Well that depends.. the last few blog posts are available. Everything is contained safely in this interface but.. the links ie Module 1, Module 2 etc don’t work nor does pressing older posts.
Maybe this post will help??
August 28th, 2009
Well I have reached the end of NET11 for Study Period 2. This has been a long journey for me but glad to have reached the end. The concepts assignment stretched my thinking whilst taking the time to explore older technologies that I have thought about.
To have this blog as a record of my learning demonstrates that there is more than one way to learn. It has proved to be useful to go back and read what I initially wrote and then see how my thinking has developed in particular linking to the concepts.
The only downside is that it shows up my poor time management skills (see posting dates), sometimes I would work separately from my blog then have to upload again. Then there were the spammers that I spent my time marking their comments as Spam, amazing that they found me but that shows that the web is done.
Thank you to my tutors for you support through this subject, now time to do the final touch ups to what is my blog. Then press the all important submit button and NET11 will be put to bed, with hopefully enough marks to see me not need to revisit this subject again!
August 17th, 2009
When reading about information ecology it certainly showed changed the way in which I thought about the internet. Polution is one area that the internet and nature do have the same effect. Polute nature and it will ease to exist in the form that we have known it to be, pollute the internet and the same outcome will be acheived.
The more that we communicate using newer Web2.0 methods like flickr or Facebook we are continuing grow the information available on the internet. Every time we communicate (commnication ecology) through one of these new modules we are contributing more information to the internet (information ecology). Whilst the information is now being contributed to by information, we still regard more controlled information (universities or government) in higher regard. As users are we understanding that our publically available communications are creating information and that some of this information is just mere pollution of the internet. Considering facebook as an individual ecology do we need to know about every detail of a person’s life, in particular parents using facebook, and primarily females are polluting the internet with their “communication” with friends about the inane details of their child’s life? These communications don’t contribute to solid parentining information, but alas information is being produced.
Our communications as desribed by Felix are flows, which go towards nodes. If we didn’t commnicate using facebook the node of information being the Facebook site would cease to exist. This concept whilst in practice continues to feed or nourish a node, I don’t think that general users are aware how their communications relate to information on the internet. Whilst users with a keen interest in the internet are aware and understand the critical link between communication and information in the ecology that is the internet.
With many people using the internet we don’t specifically talk about communicating. It is just an understood that without communication there will be no internet. We see the internet as a whole, information and communication all rolled into one. With the internet being referred to as the “information superhighway” we focus on what we can get out of the internet rather than what we contribute to the internet. The same way in which we can take from nature and not focus on the means in which it is extracted or what pollution created in extracting this mineral from nature.
The internet is a commody that does have value similar to how minerals have value in our society. We must take care to preserve this valuable resources, either naturally existing, such as minerals, or ones that we create such as the internet. These all have value and a monetary value atrributed to them, but money doesn’t buy everything nor does it ensure that the resource or parts of the resource are not made scare or in worst case extinct.
August 14th, 2009
When completing this assignment what I discovered was the lack of information relating to rural education. Specifically I was trying to find more about rural education and digital inequalities in rural Australia. Whilst completing this I found that this type of information was not readily available and therefore for my concepts assignment took a slightly different approach due to the lack of relevant information being available. The annotation below would initially be sufficient for a user to decide if this was going to be a useful resource.
Website: http://www.frrr.org.au/programsDetail.asp?ProgramID=9
This website whilst is not primarily focused on rural education it certainly does have funding for this specific area.
The Foundation for Rural & Regional Renewal (FRRR) is a well established foundation with ties to various philanthropic organisations, banking and government.
In the area of rural education the FRRR does offer grants for a variety of purposes that will benefit rural education. These grants can be used for an individual or for a community. With no closing date and applications accepted year round this type of funding is beneficial to rural communities in Australia.
August 13th, 2009
Reference #1
URL: http://www.csu.edu.au/research/crsr/links/linkedyu.htm
Institution: Centre for Rural Social Research / The Institute for Land, Water and Society
Blurb/Summary: “The Institute for Land, Water and Society is the leading research group at Charles Stuart University, Australia’s largest regional university with five campuses spread across the state of New South Wales. It comprises nearly 250 social, economic and environmental scientists who are making important contributions to regional sustainability.”
Saving: This page was saved as html file in a specific folder on my computer called NET11 Research. The file was saved using Mozilla Firefox, my internet browser.
Reference #2
Institution: Rural Education
Blurb/Summary:
This Network is focused on the promotion of and collaboration in rural and remote education - primary, secondary and tertiary.
We are focused on connecting practicum teachers and graduate teachers to professional teaching experiences in remote and rural community areas.
Saving: This page was saved as html file in a specific folder on my computer called NET11 Research. The file was saved using Mozilla Firefox, my internet browser.
Reference #3
URL: http://www.frrr.org.au/programsDetail.asp?ProgramID=9
Institution: Foundation for Rural and Regional Review
Blurb/Summary: The Rural Education Program (REP) seeks to ensure that quality education remains accessible to children in rural and remote communities regardless of climatic and economic conditions.
Saving: This page was saved as html file in a specific folder on my computer called NET11 Research. The file was saved using Mozilla Firefox, my internet browser.
August 13th, 2009
The search terms that are being used for this task as the same as the last which is “rural education”. With rural being a generic term Boolean helped to narrow down the results that were obtained.
To discover more about rural education I found that the “and” function was more useful removing references to rural education. Specifying URLS’s that ended in *.au was also useful to remove any references from sites outside of Australia. This was more useful then looking for sites that included the search term Australia.
When I used rural “or” education this search wasn’t as useful except if I added in looking for URL’s that ended in *.edu.au. This was limiting the search too much but assisted in finding relevant sources that were related to education.
August 11th, 2009
The words that I have chosen to search are rural education.
My normal search engine is Google. There were 36,500,000 results.
Using Sherlock that was installed with my Mac the same search was performed and there was 31 search results.
The results that were showing in Google were of more use than the ones that appeared in Sherlock. The data on Sherlock relied on About.com. Sherlock was also searching for Australian as well as Google. There notwithstanding the US vs Australia search, the type of search results were vastly different. Sherlock results were more article based than the Google results.
Google top 5 results were:
www.rural.edu.au/cms/display/index.php?vsite=5
www.csu.edu.au/research/crsr/links/linkedyu.htm
http://www.schools.nsw.edu.au/learning/yrk12focusareas/distanceed/index.php
Sherlock top 5 results were:
http://gradschool.about.com/b/2007/08/14/distance-education.htm
http://712educators.about.com/od/issuesineducation/Issues_in_Education.htm?iam=sherlock_abc
http://712educators.about.com/od/ruralschools/Rural_Schools.htm?iam=sherlock_abc
http://jobsearch.about.com/b/2005/11/11/teach-for-america.htm?iam=sherlock_abc
What does this say for the search results? Even considering the comments posted on the NET11 discussion board it showed a bias towards google.
Copernic and Sherlock were producing poor results but the ability to incorporate this type of searching into Google searches for example can produce better more accurate results.
It also should be considered that these searching tools can be of use if used correctly to expand knowledge or to consider a different view point, as each search engine is only giving just their opinion.
August 11th, 2009
After going through the list in the study notes it appears that I have most of these tools and use them on a regular basis.
- Adobe PDF reader – this is certainly a great tool with so many documents being available in pdf format. My accounting software allows me to export my invoices into PDF format which is a great way to email an invoice to a customer.
- Flash/Shockwave Players – these plug-ins are both installed on my computer. With flash needed for advertisements, animations and games. Plus I am sure that some websites need this for navigation but alas with them installed I don’t actually notice that I am using these plug-ins.
- Media Players – Again I have all of these installed on my computer. So I never notice which one I am using and on what site. But when streaming TV shows I am using one of the players depending on the site, but due to the successful integration I find it quite difficult to determine which player is being used.
- Search Manager / Combiners – Sherlock, this is installed on my computer. Whilst I understand how the Meta searches work found Sherlock quite limited. The search engines used by Sherlock are About, Best Site 1st, Looksmart, Lycos and Overture which has been purchased by Yahoo. When searching NET11 on Google 861,000 results turned up whilst in Sherlock only one result appeared. I don’t find this Meta Search as good as something like DogPile which is a good Meta Search engine
- Bookmark Manager – whilst I can see the advantages of using a program such as URL Manager Pro Mac, it is really necessary to upgrade to a paid version to get the full benefits.
- Offline Browser/ Copier – Whilst looking at PageSucker and WebCopier the
I found that the interface of WebCopier was better for my use. Unfortunately, only being a free trial I decided against keeping WebCopier. The ability to download the entire site is certainly an advantage, this could use quite a bit of hard drive space depending on the size of the site. I will just revert to my old system which is using the cache and browser history to view webpages when my internet fails.
When considering the copyright of these programs one aspect that comes to mind is the saving of video may be in breach of copyright depending on what data is being downloaded. By creating a personal copy this could initially be in breach of copyright, it also encourages the distribution of these files through P2P (Peer to Peer) networking which may be in breach if the content is copyrighted.
August 8th, 2009
The main differences between Internet Communications Diigo social bookmarking list and the html version are the ease of use and the ability to customize.
The Diigo site can be updated automatically, as people tag more sites the Diigo is updated whilst the html version would require someone to republish the webpage.
With Diigo people can add annotations to the links, further expanding the data contained within a link. The ability to categorize using additional tags can also enrich this website. Diigo is more interactive than the html version, the ability to send a message via the website, join groups or click on a tag to see what other people have bookmarked in their Diigo helps expand a searchers knowledge.
The diigo bookmarking site is better than the html version if you are wanting to share your links and continually add to them. This in the context of NET11 is certainly the case and beneficial to a student, researcher or someone who is often at multiple computers. The html version will require updating and that each computer accessed the website login details are known along with editing software, if not included in the web hosting.
August 8th, 2009
Being someone who has tried unsuccessfully to update and maintain blog (well except for this one), blogging is certainly an artform. Whilst blog are used for personal reasons, like a diary online or communicating a common hobby some blogs have a more journalistic approach.
A blog that has crossed from an online journal style to being commercially viable is www.dooce.com This blog in the space of 5 years has been restructured and now includes advertising and now is the main income earner, for their family. Of course not many of us could write a blog that can support a family, or for a blog be turned into a book such Girl with a One Track Mind. But we can always dream? These two blogs show that whilst blogging can start as a person’s way of expressing themselves it can be an income earner in several different ways.
Whilst blogging can be seen as a personal opinion type of writing, caution must be exercised by the author. Writing about your employer or colleagues, might not be the smartest move. By remembering that a blog post isn’t private because it has been published to the world wide web can could cause upset amongst those you have spoken about or maybe your employment is jepodized due to your personal opinions. Expressing yourself online should also take into consideration that not everything needs to be expressed in such a public forum.
Along with sites that combine several different blogs such as The Punch online journalism has taken to blogs. Looking at News.com.au or Sky News or CNN all of these sites have links to blogs. Whilst the journalistic integrity of blogs linking from reputable news sites it higher, when reading blogs relating to current news event a reader must exercise caution, and validate the content through a reliable news source before relying on a blog for its accuracy.
