Final Blog Post and Podcast

I chose to use the program audacity for this recording.  I used audacity to record my podcast and to add to my voice recording some music in the background.  I really enjoyed this software and it was rather simple to download and start using. 

The biggest obstacle that I encountered with this program was that I downloaded the most recent version of this program and the tutorials were actually an earlier version.  I was able to figure out all of the settings with just a little clicking/searching, so luckily this was not a big obstacle.  The reading and tutorials took longer than the recording.  I enjoyed the ability to edit this as well.  I really had no idea how many times I take a breath and how loudly I do it.  Very interesting to me.    I also do not really like the sound of my own voice, learned that as well.  I sound very silly. 

I do think that I will use this software in the future especially if I am to teach online courses which is the future of nursing education.    So i would love to know if there is software like this to edit videos?????  Wow, the things that I could do with my homevideos....  Sounds like fun.

Overall, I learned a lot in this course.  I know have some basics to build on and I am thankful that I took on this challenge.  Thanks for all that I have been taught!!

Instructional Website

My area of expertise is nursing.  Within the very broad field of nursing, my expertise is management in nursing and nursing care of the elderly.  In reading the guidelines for this project it said informational or tutorial website.  I obviously made a mistake in the choice of topics for this assignment (as evidenced by my grade).  I chose to write about quality in nursing and risk management since this is something that I do regularly  on my job.  I used a text book used at the UofA nursing school for my main resource and added links for more information on each topic (just didn't do it right).   

This is a screen capture for the opening page of my website for Nursing Management and Quality Improvement.

I did encounter some obstacles.  My first obstacle is personal, but yet the biggest problem that I had.  That would be the time involved in trying to learn all of this material well enough to be able to apply it.  I feel like I spend more time going back and trying to revisit areas that I need to know and was unable to retain by using the tutorials OR the tutorial seems so simple but yet when I try it, it does not work.  I also had problems with the fact that some of the information we were given was in a different version of the software which makes it hard as well because the steps to take are not the same in every version.  Another obstacle would be that the real quality time that I have to work on these projects is the weekend and by then it is too late to try to contact anyone for help  and I am on my own.  The last obstacle was in actually publishing it to the Internet.  I watched the tutorials but it never seemed to give all of the steps and I just had to fumble through it until I figured it out and I'm not sure that I could do it again.  The program that seemed easy and fun to start with is now something that I am not sure that I ever want to use again being that it is the reason I will no longer have a 4.0 in graduate school.  I am devastated and have no one to blame but myself, however I now am finding myself not wanting to ever have anything to do with website development. 

What I have learned is that I will need a face-to-face course on anything like this in the future, that this Internet, learn on your own, type of learning is not for me with subject matter like this.  Maybe it could be if the information that we need was all in one place instead of what felt like a hundred.  Even with the mistakes that I made I do feel like I at least know the basics and could still make a website with a little help in the future. 

I know there must be at least a thousand features that I still know nothing about.  As said before above, I am having a hard time ever wanting to learn them.  It is probably still too early to ask that question while I am still grieving over my performance on the project destroying my perfect grade point average.  So at this time there is nothing that I am wanting to learn about it that I don't know.   

Fun with Dreamweaver

Dreamweaver is an amazing program that helps you to develop websites and pages.  This program is just that, amazing.  I had no idea how sites were made prior to this course and now I am just so impressed with all that goes into it and how easy it can be.  Now I say easy very loosely.  I have now used dreamweaver twice.  The first time I was writing the code myself and not paying attention to the prompts or any of the pop up boxes.  This time, knowing more, I was able to use the help that the program provides and it wrote most of it for me.  It was too cool.  I was able to make two pages and add links to other sites, to my other site, and to my email.  It really can be fun.  I would say that my only obstacle was that this assignment was not right after learning html, and css.  I had to spend some time refreshing and could not believe how much it seemed like I forgot in that short time.  Thankfully the tutorials are broken up like they are so that I could go straight to what I needed for refreshment. 

I have really learned a lot and now just want to keep going.  I am so impressed with how much this program does for you, its so smart.  I enjoy being able to build the site as the code is written for me while at the same time now being able to write most of the code myself with the knowledge that I have obtained.  Its funny, I keep thinking of watching the facebook movie and having no idea what they meant when they were talking about when they said, "coding".  I may have to watch it again.  ;-)

Being that I want to teach online in the future, i know that this program may be a huge asset for me and if I could get proficient enough at it, it would also be an amazing addition to my resume.  I feel like online learning is the future and am so excited to be able to jump right in and get started.

Week Nine - Photoshop Fun!!

And when I say "fun", I mean that in the future sense.  I have yet to see the fun in this.  I use a version of adobe on my old PC in my office at home for my pictures.  It is much more user friendly and easy to understand.  I have certainly come to realize that photo shop is hard.  I think that it will in the end be fun and I know that with three kids and an enormous amount of digital pictures, I can and will learn and use it.  For this assignment, once realizing my photo shop inadequacy, I stuck with some of the more remedial items for editing my picture.  As you can probably see right away I cropped it to a more close up version of the kids.  The next thing that I did was try to put a border around it, and as you can see, did not figure it out.  So instead I played around with the colors.  I changed the shadows, mid tone, and the highlights.  I really enjoyed playing with these different tones and I cant wait to have free time to do this with some of my other pictures that are great but just not right with the lighting or shadowing. 

I would have to say that my biggest obstacle is that I have not been paying enough attention to the tutorials.  Since using an adobe program previously I am afraid to say that I thought it would be more self explanatory than it is and now I know that I need to do a google search for  "photo shop for dummies".  I need to redo some of them and add some that I thought that I might not need.  Time is a factor in my life right now and hours of tutorials are hard to fit in without getting really sleepy in the late night hours that I find to fit them in.  It might be easier for me to read something instead. 

The biggest thing I learned was my inadequacy of this program, but I did get my feet wet and that is important.  I am willing to work on this and do better in the future. 

The future for me and photo shop is unlimited!  Like I said before I have an enormous library of digital photos and with three kids there are plenty that have one or maybe two kids looking great and the third with a monkey face.  So I cant wait to learn this program and really get to work with it for my future photo albums. 

I am sure that there are possibilities for use in the education arena as well for my future teaching career as well.

Getting in Deep!

HTML and CSS, I have to say are very interesting to me.  I had NO idea how websites were made and i really thought that it was like rocket science.  Well, now that I am getting my feet wet in this arena, I am not sure it is rocket science but maybe more like a new language that I am learning and I am stuck on how to say, "hello".  I have now made a super basic web page with the html assignment, which I did have a little trouble with.  I now realize that just because it looks like a space on the tutorial doesn't mean that there really is a space and that I should check more than one source of information.  Due to my lack of html knowledge prior to this course I was still pleased with my outcome and have learned even more since the grading of the assignment.  As for the CSS, I found myself wanting to bang my head against a wall until I realized that what I need is more time in my day, and another day in my week.  I as struggling a bit with finding the time that I need for this course to do all of the tutorials and to do them again so that I really understand the concept.  I do feel like I have made some progress in self scheduling this week and really hope that it will show in my work.

I do feel like I am learning a lot but still feel like I am left at the end of the week, praying that it is enough to build on in the week to come.   I am intrigued by what we are learning and am excited that I am actually able to make a basic page and can make changes to a style sheet and somewhat understand what all of that even means.  This course still makes me nervous, but is challenging me and that is worth it. I look forward to see if I am able to learn how to make my own family blog much cooler than it is now with the basic stock format. Or maybe even a family website that the whole family can use. As far as my future career, I feel that what I am learning opens countless doors considering that my goal is to teach online courses.  I feel that as much information in this area that I can acquire will only help me in the career arena and make me more marketable.   

I look forward to what is to come!

ETEC Experience Thus Far

We are well on our way to getting our feet wet in the world of education technology.  Our second week we had a word assignment.   This was great since I am pretty familiar with word.  I did enjoy learning the proper way to set up the document.  I am a check list type of person, so having specific requirements for the assignment as to how to properly set it up that I could check off as I go was very helpful.  The part about making it accessible was new to me and interesting.  I hadn't really even thought about students with disabilities so this opened my mind to that as well.  The only barrier that I came across in this project was not knowing how to delete a page.  When I was finished with my project, after my last editing, I ended up with an extra page.  My dear friend google came to the rescue.  I have always been an Internet search fan for just about anything so this came in handy and problem was solved. 

Next we moved on to power point which is another program that I am fairly familiar with.  I have the 2010 version and had not used it before.  There were a little differences to get used to but in all it went well.  I did struggle with getting the pictures linked properly to their source but again, google and my husband came to the rescue.  I do regret making the last minute decision to place all references on one slide and losing the point for it.  I knew better with the rule and all, but I went with the fact that every teacher that I have ever had that used PowerPoint had crammed all references into one slide.  Will not make that mistake again!  I will pay much closer attention to the rubric and follow every direction to the best of my ability and certainly never assume any of my prior teachers did it the right way.

While I was pretty familiar to these programs prior, I did see them in a whole new light.   Since my teaching experience thus far is limited to nursing clinical practice, i have not had the chance to do any presentation teaching other than discussion groups.  So it was really nice to see how these programs can be used to teach in my future practice as a nurse educator.  Again, i appreciate the fact my mind was opened to the possibility of teaching to students with disabilities as well.

I look forward to what is to come with excitement and a little intimidation.  I have absolutely no experience with making a website.  I do know that this can help me in many aspects of my life so I am certainly open to this opportunity!