Downloading and understanding Endnote

Before beginning this assignment, I had already downloaded Endnote onto my computer from the Murdoch Library. Endnote I now know is a referencing software that is offered to all Murdoch University students for free. Initially, I had downloaded Endnote early, on commencement of my units, after reading somewhere on the external studies information site that this would be required as part of my studies. I wanted to be organised and prepared. I had intended to research and play around with it to see how it all work before now but hadn't actually got around to it. I didn't really know anything about this software, only that somehow it was meant to help me with writing my assignments throughout my time at university. The Endnote download was easy to find and instructions where clear and simple to follow.  Although, now it was successfully downloaded onto my computer, I did not have a clue what I was actually meant to do with it. I had noticed that it appears when I open up a word document, but I was not sure how to use it.

Task 2 instructions 'Learn how to use Endnote to store and cite references'. I was excited I was finally going to learn what Endnote is, and what it is used for. I went onto the LMS whereby we were told by our tutors we would find the Endnote link to download, guidelines and any relevant information regarding this referencing technology. 

The technology toolbox for educators is packed with some great resources, it contains so much useful information. Sometimes I feel a little lost and overwhelmed by it all and dont really know where to begin. Although once you find your way around, it is relatively straight forward to navigate around to find what you are looking for.

Under referencing, on the technology toolbox for educators site, there is a fantastic link to the You Tube Endnote training channel. I found this most useful as a visual learner. I find by watching tutorials this is a way in which I learn best, as opposed to large amount of written text or instructions which can be sometimes hard to interpret.

I feel now after watching a few various different tutorial videos I am confident enough to begin Task 2, first find a suitable resource and learn to use learn to cite and reference it with Endnote.

Live Classroom and social media groups

Beginning Task 2, I was feeling disappointed after finding out that our Live Tutorials for external students would now be held between 8- 9pm WA time (9.30pm for me in the Northern Territory). Unfortunately, a bit late for me. I don't want to miss out as these tutorials really helped to motivate me throughout the last task, and helped with clarification of the task itself. It made me feel involved and allowed me to be able to contribute. It was nice to have that connection with my peers and the tutors.

I was assured that these tutorials would also be recorded and I could therefore watch the archived session.

Discussions that have been brought up in Facebook and the EDN113 Skype group have allowed me to interact with my peers and provided me with that all important interaction that can sometimes be limiting as an external student. These groups have allowed me to feel connected and inclusive as part of a group.

Yesterday (28th March) I had a dicussion with a couple of my peers in our Skype group about our initial understandings of task 2. I had being feeling a little hesitant to begin with about starting task 2 as I had felt slightly confused about the resource and what we had to write in our word document. These online discussions have given me the reassurance  I needed from others and  the confidence knowing that you have interpreted the task as others have.

Authentic Learning and Introduction to Task 2

I have just finished watching this weeks lecture on Authentic Learning which also gave an overview of Task 2. I found it very interesting as it talked about the technology being used as a cognitive tool. It made me consider the way in which we have been learning throughout this unit and what it means to provide authentic learning. 

In task 2 we will be learning how to use Endnote to cite and store references, and learn about some screencast technologies. Instead of using technology to present already known information, we will be using technology as a tool, learning as we go. I definitely want to find the chance to read over more of my unit text.

Jane L., Howland, David, Jonassen, & Rose M., Marra. (2012). Meaningful Learning with Technology (4 ed.). Boston: Pearson Education.

The lecture has made it clear the requirements for task 2. I am now feeling more confident about the task ahead of me and am looking forward to progressing. It has also highlighted some minor problems some people were experiencing when it came to downloading EndNote, which I was totally unaware of. I  feel this is always useful to know for future reference.

Some of the suggestions made in this weeks lecture were to firstly to attempt to try out various different means of problem solving.  I am going to consciously take this into account when carrying out my research for Task 2 and instead of just using the LMS to post discussions and problem solve use a range of different learning strategies such as discussions through different social media, (eg: Skype, Facebook), emails to my group members, and seeking solutions from lecture materials as well as communicating with my tutor and unit coordinator.

After watching this lecture I have also decided it would be beneficial for me to join up to the Dingo group for pre-service teachers. The online library provides stacks of useful resources and reading material related to this unit.

Task 2: The researcher, Initial confusion

For Task 2, I am required to explore technologies that relate to my work at university as both a learner and researcher.

March 24th, Admittedly at this point in time I had not had the chance since our last assignment to properly read over the requirements for Task 2 in our UILG. Stupidly, without reading the task requirements, I panicked after seeing the announcement on the LMS and that my peers had already began signing their names up on the Google Docs spreadsheet created for External students.  

I didn't want to miss out! I really wanted to choose art as this is my favourite subject and would like to specialise in this area of study after graduating. 

I had to pick one of the following resource types; a book or Ebook, a Journal  article, a website, blog or wiki or a video / audio podcast. Great I thought! I have already created a website, I wanted to try something new... I don't really like having to make videos and a journal article I thought sounded boring. I would love to design and create my own childrens Ebook!  Only I was soon disappointed then reading what I was actually required to do for this task in my UILG. I wasn't going to be creating a book at all... only research and reference it. Never mind! 

After finally clarifying what it was the task was asking me to do I headed straight for Google in search for my resource, only to find after many hours searching endlessly I realised it wasn't actually clear to me what I was looking for... I have started to get very frustrated and have wasted valuable time not knowing what I was looking for. I have been feeling lost, with what was meant to be a straight forward task with supposedly clear instructions. 

I sought the advice from both my tutors in hope of  shedding some light on my confusion with this task. I was feeling pretty miserable and embarrassed  knowing that I was actually making this task far more complicated for myself than it needed to be.

Time to re think and collect my thoughts! 

First things first, what is it I am actually searching for? My discussions with my tutors did clear up some of my confusions, however I still was lacking the confidence I needed to pursue with this task.

I am starting to realise how important it is to keep up with the online discussion boards and the need to have regular communication with your peers. Before going any further with this task, I decided to seek others interpretations of this task in order to clarify in my mind what it is I am trying to achieve.

Peer Reviewing Complete!

From what I have observed on the discussion board during the course of the weekend, quite a few of us 'external' students submitted their work early for peer review. Initially on the Saturday when I heard people had started to do this, I panicked. I wasn't quite ready I thought and was concerned that, what if mine didn't get a review?!

I put my draft up for review late Sunday afternoon.  I wanted to put it up early incase I came across any problems or experienced any technical glitches uploading my site onto the peer review system.

By Monday afternoon I was happy, relieved that I had submitted successfully on time and had already received three reviews from my peers!  All of which gave relatively positive feedback. So thank you to those three people!

Reviewing my peers sites has overall been highly rewarding, although challenging. A good learning experience I believe for us all!

I was very hesitant to begin with and conscientious about how I would go about phrasing my feedback. I didn't want my reviewee to feel that I was being negative towards their site, but I really wanted to give honest constructive feedback that could potentially help improve their work, if required. 

I was told once by a teacher 'For every negative you should give two positives'.

My first reviewer started by giving some nice positive feedback. Their feedback was very constructive, and after a little further research I was able to answer their query. They posed a question relating to whether the technology was equally compatible with Windows and Mac users. 

I was a little confused by this feedback to begin with as I had mentioned on my social resource page that the reason for choosing Keep Recipes as my technology was that... 

'Keep Recipes does not exclude anyone, no matter whether they are using PC or Mac.'

After researching the topic further I discovered what they had meant. "Do they only have a video for Mac users?"  I had overlooked the fact that the You Tube link provided instructions using screen shots from a Mac. The reviewer queried whether the same instructions were valid for PC's.

I jumped onto another computer (PC) to test out what happend when I tried to follow my instructions and the YouTube link. In doing so I found that  the instructions worked for both systems, but found slight glitch that PC users may come across. 

When dragging the icon...              

into your favourites bar (I was using Google Chrome on a PC) the tab or link appeared as

rather than

The icon still worked however was not clearly labeled to resolve this I simply used the alterative text link

and it worked fine! I have learnt from this that I will need to make a note / comment somewhere on my social site to inform PC users about this.


My second reviewer commented: 

Again, initially I was confused, I found this comment a little unclear. I am not quite sure what they meant. So I revisited my website.... then my Blog. I looked down at the bottom of the page to the comments page and understood what they had meant.  I know other people have been able to make comments before, there must be somewhere in the settings I can change this.

In my Blogger Settings I found an option to
change these settings, now anyone is able to make a comment on my blog! Thanks for this feedback!

My third and final review was quite positive and did not alert me to any significant improvements or changes to my site.

Given access to constructive criticism through peer reviews has led me to place myself in the shoes of the user.This has ultimately led to refinement and improvement of my assignment.

Week 4 Lecture: Peer Reviews

I have made it to the end of week 4. My website and social resource are now due for peer review. I am feeling pretty nervous about this. The week 4 lecture on peer reviewing was very useful. It gave me a clearer understanding of what to expect from my peer reviews and how to give constructive feedback to my peers on their website and blog.

In the previous  week 3 lecture we were provided with 3 examples of hypothetical sites, created by our tutors. (E-portfolio:sample 1, Mr Parkers e-portfolio and EDN113 Sample Site 3)  Part of a live classroom tutorial this week was going through these examples and assessing them against what we thought they would get marked as using the marking rubric. I found this exercise beneficial as it made me look harder at my own website, and whether or not I was addressing the criteria.

PDF Instructions

I am now at the stage of creating my PDF instructions. I began by doing this in a word document. I initially thought this is to be the most obvious choice, as I can convert my instructions into a PDF for my website. However, I found this to have its pitfalls, particularly when adding screenshots. Word would reformat and move text around the page. I have been struggling to make it visually appealing. I have decided that a template would make this task simpler, and create consistency across all the pages. I have decided to try using Powerpoint to assist me with this job. 

Although I was a little unsure whether you could convert a PTX file into a PDF, the only way to find out... was to have a go! Success!  I can now use the same template for each of my pages, text size is set to the same across all pages, and title was formated. All I do now is simply type my text in the boxes and insert a picture.

I had already pre prepared, knowing that the task required me to include screenshots as part of my instructions. When I initially set up my Keep Recipe account, I took many screenshots of  each page as I went along. This was a good idea as it has saved time now and I don't have to go back into each stage again of the sign up process. I hope that by providing plenty of visuals to go along with my instructions, it will make it clearer to my peers how to go about using my social space, and how to contribute. The site allows for many different options for signing up and later, sharing recipes. Instruction will be included for various sign up options.

23 slides later, I am finally done! Or so I thought. I logged into my Weebly account, hit the upload file icon.... FILE TOO BIG! I was gutted. I had just discovered that one limitation of Weebly's free software was a 10 MB upload limit. Want more? You pay.

I searched through the settings in powerpoint. I knew that in some programs you could reduce image quality etc, and therefore file size. I asked my partner for some advice as he had mentioned that somehow he managed to achieve this a few days ago, but on a Microsoft program... No good when I am using a Mac! I couldn't find any options for this anywhere only to compress the file which I didn't really understand.

I searched around my Weebly site '"There is always a way of getting around these issues, you just have to search for them" my partner told me. Right, I thought! I have got this far, I will not be defeated!

I my search for a solution, I discovered the 'embedded document' icon on my Weebly site. I did not have a clue what this meant, but it may have been the answer I was looking for. A question for Google... "How to embed a document using Scribd?"

I found my answer...  

HTML embed code

The easiest way to embed a document on your website is to use our HTML embed code. Open your document and click Embed in the Share and Embed section to find the code. Paste it into your site's html source, and you're done.

I uploaded my PDF document onto Scribd, this gave me the option to download the file? I was a little confused as to why you would do this when I have just uploaded it. But I clicked on the download file button anyway... to my amazement the file was now small enough to upload!

Although by complete accident, my experimentation had killed two birds with one stone. I had reduced to the file size, and learnt to embed a document onto my site. For me this was a great achievement and I was really excited that I was able to accomplish this! I was so proud!  I love this program!  I thought the options of a scrolling document or slide show feature was amazing,  so I have decided to have both options available on my website. I like the concept that  I could offer my peers the option of  viewing my instructions through a scrolling slide document on my social resource page, without the need to download instructions if they do not want to.

My Chosen Technology: Keep Recipes

It has taken numerous hours exploring the two websites, Keep Recipes and Taste.com to be able to make a decision as to which is the most suitable. It was a close call but... 

Keep Recipes Is the technology I have chosen for my social resource.

Here's why!

Taste.com would be great as a personal online library as it was fantastic for searching for new recipe ideas and storing them. However, it was far too complex and inconvenient for sharing these with others. I became very frustrated when navigating around this site, and was convinced that I was missing something! I could not find a way to share my recipes with friends directly, only through the community portal. Unlike Keep Recipes, I also found that with Taste.com I was unable to search and invite friends to view my recipes. 

Keep Recipes functions as both a recipes library and a community cooking portal and therefore had some great community sharing features which makes this the most appropriate social technology to support my social event.

Although some of it's feature might not be perfect yet, I like that it has integrated with other widely used social medias such as Facebook and Twitter. This makes it easy to share recipes with those that may not be as technologically advanced and want to persist in using the technology that is familiar to them. Keep Recipes does not exclude anyone, no matter whether they are using PC or Mac. If people are not connected to Facebook or Twitter or do not want to sign up with a free account they can simply be emailed the recipe.

Keep Recipes allows an easy way for my friends to follow my online library.  I can send them a personal invite to view my entire collection or send an individual recipe. Recipes and ideas could be easily shared between through a choice of other media technologies such as Facebook and Twitter and email. Keep recipes recently added Iphone App makes recipes conveniently and easily accessible. I can add and share from just about  anywhere.

I trialled this site extensively by creating 'dummy accounts' and asking my partner to use the site. This allowed me to test the sites sharing capabilities before creating my PDF instructions for my peers to follow. In doing so, was able iron out any glitches and most importantly, found the most user friendly methods for communicating with my peers.

I also came to realise that after speaking with my tutor about my PDF instructions I needed to be a bit clearer on what it was I wanted my peers to contribute to my social event and why I wanted them to contribute to my site. Rather than just using it for their own purpose, create a narrative to motivate my peers to contribute. An event such as a morning tea would create purpose in sharing recipes between my peers.