Digital Literacy Resources

Long after the portfolio or assignments are handed in, or the exam written, digital literacy learning needs to continue, because it is ever-changing and there is ALWAYS more to learn.

Follow this link to find a whole bunch of web-sites that are useful to know about as you navigate the web Digital Literacy for Dummies

Thanks to my brother-in-law, Paul Lloyd at The Automated Tester for referring me to this link.

TASK: Self Evaluation of Learning

Think about each of the tasks or activities making up your portfolio. Choose the two in which you felt you learnt the most. Write a reflective paragraph about each task, keeping the following in mind:

• Describe what each task involved
• Explain how the task contributed to your learning and understanding of Web 2.0 and digital citizenship
• Explanations should make sense to someone who has not done the task before
• The paragraph should be well structured and clearly expressed
• Write in full sentences using punctuation and grammar correctly

Do do and submit this task follow these steps

1. Open a new Word Document
2. Type your name, surname and student number at the top of the document
3. Save the document
4. Type your paragraphs in the document
5. Once you have finished, e-mail the document to me. 
6. Make sure your full name and student number are on the top of the document. (I.E. It mustn't only be on the e-mail)

Twitter for Business

Find out more about Twitter, answering the following questions about it on your blog. Create a link to this blog post as well.

1. Who started Twitter? 
2. Who is the target audience for Twitter?
3. When did Twitter start and when did it really become well-known? 
4. What can Twitter do for a business? What are some benefits of using Twitter in a business context?
5. What can be some disadvantages of using Twitter or other social media in a business?

Safety & Privacy Online

Read the following Wikipedia articles, about internet privacy and the history of the internet

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_privacy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet

What is it about the initial purpose of the internet and the way it has developed that makes it so difficult to monitor and control the internet?

• How safe is the internet?
• What is an internet troll and what action can be taken in response to an internet troll?
• How concerned should you be about privacy settings on social media sites such as Facebook and twitter?
• What other safety and privacy issues should we be concerned about when working online?

Have a class discussion based on what you found out in the article and the questions above, then each write a paragraph about your thoughts and concerns around online safety. E-mail me your responses on a Word or Google document.

What is a MOOC?

If you don't know the answer to the question "What is a MOOC?" do some research to find out the answer.

Create a post to explain the answer to the question.

Find one MOOC that you would like to do sometime. In your post, write the name of the MOOC you found and explain your interest in the topic.

Assignment Blog - Due 5 Nov

Start work on your blog for your assignment. Links to information to guide you, from previous blog posts are given below. Make sure you READ them carefully AND ask me questions if you are uncertain about any tasks or about submission.

• Question 1 

• Question 2 

• Question 3 

• Question 4 

• Question 5 

• Assignment Checklist

• Assignment Submission Guidelines

Your assignment is due on 5th November. A page with your Blog URL, full name and student number, as well as an assignment cover sheet needs to be submitted to the admin office AND all posts on the blog completed by the time of hand in. 

We will spend some times during our lessons doing work on these posts for your assignments, as well as additional tasks which will demonstrate the competencies required to pass this course. 

Assignment: Choosing a Blogging Platform

Your assignment for this short course is  to create a blog. the blog will be marked according to the following nine criteria:

1. Understanding of course material (course content) - demonstrated by the content of your posts
2. Use of more than two data types (text, pictures, video, music etc...)
3. Time management in completing tasks - whether you completed tasks in class timeously and whether you submitted the final assignment on time with all the tasks completed
4. Competence in navigating the Web effectively (demonstrated mostly through additional tasks given and submitted during class)
5. Use of Web 2.0 blogging software (demonstrated by the look and feel of your final blog, as well as by additional tasks done during class)
6. Initiative shown by including additional features to your blog that were not necessarily specified in any tasks (eg. gadgets or widgets to enhance your blog)
7. Data storage and manipulation - demonstrated through tasks done in class, as well as how you have used other sources to add value to your own posts (without simply copying their words)
8. Referencing - demonstrated through acknowledgement of all sources used through formal referencing style or through hyperlinks to the original sources. Note: None of your posts should be copied word-for-word from someone else. 
9. Critiquing of online resources - demonstrated by how your 'own voice' comes through in the blog posts, including disagreeing with other sources, or commenting on what others have said.

The assignment has five questions. Each one must be answered on a separate post on a blog you have created. In addition, I will be using the tasks I have been setting you for class to assess the criteria above.

Today's task will focus on criteria number nine and will involve doing some reading/research to help you to choose which blogging platform to use for your assignment.

Although we have been using blogger to learn about and practice 'blogging', there are a number of other really good platforms one can use. Do some internet surfing to find at least three different sources about the best blogging platforms to use. Create a "Google Drive" document to record your responses. In your document, create links to each of the sources. In the content of your document, summarise what has been said about these platforms by the different sources.

At the end of the document, indicate which blogging platform you will choose for your assignment, giving reasons WHY you have chosen it.  If you choose blogger, support your decision with good reasons that will demonstrate you have thought about it. Saying you have chosen it because it is 'easier' because you have been working on it already demonstrates laziness and not the ability to critique or reason.

Submit this task by sharing your document with me through Google Drive. Make sure you put your name at the top of the document, so that when I print it, I know whose work it is.

Plan a luxury dream holiday with the help of WIKI'S

Today's task involves gaining experience with online shopping and working with Wiki's (or collaborative documents).

Work in groups of NOT MORE THAN three people for this task. As a group, decide on a destination city you would like to travel to, if you had no financial restrictions.

You need to do this task using a collaborative tool like a wiki. Google drive is one example of this.
Pretend that all your group members are working on this project from different locations. (In other words, your collaboration needs to be through the Google Drive document.) One of you needs to create a document in Google drive and share it with the other person and with me. (I will demonstrate to you how to do this.)


Plan the following aspects of your trip and record the details of your plans in the Shared Document on Google Drive:

Holiday Details

• Names of people going on trip
• Where you are travelling 
• When you will be travelling (dates of leaving and return)

Air Tickets

• Airline used
• Price of return tickets for all travellers on the dates specified above

Hired Car

• Car Hire Company name 
• Price of hiring the car for the time period of your holiday

Hotel Accommodation

• Name of the hotel you are visiting 
• A link to the website of the hotel
• What it is about this hotel that made you choose it over others

Event or Adventure

• What you plan to do?
• How much it will cost?
• How long it will take? (all day, a few hours, more than a day... )
• Why does it appeal to you do this this?

In the document, you need to include your names, and to present the information above a table.  As you find information about the tickets, car hire and accommodation, record it onto the document. Once you have completed the task, one of you send me an e-mail, with your partner in copy, so that I know you have finished. 

Podcasting, Videocasting, Screencasting & Live Streaming

In today's lesson, we will discuss and then you will do some reading to answer the four questions that follow. 

• What is podcasting?
• What is video casting? 
• What is Screen casting?
• What is live streaming?

Read from the prescribed textbook or from other internet sources, to answer the questions on a post on your blog (pages 118 - 134 & 136 - 156). The content of your post should give a basic explanation of each of the terms and it should also be clear how the four terms are different from each other.  

In groups or three or four people, make a short video and post it on You Tube. If you are working on blogger, you have a google account, which means you have access to all the apps associated with google, like You Tube. Most Smart phones have reasonable video cameras to make the video. 

Create a link to the You Tube video on your post. 

How do internet based businesses make money?

So much of what we find on the internet is free. So, how do internet businesses make money?

Take the text book for this course as an example. The book can be downloaded for free from the following link  Web 2.0 and social media for business

How does the author of this book, Roger McHaney make money from writing the book? Do you think he wrote it for fun, in his spare time? I know that if I put a lot of time and effort into writing a book, I would like to get some income from it. What about you?

Do some research on business models, to find out different ways in which internet based business keep profitable. The following link is a good starting point, but you can also find other sources to help you understand Business Models.

Once you have gained an understanding of some of the business models, write a post on your own blog about your findings. Include either an image or video on your post which complements what you  have written.

Internet Easter Egg Hunt

Today's task is a hunt for 3 Internet Easter Eggs. First you need to find out what an Internet Easter Egg is, and then hunt for three. The task needs to be completed during the lesson today, following the instructions below:

Write a post on your blog about Internet Easter eggs, containing the following:

1. Explain in your own words what an  Internet Easter Egg is. Creating a link to the site you used to gather your information. One of my favourites, found by a past student will illustrate what an Internet Easter Egg is. Type "zerg rush" into a google search page. Press Enter and wait to see what happens. 
2. Hunt for/ find and then briefly explain 3 Internet Easter Eggs. Including after your explanation, a link to where you found out about it. (You can't use "zerg rush" as one of your three easter eggs".)
3. Some Internet Easter Eggs only work on certain web browsers. Say which web browser you are using and whether you could get the internet easter eggs you found above to work on this browser.
4. Publish your post and e-mail me me a link to that post of your blog. 

Once I have received your e-mail with the link, you will have completed your Internet Easter Egg hunt. This is an ICE task and I need to received your e-mail as your way of submitting the completed task.

Information Overload & the Role of RSS feeds

The internet and internet related technology has brought many changes to our lives.

When I was growing up and my maternal grandmother was visiting us, my mom would tell us to go and do our home-work reading to Granny Vi. We hated this, because she would ask us the meaning of each word we read and if we didn't know - we had to look it up in the dictionary!! Recently, I have thought often of Granny Vi, every time I say to someone 'just google it'!! There is so much information out there to help us answer so many questions we have in our day to day lives, that in many ways 'google' has become our best friend. It is not called "The Information Superhighway" for nothing! I am sure Granny Vi would have loved the internet and I know that as a kid I would have much preferred to be able to look up meanings of words on google than in a dictionary!! 

But, do you ever feel bombarded with TOO MUCH INFORMATION? We can find and read far more than we have time to read in a day. So, how do we decide what to read? How do we sift through the mountains of web pages to find what is really of interest to us, what is really important for us to know? 

One internet tool that helps us do this is RSS feeds. I am sure you will recognise this logo. 

Check out the following links and then answer the questions/ do the exercise below to help you understand what RSS feeds and RSS aggregators are and how you can use them to filter and find the information you want to on the internet.

• http://www.whatisrss.com
• http://rssblog.whatisrss.com
• http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/12/18/dive-into-xml.html

1. What does the acronym RSS stand for?
2. What is an RSS feed?
3. Find an RSS feed that you would be interested in following
4. Add an RSS feed gadget to your blog - linking the feed you found above to your blog
5. What is an RSS aggregator (one example is called feedly) ?

Welcome to Digital Citizenship – 2nd Semester 2014

This is one of the most fun and interesting courses at college to teach as well as to participate in as a student. The age of digital technologies is upon us and no matter what job or work you do, it will be hugely beneficial, if not ESSENTIAL to have a basic knowledge of the digital ‘space’. Not everyone has to become an expert in this, but there are some basics that are useful for everyone to know. I really hope you enjoy taking this course as much as I enjoy teaching it. If you are not confident with technology, don’t be afraid of this course - there is something for everyone to learn and I will help you during class to master what you need to. The tasks done in class and submitted to me, will impact on your assignment mark in the end, because it is a practical assignment. 

If you look at other posts in this blog, you will see that there are many previous posts. This is because I have used this blog for previous classes as a tool to communicate messages and instructions about the subject of Digital Citizenship as well as about requirements for this course. Some of the posts you might find relevant and interesting, while others were specifically for those classes. However, you might find it useful to follow my blog. Find the e-mail following gadget and enter your e-mail address to sign up to receive notifications when I publish a new post. 

Have fun and enjoy this journey with me. 

Mandy

DIG CIT - Assignment Checklist

Use this checklist to see if your assignment is ready for submission. You should be able to answer YES to all of the following questions:

1. Have you answered all five questions in FULL? Each question must be on a separate post and the question number must be in the TITLE of the post.
2. Have you used AT LEAST THREE types of data within your blog. Eg. Text, Image, video, music represent different types of data
3. Have you customised your blog to demonstrate mastery of blogging software? (Refer to Text-book pages 34 and 70)
4. Have you added AT LEAST two gadgets or plug-ins to your blog? Are the gadgets working? Check what they look like for someone viewing your blog. (Refer to Text-book pages 104 and 136)
5. Have you used a range of sources and used sources well? (i.e. Not simply repeated what someone else had said, but used their views to formulate and add your own views.)
6. Does your own voice come through in your blog? (opinion, critique, comment)... (Refer to Text-book page 34)
7. Have you referenced ALL sources, including images, videos etc..?

Assignment Submission Guidelines - 2014 Semester 2

Assignments are due on 5 November. This is what is required for your submission of this assignment:

Complete all posts on your blog by the 5th November 2014

1. Physically hand in one page which contains
1. Your name and Surname
2. Your student number
3. The URL (web address) of your Assignment Blog. Make sure you give me the correct address and NOT your blogger dashboard address. The URL should look like this uniquename.blogspot.com (or wordpress.com depending on what blogger platform you use
2. Attach this sheet to an assignment cover sheet (available in the library) and submit this as you would any other printed assignment on or before 5 November 2014

As an EXTRA step - you can check that you have given me the correct blog address, by e-mailing me the blog address so I can confirm with you that I can access your blog. This however, is NOT in place of submission of the assignment as described above.

Question 1: Introduction & Digital Footprint

 Introduce yourself on this post. Make it personal and you can include a picture or video clip of yourself to add interest to the blog.

Mention what your digital footprint is like now - where you are 'found' most on Social Media and where you would like to be found more in future (how you would like to expand your digital footprint)

Question 2 - Blogs and Wikis

This is a research based question, which means you will need to find a few sources, read and understand blogs and wikis and then identify 3 differences as well as three similarities between Blogs and Wikis.

 

TIP: Use more than one source for your research. Good research involves using a range of sources, NOT just one.

Question 3 - Customising a blog

In this question, you need to show that you have changed the theme of your blog, by taking screen-shots and including them in the post, the way I have done below:

THEME 1

 

 

THEME 2

 

In addition to this, you need to include gadgets or plug-ins and test that they are working. In other words, when I mark your blog, I will need to find these gadgets somewhere on your blog. It needs to be working. (Eg. If it is a poll, I should still be able to answer it)

Question 4 - Popular Blogs about Social Media

There are so many social media platforms to use now, it can be over-whelming as well as confusing to know which platforms to use or not to use. This post has links to some popular blogs about various social media platforms. Reading more about the various plaforms, as well as about social media in general will hopefully help you to decide on your strategy for marketing yourself online.

Social Mouths is a blog offering free advice about marketing yourself online through various social media platforms

South African company Blue Magnet has a blog offering advice about marketing your company online including information about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

For this question, find two popular blogs on a topic of interest to you. Create links to the blogs and also comment on the blogs, saying what you like about the blog (or don't like), who the author is or anything else of interest about the blog. Make sure the links to the blog work.

Question 5 - Social Media trends in 2014

This course is about Social Media in Business.

The Social Media space changes quickly. Identify, using research, key trends predicted for Social Media in Business in 2014.

In addition to trends in 2013, also include an image about trends from 2012/2013

Check the following sites to search for information for your post on Social Media Trends. TIP: Use  a few different sources on the topic to see what a range of people say, rather than using only ONE source.

Social Media Examiner

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-media-trends-2014/

The next two links are articles based on the same Social Media Trade Show held in San Diego in March. It will therefore not be surprising that the same trends appear in both articles, since their primary source of information is the same. Even so, you can use these two articles to get a better understanding of such trends from two different perspectives.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kim-garst/social-media-marketing-wo_b_5110966.html

http://www.toprankblog.com/2014/03/social-media-marketing-tremds/

REMINDER: ALL sources must be referenced

Digital Footprint

Varsity College uses the Harvard Referencing Method to acknowledge the sources of information. You need to learn how to reference correctly. This exercise will help you learn to do this.

Whenever you look at another source of information and use it for your own writing, you need to reference it. If you quote directly from the source, you need to use inverted comma's "QUOTES" to show that it is word for word as the other person said it. 

If you use someone's ideas/words, but you put them into your OWN words, you still reference the source, but don't use the quote marks. 

Finally, if you give your opinion, or say something which was from your own thoughts (without looking at another source), there are no quotes because YOU are 'speaking'. 

Therefore, when you look at a text that has been written by someone, you should be able to see, when they are speaking, when they are using someone else's ideas, but saying it in their own words and when they are quoting someone else directly.

Answer the following three questions, each one is an example of the different types of text you should use in an assignment. 

1. Find a definition on “digital footprint” on the web. Copy and paste the exact definition AND the proper reference to it on a post in your blog. Properly reference it as an ‘exact quote’.
2. Underneath the exact quote, write a paraphrased version (writing it into your own words) of the definition and reference it correctly.
3. Write your view on how your digital footprint might affect you positively or negatively in the future.  Write a few sentences.

DIG CIT - DN BA group 2014

Introducing... The fabulous, gorgeous, witty and intelligent Digital Citizenship class of 2014 (BA class)...

Assignment Submission Guidelines

Assignments are due on 6 June. This is what is required for your submission of this assignment:

1. Complete all posts on your blog by the 6th June 2014
2. Physically hand in one page which contains 
1. Your name and Surname
2. Your student number
3. The URL (web address) of your Assignment Blog. Make sure you give me the correct address and NOT your blogger dashboard address. The URL should look  like this  uniquename.blogspot.com (or wordpress.com depending on what blogger platform you use
3. Attach this sheet to an assignment cover sheet (available in the library) and submit this as you would any other printed assignment on or before 6 June 2014

As an EXTRA step - you can check that you have given me the correct blog address, by e-mailing me the blog address so I can confirm with you that I can access your blog. This however, is NOT in place of submission of the assignment as described above. 

Online Profile Management & Online Safety

Working in small groups, you will be allocated one of the four articles below. Your group will need to read the article, then plan a short presentation of the article with the following four elements:

1. Overview of the contents of the article (summary of the key points)
2. Your analysis of the credibility of the article (evaluation of the source)
3. Two or three things that members have learnt from the article
4. What, if anything you would like to apply to your online activity

Everyone in your group needs to participate in the presentation, so decide who will present each element.

Guidelines to Appropriate Online Behaviour

Reputation Management Online

6 Steps to Manage Online Reputation

How to erase your digital footprint

Image from Mises Canada Daily http://mises.ca 

Wikipedia - Good or bad?

Why Wikipedia is successful?

Critique of Wikipedia articles

Criticism of Wikipedia

Write a post on your blog with gives both views, using the sources above, as well as other sources you can find about the positive and negative aspects of Wikipedia.

Apply the viewpoints to practical contexts, to identify at least one context in which Wikipedia might be helpful and worth using and one context for which it would not be appropriate to use Wikipedia.

Credibility of Internet Sources

When looking for information on the internet to use for doing assignments, MANY students will simply use the first website that appears on a search page. 

Just because a source is the FIRST on the list, does not MAKE it the BEST source to use. Just because it is ON the internet, does not MAKE it true.

Read this News article

Then think about these questions about the article:

• What is news biscuit? 
• What types of articles do they write? 
• Who writes them?
• Who wrote the article above?

When evaluating any sources on the internet you need to think carefully about the following:

• Source: 
• Who wrote the article? 
• What organisation or business published the article?
• Was it peer reviewed?
• Date: When was it written?
• Purpose: What was the motive or reason for this information being published?
• Relevance: Is the article or text relevant to my particular topic?

Guidelines for finding "better" / more credible sources: 

• Google books
• Google scholar
• Bookboon.com (free e-books)
• EBSCOHOST
• E-Brary

Improving your searches with Boolean Operators:
Boolean operators - see associated post

Boolean Operators

Notice how some small changes in the search term affects the number of search pages

TECH TERMS

Do some surfing of the net to understand the meaning of the following terms:

• Podcasting
• Videocasting
• Screencasting
• Live Streaming

Write a post on your own blog describing these terms. 

Make sure you reference all your sources

Technology Advances - TED TALK

What is "Haptology"? Watch this interesting "TED TALK" about the subject.

http://www.ted.com/talks/katherine_kuchenbecker_the_technology_of_touch

Blogging 101 - Following & Commenting on BLOGS

COMMENTS:
Although BLOGS usually involve an individual or company regularly publishing posts, being the primary contributor to content, it is usually possible to post comments on people's posts.

On one of my posts, or on a friends blog, publish a comment on one of the posts.

FOLLOWING:
To make it easy to keep up to date when someone posts on their blog, you can "follow" them by e-mail so that you automatically receive an e-mail when they post to their blog. If they have included an "e-mail following" gadget, you can put your e-mail address in the space and 'subscribe' to their blog. Alternatively, if you are using blogger for your own blog, on the blogger dashboard you can subscribe to any website that you want to follow.

Try out these functions by adding such gadgets to your blog and testing the out with a friend's blog. 

Blogging 101 - RSS Feeds

Dave Winer, father of RSS feeds says: 

"RSS feeds are automated web surfing ..."

Advances in technology are an attempt to make things easier and more efficient. With the development of the World Wide Web, access to news and interest sites has become very easy, but there is an ocean of information 'out there' on the web. How can we make 'surfing' the web easier, quicker, but still get us the information we need, when we need it?

One of the answers to this is RSS feeds. RSS feeds were created to make 'reading' various web sites easy and quick, by bringing the news from those sites right to your desktop,  blog page or web-site.

On this blog, look down towards the bottom right of the screen and find the RSS feed for "Science Daily". Click on one of the headlines that interest you and view the article.

Do some research to find out more about: 

• RSS feeds
• RSS Aggregator's

Blogging 101 - Customize your blog

Customize your blog in the following ways:

• Change the theme
• Take a picture of yourself. Upload the picture on a post introducing yourself
• Add an "E-mail following" GADGET to your site, so that others can follow your posts. 
• Follow one of the other students in the class once they have added the "E-mail following" GADGET 
• Find a site of interest which has an RSS feed, which you would like to read regularly. Add this feed as a GADGET to your blog
• Search the different GADGET's and find one that you would like to add to your blog. Some examples are polls, a list of favourites, a link to music you enjoy
• Find other ways you can customize your blog and make it personal