This is a much longer term assignment than the other one you are undertaking at the moment - and involves reading a book. Yes you did not here me incorrectly yes you will need to read a book - Yikes. During the coming lesson I will present you with a choice of books that all have ITGS related content and discussion but are in much more depth than anything you have read before. You will need to choose one (will tell you how that will work) and then over a period of weeks read it regularly. You will then need to publish a blog post every two weeks summarising the content and what the author is discussing and your points of view of the issues and IT systems described. The post should be specific especially in terms of describing IT systems involved.

The end game of the assignment- will involve a final presentation.

Here is the basics of what you will need to do for the final presentation What do you need to show? Well read on below for full information:-

1. The final presentation will give everyone an overview in detail of the book you have read - with main chapter summaries, a review of the IT systems involved and the social and ethical issues.
2. The presentation should stand alone to review the book - giving both the authors points of view and specific examples of their discussions.
3. The presentation should conclude from a variety of stakeholders points of view the issues, and link this with your own thoughts.
4. If your ideas and thoughts have changed during reading the book then please explain this transition.
5. The presentations will be due on the TO BE DETERMINED - e.g. first Thursday after Easter.
6. The presentations must be able to be viewed upon the web (note it is not a video presentation but a slide based presentation) - example tools you might use are:- Slideshare (good for adding vocal overtop?), Empressr, Prezi (this one is supercool), authorstream, Zoho, Google Docs, Voicethread and many more. It is your choice to choose the best Web 2.0 tool to present your work. The work should be embedded on a weblog post, with a short explanation.
7. You will also present this in front of the class - a rubric of assessment will be available from the preceeding week but will look at many areas including: quality of presentation, quality of arguments, quality of reviews, use of tool, understanding of issues, understanding and explanation of IT systems involved, simplicity of explanation, use of specific relevant examples...

BOOK Decisions - after much deliberation and cogitation here are the decisions based or maybe not based on your choices for book to read. Note Dr Tech's decision is final and is based on a rigorous and thoughtful process of skills based analysis linked with your choice/interest: -

• Laurence Lessig - Remix - Fats Million
• Jack Goldsmith - Who Controls the Internet - Bob Saget
• Secrets and Lies - Bruce Schneier - Nabsuh
• Pirates Dilemma - Matt Mason - Young Troopz

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Yes Grade 11's along with Slifeing and finishing your book review here is a third assignment that will keep you busy. Using the skills that you will garner during the next week or so with creating tutorial/example based Excel Spreadsheets (yes for once we will use a normal application rather than some Web 2.0 based shenanigins), you must then choose a realistic project from one of your other subjects to design and create a spreadsheet for. Subjects that would probably be very sensible to choose might be Mathematics, Economics, Sciences, Design Technology, Drama etc... What productive function the spreadsheet does is up to you? It might create a test, it might plot a specific experiment and show results, it might be a booking sheet for a theatre or it might be a break even chart analysis? YOU decide.

You must however use a minimum of ten of  the following skills (that you will practice this next week or so) within your spreadsheet to make the design and so its workings as efficient and automatic as possible:-

1. Vlookup
2. If Statement
3. Countif Statement
4. Charts
5. Advanced Filters
6. Basic Mathematical Formulas - Aveage, Sum, Max, Min,
7. Macros (you will need to use Office 2004 on the Mac - Why?)
8. Conditional Formatting
9. Spinners
10. Date/Time Functions
11. Formatting, Titles and Buttons
12. Validation/Verification
13. Password Protection

Along with this, the spreadsheet should be well designed and user friendly with suitable instructions for a new user to be able to follow and understand what they are doing when it comes to inputing data and processing an output. The spreadsheet should have multiple sheets, and include a title page. Dr Tech will show you some examples of existing spreadsheets that fulfill the above purpose.

Make sure you test your spreadsheet models, as the assessment will be based on an unknown user/client attempting to use your spreadsheet without instruction from yourself.

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Just a quick good luck to Grade 12's who will be involved in their final mocks this week - and all three papers! Yikes.

Grade 11's a reminder of work due etc :-

1) Thursday - Web 2.0 Presentation on their long assignment into reading a specific ITGS related book (note blog posts should also be up by now?)

2) Monday - look over the last ITGS mini test - for retest next week.

3) Continue on with Spreadsheet based skills - of which many have still not handed in their first skills spreadsheet - Run a Business.

4) Tuesday - the Great Debate.

So plenty on, make sure you are up to date, otherwise you will be falling even further behind.

P.S. Will be looking back at the problems with the Slife application, and checking out two new features of this weblog including the gravatar!

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The tools that I have been testing out are a social bookmarking site called Delicious and an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) reader called Bloglines.

Delicious bookmarks is a website that provides a social bookmarking service that allows the user to save and share bookmarks with other people. What sets Delicious apart from

browser bookmarks is that it allows the user to organize and locate their bookmarks easier. It does this by allowing the user to assign tags or phrases to each bookmark, which the user then can use to search for the bookmark. Delicious presents a new way of organizing bookmarks but the question is, does Delicious help get things done?

In theory yes, delicious could very well help get things done. I only say in theory because the way I used the tool was very much for entertainment purposes. But if one was to use the tool for lets say to compile their research, then this tool could be efficient. The way that Delicious increases efficiency is by reducing clutter. All the user has to do is type in the tags that they assigned for a bookmark they are looking for and they have that bookmark ready.

Comparing this to browser bookmark systems such as firefox (though firefox 3 has added the tagging features), I find that delicious is much better. This is because I find myself taking more time than I want scrolling through my hundreds of bookmarks to get to the one that I want. Though one can argue that you can organize bookmarks better with folders, I find that assigning two or three words to a bookmark when I add it is much quicker than filing my bookmarks.

Also another thing that sets Delicious apart from just normal browser bookmarking is its social aspect. The things the user bookmarks can be available for other users to look at. This again shows the effectiveness of tags as a person can use delicious as a sort of search engine to find articles on certain topics. The great thing is that the user can turn off the public viewing for any bookmarks they choose, which allows them the choice of privacy.

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Over the past couple of weeks I explored the benefits of GTD Web 2.0 applications. These included an RSS Feed application - Bloglines - and a Planning application - Zoho Planner.

Bloglines is one of many web applications using a popular method with RSS Feeds. RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds are a method used to collect newly published information from web sites like blogs, news sites, media pages or any regularly updated page. This information is then gathered into one place; this accomplishes the first step of David Allen's "Getting Things Done" Workflow Process - Collect.

On my Bloglines page (above) I included several RSS Feeds from regularly updated pages both for study and leisure. The benefits of this system are numerous. Time is saved significantly because I no longer need to travel to the sites individually to view recent articles. In addition, the information I'm looking for on the site is shown immediately rather than me having to explore the site for it. Equality of Access can also be considered in this method; the system allows those less capable of traveling to individual sites to view information of interest more easily. Problems, however, do follow. The amount of time this system saves me is questionable. Though I receive the information quickly and more information is available quickly, the temptation to read on is considerable. Usually I would spend no more than half an hour reading articles but using this method I could continue for hours.

The second application I used was Zoho Planner. This is an example of a planning application using the format of a to-do list. Such applications are difficult to suit all; businessmen, casual Internet users, students, and alike all have different needs in planning applications. Businessmen, for example, may need a specific planner in which they can organize various projects, list meetings, and prioritize deadlines whereas a casual user may only need a planner for small event dates or reminders. To promote Equality of Access these characteristics must be considered by both developer and user; an application of this genre cannot suit the needs of any user. For this reason, I also looked at several other existing planning applications:

Zoho Planner suits the majority of users enabling both formal and informal planning with a simplistic interface. This application could easily be used outside of the classroom; it allows reminders of upcoming deadlines or events through an array of compatible devices. It is not formatted specifically for work or casual planning allowing a vast equality of access.

In conclusion, GTD applications like Bloglines and Zoho Planner enable us to get things done faster. They do not necessarily save time, however. The system is not so much a solution as it is an alternate method of getting things done.

Further Reading:

What is GTD?

Getting Things Done

RSS Feeds

Web 2.0

Inbox Zero -> 07:44

"Your Time and Attention are finite but the demands on your Time and Attention are infinite." Merlin Mann

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Tim Berners-Lee is currently the credited inventor of the world wide web, still now being its head director.  One major concern being recognized now is providing access to the 80% of the world's popultion that currently don't have it.  The other main concern is dealing with credibility amongst internet sights.  An idea suggested for this is to post credibility badges to those web sights who are credibly recognized.  Other organizations such as Tech Radar though, think that viewers should be able to figure it out on their own and not simply be lead to believe anything blindly.

Tim Berners Lee

Tim Berners Lee 2

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Does Web 2.0 really exist or is it a internet marketers dream. That is your mission to see if Web 2.0 has really made any impact socially and ethically on our productivity applications that we us? First of all check out this vodblog and see some ideas about Web 2.0 and then print and read through this post on the shortcomings of Web 2.0.

Many educators have decided that the use of so-called Web 2.0 tools would be great in helping students learn, and they have even completed lists on some of those applications - Web 2.0 School Applications and here at Shambles.

From the options below I would like you to pick an area in which Web 2.0 applications are flourishing and use a specific application to test whether you believe this is a revolutionary new way to using the world wide web. You will need to demonstrate how to use this tool, and for what this tool might be used (you might need to be a little persuasive!). You will also need to show how others have used these types of applications:-

• Social Networking (Lal)- NING

1. Explore other social network related to education
2. Join and set up your own network on NING
3. Give your social network a title that relates to us as an ITGS group
4. Invite us all to join this network - and ask us to fulfill an initial task
5. Be able to explain what benefits might occur if such a social network was used in a particular subject or class
6. Prepare a comprehensive blog post outlining the use of the tool here, and your thoughts about its impact on areas related to any of the social and ethical issues of the ITGS triangle.
7. You will present the tool briefly on the board, and share in discussion your findings related to the shortcomings article from earlier.

• Social Bookmarking (Draco) - Del.icio.us

1. Explore the del.icio.us website
2. Visit Dr Tech's public social bookmarks and decide how these might be a better idea than normal bookmarks or favourites, what do you notice about how this links with this weblog?
3. Join the Del.icio.us site and also make sure you download the bookmarklet
4. Follow the seven habits of successful Del.icio.us users
5. Then bookmark sites that you have been using on a consistent basis on your recent Internal Assessment
6. Prepare a comprehensive blog post outlining the use of the tool here, and your thoughts about its impact on areas related to any of the social and ethical issues of the ITGS triangle.
7. You will present the tool briefly on the board, and share in discussion your findings related to the shortcomings article from earlier.

• Online Office Applications (Chocodreams)- The choice is yours..

1. Research into online applications - a good review is here at the Computer World blog
2. Play with a variety of different online applications and decide on which you believe to be best
3. Bring together a presentation where you show how the application works and what would be the benefits of using such a system over a normal Office productivity suite
4. Post a link to a online document that you create discussing the negatives and positives as described above, not forgetting to discuss your thoughts about its impact on areas related to any of the social and ethical issues of the ITGS triangle, that you think are relevant.
5. Also place in your blog post and in your discussions your findings related between your application and the shortcomings article from earlier.

• Web 2.0 (Ace) - Start pages

1. View a variety of different Web 2.0 start pages outlined on the weblog Pandia.
2. Decide on which you think would be the most appropriate for you and a group of students to use to help with collaborative work and set up an account - here is an example here, although i am sure that you can do better.
3. Give everyone in the group the ability to add to the start page
4. Show how the start-page works to the class, and write a post outlining this web 2.0 tools benefits always thinking through the shortcomings article above.
5. Make sure your thoughts about its impact on areas related to any of the social and ethical issues of the ITGS triangle, are included.

• RSS Feedreaders (Coolness16)- Bloglines

1. Follow through this tutorial to setup your bloglines account or here as a PDF
2. View my public feeds at my Bloglines account
3. Produce feeds for news searches on valid ITGS content areas - check this post to help you at URLGREYHOT
4. Place at least 20 feeds to sites that you think are relevant to a technology based course?
5. Publish your bloglines public feeds to the weblog along with a post outlining the positives and negatives of the search coming to you rather than you going to the search?
6. Make sure your thoughts about its impact on areas related to any of the social and ethical issues of the ITGS triangle, are included along with sharing in discussion your findings related to the shortcomings article from earlier.

Of course make sure you watch the video below which shows off one of the most famous videos highlighting the power of Web 2.0:-

P.S. Note assessment will be based on each of you reviewing each others posts and presentation of the tool, in the following areas:- How well do you understand the tool used? Does the post describe the positives of the web tool sufficiently for you to understand how you might use it in your studies? Do you understand the technology behind how the tool works and specific terms? Do you understand the social and ethical issues that might limit or push the use of such a tool/application? Has the presenter persuaded to use it in the future, or only when Dr Tech asks?

Here is the PeerAssessment grid, which you will fill out during each students demonstration. Much better than Dr Tech grading you huh?

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