EDTECH 551: Websites to Write Home About

February 19, 2013 at 5:46 AM · Filed under 1.1 Instructional Systems Design, 5.3 Formative and Summative Evaluation, EDTECH551

The “Owl” is a familiar friend that is reminiscent of my dog-eared 5th edition Bedford Handbook (1998). Like the handbook, Owl is organized into color-coded topics for research and writing.Another similarity is the structure of the content. Unlike the written text, the OWL’s search feature quickly points me to a writing topic.

I frequently refer to the site because of its intuitive navigation, quick loading pages, and reliable content. Purdue has long been recognized as a top research school. Their Owl online writing lab has been available since the early “gopher” years of the internet. I first became aware of the site in 1997, but it was available even earlier, according to the site. I referred to it regularly during my first Master’s Degree (2000-2001) and continue to do so.

Despite its longevity, the site is updated and current (2013). The appearance of the site has stayed consistent, with incremental changes on the backend keeping it clean and organized. One aspect that lends credibility is that the articles are dated and contributors are cited.

I expect to continue to use OWL as I pursue my doctoral degree, and will continue eto recommend it to others.

The NAID site is a good example of a government site that targets a specific audience. For those who may have specialized needs in science and healthcare technical writing, I found the NIH website informative, current (within past six months), and relevant. The site appears to be written for a professional audience, specifically in the health care industry.

The pages loaded quickly and are organized in an aesthetic manner. The grammar and format are correct and readability is enhanced by the sans serif font. I found the color palatte also lends to readability as it was a dark on light approach. One factor that reduced readability was the site’s extensive use of hyperlinks. On the opening page, nearly every other line is a hyperlink to an explanation or further detail, with some links locked for NAID staff only.

Leave a Comment

EDTECH 597 Final Project

December 16, 2012 at 4:20 PM · Filed under 2.2 Audiovisual Technologies, 2.3 Computer-Based Technologies, 2.4 Integrated Technologies, 3.1 Media Utilization, EDTECH597

I did it. This 50 year old mom and teacher created multiple productivity and entertainment apps for my mobile device, despite my novice status among app users and Android O/S. Even more impressive is the functionality of the apps created by my classmates and colleagues. From creating something sweet to seeing how the sugar impacts our cells, I stand in respect and awe of what can be developed and designed with a series of well placed pieces – or “blocks.”
I clearly remember 1972. I am 10 years old, sitting in my fourth grade classroom listening to my much-loved teacher talking us through time – taking us on a journey of what then seemed to be fantasy. He spoke of when we were “grown-ups” that we would be able to see each other on TV while talking on our telephone. He said that we would be able to travel without going anywhere. The man was a visionary. Today, the phone talks to me! I can visit the sights of Singapore and hold a life-like Koi pond in the palm of my hand! I have the pleasure to not only see his description held true, but I have also been bestowed the honor and responsibility for pushing the technology forward!
I don’t know how much further I will grow in the app development. This course took me out of my comfort zone and challenged me to rise above technical glitches and create something of benefit. But understanding how the technology works gives me impetus to take the students in my classroom on a visionary journey of what can be…in their future.
ETADroid

QRPCR

Leave a Comment

EDTECH 597 – The Component Designer

November 27, 2012 at 11:24 PM · Filed under 1.1 Instructional Systems Design, 1.2 Message Design, 2.3 Computer-Based Technologies, 2.4 Integrated Technologies, 3.1 Media Utilization, 4.1 Project Management, 5.1 Problem Analysis, EDTECH597

This app design has been an intriguing challenge that fits right in to my life of predicaments and situations. I switched smart phone platforms for this course and have struggled with something akin to regret these past few months. An accomplished iOS user, I feel clumsy and frustrated with the Android, but I persist in my overcoming this obstacle. Last week I determined to get my apps organized into folders. I was successful, but in doing so, I inadvertently changed some setting within my Android that has prevented me from connecting (blocks editor does not see my phone).
I plan for my app to be used by EMT’s on the ambulance or on scene. They will enter patient information that can be sent via SMS to our local ER prior to our arrival. We have to be cautious about providing a patient’s name over our radio communications, but there are several “hot spots” during our transport that an SMS message can be sent prior to our arrival (we have a minimum 45 minute transport). I designed the app so that the user will interact via text box entries, check boxes, gps positioning. and SMS messaging. The environment has varied lighting, so I avoided the use of color, choosing a neutral dark gray and white for the primary screens.
I like being able to drag and drop functions in the Component Designer. It gives me an opportunity to play with the layout. The file size constraint is a potential setback. I am worried that as my app continues to grow, the size might get too big, so I have been resizing the photos in Photoshop to stay within the 5MB limit. I have frequent problems launching the blocks editor and am wondering why at this late date it is beginning to give me problems.

Leave a Comment

EDTECH 506: White Space

November 26, 2012 at 7:54 AM · Filed under 1.1 Instructional Systems Design, 1.2 Message Design, 1.3 Instructional Strategies, 2.3 Computer-Based Technologies, EDTECH506

The activity for white space clarified my vision of the course appearance. This portion of the assignment solidifies the main tenets of the activities, so I decided that keeping it simple and clean reinforces what my students are learning in the course’s printed materials and face to face skills practice. I allowed a generous amount of white space around the text to help the readers access the more “personally relevant” information (p. 274), and I placed the navigation buttons on opposing sides of the page to create a symmetrical appearance and help to balance the page (p. 275). Initially, I kept the circle that I had developed previously intact. My reviewer daughter suggested that I somehow emphasize the step I am on in the diagram, so I enlarged the yellow quadrant and agreed with her opinion. I will keep her change. I might also change the “Step 2 – Assessment” position to the center to further balance the white space.
Before:
ACEPAT1Click here for full size

After:
WhiteSpace Full SizeClick here for full size

Leave a Comment

EDTECH506: FICK MODEL

November 26, 2012 at 7:50 AM · Filed under 1.1 Instructional Systems Design, 2.3 Computer-Based Technologies, EDTECH506

After reading about the relationships between organization and learning, a looked over print and web learning material for both good and poor examples of Lohr’s principle of organization. The thought process behind developing a learning site surprised me. I realized that in fact, most of the process goes on in the head and on the design pad. This chart represents the Fick Principle or the metabolism of oxygen, and provides a clear understanding of the interaction between what we term as the ABCs – Airway, Breathing, and Circulation. We need oxygen to live at the most basic cellular level. Oxygen is our primary fuel, and our bloodstream is the transport for that fuel to become metabolized. I chose the shapes because they represent molecules of oxygen or carbon dioxide. The red arrows symbolize the blood stream that transports the oxygen. I used a circular model to emphasize the circulatory nature of the cycle with the inhalation situated at the top and moving in a clockwise pattern as common to western culture and the thick arrows suggest a strong relationship between each action (p 128) – if any part of this chain is broken, the cycle becomes incomplete and the human body systems begin an attempt to compensate for the loss. This compensation is known as “shock.” I placed the beginning of the cycle at the top-most position, knowing that my learners are used to a left-right reading order (p. 135). But I will change it to add a slightly larger circle to more clearly define where to begin the cycle.

Lohr, L. (2008). Creating graphics for learning and performance: lessons in visual literacy (2 ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill. Retrieved 2012

Leave a Comment

EDTECH506: Picture This

November 26, 2012 at 7:44 AM · Filed under 1.1 Instructional Systems Design, 1.2 Message Design, 1.3 Instructional Strategies, 2.3 Computer-Based Technologies, 2.4 Integrated Technologies, EDTECH506

My adult learners are often fatigued when they come to my evening classes. Despite thier lack of energy, I need for them to be alert. To provide an energy boost and give them some mental stimulus, I choose to use patriotic red, white, and blue color scheme (p. 265). Not only does each color stimulate their senses, each color represents an aspect of pre-hospital care that few see. Red represents blood, blue represents courage, and white represents cleanliness or purity. I chose hues with contrasting values – the bright (high intensity) red and the deeper (lower intensity) blue. My assignment is a cardiac label that will be used to indicate blood flow, identify electrical impulse areas, and identify structures of the heart. For a representation of reality (p.254), I chose to use blue font to represent the unoxygenated blood returning from the peripheral systems. I then chose to use red to indicate oxygenated blood flow.
Lohr, L. (2008). Creating graphics for learning and performance: lessons in visual literacy (2 ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill. Retrieved 2012

Leave a Comment

EDTECH506: Concrete and Concise

November 26, 2012 at 7:13 AM · Filed under 1.2 Message Design, 1.4 Learner Characteristics, 2.3 Computer-Based Technologies, 3.1 Media Utilization, 4.3 Delivery System Management, 4.4 Information Management, EDTECH506

There are many factors to providing critical prehospital care. EMTs have to know how to determine if a patient is in immediate need of advanced care. The students taking this course will refer to this condensed chart which follows Lohr’s three C’s. There is a lot to remember in this section, so I concentrated a lot of information in one spot. In doing so, I also designed it to be concise and concrete with the white text dominating the field. I initially had the blue text fields extending out to the edge of the page, but decided to increase the white ground a bit to balance the high contrast of the blue and red after my reviewer complained that it “hurt his eyes.” I decided the problem was one in which the figure and ground competed (p. 102). When I reduced the width of the blue, I found that the text was enhanced by the white space around the blue text box.

I analyzed the figure to see if I had unintentionally created a visual conflict. Originally, I had. The blue textboxes made the graphic look like a US Navy add with the blue and white “stripes” creating a 1+1=3 phenomenon (p. 100). My reviewer’s complaint told me that the figure and ground were causing visual conflict. The revision is much better – allowing the learner to “focus easily and quickly on [the] key message.” (p. 105).

Overall, I am pleased with this part of my project. I used the same colors as prior projects to begin developing a color theme of red, white, and blue to match that of our ambulance service. It will work because it is easy to read and put into a logical format. These are not cardinal elements, so leaving them unnumbered helps to reduce the tendency to rank the elements.

References

Lohr, L. (2008). Creating graphics for learning and performance: Lessons in visual literacy. (Second.) Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.

Leave a Comment

EDTECH 597 – CRISIS MODE

November 11, 2012 at 11:55 PM · Filed under 3.1 Media Utilization, 4.1 Project Management, 4.2 Resource Management, 5.1 Problem Analysis, EDTECH597

I have been dreading this assignment. As a basic productivity app user, I am unskilled and unfamiliar with other app categories – especially games. Nevertheless, I have an awareness of the trend toward animating education, so I took this course hoping to gain new insight to the app phenomena. So it comes with some trepidation and much research (I have downloaded more apps in the past three months than my entire six years as a smart phone owner) that I finally have decided on a developer project. As an EMT in a remote location, I experience frequent communication setbacks between our ER staff and our ambulance service. We are equi-distant transport to rural ERs north and south of Riggins, but both requre a 3,000-4,000 foot climb in elevation. When we are called to wilderness areas to retrieve a patient injured or ill, our transport times exceed four hours – but for the most part we have a patient in the ER an average of one hour after we are initially paged. In the meantime, ER crews can be assembled and ready when the patient arrives – especially in critical care or life threatening events. With my plan laid out, I hope the little green droid and the blocks editor are ready for the challenge of my career.

Leave a Comment

EDTECH 597 – QUIZ BOWL

November 11, 2012 at 11:47 PM · Filed under 1.1 Instructional Systems Design, 2.2 Audiovisual Technologies, 2.3 Computer-Based Technologies, 2.4 Integrated Technologies, 5.1 Problem Analysis, EDTECH597

I have finally made an app that I will use for more than a cool curiosity, but not before life got in the way. This weekend was spent up north helping my husband recover from an unexpected flood caused by a burst water gasket/hosing in the RV. We found an apartment and got him relocated, but the hours spent helping him has really put a divet into my coursework for the three EDTECH classes I am taking. Nevertheless, I was able to spend about 7.5 hours on this project, and I am pleased with the results. As an EMT instructor, I found the possibilities for an EMS quiz app enticing. Users could refresh their knowledge and prepare for certification exams. It took some time to find Creative Commons pictures that would be applicable to this app. Initially, I would like to put the “correct” answers in a number of different ways, since the app is prone to unforgiving syntax errors. To counter that problem, I added the correct answer to the “incorrect” message, so that if a student was close, or needed an uppercase or space, he or she would know the response was actually correct.

Leave a Comment

EDTECH 597 – Hide and Seek

November 11, 2012 at 10:00 PM · Filed under 2.3 Computer-Based Technologies, 2.4 Integrated Technologies, 3.1 Media Utilization, 4.1 Project Management, 5.1 Problem Analysis, EDTECH597

If you have ever experienced a moment of consternation upon exiting a mall or movie theater, the “Find My Car” app will put your fears to rest. Developing the app was an experience akin to finding your car in a packed lot. The design was pretty straightforward, but my desire to increase the font size caused the app to crash and not function well. App crashes were not the only problem, my blocks editor refused to load time after time. After a Java rollback, I was able to get the program to stabilize. I feel challenged to push this app, but I don’t know where! I added images to the buttons, and was finally successful in adding an Icon for the App Screen. Because I won’t be driving to my car, I used the walking option with Google Maps. Nevertheless, trial after trial I keep getting the same font argument error. Status update when/if a new functional version gets put out.
Update: The font argument was not about the font, but the incorrect block in the blocks editor. Third time was the charm! This tool is functional, but rather slow on my Android and takes a long time to load.

Leave a Comment

Older Posts »