The Rebel Alliance.....

Being totally lost and wandering around not knowing which direction to take regarding the group project, the rebel in me surfaced. Yes, it is a natural part of me, so you all just have to deal with it.

THe group started with one and then escalated in size. We now were a group of two. Perfect for me. I could bounce things off of someone verses talking to myself. Yep, still did that but let's keep that to ourselves. Kelly was now a full fledged member.

Kelly and I discussed topics and it seemed natural to come up with our concept. She did a great job coming up with a name and a logo that perfectly matched the name. I won't tell any more of our project- you will have to wait until everything comes out over the course of 3 days. That's life. And besides, we are the rebel group. We play by our own rules.

The Final Project....

So, I like working on things that I can use in the future. That's kinda why I did a final project that relates to a topic I cover in Orofacial Anatomy. True, it's a fasinating topic, but aren't they all?

These are the things I used to do this project:

Dreamweaver with template being one downloaded from Dreamtemplates
Wordle
Blogspot.com
mac version of iQuizmaker, loaded onto iquizshare.com
Sony Vegas for the video
images from google search
slide.com for the slideshow
google docs for the nerve "dictionary"
You tube for video upload
Various sources for the additional infroamtion area

I am still so new to using Dreamweaver, but I used it over CMS or anything else because it's actually what I am more comfortable with using. True, I didn't have to come up with the basic design of the template, but that's okay with me. I had signed up for access to the templates on Dreamtemplates a while ago, so that works well for me. It's fun to modify a template to get to what you want to look like. And besides, I didn't have to work with CMSimple! Even sweeter.

And yet..... finally decided on a Second Life Event

OK, so it was really tough for me to find one event that I wanted to attend. Yes, I did not want to learn about being someone's boy toy or attending the Deranged - No Pants Allowed function. I mean, after all, I really haven't learned how to get my Avatar JUST RIGHT......

So, I found a Newcomers Event - "Newbies Questions and Answers". Sweet. Maybe I can learn how to get my shoe back that I lost the first time I was on SL. I mean, I have been walking around with only one shoe. I am starting to limp.

So, I teleport to the function. Hmmm..... Don't see a group sitting and talking. No group of Newbies asking questions about life in SL. Sure there are people hanging out here and there. Sure there are some people walking around. Sure there is a dominatrix walking around. Yes, I go up to a few and ask.... are you here for the Newbie thing? Nope. Then what are they doing here!!! And no, I decided not to even go up to the dominatrix. After all, I was here for something else.

So, I did not find a group talking. Instead, I found a board - kinda like a Newbie Board. So, my event ends up being read the board posts and learn from there. Not too bad for me. I did not have to talk or ask questions. I could read and learn on my own. Problem is - I still only have one shoe.

Mapping via Google....

What? Ask for directions or help when lost? No way, not me. Being male, I just drive...... and drive and drive.....

I do know about mapquest, yahoo and google maps. I do use them from time to time. I do find myself using my Droid phone / google maps to pinpoint where I am trying to find. Maybe because it allows me to use my new toy.

So I routed a trip the wife and I took via the motorcycle to our camper in Glendale Springs, NC. Since we were going by bike, I wanted to go the long way. Naturally we went north to the Blue Ridge Parkway and then West.


View Larger Map

Working with Google maps was okay. Putting in the destination points was easy and most modifications to the route were too. As for uploading photos of sites that were on the way, this was not as smooth as I was hoping it would be. It was easy to upload a picture on a given area if the area already had a picture "folder" already there. If there wasn't any pictures of a given area, then I couldn't get to the point where I could upload one. Maybe it was just me, naturally not wanting to "ask" for directions on how to do it.

With my Droid phone (Verizon wireless commercial goes here....), GPS coordinates are already incorporated into the Google maps. Perfect because it allows you to find anything you want or need. Using an exact location pinpointed by GPS, I can locate "toy" stores, banks so I can get money to pay for the toy or a specific place to eat. What a perfect life.

Hyped up....

I now have a Flickr account. Sweet. When I did my photo sharing account setup, I used photobucket. Seems it can't do the geotagging thing. Dang. Another account. I wonder if I really even know of all my accounts. Most likely not.

OK, so as I watched the TED video, I thought the speaker needing to decrease his caffeine intake. When he said "I don't know if I have time to show you any other environments...", I really think that he could have easily and quickly gone through a few more. LOL Just watching the video was spooky to realize what someone can do or develop.

I did a google search on Photosynth to figure out what it actually is and does. Photosythn takes your photos and mashes them together to make a 3D scene out of them. Viewers can then rotate, move around and explore the minute details of the work. Pretty cool.

As for the EXIF data, I have known for a while that my clinical cameras have incorporated some aspect of this. Not as much with my Canon D60, but my Canon 40D does incorporate a lot of information regarding the image settings. Depth of field, exposure settings, time and dates are to name a few of the data incorporated into any given image. I went online to see if the 40D touched on the use of GPS coordinates and actually found out that if the camera is connected to a portable GPS device, it will record the location and time into the image. Double dang. Am I needing another toy to play with?

I uploaded some photos into Flickr and did the geotagging. For an example of a geotagged photo, click here. Now I need to just figure out how to get them into the asuweb20 area..... I think I was able to finally do this, but they are still not showing up. Takes a few days to get them tagged. This is the internet- go figure.

Return of the Jedi.....

So, we are now back. Back to doing things in the class. Not that I won't admit that I used the time to work on so many other things. It's just that for a minute I was not sure if it had disappeared.

So I am currently taking a look at my original course objectives and developing a gap analysis. In the beginning, I wrote objectives that were basic in nature. That was fine with me. I figured it would give me a progressive understanding as to what the class should or would cover. It would give me a step into the web 2.0 arena. One area that I could include into my course objectives would be to include a short user description on why or how each is used by users. This would at least give a potential user I brief overview as to some of the things that are out there.

In my original course objectives, I didn't address the term Social Media. Not even sure as to why I didn't, but I don't think I even saw the term in the first place. In any case, I have learned that social media is one of the many aspects of web 2.0.