KISS – Response paper 7

Usability is bridging the gap between people and machines. All websites should have core constructs, like a shopping cart, site map, search box and easy to use buttons and links. They can look and operate very differently from each other. Audiences don’t want to think about what, where, and how, people want information fast. Simple things can be very creative; a simple site doesn’t have to be bland in look and feel. Simple means easy to operate, get things done painlessly. Design for the lowest common denominator without sacrificing artistry and creativity. Throughout the design process the user should not need to expend any mental energy on trying to figure out the site, so create a friendly and successful design.

While designing a site the following factors need to be addressed: a clear visual hierarchy, the color schemes for the website, message that a page needs to communicate, target audience for the website and every page. A focal point followed by areas of subsequent importance on a page will break up the information into logical parts also called “chunking”. Capture images that convey the visual essence the site is intended for. Incorporating multi media elements where viewers can sample pieces from past or upcoming events/concerts, in addition to consistency in design layout and content structure provide web users a functional sequence of interactions. Web standards create an efficient environment, takes less time to accomplish a particular task, is easier to learn and more satisfying to use leading to ‘naturalistic decision making’, (Gary Klien). This ensures that the customer will return, resulting in profits. The presence of a search box will give the site more functionality, and a trail of breadcrumbs will help the user navigate without getting lost in virtual space. In many cases, users want to avoid wasting time looking at home pages or ‘Flash’ enhanced splash pages. The viewer needs to get to the desired information as quickly as possible.

To hold viewer interest, provide a lot of feedback in the form of interactivity, and avoid embedding precious information many layers deep in the site map. According to Nielsen, websites need to be human centered, studying the user and figuring out how they do things differently. ‘Deep – linking to the correct product page enhances usability’ (Nielsen’s). Throughout the site, every element that is on a page needs to have a purpose, a function. A great example is the Google search engine, and Amazon, where there is beauty in simplicity and form follows function. A good presentation should have information, be easy to use, and have artistic integrity at the same time. Many sites will communicate to the user that he/she is leaving the site. This of course is one way of handling site departure issue. Another way is to make sure that the site maintains one consistent look and feel throughout all pages. This can be done with the help of server-side “includes” that forces all pages to be created in one unified shell. This way, when the user does depart the site and is presented with a different look and feel, they will automatically know they have left the site.

Overall, the site’s coding can be streamlined with CSS presentation. This would also help in future redesigns or updates as only a handful of attributes need to be altered to change the look of the entire site. Going with a pure CSS layout would reduce the amount of code on each page to promote faster download times. In this rapidly evolving digital age of wireless phones, tablets and other communication devices; presentation of content will need to be fine tuned. We will need to think ahead of not only presenting a web document, but also how it will interact with and optimize it to other mobile media. “Sites need to be able to interact in one single, universal space” (Tim Berners-Lee). The successfully designed website would effectively communicate the company’s message, mission and goals. The structure, navigation and new technology incorporated in the site should be aimed at improving functionality and appeal to users by making it such that users do not need to think.

References:

Krug, Steve, Don’t Make Me Think (2006)

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20020303.html

http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/goal-oriented-design.cfm\

http://www.digital-web.com/articles/building_the_business_game_plan/

http://www.vordweb.co.uk/specification.htm

www.alistapart.com

iPod goes trick_treating

Go out in Halloween style with your iPod

metrics

Oh the web we weave, now it is my task to learn the CTR, the CPM, keyword analysis, content drill down, CPC analysis and so on. Charts, graphs, campaign ROI.

Can any one explain to me how to master this!

Will MaxiWaxi live on forever by the fountain?

As I read the enthralling Snow Crash, it came to me that my two avataars in the SL cannot ever be erased or killed in a fight. The Lindens have better algorithm than the metaverse where you could be shredded in a sword fight. “The Nipponese businessman lies on The Black Sun’s floor. Surprisingly (he looks so real when he’s in one peice), no flesh, no blood, or organs are visible throughthe new crossections that Hiro’s sword made through his body.”

Is there a way to not exist in the second life? MaxiWaxi is sitting by the  fountain in Rome in a meditative pose for the past  month contemplating her existence in both worlds.

wikipedia correction deleted!!!

Yesterday I created accounts in Wikipedia, Flickr and Del.ici.o.us.It was the highlight of my evening to correct the renaming of Bombay, something that has been annoying Bombayites for the past few years.

Today it is gone.

Online Pedagogy – Reponse Paper 6

Student-centered pedagogy using digital technologies is where the future of education lies. Collaborative online learning and asynchronous learning networks are a great social equalizer; there is no gender or class to be concerned about when you participate in an online environment. According to Hiltz & Turoff online learning will produce learning systems of a blended nature that are far better than the prior “gold standard” of the face-to-face class. For the internet generation it will be a natural medium for instruction. They do not have to make any effort to change or to adapt to technology like the previous Gen Y and others have to. Truly the future of education will be online not just in colleges but in schools too. Warren Arbogast, a tech consultant for colleges says “It’s going to get bigger and bigger, and I see a proliferating arms race” (Davidson).

The always connected society of today, has been shaping how we work, make new friends and find suitable matches. Students are connected with other students, their teachers, their families and friends in a multitude of ways. USA Today reports that “the American college campus, long an oasis of scholarship and coming-of-age, is now being transformed by a more palpable force: an armada of laptops, cell phones and perpetual connectivity” (MacMillan ). How are we equipping society to deal with this influx of technology? In this ‘information age, we need to understand how ethical issues are impacted by technology. It is taught at every grade level to cite your reference sources. As an educational technologist it is vital to understand and implement the correct use of electronic media with current knowledge of copyright issues. Tiene and Ingram discuss the possibility of instructors putting course material on the web and the potential copyright difficulty it might pose for people who were not members of the class to access such material. They state that “one solution is to password protect the materials to restrict level of use, but not many college instructors have the Web sophistication to establish such protection.” Almost all colleges and universities have made available course management systems. Online courses are either downloadable self-paced courses to real-time, instructor-led courses.

The New Copyright Law for Distance Education provides details about the role, requirements and duties of instructors and institutional policy makers. The community colleges have WebCT-Vista which provides a platform for teachers to put up lessons and assignments. It has the facility of online testing and a box for submitting grades with comments. Blackboard which most colleges follow has now taken over Web CT Vista. All of these online learning tools come under instructional technology department. These techniques are referred to as mentored- learning because there is periodic digital contact with the professor through emails and with the other students on the discussion boards. Students get timely feedback on their assignments electronically. The internet is changing lives by increasing the ability to connect with others any time any place. It is rightly stated by Hiltz & Turoff that the researchers in online learning have an ethical obligation to help consumers and the public understand the effectiveness of the alternatives that will be available. On the other hand some professors worry, too, that in the rush to expand connectivity, something intangible is being lost. “Once you post lectures to the Web, it implies the face-to-face encounter of a classroom doesn’t matter,” says Duke history professor Elizabeth Fenn. (MacMillan ).

According to a survey conducted by The Princeton Review, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute comes in at No. 1, as the most wired campus. The top 10 include Temple, Cornell and the University of Pennsylvania. In every college campus you come across students hooked to laptops, cel phones, iPod’s and constant texting or instant messaging their buddies. Connectivity and online learning comes at a cost. Typical costs of educational technology would be the materials needed like disks, video tapes, cables, and the varied software and hardware components. In addition there will be the expense of training personnel to run the systems and facilitate optimum use on campuses, not to mention the maintenance and utility bills. Not every state or university has the funding in their budgets to support new technology which has no measure as yet of its effectiveness. This hike will of course be borne by the student body. So will it be worth it to install online learning systems?

For the schools of the future what might be the impact of technology on them? Artificial Intelligence may be used to deliver units of instruction. Expert systems with a supporting database and a profile of every student could custom tailor the curricula to each and every individual. Every one learns at a different pace, and come with various levels of preparedness. These intelligent systems would adjust according to the requirements and provide a multi media based instruction best suited to the individual. Immersive and holographic environments maybe incorporated to visit the past ages to study and experience the Hellenic culture, or the Stone Age. First hand experience is a great learning method.

We are in a transitory phase today, we have the hybrid online models as well as the fully online models. Lately universities like Harvard and Quinnipiac have utilized exciting online technologies to conduct classes in an online 3 D world. A virtual reality world helps students better visualize and appreciate the context or scenario being studied. The role of teachers would be more as a guide and a moderator then, rather than the standup face to face lectures. ‘Some experts suggest that the anywhere-anytime access yields tangible benefits’ (Davidson ). The classroom will not be in a physical structure where students and teachers congregate, learning will take place wherever there is a connection to a modem. New skills will be needed by teachers and the student of the future in using technology extensively. This can be best summed up by the following words of Tiene and Ingram, ‘Technology in teaching will really revolutionize learning only if teachers learn new ways to teach that take advantage of what the various technologies do best’ (257).

References:

MacMillan, Robert. “Generation Z, Meet Generation A.” Random Access 03/30/2005 <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12363-2005Mar30.html>.

Davidson, Paul. “Gadgets rule on college campuses.” USA Today – Tech 03 /29/2005 <http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2005-03-28-college-tech-usat_x.htm>.

Hiltz, S.R. & Turoff, M. (2005). Education goes digital: the evolution of online learning and the revolution in higher education. Communications of the ACM, 48(10), 59-64.

Tiene, Drew, and Albert Ingram. Exploring Current Issues in Educational Technology. 1st. ed.. NY: McGraw-Hill, 2001.

http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=distanceed&Template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=25939#newc

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2005-03-29-wired.htm

 

2nd graders

This is my first rant! You don’t HAVE to read it.
So today I was teaching a second grade class, most of them were wonderful, but a few were pests. A girl brought in a laptop for show and tell, a barbie laptop. I lost my voice talking all day, repeating instructions. They whine, complain or simply don’t want to complete the tasks. They wanted to talk only about a fox that had chased the third graders yesterday. Then there was a lock down. They fought over who hides where and created a racket. They are needy. Now remember I am not complaining about the entire class just the handful who were too hyper, or disconnected to focus. At the end of the day they asked me whether I would come again soon,  said they loved me. I am never going back to elementary school, it is not my cup of tea, I like the high school kids.  Wonder how the elementary regular teachers cope day in and day out, what a huge pain it is , kudos to these brave teachers.

Maybe the blogs will unite the world- Response Paper 5

Blogs

The fastest means of acquiring news today is through citizen blogs. During the tsunami that hit SE Asia, news poured out of that region through blogs. Coordination of resources, aid, donations and volunteer agencies was set up and maintained successfully via blogs. Ground zero information in the form of photos and videos were broadcast throughout the world. Blogs became the seek and share information hub.

Blogs are powerful because they are unedited copy, photos and videos of the public. You can blog from your office, living room, dorm room. It is free, and you can connect with anyone, anywhere on the planet. It is freedom of expression, anybody can comment, bloggers are basically citizen journalists. How do you leverage concepts of blogging and pod casting on websites. According to Shwartz from Sun Microsystems, blogging is part of a new “Participation age. He has inspired a thousand employees to blog, and this in turn helped the company “experience a strong turnaround in developer relations”(Scoble). For expanding a business blogs are useful. A direct link is established with the customers and according to Scoble “you will save a ton of money by dumping expensive marketing tactics, that not only don’t work but annoy the people they target.” Managers and executives thought that blogging was a passing fad, and not much attention was paid to it. Blogs have proven to be powerful in swaying public opinion, in resurrecting old companies like Sun Microsystems. Honest human feedback from within Microsoft has given the evil borg corporation a positive appeal.

The world’s top corporate, entrepreneurial, small business, and marketing-oriented firms are stepping into the world of blogs. Advertising agencies rely on instant messaging to communicate, specifically Trillian which aggregates all IM windows in to one message window. In a business to business setting the inexpensive technology of blogs provides an easy-to-edit, network spot to archive needs-requirements documents, tech specs and other details to ensure that a project stays on track. Blogs could play a part in an enterprise’s project management toolbox. Collaboration between members of a team in remote areas is facilitated through blogs where everyone can see and contribute in one meeting place. This helps in cutting down on numerous looped emails and project managers can track progress easily.

There are no limits to blogging. Enter one blog and you will get caught up in a huge web, the blogs link out to many others on every topic imaginable. According to John Hiler the Blogosphere is a biosphere of its own, a Media Ecosystem that lives and breathes just like any other biological system. The most popular is Boing Boing, has a tremendous readership. If you have something to say, blogging is the way to go. A new medium of conveying our voices. To increase traffic one has to write something meaningful regularly, have readable content, be interesting, network and link extensively with other bloggers. “If you’re worth it, you’ll get readership. If you’re not, you won’t. And artificial attempts to inflate hits and bandwidth don’t really matter, in the end” (Posted by Boyd on May 05, 2004 at 2:26 PM).

The Blog Business Summit conference in Seattle on October 25 promises to take the techniques blogging, videoblogging, and podcasting to the next level. According to Melanie McBride on the future of weblogs, “whether blogging is really that wild frontier of digital democracy they had imagined or if it is merely an echo chamber of privileged and increasingly commercial interests.” Blogs are all about capturing and preserving information about our lives. They are a record of events, thoughts, commentaries, stories and discussions. Efforts will be made for more select and filtered readership. In additon how to allow people to read certain posts and create blogs that aren’t cluttered or confusing. Increased use of tags and ‘tagging applications, wiki-style pages, RSS feeds’. Complement traditional media better. Installation of translators so that there are no barriers. Possibly the blogs will bring together ideas in a common melting pot. Maybe the entire world will be connected through a network of blogs.

References:

Hiler, John. “MicroContent News.” Blogosphere: the emerging Media Ecosystem. 05/28/02. a Corante microblog. 10 Oct 2006 http://www.microcontentnews.com/articles/blogosphere.htm

Scoble, R. & Israel, S. (2006) Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, pp. 1-62.

http://www.mindjack.com/feature/linkedout.html

http://weblogs.asp.net/fmarguerie/archive/2004/02/26/80366.aspx

http://www.smartmobs.com/archive/2005/10/20/what_is_the_fut.html

Dustpodcasts

Dustpodcasts   …. Give it a listen.

is it a reality…

Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts.
William Gibson