Well what a difference a few days make! I am very pleased to say that my poster is completed and my assignment submitted, YES! To sum up the end product was created with Piktochart after trying a couple of other software packages I found it the most user friendly. I incorporated authentic learning practices in the final product, solved the problem of saving the document as a printable PDF file, kept the message brief and informative and visually appealing to the target audience.

I have been in contact with two fellow external students using instant messaging on facebook and sent them links of my website to receive some feedback. We were able to use the messaging feature to have a brief discussion about the assignment in real time which I found very helpful. . I also met up with another external peer from the same town and had coffee while looking at each others work. I had some concerns that the information provided on my website was perhaps too personal so I was able to ask their opinions to decide what I needed to change. Looking at the work of my peers also helped me to recognise areas of weakness in my own work, lack of description in my blogs of how I resolved problems was one of them. I also took this into account when describing my poster on my Digital Citizenship page.

Now that Task 1 is completed I am excited to begin on Task 2. At this stage I have no idea what social media to focus on but I am not planning on jumping ahead of myself this time, instead I will wait to receive guidance from the lectures. As it is, I still have illnesses to deal with on the home front so for now I have a little time up my sleeve to focus on getting everyone healthy again. Insert sigh of relief here. :) 

This is my view from my desk as I sit here feeling chained to it, desperately attempting to complete this task. To be perfectly honest I am feeling disappointed at the results of my progress with the Digital Guidelines poster due to many setbacks. After spending a long Sunday attempting to design my poster I realised after watching Lecture 3 that I was on the wrong track completely. I began with an idea of setting up a poster with links to different websites covering all aspects of digital citizenship that could be interactive for students with thoughts to have a printable poster that showed a picture of the website and URL address. I have since realised that this is not what is required after spending the day on a site called Mural.ly (found on a separate blog http://seekoutlearning.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/8-free-websites-to-create-cool-student.html#.UyfZ1LS_eA3 that is linked in the Learning Strategies - Technology Toolbox for Teachers; https://sites.google.com/site/technologytoolboxforeducators/learning-to-learn) Mural.ly is a great tool for collaborative work but unfortunately is not ideal for creating a poster for a number of reasons as I discovered while using the tool; it only saves links for 5 days, it allows users to alter the project, it doesn't print and I am unsure whether it can be saved in PDF or JPEG format. It was helpful in that I have used it to brainstorm ideas and helped me to come to make a decision on what area I will focus on for my poster. It also saved pictures of the websites that I have researched that visually helps to remind me of where I can find the information required to complete my poster.

I have decided to focus on the area of netiquette and have started a new poster using infogr.am. So far I have found infogr.am a little fiddly to use and haven't been completely satisfied with the templates that are available for the posters. I have decided instead to have a go with Piktochart over the next few days to see if I find it caters to my needs.

I have wanted to focus my poster on the parents of children in years 3 to 5. I recently went through Internet Policy and consent forms with two of my children for their school and thought that it would be helpful for the school to provide some useful information to parents on how they could help their children understand correct and appropriate netiquette use. I was worried that the task posters were only for students but after viewing this weeks you tube instructions for the digital poster there is no specific mention that it must be aimed at students. I have also looked at the marking rubric and found that there is no mention that the poster needs to be for students only.

This part of task one has been such a tedious challenge this week, with investigating the available tools very time consuming. Attempting to do this while caring for my three sick children while fighting off the dreaded flu myself has seen me rethinking my study load for the semester. Throw in a trip to the nearest hospital, 2 hours drive away, for my daughter and I am a little concerned that my deadline for the assignment due date may not be attainable. Strict time management is on the cards for the next week. With a bit of luck my next post will see the poster attached as a printable PDF, a deadline met and a household full of well people. Fingers crossed...

My first blogger blog

Well technically this isn't my first blog, initially I used the webnode blog page and then found that it was suggested that we use a separate blog technology so here I am. So far I have created my google drive account, website, completed my "Home page" and "About me" page without too many problems. I did have a scare at one stage where I had thought that my work had not saved and did panic until I realised that I needed to press the publish button at the top of each individual page to see any edited work. Still it did reinforce the importance of backing up my work, along with the accidental spillage of coffee onto my computer that made me fear that I could loose all my precious photos so I am in the process of uploading them onto my newly created Dropbox account. However my right arrow key now sticks, but it could have been so much worse!

I have created a Linkedin page to share my professional accomplishments and linked it to my webpage, you can also view it here. http//au.linkedin.com/pub/jodie-connors/78/6a2/5b0/ At this stage I have not started on the Digital Citizenship poster however I am hoping to make a start on that today. Up until 2 weeks ago all of these technologies I had never heard of. My experience with technology has been LMS, internet and past internal software packages designed for previous jobs and past employment. In relation to social media I have only ever used Facebook and even that was a big step to take to set up due to a nervous apprehension of new technology and being usually a very private person.

To gain the skills necessary to use these technologies I have been following comments on LMS and learning from fellow peers and their experiences. I am also sourcing instructions from the help sections of each technology and searching for information on the www. At this stage I am still unsure of how to make this blog appear on my webnobe website so that is a challenge I hope to sort out today. My plan at this stage is to play around on the editing section of my webnode page and hopefully figure it out myself, a good example of learning with technology and authentic learning.

I am fortunate that I have met a fellow student in the town where I live and we have arranged to meet up next week to go through our websites. I am looking forward to catching up in person and feel that it will be beneficial to reduce the feeling of isolation as an external student. However, I have a couple of other friends based in Perth that I am hoping to receive some feedback from and vice versa. I am appreciating these internet based technologies that affords us the opportunity to feel connected to our peers even when distance is an issue. I was hoping to skype with my Perth based peers, however my internet connection here is very slow and at times skype does not work so I may have to use LMS to send feedback in the form of comments. I will check with them to see if they can use facetime as I find that it seems to work more often than skype.

Gaining an appreciation of the capabilities of these technologies is also giving me a new perspective in regards to some aspects of my personal life. With my daughter starting high school next year, my husband and I were hoping to have her complete her schooling here in town. We have been concerned with the level of support and opportunity of subjects on offer due to the small class numbers at the local high school. Now that I am using these online technologies I have a better understanding of how they can support her in her future studies and I feel less concerned about these issues knowing that there are skills she will gain from using these resources. After speaking to administration at the school they explained that they can offer students subjects through "SIDE" an off site resource run through the Education Department that is internet based. I plan to research this further to gain a better understanding. I have found this website that I will look at in detail in the future http://www.side.wa.edu.au/

Well I shall leave it here, lots of questions to find the answers to and many more technologies to use and become familiar with.