and effect, hand eye co-ordination and decision making skills but over all the buddy switch provides the user with a sense of CONTROL .The buddy button provides audible and tactile feedback to the user and if the user

The internet and online communities


Provide the web address and the name of the community you are investigating. What is the brief or focus of this community? What services are provided? How interactive is this site? How can people contribute? Consider material presented during the lecture and make comment on why people choose to contribute to this community. What is it they are seeking? Cut and paste an example of the type of topics being discussed (you may have to provide a context to your excerpt). Considering material presented during the course and make comment on the potential ethical issues that may arise in this community e.g. lack of identity and accountability. Consider material presented during the lecture and make comment on the benefits this community holds over traditional notions of community e.g. communities reliant on geographic proximity . Consider material presented during the lecture and make comment what this community lacks or can not provide which traditional communities can.


This week I checked out the couch surfing community which can be reached by going to http://www.couchsurfing.org. Once here you have access to a community of people who all share the common interest of travel whether this be providing a couch and meeting new people or going to new places and experiencing the life in that community through staying with a kind local found on this website. This is reflected by the sites mission statement "CouchSurfing seeks to internationally network people and places, create educational exchanges, raise collective consciousness, spread tolerance, and facilitate cultural understanding."

To become part of this community you first need to create a profile and become a member. Once you have completed this process members are able to contribute to the community through offering a couch (or even just a coffee) to be slept on or if you are travelling make arrangements to stay with someone whose couch is being offered. This site provides a link for communication between couch surfers and couch owners around the globe but really it’s up to the individual how they make use of the site.

People place postings on the site such as the following, about someone’s personal view and experience of couch surfing.
“I CouchSurfed across the continent of Africa, from Pretoria to Cairo, and because of the CouchSurfers there, and this Web site, it was by far the most memorable trip of my life. The hospitality that greeted me was amazing, the personalities I encountered were the greatest, and the CouchSurfers I stayed with were beyond expectations. They turned an already epic journey into one that made me feel like an African. I can only hope to host them all some day, or at least be as good a CouchSurfing host to a stranger as they were to me."
Chris Tribbey (United States) June 23rd, 2010.

Safety is a big issue surrounding this community. People are putting themselves into a vulnerable situation by staying with people who are still random strangers in an unfamiliar environment. The site understands that there are many safety considerations and provides the best safety measures available (verification, references and vouching, safety advice) however even with these in place couch surfing still poses a lot of risk and really it is up to the individual to look out for themselves and use their common sense.

When looking at this community in comparison to traditional communities they are very much related and compared to many other online communities this one has much greater links really.
With other online communities people communicate and learn about each other through a computer screen however for couch surfers the computer screen is just the beginning. The computer screen links people from vast communities across the globe and brings them together. It provides the opportunity for people to leave their own community and get to stay with locals where they can experience firsthand how locals from other communities live. From reading the entries on the site I can see that after couch surfing some people feel really connected to the community they have visited and continue to keep in touch with them. That is the reason I chose to look at this site........it offers more than a computer screen relationship.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Video Production Sessions

Provide a brief summary of the services offered by YouTube. Information can be drawn from the week five tutorial hand out.

You tube was created in February 2005 and purchased by Google Inc. later in the following year. You Tube is a site where people are able to view and share videos.

Videos on you tube range from instructions for how to create a blog, video clips, to hilarious cat videos and people creating their own songs. The list really is endless with over 68,000 clips being uploaded to the site each day. Videos on the site are monitored with a block on inappropriate and offensive material.

Services offered by you tube includes:
• videos
• comments by other users
• popular videos
• number of views video has had
• list of similar videos available on you tube
• tells you how many viewers are also watching the same clip as you at current time

If you are registered with the site you can do all the above and
• comment on other peoples videos
• upload your own clips

http://www.youtube.com/

Provide a brief account (1-2 paragraphs) on how the use of planning (storyboarding and scripting aided your groups short film.

In class students were given the task to create a video and post it onto you tube after creating an account. To make a video we used sequencing and storyboarding.....
Sequencing is when all the shots are edited together so that they flow from one to the next. This creates a story. When sequencing it is best of the angle/ size of the shot changes from one scene to the next as this creates and keeps the audiences interest.
Storyboarding is a series of drawings which depict how the film will progress. These pictures are important to the outcome of the film as they provide the "plan".

Here is the final version of my groups movie...

Remember. Rexona, It wont let you down!

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Blogging

Provide a brief summary of the services offered by Blogger (this will be your third posting. Information can be drawn from the attached hand out). In addition to this name one other Blog host.

The blogger site was started in August 1999 by Evan Williams and Meg Hourihan (Pyra Labs). In February 2003 the site was purchased by Google whom it is still owned by today.
Services offered by www.blogger.com:
• Creating a profile and designing your personal blog choosing from a range of templates and colours to make it 'you'.
• Publish your thoughts through posts such as this one. Posts can be viewed by people all over the world so this is your space to say whatever you want.
• Communicating with friends. You can choose whether select friends can view your blog or all bloggers. You have complete control and can decide which comments stay/go under each post.
• Post photos to your blog. This can be a personal picture or one from the net. Whatever it is feel free to add a pic to your blog.
• Blogger Mobile allows users to send photos or messages to their blog via their mobile. This is handy for on-the-go bloggers.

Another blog host is www.opendiary.com

To create a blog follow the instructions in this video



Friday, June 18, 2010

Digital Camera use and applications

“A new technology is rarely superior to an old one in every feature”. Briefly discuss this statement in relation to digital camera technology. What would you consider to be some of the pluses and minuses digital camera technology holds in relation to more traditional film based cameras?
Like all new pieces of technology there are pros and cons to go along with it. Traditional film based cameras have the advantage of clear quality photographs which are a surprise as to how they are going to turn out and actually require skill to take a truly good photo where as digital cameras do not. However digital cameras also have advantages. Cheap photo printing (you are even able print photos in your own home), larger memory capacity, transferrable to other technology, can edit photos prior to printing them, optical and digital zoom, user friendly with a larger screen to see the image on.

List some of the ways that digital images can be stored transferred and manipulated using other communications technology.
Digital cameras can store images on the camera itself, on a memory (SD) card, computers (online and on the hard drive), cell phones, USBs and iPods etc. The advantage of this over traditional film based cameras is that you can then delete the photos when you are ready and reuse the storage space. To transfer the photos you can often use the same technology which can often be shared between devices or have a send option. The editing function is usually attached to such devices as the camera itself, cell phones, computer programmes and in store photo printing machines.

Given the prevalence of image capturing devices, and thinking about the issues discussed in tutorial one, consider what sort of ethical issues may arise with their use.
Increased ethical issues surround digital photography due to the easy transference of images. Someone may take a picture of someone else and place it on the internet without their consent where people all around the world are able to access the image.

Briefly discuss some of the ways that digital images could, or are, being used in occupational therapy practice (include reference and links to any web sites, or blogs you might come across)
Digital cameras are coming more common place in Occupational Therapy settings. On my last placement (FW 3) digital cameras were used to take photos of students and make memory cards of things familiar to them.

Provide a brief summary of the services offered by Flickr.com
The website http://www.flickr.com/ is an online community where account holders are able to upload, store and share images. This site is renowned for bloggers storing their images here.

Name one other photo storage website which offers a service similar to Flickr.com
Another photo storage website which offers a service similar to flickr is http://www.photobucket.com/

Explain what the difference is between a digital and an optical zoom
Most new digital cameras have both optical and digital zoom but what is the difference.

Optical zoom is a better quality zoom as the camera lens moves in closer to the object when taking the photo to magnify the image.
Digital zoom crops the image and enlarges that cropped area until it fills the screen area causing a loss of picture quality.

Explain what is meant by the term megapixel
Each digital image is made up of millions of tiny squares (pixels).
1 Megapixel (MP)= 1 million pixels.
A camera with 3 MPs would be sufficient if producing 6x4 photos however a larger pixel count would be better for producing larger photos.

For more info on digital photography follow this link http://photo.net/equipment/digital/basics/

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Information Techology and Ethical Issues

Information Technology (IT) /Information Communications Technology is The production, storage, and communication of information using computers and mircroelectronics. Hanks, P. (ed). (1989) Collins Concise Dictionary. Glasgow; Bath Press.
Is this form of technology prevalent in our society? How common place has it become?
It is very prevalent, almost everyone has a computer or cellphone with internet capability, and most people use facebook, email, forum sites or google to search.

What IT devices do yo feel comfortable and compent using?
~cellphones
~laptops/PC's
~I-Pod/MP3's
~Camera (digital and video)
~Radio/stereo
~TV
~DVD/Video players
~YouTube
~Facebook, Trademe etc
~Satellite programmes - FreeView, MySky
~Moodle/Blackboard

Thinking about your own fieldwork experiences, consider how IT is being used in OT practice?

~Internet used to search diagnosis/conditions
~Programmes to spreadsheet patient data on the ward
~Programmes to chart, store and send patient information eg DOB/scans/test results.

What ethical implications arise from the capturing, sharing and transferring of information via IT devices (e.g. Mobile phones) or systems (e.g. Internet)

Once it is shared on the internet or a shared harddrive, anyone can copy, duplicate, or replicate it and you no longer maintain control over it. No law protects a photo from this, nor can any law stop this from occuring due to technological advances.

Computer Ethics is a branch of practical philosophy which deals with how computing profssionals should make decisions regarding professional and social conduct. http://en/wikipedia/org/wiki/Computer_ethics

Intellectual Property (IP) is a umbrella term for various legal entitlements which attach to certain types of information, ideas or other intangiables in their expressed form. The holder of this legal entitlement is generally entitled to various exclusive rights in relation to the subject matter of the IP. http://en/wikipedia/org/wiki/Intellectual_property

Social Justice mostly refers to an ideal society where "justice" refers to economic status rather than to the administration of laws. It is based on the idea of a society which gives individuals and groups fair treatment and a jsut share of the benefits of the society, although what is "fair treatment" and a "just share" remain unclear or subject to interpretation. http://en/wikipedia/org/wiki/Social_justice

Informed Consent is a legal condition whereby a person can eb said to have given conset based on an appreciation and understanding of the facts and implications of an action. http://en/wikipedia/org/wiki/Informed_consent.

An understanding of IT and the ethical issues it encompasses will help us in our practice because it will help us to be careful about how we store information so we dont use/spread/provide information athat could allow ourselves/our practice to break any laws or get in trouble.