Adobe Flash Weather Forecast Presentation

It seems like there are an awful lot of different elements included in the flash presentation assignment including moving weather icons and working buttons (a very scary prospect). I am not sure how tidy my timeline will look at the end once I have combined all of these elements of the presentation.

Here is a Flash rain tutorial I found which I think is pretty good but I am not sure if it would be achievable for this assignment. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6A9GIbRicw&feature=player_detailpage

Here is a link to a travel map animation. Although it is not exactly what we are trying to create the steps used might provide some useful information for us when we are creating interactive maps.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DJB8LHjQCg

The final tutorial I want to mention is for creating clouds in Flash. There is music playing in the background instead of an instructional voiceover, but if you pause the video you will be able to see the different steps the animator is carrying out to perform each action. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5VEMqHInI4

On a separate note some of the related links on these YouTube pages are quite interesting too but I didn’t want to overload this page with too many distractions from the actual project.

Captivate Interview Presentation

Once I have my interview report completed I will then begin on my Captivate Presentation. I am doing it in this order because the written report will provide me with a summary of information which is suitable for the Captivate presentation. As a technology Captivate seems more appealing than Adobe Flash for a start. The preset special effects make it a lot more fun to work with. I am going to approach the Captivate presentation as if it is a web design project as I think the principles of web design will apply directly to this online presentation as well.  I still haven’t set down a final interface design. From all the web design projects this semester I should have a pretty good idea of what works and what does not. The Captivate presentation is a great idea as it highlights and subsequently showcases what we have all learned from both our interviews and the preparation process. I think the quality of the presentation’s content is really just as important if not more important than the actual presentation interface design. There are a series of YouTube tutorials on various aspects of Captivate which are available at www.lynda.com and also on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAb1uW5UWvQ. I think I will be making a lot of use of these over the next week or so. It is also interesting to see how these tutorials use screen casting and the format of their instructions. Some food for e-learning thought! 

Interview Report

I started writing my interview report yesterday and of course it is taking much longer than I had anticipated already. That is one thing I have learned in this course; never underestimate an assignment. I have planned the report to follow the question sequence used in my interview, discussing educational background first for example. Mr. Boyce provided me with detailed information on the tools the company uses, how the team collaborates virtually and also on projects the company has worked on over the years. I was surprised to see that the company has worked on a vast amount of projects with the University of Limerick and even the student guide book for the current academic year. The report format seems to be the exact same as the other reports we have completed this year and I am no longer daunted by the thought of dealing with topics such as methodology. This has all come with practise and it is clear to see the value of report writing assignments as they would be quite common in any career related to this course whether that is in e-learning or technical writing.  

TW5212 Interview

I am delighted that we have an interview assignment this semester. It is far removed from most of our assignments where we are stuck facing a computer screen. It has taken me two weeks to finally secure an interviewee. Initially I started emailing different web design companies in the vicinity of Limerick, but I soon gave up on this when I did not receive one single response. Eventually after I started calling all of the companies on my list, Ray Boyce of Alphaset Ltd. Graphic Design in Limerick said that he would be more than happy to be interviewed for the project. I was quite surprised by this as the hour long interview did not seem to phase him. I gave Mr. Boyce a brief overview of my course, the module and what was entailed in the project. Mr. Boyce got back to me later the same day with a convenient time and date for the interview.

 When I was compiling my list of interview questions I realised that this interview would be like my own private careers seminar and I would be able to find out everything I wanted about the industry and the role of a graphic designer in specific. I treated preparing for the interview as if I was preparing for a job interview myself. Preparation really is the key and I realised that I would need to know as much as possible about the company, its projects and the role of each staff member in order to come across in a professional manner.  I think this experience will most certainly benefit me when it comes time for job interviews. 

The interview ran smoothly which I think was partly due to my thorough preparation. This also enabled me to ask questions off the cuff as the opportunity arose and provided a more interesting experience for us both. I found that I preferred when the interview questions became more spontaneous as the interview started to feel more like a normal conversation. Mr. Boyce provided me with lots of detailed, focused answers and I feel I was definitely lucky in this respect. The interview felt quite relaxed and afterwards we continued to chat about the course and what type of job I was hoping to have after the summer. I had read a lot of interview guidelines and tips and watched a few videos on YouTube which also contributed to me being sufficiently prepared for the interview.

Here are links to a couple of YouTube videos that I found particularly useful:

An interview with a technical writer:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbphUOvvIFE

Informational Interview http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EB2sA0vXk7E

Ennis Hub Public Space Interactions

I took part in an Ennis Hub public space interaction on Saturday the 2^nd of April. Taking part in this type of activity and carrying out a survey in a public space required me to make use of the interview skills that I had learned in Majella’s TW5212 module. This experience was also perfectly timed as my interview for Majella’s TW5212 module took place later that same day. This practise had settled me into asking questions and approaching people I did not know and made me feel much more comfortable and relaxed when it came to my interview later that day.  The Ennis Hub Plan will provide me with the opportunity to produce practical, useful and informative projects which will benefit people who live in, work in or use Ennis. The specific projects should hopefully be tied down this week so then we can all start researching and deciding who is doing what projects etc. Looking forward to it!

Ennis Hub World Café

A few people from our class attended an Ennis Hub Plan preparation meeting in UL on the 15^th of March where we were given more information about the background and purpose of the Ennis Hub Plan. We were also introduced to other partners of the project such as the Clare Active Citizenship Network and also Members of Ennis Town Council and other UL students who were interested in the project. In this meeting we were also introduced to the concept of world café sessions which were to be used to engage citizens and residents in the process and give them a voice for the future of Ennis.

After this meeting I contacted Chris McInerney to ask if I could participate in one of the upcoming world café sessions. On Friday the 1^st of April I attended a world café in the Ennis town council buildings. During the world café meeting I was involved in setting up the space and facilitating the world café participants as well as participating in the world café myself. All of the suggestions which had been made were then displayed on the walls afterwards to give people the chance to question or comment on any of the responses.

Apart from the tasks of creating an Ennis Hub Plan website and improving the current Practicum website other possible tasks for our summer projects were also suggested at the session. All of the results of the world café meeting and public space meetings need to be compiled into a report by June at the latest for distribution among partners and world café participants. Chris also suggested the possibility of creating an e-learning course to educate people on the findings from these initial interactions. 

Ennis Hub Website

When our team was starting this section of the project we had another face-to-face group meeting where we outlined the exact pages we would include in our website and the graphics, content and interactive features that we would include. We had to take the needs of the different website users into consideration when we were making these decisions and try to see things from their point of view, rather than from our view as designers. We set provisional deadlines once again as we had done with the proposal and worked away individually.

Susan and I were designated the role of content developers and Shane would then edit and upload this content after the initial write up. Avril was our graphic designer and Michael was once again our technical expert. Michael introduced the team to a web development tool called Joomla which he was familiar with and thought would be much easier to use than Adobe Dreamweaver. I think Michael’s previous experience with Joomla was partly the reason that he found it so easy to use. Even by the end of the project I was still learning about new features whenever I logged on to the site. Of course this was all part of the learning experience and you never know when these tools could come in useful. Even though each team member had specific roles to fulfil we all seemed to overlap into each others’ sections of the project and learned from one another’s expertise in different areas. For example Shane, Susan and I went to Ennis to take photographs which Avril then edited and manipulated for use in the website. After Susan and I had written our content we went through it with Shane and edited it. Michael also drew up Joomla tutorials for us, which meant that we were also able to upload some content and get used to editing the site and using the back end of Joomla.  I think without Michael’s knowledge of Joomla the project would have taken up way more of our time and would not have been nearly as successful.

Careers Seminars

SAP, SAP, SAP. Well I have to admit that meeting two staff members from SAP at the UL careers fair last year was one of the main reasons which led me to apply for this course. I met a German translator and a content developer from SAP and also spoke to Majella regarding this course on the same day. One of the SAP staff members had studied technical communication as part of her undergraduate degree here in UL and highly recommended this masters programme. There was also an SAP in class presentation in 4th year. I found the most recent interview skills presentation from SAP extremely beneficial. Even seeing a sample CV and tips on how to approach and prepare for an interview with SAP was very informative.  These presentations give us all an insight into the job market and what skills will be needed to fulfil different roles.  I think the MATCEL Linkedin group will also be of major benefit to us all. To be honest I still have not went near my profile as I don’t think a half hearted effort would look great for any potential employers. I think this will be a job for May once I have some sort of a portfolio to include. I think the fact that our assignments are practical examples of real world tasks will work very well with our Linkedin profiles.

EL6052 Essay 2

Well I lost the race for books in the library. L Not even two days after the essay was issued and all books except for those in short loans are gone…. I am sure once I search through the library catalogue I will find a few gems as usual. ;) Time is the only issue. To be honest I think I will have to focus on the Flash assignment before I go near the essay as I am bound to run into plenty of technical problems. I think this essay topic is quite approachable though. Last semester in our research methodologies module Fiona Farr introduced the concept of free writing to the class. This became an absolute godsend for me. Since we tried this out in class that day I have begun to use it for every single assignment I have to complete, whether that is an essay or a simple brainstorming essay. I think I definitely get too caught up with essay structure or question sometimes which prevents me from writing at all.  

Interactive Courseware Labs

The labs this semester have been very useful but yet difficult at times. Its not so much the lab content that worries me but rather how to combine all of the information in the Dreamweaver lab sheets for example to create a fully functioning website. I think it was great that we will have at least a basic knowledge of tools such as Audacity and Adobe Fireworks too. Captivate seems like it will be a very useful tool for different projects, however I cannot say that I am as enthusiastic about Flash. I have found the Flash lab sheets quite complicated and rarely completed everything correctly during the lab times. To be honest I would say I am dreading completing a Flash assignment this semester. I know this will definitely take at least two weeks. Action Script will probably be my biggest issue but I think the lab we had on HTML hopefully help with this.

 There are lots of useful tutorials on the Adobe website and also on YouTube. Here are links to a few online tutorials I found very helpful, tutvid seems to provide the most comprehensive tutorials:

 ·         Flash CS4 Motion Tween Tutorial

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUgNhESiPRM

•       Action Script 3.0 Linking and Using Buttons: Flash Tutorial

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUJkqzCM3L4

·         Build Simple Sound Player: Flash Tutorial AS 3.0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6N8EpNYU5o

During the interactive courseware labs we were also introduced to the animation websites Animoto.com and Xtranormal.com.I had no idea that these tools were free to use. I am sure there are many more, possibly even better free tools out there. Here is my video that I made in Animoto using a compilation of photographs <object width="400" height="222" ><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="movie" value="http://www.facebook.com/v/1969895766473" /><embed src="http://www.facebook.com/v/1969895766473" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="400" height="222"></embed></object>

Dreamweaver Website

 I thought it was great that we had such a wide range of topics to choose from for this assignment. If you are interested in something it always makes it that bit easier. I chose to cover online privacy and security and used Facebook as a case study because my own Facebook security had been breached earlier this semester. For the website’s interface design I chose to use a colour scheme similar to that of Facebook and used the Tahoma font which is used on Facebook. I wrote all of the content except for one quote myself. I thought that this would be more beneficial than just regurgitating text from another website or book. I used a Spry menu for navigation purposes as I thought this would lead to the most intuitive navigation. I managed to embed a few YouTube videos with tips and warnings for Facebook users as I thought this would be more interactive and engaging than having plain text on every page.

Some of the major issues I had were getting the web pages to fit screens on different monitors and to eliminate all scrolling. My Spry Menu also crashed on the day the website was due which was a big setback. However I managed to go through the code and different menu options and eventually sorted these problems out in the nick of time. I think our introduction to HTML at the beginning of the semester was very helpful as I was no longer afraid to have a look at code and actually alter or delete items. I think I was much more aware of the fact that I needed to keep the look and feel of the site consistent from page to page and this in turn made it more visually attractive and professional looking than I thought possible with Dreamweaver. 

Podcast Assignment

The podcast assignment is definitely my favourite so far and has already been very useful to my younger sister surprisingly, but more about that later. From the assignment brief I chose to cover a topic that interests me; German. It was only after I had helped my sister to prepare for her Leaving Certificate German Oral exam that I decided to do my podcast on German for the Leaving Certificate oral examination. I laid out the structure of my podcast in accordance with the structure I had used when studying for my own Leaving Certificate as I thought this would be most useful for a student listening to the podcast. Typing up my script took much longer than I had expected as I tried to incorporate interesting vocabulary and topics which would hopefully gain students more marks. I timed myself before I recorded the podcast and it was a tad long so more editing was needed before the final recording. I decided to record the test podcast on my laptop as I don’t own my own audio recorder. 

I also found a few different free downloadable audio editing programmes which were interesting to play around. It’s becoming easier to recognise user friendly software without having to use the programmes much. Unfortunately my favourite audio editing programme that I found was only a 14day trial. Sound Pad Recorder and Wave Pad Sound editor are available at:

http://www.nch.com.au/recordpad/index.html For some reason I thought Audacity would be difficult to use but when it came around to actually recording my final podcast there was no major hiccoughs with Audacity. 

TW5212 Tutorial Online Discussions

I think these online discussions were very slow to take off in comparison with the discussions covered in Darina’s modules. These discussions were more about giving one another advice and sharing resources rather than having a deep discussion about a particular topic which I thought made a nice change. I was definitely more comfortable posting in these discussions because I felt that nobody would be judging or arguing with my opinions.  The TW5212 discussions proved to be a very useful resource when it came to things like referencing graphics and preparing interview questions. Users seemed to welcome the idea of pooling resources and I think everyone gained from this.

Practicum or E-Learning Project?

Now that the Practicum initiative has been introduced to the class we now have the difficult choice of deciding to stick with our original summer project proposals or delving into the unknown Practicum. I think I would like to find out a little more about the practicum and what exactly is involved in the project before I commit myself to throwing my original proposal right out the window. I suppose it would be a very practical project which would benefit the local community rather than just our own personal grades.  Any website that we could develop would also make great portfolio material.  I guess I will make my final decision after the Practicum meeting on the 15^th. 

Group Ennis Hub Proposal

For the group Ennis Hub proposal I was in a group with Michael McGovern, Susan Rice, Avril Seery and Shane O’Donnell. After we had formed our group we met and decided to first outline the tasks which needed to be completed and analysed the strengths each team member was going to bring to the project. We made a list of elements which we all wanted to include in the website and each went on from there.  I think we had all learned a lot from our experiences with the virtual team collaboration project and new where we were going from the start. This meant that we were able to get the ball rolling at a much quicker pace. We all knew the value of clearly defining tasks and team member roles.

 As Avril had come from a design background we decided it would be best if she was in charge of graphic design for the proposal. Even though Avril was sick this did not stop her meeting deadlines and submitting quality work which greatly improved trust and confidence between all team members. We set provisional deadlines for ourselves so as to leave enough time should there be any unexpected delays. I chose to cover the interface design section of the proposal so most of my content was written after Avril had completed her mock up using Adobe Photoshop. Shane covered the proposed writing style for the project and Susan discussed the interactive features which the team wanted to include in the website. Susan worked closely in conjunction with Michael who had taken on the role of the team’s technical expert. Michael also set up a Dropbox account for the team where we could upload files and have discussions and so on, yet the team still used Gmail as our main means of communication and file sharing. Gmail chat was also instrumental in assisting quick communication and decision making. As this section of the project came to a conclusion the team met again face-to-face and outlined each team members’ role for the website development stage of the project. 

"Lurking"

As I am reading more and more blogs I am beginning to feel a little like a lurker (mentioned in one of our lectures). I find I am spending a ridiculous amount of time reading other peoples blogs rather than concentrating on my own reflective learning. However, I don’t think of this as a negative. It has made me question topics that I hadn’t considered before and has also been instrumental in learning about new collaboration tools that other students find useful. I suppose this is similar to the way I use Facebook in some ways. I usually check Facebook everyday and have a read of other people’s posts and status updates, but I rarely update my own status... I suppose I am the sort of person who likes to quietly observe and then speak up only when I have an opinion that I feel is necessary to voice. I find discussion forums are a little more approachable as they are in the form of a developing conversation where you can interact with other participants. But I suppose we do also have the option to comment on each others blogs too. In which case, it is time to get vocal.  In another blog I read (http://www.kelandpartners.com/kelkellyblog/2008/04/06/blog-lurking/) from a public relations and social media marketing agency Kel and Partners Kel asks “Did you ever notice how few people comment on blogs? It is estimated that 90%+/- of users are considered “lurkers” and don’t participate in the conversation and only a mere 1% are considered “active participants.” Even some of the most well-read blogs receive a relatively small % of comments.”So I guess I am not the only one...

I do think it would be better if we all used the same website such as Blogspot for example to create our blogs as all of them seem to be very different which is also slowing me down. 

Individual Practicum Proposal

For this assignment we had to make a proposal for the redesign of the University of Limerick Practicum website. We had to evaluate the existing website’s writing style, interface design and interactive features and then suggest improvements for each category. For this assignment I was able to draw frequently on notes from last semester. It was a perfect example of being able to tie different modules and topics together and I was able to see how much I had learned about web design and writing since the start of the course. I can’t wait to see if they implement many of the classes’ suggestions on the actual website. When I was looking at the site’s accessibility issues I came across a podcast by webaxe.com which is also transcribed and provides a quick website accessibility checklist along with twenty five ways to make your website accessible. The following link to the website will give you the option to listen to the podcast or to read the transcription.

Podcast and blog on practical web design accessibility tips.

http://webaxe.blogspot.com/2011/01/podcast-88-quick-start-to-2011.html

From reading checklists such as this accessibility checklist I decided it might be a good idea to start my own comprehensive web design checklist. I have chosen to do this in Microsoft Word for the moment but I doubt it will be too long before I need to break the different topics up into different files.

EL6052 Essay 1

So it is essay time yet again, however I do feel a little more confident in my essay writing skills this semester. I think the initial tutorial with Darina where she pointed out where we were still making mistakes was very helpful. It was great that we had this at the start of the semester. I feel I made a more conscious effort to improve on my referencing etc. because we were reminded of this before we started our essays. I managed to find a few very useful books for this essay in the library. The most interesting books were:

·         Alessi, S. M., Trollip, S. R. (1991), Computer-Based Instruction, Methods and Development, Prentice-Hall: New Jersey. 

·         Brooks, D. W. (1997), Web-Teaching, A Guide to Designing Interactive teaching for the World Wide Web, Plenum Press: New York.

• Lau, L. (2000), Distance Learning Technologies: Issues, Trends and Opportunities, Hershey, PA: Idea Publishing Group.

I also found a very good podcast on essay writing on the University of Leeds website which might be of use to some people:

http://skills.library.leeds.ac.uk/podcasts/podcast3_essay_writing.mp3

Virtual Collaboration Project

Now that we have our teams for the group collaboration project it is time to get cracking. Our group held our first meeting through the Sakai discussion forum facility and we decided to create a thread for this week’s first meeting in order to store the information which we had discussed in an organised manner. We designated the different tools that we each decided to examine and I chose Skype VoIP(video conferencing). Skype video conferencing immediately had one major advantage over discussion forums as it is a synchronous tool. I also found that the group came to a united decision much faster when using Skype rather than in the discussion forum where they had to wait for a reply. Since starting this project I have even begun to use Skype much more on a personal basis. I think this module is definitely very helpful in enabling us to learn how to adapt collaboration tools to many different situations.

Some Reflections on Teamwork.

This is a short video about successful Teams: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnQ1twXHPLc&feature=related

An almost perfect example of teamwork is shown by the USNavy Blue Angels in an interesting video which they produced called The Power of Teamwork. This video provides the Blue Angel’s secrets to successful teamwork and I think it also applies to any sort of team, be it virtual or otherwise. Follow the link here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mR0_SK1K8xY&feature=related

Here are some of the videos guidelines along with some of my own that I learned whilst completing this project:

·         Teams should share the same values and goals to ensure optimum team performance.

·         Team members should sacrifice individual gain for the greater good of the team.

·         Effective leaders lead by a positive example and tap into the strengths and talents of each team member.

·         Teams need to communicate openly, honestly and regularly. The video also emphasises the need for trust amongst team members which I think can sometimes be quite difficult in a virtual team where there is little face-to-face interaction.

·         Each team member should be valued and their efforts should be praised with positive feedback.

·         Team member’s roles and tasks should be clearly defined so as to avoid conflict.

·         Each team member should accept responsibility for their role’s and tasks.

Finally, here is light hearted yet insightful look at teamwork inspiration. It might even give some of you a laugh after finishing the project. Some very valid points made too. I will leave it at that for today, enjoy! ;) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SII1EU3huuE&feature=related

Three Online Discussion Topics

So we had to choose three out of seven online discussion topics. Initially I found it difficult to choose a thread to reply to as we were presented with so many. I did like the way I was able to relate the topics to my own personal experiences. I think the only major drawback with this type of discussion was the fact that most people chose to reply to the same threads and with so many people partaking it became difficult to keep up with the conversation. It would be great if Sakai’s discussion forum had a tagging feature so you could tag the name of the person whose post you are replying to. I did find the topics and peoples comments quite fascinating. I was also curious as to why a couple of topics were left completely untouched… Was this because people felt that these subjects were too controversial or were they fearful that there would be a strong conflict of opinions? 

Discussion Forum and Collaboration Mayhem.

So I have begun to notice that I spend nearly an hour reviewing the various class discussion forums for new posts every day. Blogs do feel like a more relaxed setting than discussion forums for me for some reason. I suppose you are not really worrying about what other people are saying unless you are following their blog or they are commenting on your posts. Even though my blog is public it does feel more private than posting on a discussion forum.

Our virtual team have finished testing our various collaboration tools and it seems like Skype was the big looser. We had originally tried to test video conferencing but we ended up having a conference call, which was quite disappointing as we had hoped to be able to see one another face to face. Our main issues were the internet speed and software problems. We really didn't expect this as we had already completed a test call two days before the scheduled meeting and one on the day of the meeting. We still managed to discuss everything on our agenda but I really thought myself and Shane seemed to dominate the call. I figured that it was my duty to initiate topics of conversation since I was the person who had called the team but I will make a conscious effort let everyone speak during our next call.

First ever blog...

So this is my first ever blog.
Once again I am being introduced to a new technology. I am not really sure what I think of blogs yet or exactly how they might be a useful learning tool. I suppose this blog will make me question my own learning and hopefully make me more aware of what I know, don't know and what areas of technical communication and e-learning interest me the most.

At the moment I am in the middle of a project which examines online collaboration tools. I think my favorite tool so far is definitely instant messaging. The only downside of it seems to be when you are searching for an old message and you have to go trawling through lots of different posts. This is where discussion forums seem to have the advantage, as each new topic can be put into a new thread. With Sulis however there is a bit of a delay before discussion forum posts actually appear. I suppose I just need to try explore both of these tools a bit more over the next few days.