Choosing a social tool

I feel like the research of three technologies is taking a lot longer than I had anticipated. I have spent most of the weekend reading, looking at, and setting up different accounts on social sites to trial. I have found that there are many more out there to be discovered, but I have to keep reminding myself only to research three.It is quite easy to get absorbed into the technological world and get carried away with your research. I need to focus on the task. Today, I checked back over the marking rubric for Task 1: social learner,  to make sure that I was addressing all the criteria. 

What I need to do from here: 

• Decide on the most appropriate.
• Give a detailed description of the technology I have selected and its features.
• Create my social Space.
• Produce PDF instructions for my peers.

Choosing a social tool: Creating a Keep Recipes account

Creating an account is as 

  Simple as 1 2 3...

I love that this social networking tool is quick and easy to set up. There is no time consuming sign up process, which would generally put me off.

Step 1: Create a user name and account. I was able to create, sign in with my Facebook account, but if you don't have one, unlike pinterest, Keep Recipes allows for alternative options.

Step 2: Gives you the option to follow your interests, I skipped this part for the time being, and can return to it later.

I have noticed that there are some advertisements as would be expected from a free site, although I don't mind as it seems to be very minimal and either at the top of bottom of the page out of the way. I was easily able to ignore this.

Step 3: As I came to the last steps of creating my account it demonstrates how to use the ' + Keeprecipe' button. A YouTube video demonstrates how to add this feature to your toolbar, through drag and drop method. Again everything about this site makes it very easy to use for someone that maybe is not as technologically minded.

After setting up an account, you are taken to your home page. I thought it would be a good idea to see how it works, searching for and adding recipes to my online cookbook.

PRO'S

• An easy share icon appears Email, Facebook and Twitter
• Can invite friends or family to follow and share my recipes through Facebook.
• Recipes are printable
• Blogs, create discussions with other users.
• Allows for comments to be made on your recipes.
• When retrieving recipes from a website, it automatically gives you a choice of images.
• If you highlight text before clicking your +keeprecipe button  the recipe gets automatically pasting into template. Like this!!!
• Auto filters recipe, means I do not have to create folders.
• Allows users different viewing options.
• Easy to search for recipes.

CON'S 

• Unable to retrieve an image when tested on Coles magazine, but may be able to research this further.
• Advertisements
• I got slightly confused when logging out. I presumed you should click on the arrow icon, top right of the page to get options up, but you have actually got to hover over your profile picture to log out. 

Sites Feedback Page  I found this useful to get a clear idea on the sites downfalls mentioned by existing users. Some suggestions made by other community members were:

• Grocery List link, This was not of high importance for my purpose of sharing recipes and getting people to contribute to my social space.
• No Android Ap available yet, but the site are working towards this as not everyone has a IPhone.
• No System rating or meal planner function.

Choosing a social tool: Keep Recipes

Keep Recipes had a very easy, user friendly website to follow, unlike taste.com where I found you have to actually search a little harder to discover what they can do. 5 clear tabs across the top allow for easy navigation around site. Keep Recipes puts it Plain and Simple so to say! A good about page, that gives a brief overview of the functions available.

Ticks the boxes so far...

• I am able to get recipes from other web sources.
• Can share recipes with friends. 
• Bloggers tab allows you and your friends to follow each others recipes and make comments.
• Allows you to take photos with the use of a IPhone Ap that is available, which I will later try!
• Can purchase digital cookbooks from professional Chefs.
• A + keep Recipe bookmarklet function for your browser, simular to Pinterest's however I found this easy to use straight away.
• Can browse by category.

Premium features if wanted to consider at a later date:

• Offline recipe access.
• Recipe scanning. 
• Ad Free site.

An overview of this site and I am happy so far and have decided to go ahead and create an account. 

Choosing a social tool: MacGourmet

MacGourmet

I must admit being a Mac user myself I got quite excited about this social technology only to discover within minutes it would not be worth investigating further as my social resource.
Firstly, it is only for Mac Users.  Secondly, you need to pay for an account.

From the sites overview of its feature the site looks perfect for meal planning, storing and organising recipes and although you can publish recipes onto a web server it is not an ideal social tool for sharing.

Choosing a social tool: Taste.com

I had often viewed a site called Taste.com to view recipe ideas. However I was totally unaware until now that if you registered you could create your own online cookbook, save, store and also and share with community members. So I had a look, but was quickly put of by the registration process. Too long, too many questions. 

At a more convenient time I decided that I needed to reconsider signing up. This could be a suitable networking technology for my social event. On first impressions like most of the other sites at a glance appears to offer what I required for my social event. Until closer investigation, when I started to stumble across many flaws in the site. The biggest disappointment was that from trialling out the site it appears I can't easily share my recipes with friends. It is more of a community share site, this does not allow me to share my  recipe ideas and  discussions privately.

Choosing a social tool: Pinterest

  "A tool for collecting and organising the things you love!"

Pinterest starts usually with an image with a direct link back to the source, that can then be organised onto boards. A pinterest icon appears in your browser toolbar so that you can Pin ideas, although I havent managed to get this to work yet.

PRO'S

• Is not just for food and recipes that it can be used for. Many different subjects.
• It is visually appealing.
• Good for brainstorming ideas.
• It integrates users of Facebook, can follow and share links with friends and other community users.
• Links you to original source.
• Your boards can be kept private or made public, you can invite people to pin on your boards.
• Follow others' recipes.
• IPhone App available.

CON'S

• Complex sign up process.When signing up, you need to be a user of Facebook, and have to wait on acceptance to join. It is not instant, I waited a few days for a response when setting up my account.
• Still are required to browse through your pinned photographs or recipes. There is not a search function for your collected pins. Only to search new ideas.
• Takes you to link of that original source, problems where that source may no longer be available.
• Need to be online, not available offline.
• Had problems opening my page using certain browsers. Had to save a bookmarked page directly to my home page to resolve this.
• Starts with a visual image, therefore if your only looking at storing your own written recipe ideas or recipes from books this is no good, no place to type or input data.
• Not just a site for recipes and food, maybe not specific enough for what I intend on using it for.

Choosing a social tool: Where to begin?

Firstly, like most things, a Google search was a quick and easy way to begin my research. I typed in 'online recipe books' and  'how to store recipes' and away I go. These searches came up with lots of very useful sites. A few helpful sites were those that provide a list of top 10 technologies or similar. I was able to get a brief description of some suitable social networking technologies from these. The options were endless, I never realised that there were so many available. Now to minimise it down to three technologies.

I also came across an article on the wall street journal during my search scanning the internet for information Chefs Solve a Modern Kitchen Crisis: Recipe Clutter by Alina Dizik. From here it gave me a link to some tools for online recipe sharing. 'The cloud for cooks'.

Choosing My Social Resource

When given the opportunity and freedom to explore any social context the hard part for me was just settling on only one idea! I couldn't decide on a particular social event or activity. There are so many ideas to explore ranging from home brewing recipe sharing, fishing discussion forums to sharing holiday photos with my family and friends. I sought advice from my peers on the discussion forum and my tutor, and although many encouraged some of my ideas, I'm not quite feeling satisfied.

After watching the lecture I realised that for me to be able to achieve well in this unit as a social learner, the task needs to have meaning and be 'authentic'. 

After many indecisive moments, changing between many ideas, this morning I have finally settled on one and have gone with it!

http://katieday21.weebly.com/assignment-1-social-resource.html

Wordle

I was re-reading some of our text book today 'Meaningful Learning with Technology' and liked the idea of using wordle as a bit of creative fun to promote a piece of text. I had come across examples of this before, but hadn't realised that it was done with a free online visualisation tool. I thought I would give it a try and see how it works. I love that this unit has opened up opportunities for us to explore and try out technologies  that I would have never considered, or even heard of before now. I was unaware of the endless possibilities  technology has to offer us.

Skype

The Skype group that has been set up for EDN113 is fantastic, enabling interaction with my peers. It has also been a great problem solving strategy for issues relating to my blog or website that can normally be easily be resolved. I recommend others make use of this valuable social technology.

One suggestion made to me today through Skype for photo sharing was social resource, Tumblr. I also mentioned that I had heard of friends using Instagram. I have now been advised that Instagram can't upload from a computer, only a smart device, and would therefore not be suitable for use by my parents and others without such a device.

"Tweeting Sweet"

Today I stumbled across an interesting read in the Autumn edition of the Australian Educator, if anyone reading this has access to this magazine. Unfortunately, it does not appear that you can access this online without a subscription.

"Tweeting Sweet" by freelance writer Cynthia Karena.

It is about the social networking system, Twitter, and how it allows educators to connect, and keep informed of educational matters through Tweets. Use of hashtags by educators.

The Article gives links to resources that may be of interest when researching social technologies like Twitter.

Getting started on Twitter
Educational hash tags
What are has tags?
Using Twitter to develop a PLN
Twitter for pre-service teachers

Creative Commons

I have been re-reading parts of our textbook for this unit. 

Howland, J., Jonassen, D., & Marra, R. (2012). Meaningful learning with technology (4th Ed.).

P.137 provided a link to the Creative Commons organisation which I will have a look at when choosing anymore pictures for my website.

Copyright

I need to learn about copyright laws!

I have spent numerous hours trawling the internet, firstly on google images, then on Flickr Commons. I am not sure I fully understand how this site works. In the search for a suitable image to use for my website banner, and realising I was unable to use my preferred image due to copyright, I decided it was much simpler to use my own photograph. Problem solved!

I am a BLOGGER

I am having some difficulties when copying and pasting my blogs from a word document. The font appears to change size. Although by the end of today, I have somehow managed to rectify this. I have also discovered that I am not really too sure why I am using word.... Blogger has everything I need! I can change the font style, size and it has spell check!!! This was one of the main reasons I had been using Word initially.

Lesson to be learnt. It is also very easy to delete an unpublished blog accidentally!!!

Things I want to research further : Whether I can reverse the order of my posts. I would prefer my earliest (first) post to be shown at the top of the page, it makes more sense to me to follow it in chronological order.

Creating a link to my website was in fact a lot easier that I had imagined.  In saying that, it is a bit annoying that you can not view or test out your hyperlinks until the site has been published. Before I publish my site I want to ensure that I am still able to edit the pages I have worked on so far.

By the end of week 2- The Transition… Paper Blogging to BLOGGER!

Up until now I had been paper blogging, recording my thoughts down on paper. I had felt more comfortable with this initially until doing further research into what content blogs should include and blog guidelines that I should be following.

I am now ready to give it a go! I have gained a lot more confidence as I have moved through my second week of university. I have come across a few challenges along the way and I am sure there are many more to follow. I now have my website set up and I am feeling proud of my achievement. I am now ready to transfer these bits of paper into my Blog.

My first steps:

I found it great that students share their findings on the discussion boards. One student mentioned they had found a very interesting site containing a tutorial on blogging at www.freetech4teachers.com. 

This provided a good starting point.

The technology toolbox provides a link to a YouTube video on How to create a blogger Blog (3:21 min YouTube video, BloggerHelp,2011).

Again with Blogger, I have found that you need to be signed up with a Google account. I am starting to realise that Google actually provide a lot more than what I had previously known. I had been under the impression that Google was just a search engine and email account (Gmail). I am now discovering that you can create websites and blogs through Google.

The first time logged into my Google account, I am a little unclear on how to navigate around this site. Feel a little silly that I am nervous about making my first ever blog and making a mistake but well here it goes... Please continue to follow me on my journey!