End Of The Road

Well, we've come to the end of the semester and most likely the end of my blogging days.  I must say that this has been a very interesting and thought provoking assignment.  Creating these blog entries basically forced us students to reflect on readings, activities, tech news, e-learning news and anything else that we may have experienced.

I'm still currently working on my Final Course Portfolio.  That's been kind of cool too.  Especially since it's in the place of taking an actual final exam.  It's very time consuming, but gives us a chance to work on Google sites and revisit what we learned in this course.  So I guess it is a final exam after all.

After my post about the IT-ology Career Fair, I received a call about an internship.  It wasn't a result of the Career Fair, but it just so happened to occur after that post.  Anyway, keep your fingers crossed!!!

So I've enjoyed blogging with you, but now it's over.  Dr. Keane if you're reading this, thanks for an interesting semester!

Goodbye all!

And I Thought I'd Seen It All...

Hey, guys.  While checking out the PC World website, I found this article about some obscenely priced PCs and gadgets.  Some of the items are very cool I must admit, but look at the price tag on them.

I personally love the Emperor 200 workstation.  Considering how much time I sit in front of my computer, I do believe this is a necessity.  OK, I'm exaggerating a little bit.  But how cool would it be to do your homework (or anything for that matter) at this workstation?  And it's only $49,150.  I do believe I'm asking Santa for this one!

So check out the website at the link below and feel free to leave a comment about which one you would choose.

Coolest PC gadgets and gifts

Girl On Fire!!!

Came across a blog that led me to a website about a group of awesome women.  It's called the Executive Women's Forum.  It's a community of over 750 of the world's most influential female executives in the Information Security, Privacy, and Risk fields.

The EWF provides a way for female executives to build trusting relationships, sharing leadership ideas, empowering success, be recognized and awarded for accomplishments, attend conferences, and recruit.

I just thought this community of women was pretty cool and I wanted to share it.

Check out their website:  Executive Women's Forum

White House Involvement in Open Source

So I was perusing my Twitter news feed to find something interesting to blog about and I came across a tweet from my instructor telling us students to check out this cool article about the White House and open source and community.  I was interested to see how the White House was involved in open source so I followed the link she provided.

The White House has now joined the Drupal.org community!!  Corny?  I know, but it's still interesting.  Anyway,  they actually use Drupal  for the WhiteHouse.gov website. They have released the source code for  modules before, but now they are working with the community on the We The People petitions system.  They are hoping to release a "white label" theme that will help others reuse the code to set up their own petition systems.  They have also been active in the GitHub community.

I have summarized the article, but you can check it out here.  Click

How cool is that?  The White House has gone nerd!

Master the Mainframe Update

So guess what...I did not Master the Mainframe.  That contest was murder!!!  I was doing pretty good until I reached the C programming in Task 9 of Part 2.  After that it was horrible!!  Thankfully, I have some really great classmates.  Some of the students who understood how to do it didn't mind helping others so it all worked out.

As far as how I feel about the contest...I think it was pretty cool.  It was just a lot of pressure since my instructor used it as our actual homework assignments.  Which were the only assignments we had.  Now do you understand why my stress level was so high!!??

So no, I'm not a Master Mainframer, but I did win a t-shirt (haven't received it yet), will get a good grade in the class, and I'm actually still interested in the Mainframe.  Surprise Surprise!!!  I think I need to work on learning C code and Java though.  Problem is, I hate programming.  I think I will research the different types of mainframe positions out there.

Oh yeah, I will not be doing Part 3 of the competition.

Final Course Portfolio

So we've come to the end of the semester and now it's time to create a portfolio of all the work I've done in my ITEC 544 Training Systems course.  It serves as a way to connect everything we've learn in the course with current training systems technology and learning theory.  We have to discuss the work we've done and relate it to the instructional design cycle.  So I will be displaying/discussing my Wikipedia, E-Learning Module, and Social Media assignments as well as the professional activities in which I have participated.  So basically everything that I have blogged about the last few months.

This is due by tomorrow.  Wish I had started on this earlier, but time is something that I am short on.  Needless to say I will be working on this all day and night.  I will be using Google sites to create the portfolio.

I will be back to let my readers know how this went.  Oh yeah, once again I think this is a great assignment for this class (even though I'll be up all night working on it).  Coffee through an IV...

I'll be back (in my Arnold Schwarzenegger voice)...

IT-ology Career Fair

I just attended the IT-ology Career Fair.  It wasn't your typical Career Fair, where you have tons of employers looking for candidates.  There were probably a total of 17 companies there and they were looking for applicants in a variety of fields.

I went in search of an internship for the Spring, but I'm not sure how useful it was.  It seems that most companies are only conducting Summer internships, so this pretty much sucks for my hopes of graduating in May.  Fingers still crossed though.

I visited a few of the tables for companies that I am interested in.  SC.GOV was my first stop.  I spoke with one of their representatives and she gave me helpful information about another company that wasn't at the Career Fair that may have Spring internships available.  That was really nice of her.  I hope it leads to an opportunity.  I also spoke with AgFirst Farm Credit Bank.  He had just filled a position for an internship for the Spring.  That sucked!!!  But he did tell me to check out their website and keep checking to see if he posts anything more.  I will definitely be doing that.  I've heard that AgFirst is a good company to work for.  The Verizon table was very entertaining.  Tom was one of the representatives there and it seemed he was trying to make it a relaxed and informative meeting.  He made a lot of jokes that were actually funny.  Turns out though, that they are looking to hire a lot of Customer Service type positions.  I am so not interested in that.  Been there done that.  Let's see, who else did I speak with?  Oh yeah, BCBS and SCE&G.  Two of the largest companies in Columbia.  I don't really hold any hope out with SCE&G because I have applied to numerous positions with them without any good results.  BCBS has an awesome Entry Level Training Program, but I would have to graduate in May to make that happen.  Which means I NEED my internship to be completed in the Spring.  I'm starting to really hate this internship requirement.  TM Floyd and Company was also there, but they aren't doing any internships.  Their rep stated that their clients are looking for more well seasoned employees.  This is understandable and I kind of knew that already, but what the heck.  I gave her a resume to put on file.

I'm so sick of Career Fairs that I didn't even bother to pick up any of their free merchandise.  A pen is a pen.    An internship is what I want.

So, did I find the Career Fair worth my while? That remains to be seen.

Until next time...

My Experience With Moodle

This semester we have also been working in teams to develop an E-Learning Module on an open source application of our choice and then host it on a Learning Management System.  The LMS that we used was Moodle.  Remember I blogged earlier about a speaker, Felicia Collins, coming to our class to show us the many benefits of Moodle and how it worked.  She came twice to show us some things, but for the most part, we had to figure it out on our own, with some help from Dr. Keane.  This wasn't too bad though because it's pretty easy to figure things out if you take the time to play with it and explore the many options.

Anyway, we decided the topic of our module would be Drupal.  Drupal is an open source content management system that allows users to create their own websites.  Specifically, we taught them how to use Drupal Gardens.  Again I also blogged about a Drupal workshop that I attended at IT-ology.  Two other members of my team also attended that workshop.  That's why it was chosen as our topic.

We split the module into four topics:  Introduction, Basic Web Development, Form Development, and Website Maintenance.

Here's a screenshot of what our module Home Screen looked like (with editing options turned on) once we added our topics to it.

Within each section we covered different areas.  I did the majority of the Basic Web Development topic so that's what I will talk about.  I instructed the user on how to create and edit block elements and website content.  We used blog form to give step by step instructions on how to accomplish the tasks.  We tried to make in fun and interesting so a lot of the verbiage is very corny.  For example:  "Now it’s time to get busy on the fun part!  Excited?  You should be.  Let’s start by changing your site title."  Very corny huh..., but fun.  Here's what the blogs looked like.

As I was creating the instructions I also did the tasks step by step in Drupal Gardens.  That allowed me to use my Snipping Tool  to get screen images so the user would know they were on the right track.  

So after the user completed each task, they had to submit the URL to their site for grading.  We also set up various Discussion Forums, so students can communicate and help each other.  They could also share ideas that would help their sites look better.  

In addition to the screenshots, we also wanted to give additional resources.  We added links to videos that would also demonstrate how to complete these tasks.

Creating this module was pretty fun and quite relevant to this course.  The bad part is that our site is only available on the university server so we only have access to it on campus in the ITEC labs.  This sort of sucks of you want to share it with potential employers,but hey, what can you do.  

Ok, so that's it for Moodle.  Oh yeah, I prefer Blackboard over Moodle.  It has a much better appearance, but maybe there's some ways to customize Moodle that I don't know about.  Plus Moodle is FREE!!  

Until next time...

  

JAM with Chrome

In my last post, I stated that I would visit my Twitter account and see if I could find anything interesting from some of the E-Learning professionals that I'm following.  Guess what...I did!

This comes from a tweet from Jane Bozarth, an E-Learning professional and also the author of one of the books for this Training Systems course.  Anyway, she tweeted about a way to play music with your friends online and live.  She said "MUSIC = great way to help global workers/learners connect."

So let me introduce you to JAM with Chrome.  Its an interactive web application that allows you to play music on your Chrome browser with people in different locations.  All you have to do is go to the site and you can choose from 19 different instruments.  The instruments range from acoustic guitars to keyboards.  You can play in "easy mode" where the computer does most of the work or "pro mode" where you play the instruments using your keyboard.  How cool is that?!?!

Now that's some fun E-Learning!  Thanks Ms. Bozarth for that tip on how to learn and connect with friends via Chrome.

If you would like to check it out, click here.  JAM with Chrome

Until next time...

Twitter World

I figured I'll let my readers in on my experiences with the world of Twitter.  As part of my ITEC 544 Training Systems course,  we had to create a Twitter account and follow people in the Tech and E-Learning professions in order to be exposed to some of their knowledge and the advantages of Twitter.  The Twitter posts could also be a useful source for these blog posts.  Of course I already had a Twitter account, but I created another one for the course.  I say this to let you guys know that I already had experience with Twitter and was aware of its advantages.

So did I get anything out of this exercise, you ask.  Hmm, let's see... Yes, I did.  Initially, I really didn't see the big deal of E-Learning.  No, I take that back.  I do see the importance in it, I just didn't realize that it garnered as much attention as it does.  I'm following so many people in that profession that I didn't realize existed.  Dr. Keane (the professor of this course) frequently retweets  posts from other professionals that are mostly pretty interesting. I also use this Twitter account to follow more tech folks than what I follow on my first Twitter account.  Great source for the latest tech news.  Also faster access to tech news because I have the Twitter app on all my mobile devices.

Now let me visit that Twitter account and see if I can find some material for my next blog post.

Until next time...
 

Wikipedia Experience Follow Up

So about a week ago I blogged about a Wikipedia assignment that's part of the same class that requires me to do this blog.  So we posted our suggestions to the Talk page on the Skype article and we ended up getting feedback a couple of days later.

Here's what the guy said:

"Hi KMobley, you are welcome to expand this article. However, consider the following:
The phrase "beyond its potential frivolous use" is from a subjective point of view. Make sure you write in a neutral style.  I like th exisiting paragraph on educational use, because it is very easy to understand. (e.g.: "Students in different parts of the world are paired off, each is a native speaker of the language that the other wishes to learn. In conversations over Skype they alternate between the two languages"). Your rephrasing might make the paired learning aspect harder to understand.The second paragraph is written like an advertisement. Make sure you avoid ad-style writing"

My team member and myself thought it was hilarious.  These Wiki people really take this stuff seriously!!   And it wasn't just us.  We were discussing our Wiki results with other classmates and they had similar experiences.  They were reading comments that Wiki people had made on other suggestions and they were quite harsh.  People would actually argue on the Talk page.  Whatever happened to the Be Polite guidelines on Wikipedia. Anyway, the feedback that we received seemed to not want us to make any changes to the original article.  Of course we did it anyway (we have to for the course), but we did make a few changes based on his suggestions.  I wouldn't be surprised to see if our additions have been removed.  Let's pause for a second while I check...  Amazing!!!  It's still there!  I'll give it a week.

By the way, all those spelling errors in that quote are all his.

And yes, I refer to the Wikipedia contributors as Wiki people.  It's funny and on point.  LOL

Another E-Learning experience complete.  Until next time...

The Mannequins Are Watching You

Just read this PC World article that kind of creeped me out.  Check it out

We all know that companies are bombarding you with ads by tracking your online browsing habits.  They have taken it to a new level.  So now mannequins are being made that have a camera in one of it's eyes.  The camera will import it's data into facial recognition software that can tell the age, race, and gender of people that walk by.  The mannequin is called EyeSee and it's made by Almax SpA, an Italian company.  The data can be used to direct displays and promotions towards specific demographics that visit that area.  Weird, huh.

This type of usage is nothing new though.  Apparently, Facebook, Google, and Apple have been using it for years.  It makes it easier to tag people in photos.  

A little more interesting information from this article...The FBI is currently rolling out its billion dollar system that provides a nationwide database of mug shots, iris scans, DNA samples, voice recordings, palm prints, and other biometrics collection from over 100 million Americans.  Its intent is to identify and catch criminals.

Technology is steadily making privacy a thing of the past.  

Until next time...

Can I Master the Mainframe?

Master the Mainframe is a contest that that IBM hosts every year for college and university students.  This is the 8th year of the annual contest and it's my first time participating.  You really don't have to have any mainframe experience to participate.  The design the contest for students who have no or very little experience with mainframe.

I guess some of you may be asking "What the heck is a mainframe?"  Well to answer that question, mainframe computers are really powerful computers used mostly by corporate and government organizations  for batch processing (process huge amounts of data with little human interaction), for critical applications, and for transaction processing(online shopping, ATM transactions).

Here's a picture to give you an idea.  Cool, huh?



Anyway, the contest involves following instructions to perform different actions such as running jobs, editing code, and creating data sets.  The instructions get even less descriptive as you go on and it requires you to remember things that you've done on previous tasks.  I've learned that it's really important to take your time and stay focused on the task at hand.

In order to access the z/OS mainframe, I had to download a 3270 terminal emulator.  An emulator looks like this.  This is the z/OS welcome screen for the contest.

It looks like the old DOS green screens huh?...

So far the contest has been interesting.  I'm still working on Part 2.  There are 3 parts to the contest.  

So now I know you're asking why am I participating in this contest.  Well, partly it's because it's part of a course.  Secondly, I am interested in learning about the Mainframe.  Some people say it's going away, but a lot of professionals disagree.  I currently use it on my job, but just to run jobs that have been set up.  This gives me an opportunity to see the behind the scene aspect of it.  

Oh yeah, and lets not forget the PRIZES!!!  They include: 

• ASUS Transformer Pad Infinity tablet computers
• Master the Mainframe swag, including hoodies, messenger bags and more
• Trips to the mainframe lab in Poughkeepsie, NY
• Custom Master the Mainframe T-shirts

So far, I've secured myself a T-shirt.  Oh well, I'll also have the experience.

Until next time...

Wikipedia Experience

In this Training Systems course (the cause of this blog), I'm working with a team member on editing a Wikipedia page.  The article that we chose to edit was Skype.  There was a very small section on the educational uses of Skype, so we decided we would focus our efforts on improving that area.  

First, we had to come up with about 20 sources that we could use to improve our chosen topic.  This didn't take very long.  Thankfully, my partner did most of that part.  

Second, we had to write up a report on our selected topic using the sources that we found.  This ended up being a 2 page report on Skype in general and its educational uses.  I did this part because I had a day where there was a large unexpected break between classes.  We make great partners!  LOL

Third, we had to post proposed changes to the Talk page of our chosen topic.  I posted that today.  This wasn't very hard considering the report was already written and we knew which area we wanted to edit.  The only thing I couldn't figure out was how to reference our sources on the Talk page.  There were so many different ways to do it.  I chose to just list the sources since it was only on the Talk page.  My partner and I can figure out how to do it later.  It will be interesting to see if we get any comments on our suggestions.  I think it will add more content and information to that area of the Skype article.  

I noticed when we first began this project that the release date and version number of every update was listed on the page.  The contributors on the Talk page discussed this and it was removed.  Apparently, it's a constant problem because after they remove it, someone always adds it back.  I personally don't see the point of it.  It takes up too much room on the page and who really cares about that information anyway.  

Well, I'll let you folks know if we get any feedback on our section on the Talk page.  Feel free to check out the Skype page.  Skype

Until next time...

The Future of E-Learning

So, my class has been instructed to discuss the future of E-Learning in our blogs based on a discussion prompt from an E-Learning professional.  Check out the article and comments here:  Click here

The question asked was "What do you think will be here in 5 years and has a good pedagogical basis?"  This is considering e-Learning in higher education.

I think that Learning Management Systems will still be here in 5 years, but they will incorporate many other options for users.  The use of Virtual Learning Environment will be embedded into LMS.  Time management will continue to become increasingly important; therefore, the use of VLE will provide students with the flexibility needed to get the most of their courses and maintain the requirements of other responsibilities within  a time frame that is best suited for them.  It will also provide the possibilities of having class anywhere.

E-Learning will take on a more social community of learning aspect.  Linking LMS with social networking sites is a very strong possibility.  Just about every student has a Facebook page, Twitter account, or both. Imagine the possibilities of being able to access fellow students or even professors easily through whatever LMS the university is using.  This will provide much faster responses to questions or comments that students/professors may want to make instead of using email.

One other aspect that will be of great importance in E-Learning is insuring it's compatibility with all types of mobile devices; especially the numerous tablets that have come on the market.

Well, those are my thoughts on the subject of E-Learning in the next 5 years.  Feel free to leave comments with your thoughts.

Carolina Technology Conference & Expo 2012

I attended the Carolina Technology Conference & Expo on October 9, 2012.  It was held at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center from 8 am -6 pm.

This was my first time attending the conference so I was very excited about it.  I must say it was not what I expected, but it  turned out to be an interesting event anyway.  What I was expecting was a lot more demonstrations and exhibits.  What I got was a lot of product information.

There were numerous sessions that provided interesting information on different subjects.  The most interesting to me as a student and computer user was the "Confessions of an IDENTITY THIEF" keynote presentation.  The speaker was Jim Stickley.  I don't think anyone would be interested in stealing my identity, but it was still a pretty interesting and eyeopening presentation.

The vendors were somewhat interesting.  They really didn't want to speak to students much because in reality we weren't in the position to make any purchases for any companies.  The SOPHOS vendors were very accommodating though.  They knew I was a student, but they actually took the time explain their products and service offerings.  They offer complete security from products that work well together.  Here's some of the products that they explained to me.  There showcased UTMs, their SOPHOS RED (Remote Ethernet Device), and Access Points.  They also gave a handy little thesaurus, which they called a Threatsaurus.  It explains different security threats.

Don't get me wrong about the other vendors.  They gave me access to some great goodies (no jump drives though)!  Check them out!

Did you notice the light up pens?!

I mostly spent my time at the conference in a volunteer capacity.  They mainly had all volunteers working the registration area.  This may sound boring, but the conference attendees were quite entertaining.  They all seemed to have something funny to say.  I also enjoying the opportunity to network with attendees and other student volunteers.  The Conference staff were very appreciative of our help.  One of them (didn't catch her name) gave me a hug before I left.

Anyway, that was my exciting day at the Carolina Technology Conference & Expo. Here's a few more pictures of the event.

ATTENDEES & VENDORS

MORE VENDORS

                               
  

EXPO

Drupal Workshop @ IT-ology

IT-ology often offers free workshops in various tech areas.  On Saturday, September 22, 2012 they offered a workshop on Drupal.  Drupal is an open source content management system and framework that is in use in about 2% of the world's websites.  It allows people to put together websites without having any programming experience.

The workshop ran from 9am to 4pm.  It seemed kind of bad at first and I was a little hesitant to sign up for it because it was an all day workshop.  Turns out, the time flew by quickly and it also gave me a chance to network with other attendees.

The workshop was interesting.  But around about the 1:00 hour I was a little lost on the more difficult parts.  I found it hard to follow the instructor after a certain point because he was going really fast.  I realized that most of the people in the workshop were already users of Drupal and were there to get help on working on their websites.  I think this made the workshop different from what I expected because the instructor went into more difficult areas very quickly.  I looked around the room and was relieved to see that I wasn't the only one that seemed a little confused.  I think if follow the instructions in the pamphlet that was given then everything will be much more clear.  I haven't had time to do that as of yet though, but it's on my to-do list.

Anyway, the objectives of the workshop were:

• Configure your site name and slogan (Did that)
• Create a static block of text (Did that)
• Add new content (Did that)
• Add a webform to collect information from visitors (Did that)
• If you have time, add a banner (Didn't do that)

I guess overall, I did complete all the objectives, I just don't feel as if I gained much from the workshop.  It was interesting though.

My Visit to the S.E.T. Career Fair

The Science, Engineering, and Technology (S.E.T.) Fair was on September 19th at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center.  I decided to attend the Fair in order to find out information about possible Spring semester internships.  Let me first say, that I hate attending Career Fairs.  I don't find it fun, trying to sell yourself to numerous employers on the spot.  I prefer one-on-one interviews.  But oh well, what are you gonna do?

There was a huge turnout this year.  The thing that I noticed, which is usually always the case, is that most of the companies are looking for Computer Science majors.  Not all of them, but I will say the majority of them.  I visited numerous tables and received a ton of great information.  One problem...all the information was about JOBS.  Remember, I'm looking for an internship to fulfill graduation requirements.  Most of the companies do their internships during the summer.  This was a huge disappointment.  I still continued to visit tables though to find out about requirements for positions after graduation.  I was happy to see that Blue Cross Blue Shield and Computer Science Corporation both have entry level training programs for recent grads.  I guess that's something.  At least I got something out of the visit.

Well, that's about all that I can say about this years S.E.T. Fair.  Still looking for an internship, but I'm not too worried about that.

Learning about Moodle

Recently we had a speaker visit my Training Systems course.  Her name was Felicia Collins and she is an Adjunct Virtual Instructor for the SC Department of Education.  She spoke to us about teaching with Moodle, which is an Open Source Learning Management System.

Moodle (Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment) is a software package for producing Internet-based courses and websites.  Ms. Collins' primarily trains teachers on how to implement this software into classroom environments. 

There are numerous learning objects that can be used in Moodle.  Examples of these objects are:  Forums, Assignments, Blogs, Quizzes, Database, Chat, Educational Games, etc.  There are also Add-On Modules that can be used with Moodle.  These include:  Polls, Certificates, Portfolio, Presentation, etc.

The advantages of applying Moodle in the classroom are numerous.  Students have 24/7 access, which basically extends education time.  Numerous activities can be added for the students to practice on their own time.  There are opportunities for collaborative opportunities and also open discussion in Discussion Boards.

There are some limitations when using Moodle.  Some students may not have Internet access.  This will limit their activities outside of the classroom.  Ms. Collins spoke of how she overcame this problem when she taught her 5th grade class.  She would simply allow those students extra time on the workstations in her classroom.  Another limitation is that student artifacts will be locked in the Moodle; therefore, outside users cannot view them. 

Moodle can be used as a virtual classroom, a hybrid, a independent learning environment, and many other ways.  It is used on many educational levels: Elementary, Secondary, University, Business Training, and Personal Sites.

The most important thing you should know about Moodle is that it is FREE!!!

If you would like additional information on Moodle you can visit these sites:

Moodle.org  

Docs.moodle.org

Moodle.tcaps.net

Let Me Introduce Myself...

My name is Kristy and I am a student at the University of South Carolina.  I am currently enrolled in the Integrated Information Technology program.  I am starting this blog to fulfill a requirement for a Training Systems course.  The purpose of this blog is to allow students to connect theory, practice, social media, and e-learning design by reflecting upon course activities, textbook readings, and other readings.  And yes, I borrowed that last sentence from the course syllabus.  It describes the point of this blog better than I ever could.  Anyway, I'm not quite sure of exactly what I will be discussing in these blogs.  But hopefully, the topics will be very interesting (at least they will be interesting to me).  The topics will most likely range from new and exciting technological advances to different professional events that I attend. 

Anyway, that's my introduction and I look forward to discovering and conquering the world of blogging.

Oh yeah...I almost forgot...GO COCKS!!!