Research Questions

At www.yellowpod..ning.com you will find the Yellow Pod's research undertaken. On a personal note you will find my contributions, http://yellowpod.wikispaces.com/message/view/home/16429379

Baseline Studies

As a group we decided that Facebook and Twitter were not really appropriate ‘social networking’ tools. In regards to Facebook it was just too casual and not private or secure enough for our liking. Thanks to Diana’s initiative a Ning was set up that worked brilliantly for our different time zones and demands that life has.

Twitter did not allow for us to have long blogs which was not appropriate for the task at hand. However, in saying this there were many other purposes for twitter but not in this particular context. In a work situation colleagues could use this to ask for opinions about situations within their classroom. In this particular situation the question could be answered promptly and effectively.

Second life, was just out of the question where no body agreed on this as it was not an appropriate tool to use.

Evaluation Report

CSU Chat- I found this useful and one of the simplest, however in saying that it was also quite difficult to use due to the small screen to type and view the conversation.

Skype- I have used this tool previously to keep in contact with relatives overseas. As it has both visual and audio input it is fantastic as it makes it more interesting. For those people typing, it allowed other viewers to know who was typing so there were no interruptions in conversation.

LC Moo-had a little bit of a play. I think it would be a great web 2.0 tool to use if I had more time to understand it completly. However, from what I saw it does look worthwhile, and very structured.

Webex- The tutorial we had, in regards to Webex was fascinating. It has great functions and features which I could definitely see within a workplace as a communication method. On the down side, it would be interesting to see what the cost may be.

Keywords to define

Social network – is a social structure made up of individuals or groups of individuals who are connected by a common interest, relationship or other aspect of their personal or business life. The relationships within a social network can be strong or conducted on an acquaintance basis.

Professional Development – The process of improving the knowledge of employees in a professional capability so they are more able to provide quality goods or services in their field of business or expertise. This can include on-the-job training, outside training, or observation of the work of others.
Ref.
erc.msh.org/staticpages_printerfriendly/2.2.3_gmt_English_.htm

Web 2.0 – The term “Web 2.0″ are web applications which provide interactive information sharing, online collaboration, where the user has the ability to create and design on the World Wide Web. Examples of Web 2.0 include social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs, mashups and folksonomies. Users can interact and change website contents when using at site that has Web 2.0 applications.
ref
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0

blog – A frequent, chronological publication of personal thoughts and Web links.
Ref
http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/blog/

micro blog – is a brief message, it can be, a thought, important information, a URL, a photo or an audio clip.

wiki – A Web site that enables collaborative, it allows use many authors to work together to create content. A wiki permits users to not only access a Web site, but to edit, delete or modify the content that has been placed there. This means users are able to change the work of previous authors.
Ref
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/W/wiki.html

mashup – In web development, a mashup is the creation of a new web service that has been created from the integration of two or more sources of functionality or data. The term mashup implies easy, fast integration, frequently using open APIs (An application programming interface) and data sources to produce results that were not the original reason for producing the raw source data.
Ref
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mashup_(web_application_hybrid)

CIO Recommendations

Here are our recommendations written in our Wiki

1. While Facebook does provide a social forum that could be used for professional development, we believe that Moodle provides the best forum for professional development at this stage. Moodle provides an effective way to manage a course it;
• allows access to world-wide information with management control.
• can build in almost any kind of web content into the course, this includes video, podcasts and audio
• has multipage lessons
• is able to link webpages, text documents, glossaries
• provides opportunity for real time chat and video conferencing
• has the ability to make quizzes with built-in solutions.
• has a wiki

Moodle has developed a reputation as a risk free, easy to use way of managing a course.

2. We also recommend the use of Twitter be adopted by the company as an adjunct to Moodle. It can be used to give employees directions or URLs that will provide additional PD as required.

http://yellowpod.wikispaces.com/CIO+Recommendations

POD Work

I think coming together as strangers and working brilliantly as a team has brought us to this final milestone of our journey.

With thanks to Diana for setting up the Ning, we posted up our thoughts for the main questions which gave us a great platform to work off. Considering we all live and work in different time zones, it was a great tool for communication and collaboration. In order for all our contributions to come together for our CIO recommendations and defined keywords a Wiki was created again to allow all our final commentary to come together. The links are as follows:-

Our Ning discussions are at http://yellowpod.ning.com/forum

Our Wiki is http://yellowpod.wikispaces.com/message/list/home

Comments

Well what a roller coaster it has been! Through undertaking OLR excercises and losing them on the way whilst typing straight on to this blog, I have now learnt to complete the work in word then copy it over to here. Whislt undertaking this subject, I have explored many web 2.0 technologies and learnt that there is never enough time to explore these interfaces. However I can see the practicality in alot of them. I have made the realisation, that studying part time, makes the time I do have precious, and realise that there isn't enough of it. I have been overwhelemed, but I can now see the light. I can see the importance of social networks within my workplace, and understand how difficult it can be to work within a group with people in different time zones. I now know from experience and from viewing other student's blogs, that I could have set it up in a more user friendly way. What can I say, learning never stops.