Finally....

Make a Smilebox greeting

I am living in a celebrity-like life

I have been living in a celebrity-like life since the spring semester was over.
You know...
Shopping, shopping and shopping ( even though most of the time I am doing grocery shopping not luxury shopping, it's still shopping).
Having tea time with friends (well...once).
Doing manicure and pedicure ( well....once, again HA. Not very satisfied with the service. By the way, I learned these two terms in an authentic environment. How meaningful).
Reading novels ( the first time I am so appreciated the establishment of libraries).
Anyway, no working, no worrying. Do whatever I like.

Well... not exactly, I still need to do some housework, you know like cooking and cleaning.
And I found out, only the celebrity can have nice polished nails for a long time ( no housework, no hair washing by themselves. And I learned they have changed the color once three days).
The color of my hands' French Manicure faded after two days. I removed them with grief.
Fortunately, those of my foot nails still look nice.

I am living in a celebrity-LIKE life:)

The last day of class, HOORAY!

(This suppose to be an animation, why didn't you move??? Wave you hand RIGHT NOW!!....PLEASE, Kitty.)

I can't wait for summer coming.
I am taking 4 course this semester. How brave I am.
Since I wanna graduate next term, I have to be brave.

Keep blogging is like writing a journal.
Do you guys write a journal?
I don't.
I am a lazy lazy lazy bone.
If I stop blogging, it's simply- I AM LAZY. Ha.
I am even lazy to watch TV, go to a movie, interact with people recently.
They used to be my favorites.
What's going on with me?
Why do I lose any interest on anything?
Because I am getting old?

Back to track,
My final project is using web 2.0 to motivate my students' English learning.
It's challenging to apply the tools into interactive practices and activities
because they have to be meaningful and relevant to students' lives.
After several days brain storming, I am pretty happy to see the outcome. even only one unit.
It's time consuming for sure.
I can foresee the problem for teachers to integrate information technology into their teaching practices.

My website has a huge room to improve.
And I am planning working on during summer. How diligent student I am.
You get to give me A+, Dr. Foreman. Hahahahahaha.

I am really happy to take this course with many of you.
Hope to have chance to see you next semester.

फिनल, फिनल, फिनल इस coming

इ दोन;टी क्नो वहत'स गोइंग ओं?
थे ओनली वोर्ड्स अरे थे कुएस्शन मार्क??????

Final Project Overview

Check my draft on my wiki.
Have fun on my super dry paper.
Ha!

Web 2.0 Expo

Doris, Mei-Ling and I went to the conference on Thursday afternoon- Booth Crawl in the Expo Hall. The fist booth we stopped by is called Zude. According to its ad: it is a new social computing platform offering users an unprecedented level of freedom and creativity. Using an endless supply of free web pages, groundbreaking drag-and-drop technology and a complete set of social networking features, users can create a media-rich website experience to share with the world.
It sounds pretty interesting. Maybe it can play the platform for my final project. However, when I try to join, I couldn’t find the submit button in the signup area. Too bad. I browsed the website for a while, the interface is not friendly to me. Too many “new terms” are not in my concept map about the web authoring. And the tool bar doesn’t make sense to me. In other words, if I want to use it, I need to spend quite a lot of time to figure out how.

The other tool I am interested in is called “bluestring”, which is a centralized location for preserving your photos, videos and music. Users can easily incorporate media from multiple locations into slideshows and creations that can be shared easily with family and friends. So the main points are

• Share exclusively with whom you choose and no one else. Your media never leaves your BlueString account. You are always in control of who can see your BlueString stuff.
• Publish your photos or videos into your own blog or website.
• Create links that you can share or post wherever you choose.
• Just drag and drop the stuff you want to share.
  

So the idea is different from flickr. I am still playing it. Well, there is no video tutorial; I am kind of not used to. HA! And I have to sign up first to get deeper understanding, which made me a little bit uncomfortable. Anyway, hope to find some useful functions in education.

interface analysis

Wetapint is my target interface to analyses since I am considering using it as the platform of my final project, English e-learning website with web 2.0.
As a novice, I found wetapint is not so easy to “play around”. I guess the main reason might be I am not familiar with website design, that is, I might not have an accurate concept map of writing a web page.

Site pros:

• A tutorial video showing me how to build a personal wiki site
• One person can create more than one site
• In “my wetpaint wikis”, it shows me the wiki(s) you have created and the wikis you have joined.
• Navigation buttons are corresponded to my concept map, I have no difficulty to find them.
• It generates the sitemap for the creator and users.
• In “setting”, I have the right to decide who can edit or add my page and who can post threads; I can create my won template; I can choose my page style; I can rename my site name and add header image.
• Since the website is for education, I can contact with the custom service and ask for ad free.
• The pages I create can show their hierarchical structure, which is able for me to design several modules for my target learners.
• It provides threads so I can use it to interact with my target learners.
• It can embed most of web 2.0 tools , such as youtube, ovicethread, flickr, etc.
• “edit” is familiar as Word.
  

Site cons:

• It’s difficult to “add page” in the right position of the hierarchical structure. If I add in the wrong place, I have problem to move it to the right spot. Buttons of “add page” and “move page”, ”delete page”, “rename page” are not nearby. They are supposed to be grouping together.
• Once I name the page, for example “itec830-assignment1”; even though later on I delete it, I can use the name “itec830-assignment1” no more.
• It provides users with sitemap; however, it shows at the very bottom of the web page with rather small font size and with a group of non-associated information.
• It can’t not play the function of e-learning website providing the practice activities, such like multiple choice questions, true or false questions and so on and so forth.
  

In sum, I found wetpaint has the most functions I need for the project, except the last flaw which is my most concern, not be able to provide immediate feedback. If I can’t figure out the solution, well, then I have to find another platform instead.