The end is in sight......

Or so it would seem.....

All we have let now are hand in's and to complete our Wikis.

When I look back to my first class I realise how much I have learned. Yes, I am familiar with ICT tools, I use them constantly at work and my personal life. Yet there were certain aspects of ICT I was not familiar with, new tools that have since come to the fore, new ways of doing things, unlearning old ways, new websites, new terms...new new new.....oh so much.

In reflection I know for sure, I enjoyed blogging. I wish we had more time to do this and not intermittently posting in-between essays, powerpoint presentations, and one's day at work.

I also enjoyed working on my essay on Altmetrics, learning so much from this new kid on the block.

The interaction with my classmates is priceless and something I will treasure. In a short space of time we got on so well, we respect one another's opinion about the Wiki's, for example, we are able to sit and discuss, bring to the table ideas and comments without anyone shooting down the ideas. We see how best we can make it all work, together. I am indeed blessed to work and study with such awesome humans.

So for this course it is adios....

Wikis...

The class was given a collaborative assignment to work on a wiki....

We started the wiki page in class, each person had to sign in as a user. We met on Saturday and had an awesome brainstorming session. I was very pleased for this session because we had our own ideas of what was required in the wiki. Dr Zinn explained to us exactly what was needed. We then got down to some serious work, the ideas and  comments were very encouraging.
 Let see how this pans out.....


For more information on wikis....


http://computers.tutsplus.com/tutorials/what-are-wikis-and-why-should-you-use-them--cms-19540

The idea of a "Wiki" may seem odd at first, but dive in, explore its links and it will soon seem familiar. "Wiki" is a composition system; it's a discussion medium; it's a repository; it's a mail system; it's a tool for collaboration. We don't know quite what it is, but we do know it's a fun way to communicate asynchronously across the network.

To present or not to present.....

Suffice to say, I enjoyed working on my essay, Altmetrics, the new baby on the block. Presenting for me is easy, maybe it stems from years of lecturing. We had 15 minutes to present to the class on our topics, including question and answer sessions. My presentation had to be cut down considerably. I mean there's only so much one can talk about in 15 minutes. I had to sieve through all the pertinent issues and include that in a powerpoint.

Normally my powerpoint presentations are very simple, one word or sentence or picture. Having attended and facilitated powerpoint presentation workshops, "less is more" is the official mantra of any facilitator.

So the day or in our case afternoon dawned for presentations. I was taken aback to see how stressed the rest of my classmates were. My heart ached for them. The good news is we all rocked our presentations. It was very interesting to listen to each one presenting on a different topic, it was indeed a learning curve..


 For more information on do's and dont's of powerpoint presentation, check out this link on slideshare....http://www.slideshare.net/sudarsansahu/powerpoint-do-dont

Turnitin (or nail biting) anticipation

I have successfully completed my +5000-word essay. Super amped. No!....wait I have to Turnitin.....

What was so funny for me was a reversal of roles. I often had to get my students to Turnitin. This is a software package to detect plagiarism. One has to turn one's essay or assignment to this site and you get a print out showing how much you have plagiarised. I would often hear the complaints, "Oh God I have to do it again"; "Damn this Turnitin" and some too sensitive to mention, but you get the picture.

I remember the morning I turned my essay in, I sit waiting in bated breath, fingers, toes and anything else crossable was crossed. 17%....
Not bad right.That's what I thought. Anyway, I worked on the essay some more and brought my Turnitin percentage down to 11%. Yeah, that more like it.

So.... essay submitted, I was happy with Turnitin now to prepare for presentation......


For more information on Turnitin....click here

http://turnitin.com/en_us/features/originalitycheck



What the Turnitin report looks like.....

Digital Literacy Tools on Pinterest

Check out this board on Pinterest about Digital Literacy tools....



https://www.pinterest.com/amandarhae/digital-literacy-tools/

Some humour

Enjoy....

Digital curation

Digital curation is the selection, preservation, maintenance, collection and archiving of digital assets. Digital curation establishes, maintains and adds value to repositories of digital data for present and future use. This is often accomplished by archivists, librarians, scientists, historians and scholars.

The Digital Curation Centre (DCC) had this to say, "For research teams to enjoy the full benefit of the research data that is produced, institutions must put in place skilled digital curators and effective curation lifecycle management. This will help to ensure that important digital research data is adequately safeguarded for future use.

By learning how to preserve and share digital materials so others can effectively reuse them, you will maximise the impact of your research – and inspire confidence amongst the research councils and funding bodies that invest in your work".

We had a guest lecturer on the subject, Mrs Sally Witbooi. Personally the subject matter was of interest to me. My dissertation is on preserving indigenous knowledge. I see this as a platform I can use extensively. Thought provoking lecture by Sally.

Sally recently travelled to Finland to present a paper on Digital Curation.