Been busy over the weekend and the last few days catching up (still) - think I'm building up a head of steam now so feeling a lot more comfortable about this particular module.
The personal problems, which I may have mentioned before, seem to have resolved itself so that side of life is hunky dory now!
I've been checking out some of my fellow students' blogs and posting the odd comment here and there. If you are one of the lucky few, I'd appreciate a return favour (hint hint)! It's good to finally put pictures and details to names from the USQ discussion forums - you're all real people!! :-)
Anyway, must dash now and do more but before I go, I'll just copy and paste some of what I've posted on the discussion forums...
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Activity 1.5
Make up a URL or web address which tells us a little about you and post it to the discussion board. For example mine might be www.teachtech.edu.au, indicating I teach technology in an educational facility in Australia.
Mine would be www.tefler.edu.hk as I’m a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) teacher in Hong Kong. Simply really!
Make sure that you understand how your computer connects to the Internet. If you arranged your connection yourself, you probably already know but if someone else assisted, you may need to check some details. You should know who is your ISP (USQ or another) and the telephone number you dial for connection. Do you have broadband?
Tell us how you connect to the net and what type of $$ you pay. Let's see who got a bargain :-)
After reading a few of the discussion threads, I’m kinda surprised that people are still using dial-up. The last time I used that was well before 2000 – I guess it depends on where you live. If you mention “dial-up” in HK, I think you’d get a few puzzled stares!
In HK, it’s broadband all the way. When I moved into my own brand new flat in 2004, it was broadband ready as this is included as part of the management fee so basically I get it free! (In HK, you need to pay management fees pretty much anywhere you live and how much you pay depends on the size of your flat.) A lot of new property developments in HK make deals with telecommunications companies so that these new properties can be already installed with the necessary wiring for telephone and internet.
Broadband in my building is provided by Hutchinson and is certainly one of the best broadband providers in HK:
http://www.hgc.com.hk/eng/res_net_bb_hgcbb.html
I’ve been with quite a few ISPs in my time in HK and although they are a bit on the expensive side (if you have to pay for it), it’s one of the best in terms of customer service, bandwidth, etc.
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Activity 1.10
Find the AUP for the staff and students in your educational institution. Check when it was last updated. What implications does this have for your site?
The “User Policies and Regulations” for staff and students at out uni can be found here:
http://www.hkbu.edu.hk/~itsc/ (User Services > User Policies and Regulations)
It was last modified on 12 Jan 2007 so that’s recent!
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Activity 1.11
• Obtain a copy of your institution’s release form and share it’s contents on the discussion board.
• Do you see any long term implications for showing of student work?
I don’t think we have a release form as we’re a university and all our students are over 18 so I don’t think it applies in my case.
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Activity 1.12
What is your institutions policy for teachers and students if they come across inappropriate sites? Send your comments to the discussion board.
Again, I don’t think we really have a problem regarding this issue as we’re dealing with adult learners rather than school children so I couldn’t find any policies for this. What I could find was the following which is taken from the university’s “User Policies and Regulations” for staff and students:
“Computer facilities are allocated to user on the strict understanding that they are to be used solely for the University or for academic purposes.”
If not, the following results:
“In case of serious offense and repeated cases of minor infractions against these regulations, it may be brought to the Senate for appropriate disciplinary action by the University.”
So the onus seems to be on staff and students to be responsible for their own actions. Not sure what they mean by “appropriate disciplinary action” but I’m sure we can hazard a guess!
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Activity 1.13
• It's time to do some research for item 2 assignment 1. What tool will you select: wiki, blog, flickr, podcasting ........
• Remember to share good resources.
At the moment, I’ll select blogs as that’s the one I feel most comfortable using and I could see myself using this in my lessons. Or it could be podcasting as there seems to be a lot of potential there…
Michael
PS. Shameless plug – check out my blog at: http://medtech-ml.blogspot.com/
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Activity 2.1
• Try at least one input device and one output device with which you are not familiar, that is, that you have not used before or do not use frequently.
Before my current Dell notebook, I used to have an IBM Thinkpad and it had one of those distinctive red ‘TrackPoint’ pointing device in the middle of the keyboard. One of my friends jokingly called it a ‘nipple’ and since that day I too have referred to it as that! This pointing stick, trademarked by IBM, has even migrated to my latest notebook as a blue nipple.
At first, I wasn’t sure what it was used for but after playing around with it, I noticed that it was just used for moving the cursor around by applying pressure on it. Maybe there are some other uses but I have no idea what. Apparently, this pointing device was advantageous for touch typists as they didn’t need to take their hands off the keyboard to use a mouse, touchpad, etc. but I wasn’t impressed. When I was typing, I would often hit it by accident and it would cause me to end up typing elsewhere – that was quite irritating. Since then, I’ve become accustomed to avoiding it like the plague!
I recently purchased a HP Photosmart All-in-One product (that’s a printer, scanner and copier) to replace my 10-year old Canon flatbed scanner and what a revelation it is!
http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/hk/en/ho/WF05a/1090037-1090149-7369137-7369137-12430860-12430892.html
Although, I don’t use it as often as I had hoped, it’s still useful to have at home for emergencies and it certainly saves a lot of space to have an all-in-one. If you’ve ever visited or lived in HK, you’ll know flat/apartment space is at a premium…
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Activity 2.2
Try some more checks on your own computer system or the one you use most often.
• What type of floppy disk (physical size, density, storage capacity) does your system use?
I have a desktop computer and a Dell Latitude D620 notebook (used most often) and it didn’t come with a floppy disk drive, although it’s optional. I don’t know of anyone who uses floppy these days, especially considering the size of it and how much you can store on it.
• What size is the hard drive in your system?
• Of the total storage space available on your hard drive, how much is unused?
There’s a 80GB hard drive (HD) and it’s split into 2 drives, C (20 GB) and D (60 GB). Although, it’s 20 and 60 GB respectively, the actual usable space is always a few GB less. The C drive is used for all the system files, etc. and the D drive is for documents, etc. At the moment, I have 11.3 GB left on the C drive and 11.7 GB on the D drive. Not much as a lot of storage space is taken up by photos and music!
• Do you have access to a high capacity removable drive for backup purposes (Zip, CD writer)? What is its storage capacity?
• How many disks or cartridges would be required for a full back up of your hard drive?
There’s a 8X DVD+/-RW8 floppy disk drive and it would take (D drive: 48 / 4.7 = 10.21) just over 10 DVDs to back it up.
• What is your back up plan. Backing up is having another copy of data available in case something happens to the original files. Some people save to floppy disk, CD, memory disk or email it to themselves. If your computer crashes 2 days before your assignment is due how will you ensure you can hand your assignment in on time?
To be honest, I don’t really have a back up plan but I keep meaning to! I guess I haven’t got round to having a back up plan because I think everything is expendable, as life is! On my desktop computer, when my HD gets full, I just get another and now I have a total of 2 HDs, 300 GB and 250GB as well as an external 80 GB one which used to be the original HD on the desktop! You wouldn’t believe how much the last HD cost me in HK. 300 GB only cost me HK$700 (about 516 Australian dollars). That’s the great thing about living in HK – it’s very technologically advanced and relatively cheap, ok dirt cheap in my opinion!
My computer crashes now and then but not to the point where important files and assignments would be irrecoverable. In films (Mission: Impossible III), they seem to be able to recover data from charred computer remains – I wonder if that’s really possible? Anyone?
If I’m currently working on something important, I usually have a copy on my computer and another on my portable memory stick so that I can work on it at work and at home! I have at least 4 memory sticks ranging from 256 MB to 2 GB!
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Activity 2.3
• Make a list of friends or work colleagues who own and/or regularly use handheld computing devices. Next compare that to those who have laptop access. Include a note about what they primarily use this equipment for.
Actually, as far as I know, I only have one colleague who has a handheld computing device (one of those HP Ipaq Pocket PCs) and she only got it for her birthday from her husband. When she first got it, she wasn’t sure how she was going to use it so I told that I have had a Palm for at least 10 years and don’t think I could survive without one! I use it to keep me organized, remember appointments, read offline Web pages, play games, etc. Since then, I haven’t seen her mention her PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) or use it!
Everyone in my (small) department has been given a laptop to use and we have access to a notebook in the office. The individual notebooks are used for general computing purposes, ie. work since it’s a work computer such as emails, projects, etc. and is usually kept at home. The communal notebook is used in the office when we’re away from our desks, when we need to visit corporate clients and need to give presentations, etc.
• How do students currently access ICTs in your environment? Are there any plans to move to portable or wireless computing? Share your answers on the discussion board.
We have a Multimedia Centre (http://www.hkbu.edu.hk/~caep/mmc/main.html) which is used by students to practice their English outside the classroom by using English language software, etc.We certainly don’t have plans to move portable or wireless computing as the Multimedia Centre is underused as it is already!
Michael
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