The merit of flash

I am so happy that I can make my web-site with high design quality and I can put as many things like images, movies and Pdf files as I want in a very professionally looking and fun way. I’m happy that I could try to make a course web-site that someday I would want to teach even if it was just an assuming. Learning a dream weaver and the concept of table and layout was like an epoch-making for my web-site. I was amazed to find out that all the functions we previously learned like making a links using invisible buttons and many other functions can be easily done in dream weaver and by using flash. However, the most important part I accomplished in this class is that I became free of the fear about technique and I became very bold, developed a habit of just exploring and got the notion that I have to be open minded as a life-time learner. I found out that the small chance of my attitude changed a lot for me. I actually became very friendly about technology.

Class Websites

I was amazed how my classmates' web-sites have evolved since the beginning of this course. I think all of my class mates are smart and creative and they all have very good tastes. The feature that changed our web-site most distinctively is, I think, the use of the dream weaver. Using the table and layout, we could make our page look cool and professional and with the choice of various fonts of the dream weaver, we could raise our page's design quality. Considering the fact that we are living in the generation the design matters and the fact that our students are the generations who are technologically savvy and the visual aspects matter a lot to them, ability to incorporate the visual images with a good design quality in our web site is important, I believe. Flash and the dream weaver, even I confronted a lot of unexpected issues to solve, provide us very effective and relatively easy way to present contents in the web -site without using a special language. I'm happy that I learned all that in this class and I'm ready to make my future class web- site now!

Technolgy and education

Reading Susan's blog about the technology in education made me also want to think and blog about it. Education is becoming, more than ever, an amorphous living organism that evolves with the times and technology. The key is to coexist with technology for technology cannot be stopped. A statistic at UNC shows that 95% of the students utilize Facebook. These same students, in all likelihood, went to a high school that does not condone the use of Facebook. The point here is clear; you cannot stop students from doing what is popular. Thus, we must search for ways to coexist with social networking technology. Social networking sites are useful because they are just that: social networking made easier. Many students who wouldn’t have shared lunch let alone ideas in school may be “best friends” online. Many students may find that instant feedback on their pieces of writing or problems are extremely useful to their education. Furthermore, many students who feel that they cannot approach a certain teacher about a problem they didn’t understand could approach these same teachers easily in an online community. Of course I’m mentioning some of the more ideal educational ideas here. However, at the very least, the schools must recognize that social networking and their popularity are not going to go away. Therefore, schools must teach the students how to utilize these networks without exposing themselves too much to potentially dangerous individuals.

Making a flash assigment page in one

1. In the insert menu of the dream weaver, I set the path to put flash and the flash is inserted.

2. I made the animation buttons first when I did the assignment, but it would be so annoying if all plays with sounds simultaneously, so I added a control on the first animation and the second one which is a music video of Big Bang.
3. For the first animation, I inserted the action script in the frame. I put 'stop' on the first frame and in the last frame in the whole and I put 'go to and play' action script on the play button so that it can go to frame 2 and play until it meet the 'stop' action script and stop. I put 'stop' action in the stop button to make it automatically stops if pressed.

4. For the big bang music video, I went to .fla file again and on the stage, in the properties, I chose the option to remove the auto play in the web.

Thoghts on Open Source

Internet has allowed many people to share information at the same time. Now, more than ever, it is allowing people to not only share information, but to edit it and to learn from it. There has been no shortage of success stories of open source websites and software programs. Many programs allow free information to be passed onto those who need it. While the reliability of some of these sites such as Wikipedia.com has been brought to question on more than one occasion, its popularity proves that such sites are here to stay. I believe open source programs and systems are great assets to education. The ultimate goal of education lies in the greater good of humanity. Information, in academic context, should be free and available to all. Allowing free access to books (Gutenberg project) and in some cases exams and course notes (MIT) are incredibly advantageous for those interested in a particular subject. Furthermore, by putting the coursework and the books online, people around the world with similar educational or academic interests can share their ideas freely. In addition, because the information that is accessible is specifically geared towards those who are searching for them, there is no real danger from outside intruders abusing the system. However, if there is one down side to open source systems is that sometimes they can result in misleading information. For example, I know that Wikipedia is not a reliable source for research information because it can be edited by anybody. Nevertheless, if the system is well monitored and scrutinized for errors by a competent staff of experts, then I see no problems in allowing the usage of open source systems as legitimate research resources.

Distance Learning & Virtual Learning

Distance learning is becoming incredibly popular these days. Considering that everything else can be acquired online, I suppose it was only a matter of time before learning was online. There are clearly pros and cons to distance or virtual learning. One of the most advantageous aspects of virtual learning is that it allows students from all over the world to actually see and listen to a lecture by a world famous professor. Sometimes, a Q&A session may even take a place after these lectures to provide an interactive learning experience for the students. Needless to say, such an experience might be a valuable and memorable experience for a student. In addition, virtual and distance learning such as the popular Blackboard program allows the professors to keep the students well informed in all aspects of the class – lecture slides, notes, schedule for upcoming tests, homework assignments, projects, contact information etc.. Organization is one of the most important elements of learning. Most of the students who perform below average have trouble organizing their schoolwork/homework and a program such as blackboard helps the student organize greatly. Clearly, as I’ve mentioned above, there are great advantages to distance learning. It is no surprise that most major universities use the Blackboard program. However, there are a couple of disadvantages to distance learning that I will mention here. First and foremost, ironically, the problem with distance or virtual learning is that it is almost too effective at making it easy for students to attend a classroom without actually attending it. I know from personal experience that many students simply grow reliant on virtual learning programs such as Blackboard to keep up with the class work for them. Thus, the students do not bother to take notes in class because they know that they can access Blackboard for the lecture notes. Even further, the students do not take mental notes about upcoming tests or projects to organize for the same reason for not taking class notes. In short, the students get extremely lazy. As we all know, there is no Blackboard for real life and these students, I believe, will have trouble adjusting to life after school. Secondly, classroom dynamics is more than just learning from the professor; it is learning from your fellow classmates. If it becomes extremely easy for students to stay home and get their degrees , then I believe the students are missing out meaningful connections.

Flying Penguins

I saw this video and I really liked it. I almost believed it. When penguins were flying, I almost thought it was touching, but this is a film made by and broadcasted on B.B.C on April fool's day as a joke to people. I liked the fact that people can have, and share the sense of humor like this.I think humour plays an important and desirable role in many aspects of our life. Sometimes, it can get rid of tension, misunderstanding, fear between people, sometimes it can convey the feelings of understanding, sympathy and so on.

My thoghts on artificial Intelligence

Recently, I’ve read many interesting articles regarding artificial intelligence on the web. Artificial intelligence and robotics are two of the fastest improving fields today. There have been vast improvements starting from artificial math tutors to interactive playmates for young children. The future is very bright indeed in the field of robotics and artificial intelligence. In fact, I would say that a world that we only saw in science fiction movies and books is inevitable. Currently, because there is a shortage of teachers, such a world in which artificially intelligent robots can lessen the shortage seems attractive. Nevertheless, whether such a world would be beneficial to our society must be considered carefully because teachers play one of the most important roles in society. First and foremost, we must ask whether or not we can trust artificially intelligent robots and programs with our children. A machine, unlike a human, does not have emotions or morals or decision making capabilities. Therefore, a clear cut moral choice for a human may not be so obvious to a machine. Do we want our children to learn in such a cold and heartless environment? A teacher’s job goes beyond simply providing the students mathematical formulas or information about the civil war. A teacher’s job, more than ever, requires a human element of love. A teacher is somebody that the students should be able to turn to regarding not only academic problems, but emotional and life problems as well. Secondly, I believe students, and eventually the society as a whole, would lose the ability to creatively think and solve problems. A machine, no matter how “intelligent,” is merely following coded laws rules. Sometimes, a teacher must make the decision to break those rules for some students who are particularly gifted. In other words, each and every student differs in terms of what they are capable of producing. They are unique. Therefore, a computer program that treats every student the same would not be very effective in bringing out the best possible performance in them. I remember the best teacher that I’ve ever had was not necessarily the “smartest” teacher. I remember my favorite teacher as someone who was warm and kind. He had an eye for seeing the students’ talents and skills. He knew how to react to every student’s needs and when to punish and when to compliment. Lastly, because I respected this teacher very much, I tried incredibly hard to do well in the class. There is a relationship that forms between the students and the teachers, and this relationship element plays a vital role in any learning environment.

Exploring flash

Doing the action script flash assignment, I found the function of the flash that I don't have to type every world with my hands.

On the left middle section under the action scrip window, there are many preset scripts such as goAndPlay and Onpress etc. I could use those functions. I found it really interesting to explore just by clicking any symbols of flash and I found some useful functions such as round shape tool and some color mixing function. So happy that I finished my action script flash file which I spent my whole weekend on. I found that exploring doesen't hurt.

Clssroom of the future

I found this video about the classroom of the future and I thoght it was interesting. I believe the classroom of the future will at least look similar with this.

Documentation of the procedure from Flash to Web

1. Make a folder with the name of the flash work

2. Make a flash work. Save the fla file after giving a specific date or name in the folder

3.In the same folder, produce .swf/ .html files by going to the file and clicking publish in the original flash file.

4.Go to my web hosting page. www.zoinus.net

5.Login in my account

6. Click open on control panal.

7. Roll over the content menu and connect the FTP

8. Move the files I want from the local system to Remote system.

9. To show the flash woks on the weg, open my assignment. html and make the link of the flash files. (by copying the previous tag and chainging the name and the link address.)

What is Flash?

97% of computers, connecting to the Internet are possible to load a Flash file without congestion. Dynamic banners are mostly made by Flash. Flash is a technology to add interactivity and flashy graphics to a website.
Flash is gaining in popularity both with Web designers and with the public. There are some things on the Web that can only be done effectively with Flash, and some site owners feel that Flash is a very important part of their Web design.

Flash, a popular authoring software developed by Macromedia, is used to create vector graphics-based animation programs with full-screen navigation interfaces, graphic illustrations, and simple interactivity in an antialiased, resizable file format that is small enough to stream across a normal modem connection. The software is ubiquitous on the Web, both because of its speed (vector-based animations, which can adapt to different display sizes and resolutions, play as they download) and for the smooth way it renders graphics. Flash files, unlike animated but rasterized GIF and JPEG, are compact, efficient, and designed for optimized delivery.
Known as a do-it-yourself animation package, Flash 4 gives Web designers the ability to import artwork using whatever bitmap or illustration tool they prefer, and to create animation and special effects, and add sound and interactivity. The content is then saved as file with a .SWF file name extension.


Reference:http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia_term/0,2542,t=Flash&i=43259,00.asp

Thoghts on Handheld and Mobile Phones in Learning

Cell phones and handhelds are ubiquitous. In fact, many people feel a little anxious and nervous when they do not have their cell phones. Such dependency on technology is making us examine ways to use handhelds and mobile phones for learning.
Handhelds are mind bogglingly diverse and advanced these days. The life we’ve seen in the Japanese video is not an exaggeration for the near future. Phones such as the iPhone are capable of browsing the internet, playing music and video files, keeping your daily schedule, and of course act as a phone. If used properly, such a machine in the hands of every student can mean faster accessibility to teachers, better accessibility to hundreds and thousands of resources on the web, and faster learning through educational handheld programming. While all the ideas seem positive up to this point, there are major problems. For instance, how can you monitor the activity of each and every student? How do you know they are using the handheld device for the intended purpose of looking at say, dinosaurs, and not talking to their friends in another class? These problems might be addressed in the near future, but they are technologically and economically impossible endeavors at most schools. Frankly, I believe that the distraction would outweigh the learning factor for handheld devices.
Nevertheless, I believe the handheld device can play a less of a role in learning. Handheld devices are devices of communication and organization. As such, handheld devices shouldn’t be used as actual tools to display information on-screen (we have slides and computers for that). However, what it can be used as is to keep the students up to date on the events that are relevant to the student’s education. For example, a text can be sent to each student reminding them of what is due tomorrow and next week every day. In a more recent case at St. John’s University, the student body was warned of a gunman on the loose via mass text messages. In all fairness, the students may not take a homework text message as seriously as a text message about a psychotic gunman, but the point is to make it easy for the students should they ever feel inspired or motivated to do their homework or projects.

What is Web2.0?

In these days, Silicon Valley and internet business
are getting hot after the advent of Web2.0. Some
sites and products based or related on Web2.0
indiscreetly use term of “Web2.0 Technology” for
marketing and advertisement, and make computer
users confused. I did a little bit of research about what web2.0 is trying to find out if it really exists or not.

What’s Web 2.0?
Widely speaking, it is a web 2.0 as a platform. This term was made in analytic process by survival companies after Dot-com bubble.Some sites and products based or related on Web2.0 indiscreetly use term of “Web2.0 Technology” for marketing and advertisement, and make computer users confused.Generally, it is not easy to define Web 2.0 technology. It can be only classified its era that was created as a term by someone. Services based on Web 2.0 have existed in the Web 1.0 era. Fundamental concept and services of Web 2.0 also existed before Web 2.0. Web 2.0 technology is the same. Web 2.0 contains various categories as Server software, Content Syndication, Web standard, RIA, Web service and client applications.

People who desire to be a Web 2.0 developer could get confused or feel uncertain because Web 2.0 has different components and functions for developing web application than Web 1.0. For successful web 2.0 application, all Web 2.0 technologies must be used? If not, which of them should be used? A technical decision influences the result of a project. (We have to understand purpose of use clearly.)

The focus is not specification of a technology. We have to focus on why a technology must be used. Web 2.0 pursuits “Better Web” by contents’ productivity. We think what should be for “Better Web”. The version of 2.0 represents a duty of preparing better web environment in the point of both providers’ and users’ view.