Showing posts with label 2. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2. Show all posts

Monday, March 2, 2015

The Best Quick Reference Guides to Web 2 0 on the Planet Period!



CLICK HERE
...for the Scoop.it version to all!

THE STORY!

Last year, the amazing Prof. Dr. Mohamed Amin (Deputy Director, e-Learning, Centre for Academic Development, UKM) discovered through a large survey he conducted to academics and students from mostly public universities in Malaysia that there was a lack of awareness (and training opportunities) about Web 2.0, and how Web 2.0 can be used for learning and teaching. 

So, what did Prof. Amin do? Sit down and write another white paper, or research report recommending this and that? That is typical old school mentality, which I suppose some academics would probably still do. No, instead....   


QUICK REFERENCE GUIDES

Prof. Amin started using several different types of Web 2.0 tools (Scribd, SlideShare, GoAnimate, YouTube, etc) to create/publish quick reference guides in creative ways exploring the "What, Why and How" of using Web 2.0 tools for learning and teaching. Since then, he has continued his increasingly successful mission to make a change, and here is a growing list of his amazing work to provide a gentle introduction to using Web 2.0 tools for learning and teaching: 
  • JiT2U - Mobile Version to Learning Web 2.0 
  • Web 2.0 Presentation Tools: A Quick Guide
  • Web 2.0 Content Creation Tools
  • Web 2.0 Research Tools
  • Web 2.0 Survey & Polling Tools
  • Web 2.0 Sharing Tools
  • Web 2.0 Collaboration Tools
  • Web 2.0 Social Networking Tools
  • Web 2.0 Tools in Education
  • Web 2.0 e-Publishing Tools
  • Web 2.0 Annotation & Bookmarking Tools 
  • Web 2.0 Mindmapping & Brainstorming Tools
  • 40 Must-know Web 2.0 Edutools
  • Web 2.0 Interactive Tools: A Quick Guide
  • More...
Here is one of his GoAnimate animations exploring how to use YouTube for learning and teaching (Check out his YouTube channel, too):




RESULTS?

So far, his Web 2.0 (OER) work has reached people from more than a hundred countries, and this growing collection has now been viewed more than a 150,000 times. However, his amazing work has yet to go really viral, and if it does...WOW!

However, as I discussed with my dear friend Prof. Amin yesterday (before my OER Talk at UKM) is that it will be difficult to keep all the quick reference guides updated as he adds new Web 2.0 tools to the growing collection. The navigation and especially the interface of many Web 2.0 tools keep on changing as they evolve, and to keep that updated in quick reference guides will certainly require a lot of extra work (and headaches). 

One way, is to convert these quick reference guides into Wiki format using for example Google Sites, and then easily invite other interested educators to participate in keeping them updated. Another way is to focus more on the WHAT and WHY (including learning and teaching tips), and then simply link to the HOW, which now many Web 2.0 tools (e.g. Twitter help) are doing a pretty good job (also they will certainly update the screenshots and changes faster).

Whatever, Prof. Amin plans for the future, his amazing work deserves a BIG KUDOS!

Yes, his quick reference guides to Web 2.0 tools is certainly a learning treasure for anyone (who can read English or Malay) :)

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Wetpaint 1 2 3 My Free Wiki Is Up!

  • Link to Wetpaint
  • Wetpaint Videos

WIKI?
A wiki is a type of website that anyone can easily edit and help grow through collaboration.

WETPAINT?
Is a 100% Free wiki (collaborative) authoring tool (it claims to be! Visit Professional Services and explore.), which enables anyone easily to start a free wiki that they can share with students, colleagues, friends, family, etc.

FEATURES?
Wetpaint is a reasonably easy-to-learn/use wiki tool, which has an amazingly attractive look-and-feel (subject to subjectivity!). Yeah, I can tell you also that this tool has an amazing list of features, and they are adding new features all the time (according to them), so theres always something new to try. Here are some of the juicy features:

  • 1-2-3 Simple Site Creation
  • Public or Private Sites
  • Pre-Populated Templates (Classrooms, Group Projects, Gaming Clans, etc)
  • Easy Photo/Video Integration
  • Page Level Discussion Threads
  • Customizable Page Templates
  • Spell Check
  • Menu of Popular Widgets
  • Private Onsite Messaging
  • Address Book Upload
  • Site Statistics (Google Analytics and SiteMeter)
  • RSS updates
  • Email Notifications
  • Etc.

Except for the annoying Google Ads (which is probably the main source of income for Wetpaint), floating toolbars, and the clipboard bug (minor fix needed!), this tool I believe is going to be a global Wiki smash hit soon. Dont ask me why! Just try it out for yourself :)

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Sunday, March 1, 2015

Faculty 2 0 Joel L Hartman Charles Dziuban and James Brophy Ellison

URL: http://www.educause.edu/apps/er/erm07/erm0753.asp

"(Conclusion)...As faculty members confront the expanding impact that technology is having on their scholarship, research, teaching, and students—what Peter Vaill calls "Permanent White Water"—IT organizations must assess what role they will play in shaping, implementing, and supporting the assimilation of IT into the teaching and learning process. Should the goal be to persuade and assist faculty members to adopt technology, or should it be to enable systemic transformation? When technology is "bolted on" to an existing process, the usual result is a modest improvement in the process and also higher costs. To obtain both greater improvement and reduced costs, higher education institutions must redesign the process so as to take maximum advantage of the enabling capabilities of technologies. Such initiatives, as Bates suggests, will ultimately produce the greatest benefit for the largest number of faculty in a manner that aligns with institutional goals, is sustainable, and will lead to transformation at course, program, and institutional levels."

A yummy article which also provides 13 bullets (of reflections) on how the diffusion of technology into the T&L space is producing a number changes to which faculty members must adapt. Also, check out the Teaching Excellence and Faculty Development sections. In short, the whole article is mind awakening and inspiring, or actually a bit scary if you are not IT-savvy :)
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Wednesday, February 11, 2015

C program to find the sum of the series x x 2 2 x 3 3 x n n

C program to find the sum of the series x+x^2/2+x^3/3+.....+x^n/n

#include<stdio.h>
#include<conio.h>
#include<math.h>

void main()
{
int i,n;
float x,sum=0;
clrscr(); //to clear the screen

printf("x+x^2/2+x^3/3+.....+x^n/n");
printf("
Enter value of x and n:");

scanf("%f%d",&x,&n);

for(i=1;i<=n;++i)
sum+=pow(x,i)/i;

printf("
sum=%f",sum);

getch(); //to stop the screen
}
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Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Up all night the LinkedIn Intern Hackday Day 2

Update: the official photos, videos, and submitted projects are now available on the Intern Hackday site.



In my previous post, I showed you the sights and sounds from day 1 of the LinkedIn Intern Hackday. This post will do the same for day 2, Saturday July 30. The Intern Hackday was an overnight affair and just about all the interns worked straight through the night to get their hacks done by noon. 45 projects were submitted, featuring a wide range of ideas, platforms and technologies. We saw games, music apps, UI frameworks, augmented reality, AI, location apps, IDE extensions, p2p file sharing, and even a 20 page report.

The pictures below are, as usual, mostly from iPhones. Keep your eyes on the Intern Hackday site for the official event photos, videos and project submissions soon!

12:00am: one of the interns turns 21!
2:30am: Dylan Field gives us a preview of his teams hack
5:00am: the hackers are still going strong
Well, most of them anyway
Programmer, noun: an ingenious device that turns caffeine into code
6:30am: the sun comes up
10:00am: Brooke and her dog drop by to provide emotional support
11:00am: Allen announces the 1 hour warning
Less than 60 minutes to get the hacks submitted. Crunch time!
11:55am: 5 minute warning.
12:01pm: the hacks are submitted. Time to crash.
Sandwiched between bean bags
3:00pm: picking the 15 finalists
4:00pm: celebrity judges James Gosling, Kevin Scott and Omar Hamoui in the house!
Adam Nash kicks things off
The judges look on as some amazing projects are presented
Rocks: a 3d, in-browser, multiplayer game using node.js, socket.io, WebGL and some serious technical wizardry
LinkedUp: like Chat Roulette, but with less... genitalia. Thanks for cleaning that up Adam!
After deliberating, the judges picked the winners. 3rd place went to the beam.it team!
2nd place: LinkedOut!
1st place: rocks!

http://twitter.com/adamnash/status/97481275065110528
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Friday, January 16, 2015

Android MySQL Client Part 2

Insert data to a database.

My first tutorial Android MySQL client is about read data from a MySQL database. Here Im going to insert data to MySQL database using an Android program. Concept is same as before (Before start test this read first tutorial.)

Program has three main parts.
1. Database (MySQL)
2. Java web service.
3. Android application.

Java web service deployed on Tomcat server has a method which accepts two values and it runs a quarry on database to insert data & also this method returns a string.
The Android application calls that web service method remotely with two values using ksoap library. Then web service runs a query on database table and inserts data




1. First create the database and table.

CREATE DATABASE login;

USE login;

CREATE TABLE users(
name varchar(20),
password varchar(20)
);

2. Then create the web service
Here is the content of my web service
import java.sql.Connection;
import java.sql.DriverManager;
import java.sql.PreparedStatement;

public class Users {

public String insertData(String userName,String userPassword){

try{

Class.forName("com.mysql.jdbc.Driver");
Connection con = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/login","root","chathura");
PreparedStatement statement = con.prepareStatement("INSERT INTO users(name,password) VALUES ("+userName+","+userPassword+");");
int result = statement.executeUpdate();
}

catch(Exception exc){
System.out.println(exc.getMessage());
}

return "Insertion successfull!!";
}

}
In line 12 root and chathura are user and the password. Change those with your username and the password.
This java web service has JDBC connector to access the database. Click here to download the connector.Import JDBC connector to your project. This tutorial is about importing the ksaop library. In the same way you can import JDBC library also. It is simple
You can implement the web service easily by following my these posts.
1. Create java web service in Eclipse using Axis2 (Part 01) 
2. Create java web service in Eclipse using Axis2 (Part 02) 

3. Android application.

The Android application uses ksoap2 library to access java web service. You can find More details about implementation of Android client applications from here. If you are planning to use new Android version read this tutorial.

Here is the code for Android application.
You need to change name space, url, soap action and method name according to your web service.

import org.ksoap2.SoapEnvelope;
import org.ksoap2.serialization.PropertyInfo;
import org.ksoap2.serialization.SoapObject;
import org.ksoap2.serialization.SoapPrimitive;
import org.ksoap2.serialization.SoapSerializationEnvelope;
import org.ksoap2.transport.HttpTransportSE;
import android.app.Activity;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.view.View;
import android.widget.Button;
import android.widget.EditText;
import android.widget.TextView;

public class AndroidMySQLClientActivity extends Activity{
private final String NAMESPACE = "http://ws.login.com";
private final String URL = "http://175.157.3.42:8085/InsertToUsers/services/Users?wsdl";
private final String SOAP_ACTION = "http://ws.login.com/insertData";
private final String METHOD_NAME = "insertData";
Button btninsert;
/** Called when the activity is first created. */
@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.main);

btninsert = (Button)findViewById(R.id.btn_insert);
btninsert.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
public void onClick(View v) {
insertValues();
}
});
}

public void insertValues(){
SoapObject request = new SoapObject(NAMESPACE, METHOD_NAME);
EditText userName = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.editText1);
String user_Name = userName.getText().toString();
EditText userPassword = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.editText2);
String user_Password = userPassword.getText().toString();

//Pass value for userName variable of the web service
PropertyInfo unameProp =new PropertyInfo();
unameProp.setName("userName");//Define the variable name in the web service method
unameProp.setValue(user_Name);//Define value for fname variable
unameProp.setType(String.class);//Define the type of the variable
request.addProperty(unameProp);//Pass properties to the variable

//Pass value for userPassword variable of the web service
PropertyInfo passwordProp =new PropertyInfo();
passwordProp.setName("userPassword");
passwordProp.setValue(user_Password);
passwordProp.setType(String.class);
request.addProperty(passwordProp);

SoapSerializationEnvelope envelope = new SoapSerializationEnvelope(SoapEnvelope.VER11);
envelope.setOutputSoapObject(request);
HttpTransportSE androidHttpTransport = new HttpTransportSE(URL);

try{
androidHttpTransport.call(SOAP_ACTION, envelope);
SoapPrimitive response = (SoapPrimitive)envelope.getResponse();

TextView result = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.textView2);
result.setText(response.toString());

}
catch(Exception e){

}
}

}

4.Code for main.xml file















5. Content of the Manifest.xml (Add internet permission)













Note : Click here to download the Android project.
Do you think this is helpful ? Please write your ideas :)
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Sunday, January 11, 2015

HOW TO DRAW AN APPLE IN MS WORD PART 2

MICROSOFT WORD DRAWING PROJECT No. 36

TITLE:   HOW TO DRAW AN APPLE IN MS WORD PART 2
TYPE:    DIGITAL DRAWING

THE DISSECTED DRAWING
Since the apple is of natural form, the Curve line tool is suitable to be used to draw it. Drawing is different from painting. The graphics program in MS Word is used to produce vector format drawings. The Paint program in Windows can be used to produce digital paintings in raster format.  A total of 12 drawing objects were created to complete the picture of the apple. I’d mask an area in the drawing to enable me to create an effect. Which area did I mask? In MS Word 2007, click Format > Shape Fill > Gradient > and then choose the suitable effects in the Dark Variations palette to create the effects that you want.




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