Digital Literacy Lecture and Assessment Tool

Hi All,

Here's a link to the video lecture I created on digital literacy: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7x_tCSYdGJ1VmJqZ2RkVG01d1U/edit?usp=sharing

(**edited to add: I forgot to make this public, but now if you click on it you should be able to see it)

I also created a nine-question survey about digital literacy from the website Free Online Surveys, here's the link:

http://freeonlinesurveys.com/s.asp?sid=91t2sk23i8vhcz2289134

This link should work from June 26th, 2013 through July 5th, 2013.

Digital Inequality

Right now I'm scanning the articles about digital inequality, and I can see how this will become a big issue in education. I am a "Big," meaning I'm a big sister in the Big Brothers/Big Sisters program, and my "little" doesn't have internet access at home. She has access to tons of TV channels and has a cell phone and such, but she doesn't have a computer that works properly or that's connected to the world wide web. As she starts Haywood Early College this August, I'm  concerned about her ability to stay on the same level with the other kids for this reason.

She'll have a harder time researching for homework. She'll have a harder time accessing resources that will help her where her aunt and uncle (her guardians) can't. She'll have a harder time fitting in in some ways, since she won't have the same levels of access to everything that goes on on the internet. There are probably many, many more circumstances in which she'll be impacted that I'm not covering here.

I think this is is one simple way her aunt and uncle can make a pretty big difference in her life and education, and I hope after she starts school they see how valuable having both her own working laptop or desktop and internet connectivity will be to her for educational and social reasons, so I hope they take the plunge and provide that for her. She's already got some good things going for her, brains, guardians who care about her school work who want her to complete a four year degree, and the fact that she was accepted into Early College, but I think she needs this as well.

My First Video Lecture Experience

This morning I finally was able to complete my video lecture assignment. Although I found it frustrating (details below), I do find that working with technology is the only way to get better at it!

I didn't have any experience with Camtasia, and I'd only used GoToMeeting as a tool to meet for online classes, but I'd never recorded anything using it, and didn't have it on my computer. I downloaded it for the free thirty days, but quickly became frustrated with the beeping sound in the background. I then tried to download Camtasia, but for some reason my download failed I gave up on that idea.



After doing lots of Googling, I eventually figured out that the beeping sound in GoToMeeting could be eliminated by unclicking a box in the "preferences" setting, and that was a great help. I also finally figured out that if I shared my screen, my PowerPoint would be visible. Well, scratch that, I thought I had figured that out, but the first two times I recorded my lecture, I didn't take that step, so my screen was blank! Harrumph! The third time I tried recording, I started off and got off track, so I stopped recording, then started over again, but realized that both the mess up and the right version were all one one take. I did learn that I could download more software to make the file editable, then I would be able to take that part out, but that seemed like more work than it was worth. Finally, on the fourth try, I was able to record it, phew!

As frustrated as I get when I first start learning something, I'm always glad I learned it. I really enjoy learning new software, or more about software I already know how to use, and my current job helps me with that. We design sales training for pharmaceutical companies, and although I'm not an instructional designer, I do often have to do things in Word, Excel, and Powerpoint that are way beyond what I've used them for just making simple documents, spreadsheets, or presentations.

I think learning anything new that's related to technology, whether it's how to use a program or a platform or dealing with social media, and whether it's new to you or new, period, is really valuable in today's job market. I feel confident that I could now record a video lecture in just one try. Well, maybe two.

Video Lecture Link

Here's a link to my video lecture. https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7x_tCSYdGJ1Yjh5Ym9fZUNDYTA/edit?usp=sharing

Thoughts on "A randomised trial of of an online lecture with and without audio."

I find the results of the study from this article very interesting for a variety of reasons. For one, being that I'm a distance-learning student and all of my learning is done online, any time I learn about something that might be helpful for me to understand and absorb information, I appreciate it. Of course, unless the professor of the class is aware of this study and making all material available with an audio recording, I guess it won't help much, but at least now I know if I want to transmit information to someone in the future, recording an audio file might be a better approach than just writing a paragraph or two.

This is also interesting to me because of my job. I work at a company that designs training materials, primarily sales training for pharmaceutical companies, but I hope that after I finish my health education degree we can expand and start attempting to sell some health and wellness training as well (I work at a very small company and the owners/management of the company are very into hearing their employees' ideas and doing new things). I think knowing how important the audio component is to learning can help us make our training stronger.

The fact that the students spent more time on the audio-feed is a fact that needs to be taken into consideration. If I was planning a training in the future, and had a specific amount of time set aside for that training, I'd have to make certain that adding audio was the right call. Also, the fact that only some of the students showed the increased post-lecture knowledge when listening to the audio certainly means there's room for more research and that not everyone necessarily learns the same way or gains the same benefits from audio-feed.

Overall, this article was interesting and any additional piece of knowledge that may help me in either school or my career is much appreciated.

Jen's Glog: Health Education in Five Years

 

Welcome!

Hi Everyone!

This is the first blog I've ever had for a class, but I've had quite a few in my personal (and sometimes professional) life! I really love writing, and I was a graphic design major back when I finished my undergraduate degree in 2001, so I do like playing around with graphics and layout when I have the time.

I thought I'd share some pictures to spice up this first blog post.

My husband and me in Death Valley in the winter of 2010

Halloween one year, maybe 2008? My husband was a skiing Conehead and I was a farmer - we don't plan ahead for Halloween, obviously!

This is our cat, Nola, expressing her displeasure, which she always seems to be doing.

This is the quieter cat, Coco, helping me with my homework. 

I look forward to posting things that are pertinent to class, not just pictures of my cats :)