My attempts to post a screencast in my blog have been a real case of trial-and-error. Mostly error. I seem to have at least two screencast accounts, each with a different one of the two videos (actually, one is a PowerPoint turned into a Jing video) that I have put together so far. Never the twain shall meet, unless I can figure out how to combine the accounts. This has been a frustrating effort to put into practice what, theoretically seems do-able. Update: A call to a tech person at screencast.com provided the answer I had been looking for: I had an account on ScreencastOmatic, another one on screencast.com and a third on Jing. I had thought the first two were one-in-the same, and now know that screencast.com is the one that provides cloud storage for Jing.
In preview mode, the video I included in my blog this time is just a placeholder, so I am going to publish this, and see if that turns the icon into an actual video. I have my doubts. This hasn't been my shining hour in terms of understanding technology.
I tried to use Jing to capture a very crudely assembled PowerPoint, which consists of just three photos I took while I was cross-country skiing at Beaver Island State Park, with some random music behind each. A bonus was when my husband woke up and started making his morning coffee while I recorded. The morning sounds were almost louder than the tinny music audio I had assembled and captured with my laptop's built-in microphone. It's funny. Kind of like making a campfire by rubbing two sticks together, compared to pushing a button and turning your furnace on.
The funny thing about Jing and PowerPoint - they don't go together very well. You have to define the capture area to frame the upcoming slideshow, then launch PowerPoint and execute the command "play slideshow"all while the 3-2-1countdown is going on. It's a juggling act that was never meant to be! Uploading a continuous video should be easier, I hope, than launching a program that I have a tenuous grasp on, at best.
Other aspects of this learning module that I'll write about in coming days should be a lot more upbeat, but here's an initial entry for Learning Module 3.
Now - to some of the other experiences in Learning Module 3: Efficient and Effective Searching/21st Century skills.
DOMAIN NAMES: I learned the process of registering a domain, the costs and the importance of creativity in conceptualizing the name as a marketing strategy for getting visitors to your Web site. I see this process as demystifying one of the steps to becoming your own boss in business, by taking a business concept and figuring out how to bring customers to your virtual doorstep.
SOCIAL BOOKMARKING: I never even knew this process existed. Before learning about how to collect, organize manage and post bookmarks, I did not realize that research resources could be shared in this way with academic colleagues. It is a great tool to build portability of your own resources— not as cumbersome as having a list of favorites that is specific to your own computer — and a great way to share things you've learned and gain insights from others' postings of their bookmarks.
SEARCH ENGINES: I learned that it's advisable to use more than one search engine to get the most reliable and complete results because, for example, even though search engines such as AOL and Netscape both use Google's database for their searches, additional content may be provided by the search engine, producing different results for the same query. I also was surprised to learn the extent to which Google, my favorite search engine, can collect information on me from the digital footprint I leave via gmail account, blogger account and Google searches. On the plus side, I also learned that Google has an advanced search function that allows you to determine parameters specific to your desired search, including the ability to search exclusively for PDFs, as well as a Scholar Search which, regrettably, turned up many articles in abstract form, for which you would have to pay extra to see the entire text.
DEEP WEB SEARCHES: This was an interesting lesson, once I was fully able to access the resources of the NCCC Library. At first, my barcode number was not activated in such a way as to permit entry into the library's databases. Once I got my temporary library barcode, a whole new world was revealed - with access to well-researched, thoughtful articles that would take days for me to study and fully understand. The ability to do an advanced search into academic topics was something I never thought possible on the Web. I previously was content to see what my search engine served up, make the best of it, then go to an actual physical library and look up periodicals or books. This is an awesome resource I plan to explore more fully.
DISCUSSION 5: Digital footprint: Once again, the discussion among my classmates was informative, in terms of students' research and their life experiences, and how the two relate. I especially liked the discussion about the quiz we took to see what the Web knew about us — and how large our digital footprint actually was. People were surprised that they found in Spokeo online evidence of who they are related to, what jobs they have and where they live, plus income and tax levels and the assessed value of their homes! Quite interesting, too, were comments about how much to post on Facebook.
TERMS I LEARNED:
LAST MILE: Delivering communications connectivity to retail customers - that closest connection that links your home computer to the Internet.
VERTICAL FORECLOSURE: A type of anticompetitive behavior in which a company purchases a supplier that supplies the company and several competitors with raw materials. The company then uses its leveralge over the supplier to receive a discount when it buys raw material and reduces quantity and raises prices when its competitors buy raw materials. This term was used in several of the articles about net neutrality and the unfair advantage some companies have.
ILEC: Incumbent local exchange carrier - companies that existed before the breakup of "Ma Bell." Usually used in laymen's terms to mean "telephone provider."
BOOLIAN OPERATOR: A conjunction, such as AND, OR and NOT, used in a logical expression. These terms, when used in a Internet search query, can specify which terms are to be included or excluded from the search results.
List of Life, Career, Media and Technology Skills required for the 21st Century:
LIFE AND CAREER: Skills needed:
To navigate and search on the Web effectively, gaining information for job searches, for entertainment, social communication and acquiring general and specific knowledge about the world. The goal of being a lifelong learner requires knowledge of the Internet. If you are doing a job search, and want to know more about a company, for example, you will want to know more about it than just the PR information the company puts on its home page. You need to be able to do deep web searches, find comments from customers, whistleblowers, if there are any, and to know about the research and development successes of the company in question, plus look at any scholarly research that may have been published about the company.
MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY: Skills needed include being able to upload videos, post photos, write blogs and share opinions about topics and fields of knowledge important to you, and to use apps that connect you to others with sound, images and words.
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