219482  การนําเสนอแบบสื่อหลายมิติ   Hypermedia Presentation

เทคโนโลยีสื่อหลายมิติ การแสดงผลกราฟิก ภาพเคลื่อนไหว วีดิทัศน์ เสียง จิตวิทยาการรับรู้ เทคนิคการนํ าเสนอข้อมูลแบบสื่อประสม การเชื่อมโยงสื่อหลายมิติ การออกแบบการนํ าเสนอ สื่อโฆษณา สื่อประชาสัมพันธ์ การนํ าเสนอสื่อหลายมิติบนเว็บและอินเทอร์เน็ต

(Hypermedia technology, graphic presentation, animation, video image, audio, perception psychology, multimedia presentation techniques, hypermedia-linked information, presentation design, advertisement, public announcement, hypermedia presentation on the web and Internet.)

(219482 มหาวิทยาลัยเกษตรศาสตร์)

My discussion of hypermedia poetry and the way it affects the creator and beholder of it has been composed in a very similar manner as that of Strickland’s Ballad. Although this rhetorical analysis project is represented through the form of a blog, it also has many shared traits with the online poem. Not only is it an “online paper”—it’s also divided up in a fragmentary fashion and can be read in any order. The blog at the very bottom of the page can serve as a conclusion or an introduction, depending on how the audience prefers to perceive it. Additionally, each paragraph is loaded with color codes, font deviations, images, and screen shots. All these aspects aren’t typically seen in the form of a scholarly paper. My analysis itself is a mere reflection of that which it analyzes.

So how do these shifts in what it means to be a poetic agent affect the readers, the audience, the “scene” to which the poet speaks? After all, if the actual definition of a poet itself is at stake by transferring poetry into an online medium, there has to be an impact on he/she that views the poetry in this new format. I think where I left off on the last section is a good place to begin with this one. In regards to the Ballad, the hyper linked system the whole poem operates through changes the way we read it. Unlike most websites that do not explain to the user how to actually use them, the Ballad gives us some options. Study the following screen shot for a moment.

The link-driven reading requires you to employ the linking system that is reflected through different words in their respective lines that have a link attached to them. The complete reading (the only reading in which you read the poem from beginning to end as it was published) merely requires you to click on each image from page to page. Poetry has always been a subjective practice of intellect, but with hypermedia literature, there is even more subjectivity involved. The reader is bestowed with great power; power that can either make or break their interpretation of the poem; after all, the reader physically control how the poem is read.

The way the reader looks at poetry via either that of a positive or negative light is also skewed. Someone who  may typically dislike poetry may be more drawn to the online medium of the art form because of it’s use of images, fonts, color coding, etc. As a whole, it is more aesthetically pleasing to admire. On the other hand, a developed English major such as myself may not be as turned on by the idea of something as profound as poetry being placed online. Call me old-fashioned, but I’m still stuck in the print mode of literature. I prefer to read poetry printed on the page. To me, the images are more sublime when conjured by one’s own mind, instead of being provided with an image of the site creator(s)’ picking. This, however, is also a subjective change. The negative and positive opinions of multimedia literature varies from person to person.

Hypermedia literature is a hot topic of interest for literary and internet theorists alike, and the “online poem” is no exception. Poetry has struggled with finding an definitive identity for centuries, from Sir Philip Sidney’s An Apology for Poetry in the late 16th Century to Theodor Adorno’s On Lyric Poetry and Society in the 20th Century. I’m not exactly concerned with what makes a poem a poem. My focus for this rhetorical analysis has become more concentrated on what makes online poetry different from the printed versions we’ve been exposed to since grade school. There are obviously going to be many gains and losses resulted from this transition.

For instance, the particular online object I chose to analyze is Stephanie Strickland’s The Ballad of Sand and Harry Soot (http://www.wordcircuits.com/gallery/sandsoot/). The original poem was published traditionally (http://bostonreview.net/BR24.5/strickland.html) and later adapted into a hyper textual arrangement of HTML pages, encryption, and formatted images. There is, surprisingly, much more threaded analysis on this poem than I expected to be on the web considering I was randomly introduced to this poem by another professor at the University of Georgia. Unlike most of the discussions you will come across after typing the poem’s name into a search engine, my thoughts on the topic will not center around the actual thematic possibilities of the the work as a piece of a literature. There are three areas I would like to explore in my next three blogs on this subject. The first will be about the poetic agent—how does the creation process shift for a writer wishing to implement their poem(s)  into the web? Is it better or worse than being published on paper? The second blog will be about me, you, us—the reader of the poem. What aspects of this new form of literary media changes the audience that beholds it? Is it a good change or bad change? And the third and final blog of the series will explore the images in the Ballad and also how the Coda portion of the linkages helps and hinders the audience.

Last week we here at Cardiff School of Journalism had lectures from Adam Tinworth, head of blogging at Reed Business Information, and Rodney Pinder, Director of the International News Safety Institute.  While the two lectures were very different, they both touched on the issue of pay walls.

And on this issue, too, they were very different.  Adam’s viewpoint was that internet users organise themselves into spaces: when they start using the worldwide web they hide out in their private spaces, like personal profiles, before first moving into public spaces controlled by other hosts and then finally ending up in distributed spaces where they are in control of a transient process (the sphere of social media).

Pay walls are essentially at the heart of the private space, and therefore Adam’s argument was that users will not make the centripetal movement from their unencumbered community profile in the distributed space back into the private, hidden space behind pay walls.

Rodney’s argument was very different.  Free journalism is not practical, he argued.  ”Who pays the journalist’s wages?” he said.  But unfortunately, users wanting everything for free is the direction in which media is turning.  Rodney himself pointed to the example of two trainee journalists whom he had spoken to earlier in the year who said they would not be prepared to pay for content.

And it is no surprise.  The ascent of citizen journalism combined with the consumption culture of social media means that access to news is now wider than ever, and unless all truly reliable sources put up pay walls (not likely with a publicly-funded body such as the BBC, for instance) then those that do run the risk of failure.

As Adam pointed out, sites no longer want to keep people glued to their page; in a hypermedia age that is almost impossible.  So trying to incarcerate someone behind a pay wall and become an exclusive source rather than a jumping-off point is to go completely against the grain.

Resource representation

A simple resource representation in xml would be as

<order>
  <product>basic rails course</product>
  <product>RESTful training</product>
  <price>500.00</price>
</order>

Note that it provides information on the order itself, as we are used to. But it lacks providing meta information on the business process: from here, I am unable to go anywhere.

This resource still lacks a way of notifying the consumer what are the available steps further on my business flow, i.e. paying this order or canceling it.

Looking at this resource, it is clear that it is just an usual “structural representation” of something that programmers would code in C: the data and it’s structure: but no possible actions.

Identifying resources

In order to access those resources, one needs to possess its address, its URI.

We use, for example, URIs to identify our courses at Caelum.

The advanced rails training can be accessed through the http://www.caelum.com.br/curso/rr-75-ruby-rails-avancado/ URI and also through http://www.caelum.com.br/curso/rr-75.

Note that there is no need to have an unique URI to resource or resource to URI mapping. In our case, the latter URI redirects to the first one through an http permanently moved response.

Web services

One can understand web services as services which use the web as its infrastructure. The basic step to create a web service is to use http requests to act.

Typical SOA applications will stop its evolution and its use of the web infrastructure here, not profiting from everything else that the web provides.

Resources accessed through the web

Once I have an URI in my hands, and a web service that provides me the resource representation through a web request (typically a GET request), one receives as output the requested resource representation.

Using different HTTP verbs and analyzing the request and result headers and codes, one makes and profits from further usage of the web infrastructures such as caching proxies and fault tolerance assurance due to idempotent methods.

Frameworks and applications, like the one from the spring blog, which provides the first level of web infrastructure usage would be called resource based web services (RBWS) if they were not lacking the use of the most common web aspect: hypermedia.

According to Roy Fieldings, “REST is defined by four interface constraints: identification of resources; manipulation of resources through representations; self-descriptive messages; and, hypermedia as the engine of application state.”

Web service based CRUD

Web service based cruds are those ressemblingthe spring tutorial, which maps URIs to resources and allows the usage of different HTTP Verb, headers and return codes to sign actions and return values.

Although being a sign of better usage of the web in order to create web-based services, it is still missing the very best part of our every day life: hyperlinks and hypermedia content.

Doing CRUDs is an everyday task, and doing service based CRUD implementation is a nice and cute functionality that frameworks as rails, spring and vraptor allows us to do.

According to Leonard Richardson model, one can roughly categorize his usage of the web infrastructure based on which use one makes out of it. CRUD over the web is just the first step, and hypermedia support is the following one.

Hypermedia aware resources

Resources supporting hypermedia provide consumers the next steps to follow on an application business flow. It allows the consumer to change the application state as web requests are stateless.

The following code shows an example of xml+hypermedia representation of the same order seen earlier:

	<order>
		<product>basic rails course</product>
		<product>RESTful training</product>
		<refresh>http://www.caelum.com.br/orders/1</refresh>
		<update>http://www.caelum.com.br/orders/1</update>
		<pay>http://www.caelum.com.br/orders/1/pay</pay>
		<destroy>http://www.caelum.com.br/orders/1</destroy>
	</order>

Note that this path is a simple yet powerful way of interacting with your clients. Although its a valid option, one can make use of the w3c atom format as nowadays there are hundreds of important tools atom-aware:

<order>
  	<product>basic rails course</product>
  	<product>RESTful training</product>
  	<atom:link rel="refresh"
          href="http://www.caelum.com.br/orders/1"
          xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"/>
  	<atom:link rel="update"
          href="http://www.caelum.com.br/orders/1"
          xmlns:atom="..."/>
  	<atom:link rel="pay"
          href="http://www.caelum.com.br/orders/1/pay"
          xmlns:atom="..."/>
  	<atom:link rel="destroy"
          href="http://www.caelum.com.br/orders/1
          xmlns:atom="..."/>
</order>

Cutting a new gem

Both Jim and Savas have commented on the client simple javascript+html resource+hypermedia (restful?) client that we have created so one could easily test a restful application online.

So me and Caue Guerra at Caelum were ready to move to the next step: getting resource+hypermedia support to rails applications.

SOA applications, due to strange and dark forces, typically demand dozens of developers to built something complex and hard to maintain.

With this in mind, we have developed Restfulie, which is a rails based gem.

It works both on the server and client side making it easier to provide and consume such restful resources.

Requesting a resource

A resource based web services provider – another long name for a partial rest implementation based on roy’s dissertation – can access a resource through the api:

 order = Order.from_web ‘http://www.caelum.com.br/orders/1’

Now, one can request its content

 puts order.products

or even invoke those “methods”:

 order.pay payment
 order.cancel
 payment = order.check_payment_info

All those three methods are remote invocations (never forget it!) that access the server executing POST, DELETE, PUT and GET operations, serializing and deserializing xml+atom content (or json, …).

Thats about it. You have consumed a resource representation and acted upon it in two lines of code, moving your resource to another state on your business flow.

Meanwhile, on the server side

Those who want to provider RBWS can easily do it using restfulie by implementing the method following_states as follow:

class Order
 def following_states
 states = [ { : orders, :action => :show } ]
 states << : orders, :action => :destroy} if can_cancel?
 states << : orders, :action => :pay, :id => id} if can_pay?
 states
 end
end

And in a 6 lines long method, one has implemented a full RBWS provider: all invocations to to_xml and to_json will serialize atom or rel based links to those state transition services.

Live examples

You can try the server side ordering application online and a sample client side application live at heroku.

In order to fully test those systems, follow the “Try it online” directions on the Restfulie website.

Concluding

This post gives a basic idea on resources, web based services and how one can really use the web to profit from its already existing infrastructure.

While some RBWS providers already use all this knowledge, most of the frameworks that we see today focus on “restful” meaning “accessing a resource through its URI and http verbs”. There is more to the web than just getting, posting and uris. There is a whole world hidden behind links so… let’s quit pretending and start using the web infrastructure for real.

… lange her (1990) aber immernoch aktuell und sehenswert:

Hyperland (by Douglas Adams)

…”Hyperland is a 50 minute long documentary film about hypertext and surrounding technologies written by Douglas Adams and produced by BBC Two in 1990. It stars Douglas Adams as a computer user and Tom Baker, with whom Adams already had worked on Doctor Who, as a software agent.”…

Wikipedia

Koko eilisen tapellu tän ulkoasun kanssa, nyt vihdoin alkaa näyttää jokseenkin siedettävältä. Ei vieläkään ihan sellaselta kun olisin halunnu, mutta tähän on varmaankin tyydyttävä. Värit on vähän turhan pirtsakat mun mieleen mutta niistä tyyleistä mitä jaksoin selata tää oli miellyttävin. Aion alunperin modata sitä vähän omalla CSSllä, mutta sittenhän selvisikin että se ei kuulu wordpressin peruspalveluihin. Et ei sitten.

Oman bannun sain kuitenkin tehtyä, fontti on A Bite ja käytetyt brushit on tehnyt mie ja xyunaxfantasiesx.

Toivottavasti saan pian tänne jotain ihan oikeetakin sisältöö, tänään esmes hypermedian tunnilla tuli esille pari sellasta nettisivua jota tekis mieli käydä tutkailemassa vähän tarkemmin ja raportoida siitä tänne.  Tietysti tällä hetkellä mulla on kasoittain muita asioita mitä pitäs tehdä,  maanantaina ois yks tenttikin.  Saas nyt nähdä mitä tässä jaksaa. Yllättäen netin selailu inspais vähän enemmän kun joku luentopäiväkirjan kirjottaminen tai tenttiin lukeminen.

Edit: Argh! Huomasin just että oon kirjottanut banneriin väärän nimen! Hyvä minä. No se on korjattu nyt mutta pitipä silti leveillä omalla tyhmyydelläni.

Douglas Engelbart

Engelbart showcasing two of his mice

Debut of the first mouse

The image to the right shows the first computer mouse, which was invented by Douglas Engelbart. The mouse was first showcased in his 1968 demo dubbed “the mother of all demo’s”. Engelbart stated that the device earned the name ‘mouse’ due to the resemblance it bore to the creature with its tail-like wire. The modern mouse uses this same tail-like chord.

The first prototype consisited of a square, wooden outer shell and containted a large wheel inside.

View of the wheel underneath

Engelbart revealed the mouse was just “a tiny piece of a much larger project, aimed at augmenting human intellect” and one solution to “problems facing mankind”.

Engelbart is also credited with being part of the development team responsible for hypertext, networked computers and precursors to GUIs. However, Engelbart is best known for inventing the first computer mouse.

Engelbart was born on January 30th, 1925 making him eighty four years old.

At this point, I’m really just putting everything off. It’s supposed to be my only weekend of Summer, but I’m behind on a million things and I need to get ready for classes to start next week. I’ve got an essay that’s about 2 weeks overdue [I have an E in the class right now], but I’m fairly confident that I should be able to get it done in time for the grade to be adjusted. Nevertheless, the procrastination that goes on here is unbelievable.

For some reason, the blog-post form is much easier to write fluidly in that most other word-processing software. It’s as if Word and OpenOffice have been so designed and catered to productivity and work that the interface somewhat constricts the fluid, conversational aspect of writing. Blogs are obviously quite different, since most don’t even bother to adhere to proper grammar. Either way, it’s interesting to see how the interfaces affect me differently as a writer. And to the reader (all 0 of you), what is the response to the medium? Is there more of a person  behind the blog in the writing, or is it just a byproduct of the avatar? Does the interface of the blog confuse you to make you think it’s personal, when it’s every bit the same as any other word processor? Or is it genuinely different?

The interface in WordPress where I am able to create blogs, for starters, looks entirely different than the finished product. The blog itself is stylized, streamlined, and caters to a stylesheet. I’ve grouped the pages all together in various ways, but they are different to access via “the dashboard” as they might be to another user who reads my blog.

And what does this interface say about me? It’s just one of the selected templates. Of course, you have to pay for the ability to customize your stylesheets (originality has the biggest price tag). How much variation is possible in this scenario?

Plenty. Then, reverse the colours and read it photonegative.

I wish I had the opportunity to use an old typewriter. It seems like the writing was so much different then. Now it’s either pen scribbled quickly on paper or electronic notes that can be standarized, spell-checked, any font, any colour, any word.

Not much use for real editors anymore.

I would like to make a point to actually begin using this medium to its potential. Electronic print will soon become the ideal form for literary works and interactive multimedia narratives. I plan to write my thesis in the upcoming year on exactly this topic, and this forum gives me a good opportunity to take advantage and become familliar with the medium.

This year, I’ll be taking a course in “Interactive New Media Art,” and it seems that blogs will be touched upon on a somewhat academic level. How does the blog reinterpret the position of the reader and the writer? How can we integrate new formal elements to give readers a more stimulating experience? And how do the systems of tagging and RSS feeds vastly change the way we FIND our narratives. As news, is a blog reliable? As literature, can a blog be viable?

“Yesterday, I had the finest shit. I tell you, it was spectacular. Some call it the shit sublime, and you should have seen my [insert obscure pet] watch my majestic ass-wiping.”

Okay, so maybe not. We will see.

I will be working on a thesis project that will cover the implications of new media narratives and e-books and how they rework the formal constraints of previous texts. I will closely read several texts from the likes of Burroughs, Borges, Lem, Rimbaud, Fisher, Danielewski, and others in order to establish boundaries for the limits and constraints of the book form, and the ways that these change with in hypermedia narratives. I will break the thesis up into several chapters: Time/Space and its function in the book vs. hypertext; Annotation, Indexing, and Organizational differences; The position of the audience and the reader (with a McLuhanesque slant on Medium theory, and how the medium shapes its audience); then, I will attempt to find what is preserved and what is changed in the text itself.

This should be an excellent pound.

-∂

Not many people remember The Manhole or Cosmic Osmo and the Worlds Beyond The Mackerel as they were very early CD-ROM games and the first from Cyan Worlds, who went on to make the blockbuster game Myst. The Manhole actually pre-dated the CD-ROM and was packed with several floppy disks in its first version. I still have a really cool special edition Osmo with a holographic Osmo world on the CD jewel case. What fewer still know is that Myst, like Osmo and The Manhole before it, were created using a nifty program by Bill Atkinson for the original Macintosh computer called HyperCard.  HyperCard gave the world, and educators in particular, the promise of the concept of Hypertext and HyperMedia even before the advent of the World Wide Web. HyperCard was like a “gateway drug” for many future game designers and developers, and an early example of the promise of making tools for average people to create interactive media and hypertext-based content.

HyperCard, when released in 1987, was quickly adopted by educators because its graphical drag-and-drop and intuitive “Index Card” metaphor-based user interface enabled them to easily make simple quizzes and interactive lessons that allowed kids to explore concepts in a more engaging, multi-sensory and self-directed way. Much like the Public Domain shareware libraries of Basic programs I talked about in my last post, HyperCard once again enabled a group of innovative people, now without an interest in learning a programming language, to create and share interactive learning resources. These shared HyperCard games and activities become known as “Stackware.”

Some of these Stackware programs were enhanced and commercially published. Perhaps the best ever, besides Osmo and Myst, was the Voyager iterative exploration of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring (which you can’t find anywhere but would make a killer interactive DVD with its detailed movement-by-movement analysis of that amazing work. Here’s a demo.). Sadly, HyperCard was officially discontinued in 2004 after years of neglect and now most of that creativity has been lost to history. But the lesson remains that if you provide innovative teachers a tool that is easy enough to use and understand, they will create really useful stuff and share it. That is what we are trying to do at Curriki, and in a way that will never be able to be discontinued.

As we continue to evolve Curriki, we seek to enable and inspire creativity and sharing. We, like HyperCard, are thinking beyond the “book” metaphor and into the world of hyper-connected hyper-media. What is new about Curriki is the collaborative way we seek to have end users create, mix, remix and improve the content. It is no longer about an author creating a work for a large or even mass audience; it is about the massed creating and sharing with the masses (or communities of practice with themselves). While Apple first used the “desktop” metaphor, and HyperCard used the “index card” metaphor, Curriki is lacking that single concept, idea or picture that serves as the organizing principle to bring all of the pieces of Curriki together: the communities of practice and peer review, the collaborative editing and remixing, the multitude of content and media types, the interactivity, and the idea of a shared library we can all add to.

Please add your comments on what metaphor you believe best encapsulates the ideas, purpose and experience of Curriki. Is it a “garden,” or a “library” or “rock soup,” or…???

Joshua Marks
Chief Technology Office
www.curriki.org

The three entertainment websites to be evaluated include the Daily Telegraph’s Entertainment section (www.dailytelegraph.com.au/entertainment), Ninemsn’s The Fix (http://thefix.ninemsn.com.au) and American website Entertainment Online (www.eonline.com). These websites will be evaluated according to layout, ease of navigation, article content and use of hypermedia.

Website Evaluation # 1– ‘Entertainment’ (The Daily Telegraph)

On first glimpse of the Entertainment section of the Daily Telegraph’s online newspaper it is clear that the site exists in correlation to an online newspaper. The plain background and basic layout suggest Entertainment takes a large cue from its parent site, the Daily Telegraph.  The page is structured in a simple layout, with headlines easily distinguishable from other parts of the website. With an overwhelming 3, 531, 741 page impressions, Entertainment stands to be a primary source of information for Daily Telegraph readers interested in fashion, celebrity gossip, entertainment news, movie reviews and Sydney-based events (News Space, 2009).

The ‘Daily Telegraph’ banner is prominent on the top of the page, with links appearing to other News Limited websites including www.news.com.au, Fox Sports and a link to all News Limited newspapers in Australia. Beneath the top banner, the sections of the Daily Telegraph are clear, with Entertainment among them. Underneath the Daily Telegraph’s banner, featured entertainment stories are prominent to the left hand side of the page. These featured stories contain photos for easy identification of the celebrity in question as well as a prominent headline and standfirst.

Entertainment’s website is easy to navigate, with news stories appearing on the left side of the page and advertisements dominating the right side of the page.  One of the most prominent characteristics of the website is its domination of online advertisements, a characteristic often present in News Limited brands. This is an unfortunate side to the online entertainment section, as it draws its readers attention away from the entertainment stories and onto the advertising (Rau, Chen & Chen, 2006: 259). At times, it is difficult for the reader to determine where the advertising stops and the news stories begin.

At the time of evaluation, Entertainment’s featured story was “Coroner Confirms Jacko Death Cocktail“. The headline of this story was shown in Entertainment’s homepage with a standfirst summarising the main elements of the story. Using only 22 words, the standfirst was able to draw the reader’s attention to the valuable aspects of the story. This is an important feature of online news reporting as it enables readers to scan the page for items they may be interested in, instead of having to read the entire story (Morkes & Neilsen, 1997: 1, 3).

At 551 words, “Coroner Confirms Jacko Death Cocktail” reveals details behind the death of Michael Jackson which could have been summed up in under a few hundred words. This is characteristic of the Entertainment site, being a subsection of the Daily Telegraph newspaper. The article offers no internal links to provide readers with more information within the story and instead directs readers to “Related Coverage” to the left hand side of the main article. This navigational sidebar offers readers the chance to explore related news to Michael Jackson, however it does not delve outside the News Limited sites. The “Related Coverage” links would have been more effective placed as hyperlinks within the article, allowing readers to explore key words relating to the issue. Through the use of only internal links only, Entertainment lacks credibility on issues as it appears bias in the evidence produced. It is clear through the lack of external sources and links to other websites, News Limited is concerned that by directly its readers to other sources, they will evidently lose readership. However, it is clear that news consumption has changed in the age of digital technology and readers no longer consume in a linear fashion and instead prefer to access information that they choose (Yaros, 2009: 1). In fact, if readers know they can trust a site, they will come back for more (Dube, 2003: 5).  By giving the reader access to hyperlinks and other material, online news contributors encourage non-linear reading of news, which the reader appreciates and will continue to visit the site (Yaros, 2009; Dube, 2003: 5)

Overall, while Entertainment can be relied upon as a trustworthy and detailed news source, it is clear that the site’s perspectives are drawn from News Limited. The domination of advertising on the site as well as the plain, block colours create an unsatisfactory experience for the reader. Visiting this site, I longed to be entertained and informed quickly of the latest celebrity news and gossip. Instead, I found myself navigating away from the page with a yawn, a quick calculation of the advertising revenue News Limited would receive from this section alone and a deeper cynicism for Murdoch’s media empire.  

Website Evaluation # 2- The Fix (ninemsn) 

Catchy title? Check. Proliferation of celebrity photos? Check. Pointless celebrity juice and gossip? Check. At first glance, The Fix seems to have all the entertainment news basics covered. With bright photos and an abundance of smart looking logos, The Fix certainly is a step up from the dreary drabs of the Daily Telegraph’s Entertainment. However, despite the coloured banners and abundance of celebrity ‘distractions’, the website lacks clarity, in-depth information and external sources.

As soon as the page loads, it is clear that this entertainment site is a creation of Ninemsn. At the top of the page, there are links to all Ninemsn’s sites. Below the main banner, subcategories of The Fix are promoted with links to MovieFix, MusicFix, TVFix and CelebrityFix. Through the cross-promotion of these websites, Ninemsn aims to direct readers of The Fix to other websites they might be interested in. This is to prevent readers from visiting external sites, when they are able to access all the information they need on a Ninemsn sister site.

Above The Fix’s banner are celebrity photos with links to related articles. The use of photos, and other multimedia such as videos, is more effective at “extending the engagement of the general news audience than a dense page of text” (Yaros, 2009: 4).  The Fix aims its readership at young people aged between 16-25 which can be seen through the domination of photos and bright, bold text. While this bright, bubbly website certainly entertains at first glance, the site’s layout creates a tricky navigational dilemma for the online reader. The website is structured in a basic format, with the banner appearing at the top of the page and the featured entertainment stories running the length of the left side of the page. The advertisements appear to be the cause of the problem, taking up half of the page and blending in with featured news stories. This makes it difficult for the reader to determine where the news story stops and advertisements begin. The layout coupled with the background of Tic Tacs alongside Tic Tac advertisements create an overwhelming experience for the viewer.

A feature on Lily Allen dominates the left side of the page, alongside a photo of the pop princess. The headline reads “Lily Allen embarrassed by autograph hunters, jealous of other pop singers” with the standfirst summing up the article in just over 30 words. There is no kicker related to this article, and on clicking the headline, it is revealed that the standfirst is simply the first paragraph of the story. Next to the title of the article, there is a tired emoticion with the word “yawn” next to it, indicating readers feel bored by this article. The use of an emoticion and the ability for the reader to “rate” this article is a useful tool in determining whether or not the news story is worth the readers’ attention.

While the articles on The Fix are relatively short (Lily’s story is a mere 333 words) there appears to be more room for the site to utilise hyperlinks. In the evaluated article, hyperlinks are not used at all despite a number of opportunities for the site to do so. Instead, the site employs a navigational bar at the bottom of the page which consists of articles that the reader might “Also See”. These links show headlines to further Lily Allen features, however all are published by The Fix or a Ninemsn sister site. To the right side of this side bar, “More About Lily Allen” is present, however when the reader clicks on this link, they are taken to The Fix’s archive of Lily Allen stories. In this case, the website may have linked externally to Lily Allen’s website or even created a biography of the singer.

While the readability of the main home page of The Fix is quite restricted, the articles present on the website do provide opportunities for readers to scan the material and consume the articles within a relatively short space of time. Scannability is an important feature of internet writing as online readers rarely consume the entire media article (Morkes & Nielsen, 1997: 1). However, the lack of external sources and links to pages other than Ninemsn lead to The Fix lacking in authority on entertainment reporting. It is clear that Ninemsn is concerned about viewers leaving their website and not returning, however if the corporation trusted their loyal readers, they would be rewarded with people coming back to their websites as providers of valuable information (Dube, 2003: 5).

At this point in my evaluation of web writing, I cannot help but feel a pattern coming on – large media corporations afraid to link to external sources and point their readers in the direction of more informative sites. With this in mind, it is time to evaluate a non-news/newspaper site and see if there is hope for the external hyperlinks out there.

Website Evaluation # 3- E!Online

E!Online offers a clear, readable layout for viewers visiting the online entertainment site. From the basic layout and clean script, it appears that E!Online caters for an older audience than other entertainment sites, such as The Fix or Perez Hilton. MultiChannel Network revealed E! Online reaches a staggering 1.2 million different people each week, with 2, 947, 129 page impressions (MultiChannel Network, 2009). Therefore, the popular entertainment website has some merit in calling itself the “ultimate destination” for anything entertainment (MultiChannel Network, 2009).

With the page loaded, the viewer is inundated with photos of celebrities in relation to breaking news in Hollywood. E!Online banner is relatively small, particularly in relation to The Fix’s large, dominating banner, and takes up only a small part of the screen in the top left corner of the site. Underneath the logo, a navigational bar displays all the sections available to the viewer of E!Online, including News, Photos, Video, Fashion, Red Carpet and Movies. These different links to subsections of E!Online provide a quick and easy way for the reader to navigate to sections of primary interest to them. This is a helpful feature of the website and one that aids the reader in locating information quickly and effectively.

E!Online uses hypermedia, which refers to the “joining of a variety of media, such as text, video and sound, which the Web makes possible” (Bowles & Borden, 2000: 2). The centre of the website is dominated by feature stories, all of which have a large photo of the celebrity in question on top of the standfirst for the article. This draws the readers’ attention to the article containing information on particular celebrities. The right side of the page contains advertisements and links for E!Online’s Twitter page. This prominent divide offers clarity for the reader to determine where advertisements end and articles begin.

At the time of evaluation, the website was dominated with news and photos of DJ AM’s death. The top featured story’s headline read “Travis Barker Will “Never Forget” His “Brother” DJ AM” and contained a substantial standfirst of 47 words. The article incorporates a number of external and internal links to provide the reader with further information about the events mentioned within the story. Keywords in the article are hyperlinked such as “plane crash”, “four people” and “DJ AM”. By using links throughout the article, the author is able to avoid unnecessarily long descriptions of previous happenings, and instead keep the article brief and to the point (Bowles & Borden, 2000: 2).

By employing external hyperlinks, E!Online is not afraid to give readers links to websites, such as Rolling Stone, in order to maximise the amount of information accessible to the online consumer. This increases the credibility and authority E!Online receives from readers and will encourage online entertainment news consumers to continue to visit the site as it is seen to provide accurate and truthful information through external links (Yaros, 2009: 2; Morkes & Neilsen, 1997: 5).

Overall, E!Online demonstrates the use of effective hyperlinks to external stories and information, which is beneficial to the reader and creates more scannable content by eliminating descriptive phrases (Morkes & Neilsen, 1997: 1). The layout of the website enables viewers to locate stories they are interested in within a short amount of time due to the location of the navigational tool bars and “search” bar prominent in the top right corner of the page.

Conclusion

Of the three entertainment news sites that were evaluated, E!Online utilises the technology of hyperlinks the most and has the most scannable content for news readers. In my opinion, this makes E! Online the most user friendly in that it does not weigh the reader down with information they do not require to scan the story. The Fix and Entertainment (Daily Telegraph) could utilise hyperlinks in order to make their articles easier for readers to scan.

References

Alysen, B., Sedorkin, G., Oakham, M. & Patching, R. (2003). “Reporting in a Multimedia World”. Allen & Unwin, Sydney: 152-213.

Bowles, D. A & Borden, D. L. (2000). Creative Editing, Belmont: Wadsworth:115-121.

Celebrity Fix (2009). “Lily Allen embarrassed by autograph hunters, jealous of other pop singers”, The Fix, 28 August 2009: <http://celebrities.ninemsn.com.au/blog.aspx?blogentryid=451977&showcomments=true&rss=yes>

Dube, J. (2001). “Writing News Online”, PoynterOnline Web Tips <www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=32&aid=41309&view=print>

Kaplan, N. (2000). “Literacy Beyond Books: Reading When All the World’s a Web”, The World Wide Web and Contemporary Cultural Theory, Andrew Herman & Thomas Swiss (eds). Routledge, New York.

Kissane, E. (2008). “Writing Content that Works for a Living”, Content Strategy, Writing, Business, November 4, 2009 (No 271): 1-5 <www.alistapart.com/articles/writingcontentthatworksforaliving>

Masters, M. (2009). “Travis Barker Will “Never Forget” His “Brother” DJ AM”, 30 August 2009, E!Online, < http://au.eonline.com/uberblog/b141820_travis_barker_will_never_forget_his.html >

Morkes, J. & Neilsen, J. (1997). “Concise, Scannable and Objective: How to Write for the Web” http://www.useit.com/papers/webwriting/writing.html.

Multichannel Network (2009). “E! www.eonline.com” <http://www.mcn.com.au/Upload/ChannelPDF/E!.pdf >

New Space (2009). “The Daily Telegraph statistics, 2009” <http://www.newsspace.com.au/dailytelegraph.com.au/entertainment>

The Sunday Telegraph (2009) “Coroner Confirms Jacko Death Cocktail”, The Sunday Telegraph, 30 August 2009: <http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/sunday-telegraph/cornoer-confirms-michael-jackson-death-cocktail/story-e6frewt0-1225767365080 >

Yaros, R. A. (2009). “Mastering Multimedia”, American Journalism Review, Aug/Sept 2009 issue: 1-4.

It was my mission to facilitate the ultimate test for HANQ. Unfortunately I counted a lot on my network without putting effort in community building. Thank god for my strength, adapting to a situation and making it happen. Together with approximately 20 kids, I pulled of a flashmob to show of what HANQ is capable of.

Data:
Saturday 1st of August 2009: Gay Pride Copenhagen as part of the Outgames 2009. Copenhagen World Outgames 2009 is a successful tribute to the global (LGBT) community and a fantastic celebration of diversity and love.

The Outgames seemed to be THE place to test the concept of HANQ, a school of creative entrepreneurship. I wanted to challenge HANQ travelers to shift their boundaries, expending their community and get in touch with sustainability. Unfortunately, Friends & HANQ travelers were a lot more interested in their beer and a good laugh. Luckily, there were a lot of youngsters ready to be challenged in a flash mob. In the spirit of “don’t be blue” they tried (and succeeded) to make the audience laugh. They made a song about gay – bi – straight love, performed it and had a lot of laughs with their face smashing pie.

We have some footage about the experience, but it needs time to edit. In the meanwhile, you might want to check the pictures.

After the flashmob, Edgar, Emma & I went to a coffeebar to upload some pictures on Flickr & send out some tweets, meanwhile, discussing the day and preparing for a night out: Dinner, drinks and a lesbian party at Christiana Havn. The Lesbian party was a lot like my old high school parties: 80’s & 90’s music, only girls on the dance floor, a lot of making out & even more gossip.

Conclusion
The day didn’t turn out the way I planned. I find it difficult to ask for help, with the risk of losing my community. I experience negative feedback from some of the community members as a personal attack. It kind of ruined my night out. It’s a good thing we agreed on an evaluation day tomorrow.

For those who like it: The beautiful song of the OUTGAMES:

FREEDOM TO LOVE

we are, the shiny stars tonight.
we are, the mirror in your eyes.
we are, the voice of hidden songs.
we are,one world,one love,daughters and sons.

love of freedom,
freedom to love
love of freedom,
free….
freedom to love.

manchild, i hold you in my arms.
manchild, miracle of life.
manchild, cried a thousand seas,
for the soul of beauty,
and human right to be.

This is to notify you that the http://opac.ieeecomputersociety.org/opac?year=2009&volume=2&issue=2&acronym=tlt April-June 2009 (Vol. 2, No. 2) issue of http://www.computer.org/tlt IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies is now online. You can access any of the following articles and columns individually from the table of contents, or you can http://csdl.computer.org/dl/trans/lt/2009/02/tlt200902.zip?login=true download
the entire issue as a zip file (8.913 MB). To login, please click the text link “Register/Login,” located in the blue bar at the top of the page.

To access the articles in this issue, use your IEEE user name and password at http://opac.ieeecomputersociety.org/opac?year=2009&volume=2&issue=2&acronym
=tlt

For information on using your account, visit the IEEE at
http://www.ieee.org/web/accounts/ http://www.ieee.org/web/accounts/. If you need information on your subscription or have membership questions, please email mailto:help@computer.org

Upcoming Special Sections: Open Educational Resources-Learning Objects,

The Many Faces of Remote Laboratories in Engineering Education, and Mobile and Ubiquitous Technologies for Learning

EDITORIAL

Introduction to the Special Issue on Real World Applications of Intelligent Tutoring Systems
Carlos Ramos, Claude Frasson, Sowmya Ramachandran
<http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/TLT.2009.26>http://doi.ieeecompu
tersociety.org/10.1109/TLT.2009.26

PAPERS

Scaling Up Programming by Demonstration for Intelligent Tutoring Systems Development: An Open-Access Web Site for Middle School Mathematics Learning Vincent Aleven, Bruce M. McLaren, Jonathan Sewall

<http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/TLT.2009.22>http://doi.ieeecompu
tersociety.org/10.1109/TLT.2009.22

Abstract:
Intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs), which provide step-by-step guidance to students in complex problem-solving activities, have been shown to enhance student learning in a range of domains. However, they tend to be difficult to build. Our project investigates whether the process of authoring an ITS can be simplified, while at the same time maintaining the characteristics that make ITS effective, and also maintaining the ability to support large-scale tutor development. Specifically, our project tests whether authoring tools based on programming-by-demonstration techniques (developed in prior research) can support the development of a large-scale, real-world tutor. We are creating an open-access Web site, called Mathtutor (<http://webmathtutor.org/>http://webmathtutor.org), where middle school students can solve math problems with step-by-step guidance from ITS. The Mathtutor site fields example-tracing tutors, a novel type of ITS that are built “by demonstration,² without programming, using the Cognitive Tutor Authoring Tools (CTATs). The project’s main contribution will be that it represents a stringent test of large-scale tutor authoring through programming by demonstration. A secondary contribution will be that it tests whether an open-access site (i.e., a site that is widely and freely available) with software tutors for math learning can attract and sustain user interest and learning on a large scale.

Using Mixed-Effects Modeling to Analyze Different Grain-Sized Skill Models in an Intelligent Tutoring System
Mingyu Feng, Neil T. Heffernan, Cristina Heffernan, Murali Mani
<http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/TLT.2009.17>http://doi.ieeecompu
tersociety.org/10.1109/TLT.2009.17

Abstract:
Student modeling and cognitive diagnostic assessment are important issues that need to be addressed for the development and successful application of intelligent tutoring systems (ITS). ITS needs the construction of complex models to represent the skills that students are using and their knowledge states, and practitioners want cognitively diagnostic information at a finer grained level. Traditionally, most assessments treat all questions on the test as sampling a single underlying knowledge component. Can we have our cake and eat it, too? That is, can we have a good overall prediction of a high stakes test, while at the same time be able to tell teachers meaningful information about fine-grained knowledge components? In this paper, we introduce an online intelligent tutoring system that has been widely used. We then present some encouraging results about a fine-grained skill model with the system that is able to predict state test scores. This model allows the system track about 106 knowledge components for eighth grade math. In total, 921 eighth grade students were involved in the study. We show that our fine-grained model could improve prediction compared to other coarser grained models and an IRT-based model. We conclude that this intelligent tutoring system can be a good predictor of performance.

Interactive Problem Solving Support in the Adaptive Educational Hypermedia System MATHEMA
Alexandros Papadimitriou, Maria Grigoriadou, Georgios Gyftodimos
<http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/TLT.2009.19>http://doi.ieeecompu
tersociety.org/10.1109/TLT.2009.19

Abstract:
This paper describes the interactive problem solving support offered by our adaptive educational hypermedia system called MATHEMA. The general goal of the MATHEMA is the support of senior high school students or the beginners of higher education, through an interactive and constructivist environment, in learning physics (electromagnetism) individually and/or collaboratively, and to overcome their possible misconceptions and learning difficulties. Initially, a review of related work about the implemented AEHS/ITS and the didactic design principles of the MATHEMA are presented. Through the interactive problem solving, the system supports the students in solving electromagnetism problems, individually and/or collaboratively, by following an activity that is based on the experimentation with simulations, explorations, guided discovery, and collaboration didactic approaches. An experimental study with senior high school students showed that they improve their performances when following this activity. A questionnaire that we gave to the students to express their opinion about our system helped us to improve the quality of the courses.

Supporting Computer Science Curriculum: Exploring and Learning Linked Lists with iList
Davide Fossati, Barbara Di Eugenio, Christopher W. Brown, Stellan
Ohlsson, David G. Cosejo, Lin Chen
<http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/TLT.2009.21>http://doi.ieeecompu
tersociety.org/10.1109/TLT.2009.21

Abstract:
We developed two versions of a system, called iList, that helps students learn linked lists, an important topic in computer science curricula. The two versions of iList differ on the level of feedback they can provide to the students, specifically in the explanation of syntax and execution errors. The system has been fielded in multiple classrooms in two institutions. Our results indicate that iList is effective, is considered interesting and useful by the students, and its performance is getting closer to the performance of human tutors. Moreover, the system is being developed in the context of a study of human tutoring, which is guiding the evolution of iList with empirical evidence of effective tutoring.

Increasing Parental Self-Efficacy in a Home-Tutoring Environment
Orla Lahart, Declan Kelly, Brendan Tangney
<http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/TLT.2009.20>http://doi.ieeecompu
tersociety.org/10.1109/TLT.2009.20

Abstract:
Research suggests that parents with high levels of self-efficacy tend to make positive decisions about active engagement in the child’s education, while parents with weak self-efficacy are often associated with less parental involvement. Therefore, endowing intelligent tutoring systems with the ability to adapt the level of support provided for the parent based on their self-efficacy may be of great benefit. Such a system might provide high levels of support for parents with low
self-efficacy, while providing lower levels of support for parents with high self-efficacy. This paper explores the effect of using such an adaptive system in the home-tutoring context and, in particular, reports on two complementary empirical studies. In the first study, a dynamic self-efficacy model, learned from runtime self-report data is used to provide adaptive support for the parent. In the second empirical study, the dynamic self-efficacy model was expanded to allow parents to request for further support outside what is deemed necessary based on their
self-efficacy model. Both studies comprised a control group which received full support regardless of their self-efficacy throughout the entire experiment. Results indicate clear increases in arental
self-efficacy as a result of the provision of adaptive support throughout the home-tutoring process.

Training Control Centers’ Operators in Incident Diagnosis and Power Restoration Using Intelligent Tutoring Systems
Luiz Faria, António Silva, Zita Vale, Albino Marques
<http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/TLT.2009.16>http://doi.ieeecompu
tersociety.org/10.1109/TLT.2009.16

Abstract:
The activity of Control Center operators is important to guarantee the effective performance of Power Systems. Operators’ actions are crucial to deal with incidents, especially severe faults like blackouts. In this paper, we present an Intelligent Tutoring approach for training Portuguese Control Center operators in tasks like incident analysis and diagnosis, and service restoration of Power Systems. Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) approach is used in the training of the operators, having into account context awareness and the unobtrusive integration in
the working environment. Several Artificial Intelligence techniques were criteriously used and combined together to obtain an effective Intelligent Tutoring environment, namely Multiagent Systems, Neural Networks, Constraint-based Modeling, Intelligent Planning, Knowledge Representation, Expert Systems, User Modeling, and Intelligent User Interfaces.

Rehearsing Naval Tactical Situations Using Simulated Teammates and an Automated Tutor
Emilio Remolina, Sowmya Ramachandran, Richard Stottler, Alex Davis
<http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/TLT.2009.24>http://doi.ieeecompu
tersociety.org/10.1109/TLT.2009.24

Abstract:
This paper describes a deployed simulation-based Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) for training of Tactical Action Officers (TAOs). The TAO on board a Navy ship is responsible for the operation of the entire watch team manning the ship’s command center. The ITS goal is to train the TAO in command by negation, in which watchstanders perform their duties autonomously, while the TAO supervises, intervening in order to correct mistakes and rectify omissions. The ITS uses artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to provide Automated Role Players (ARPs) representing the watchstanders in the ship, and to provide a Natural Language interface to communicate with these automated teammates. An adaptive coaching strategy is used to provide coaching and feedback during an exercise. The paper presents a discussion of the ITS instructional design, its architecture, and the AI techniques it employs.

The ASSISTment Builder: Supporting the Life Cycle of Tutoring System Content Creation
Leena Razzaq, Jozsef Patvarczki, Shane F. Almeida, Manasi Vartak, Mingyu
Feng, Neil T. Heffernan, Kenneth R. Koedinger
<http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/TLT.2009.23>http://doi.ieeecompu
tersociety.org/10.1109/TLT.2009.23

Abstract:
Content creation is a large component of the cost of creating educational software. Estimates are that approximately 200 hours of development time are required for every hour of instruction. We present an authoring tool designed to reduce this cost as it helps to refine and maintain content. The ASSISTment Builder is a tool designed to effectively create, edit, test, and deploy tutor content. The Web-based interface simplifies the process of tutor construction to allow users with little or no programming experience to develop content. We show the effectiveness of our Builder at reducing the cost of content creation to 40 hours for every hour of instruction. We describe new features that work toward supporting the life cycle of ITS content creation through maintaining and improving content as it is being used by students. The Variabilization feature allows the user to reuse tutoring content across similar problems. The Student Comments feature provides a way to maintain and improve content based on feedback from users. The Most Common Wrong Answer feature provides a way to refine remediation based on the users’ answers. This paper describes our attempt to support the life cycle of content creation.

By Stefanie Panke
Editor, Social Software in Education

The 21^st annual World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia & Telecommunications (ED-MEDIA) attracted 1200 participants from 65 countries. A diverse crowd, including K-12 teachers, university faculty members, researchers, software developers, instructional designers, administrators and multimedia authors, came together at the Sheraton Waikiki Hotel from the 22^nd to 26^th of June with a common goal: to share the latest ideas on e-learning and e-teaching in various educational settings and at the same time enjoy the aloha spirit of tropical Oahu, Hawaii.

Organized by the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE), the annual conference takes place at varying locations in the US, Europe and Canada. Thanks to funding by the German Academic Exchange Agency, I was able to join my colleagues in Hawaii to present two current research projects on social tagging and blended learning and en passant absorb the international flair and information overflow that go together with a packed conference program.

The attendees experienced a full program. In addition to various invited lectures, 210 full papers and 235 brief papers were presented, complemented by numerous symposiums, round tables, workshops and an extensive poster session. The conference proves to be exceedingly competitive with an acceptance ratio for full paper submissions of 37%, and 56% for brief papers. Eleven submissions were honored with an outstanding paper award. My favorite was the work of Grace Lin and Curt Bonk on the community Wikibooks, which can be downloaded from their project page.

Beginning with Hawaiian chants to welcome the participants at the official conference opening and the local adage that “the voice is the highest gift we can give to other people,” audio learning and sonic media formed a recurring topic. The keynote of Tara Brabazon challenged the widely held perception that “more media are always better media” and argued for carefully developed sonic material as a motivating learning format. She illustrated her point with examples and evaluation results from a course on methods of media research (see YouTube excerpt below). Case study reports from George Washington University and Chicago’s DePaul University on iTunesU raised questions about the integration into learning management systems, single-sign-on-procedures and access management.

Among the invited lectures, I was particularly interested in the contribution of New York Times reporter Alex Wright, who reflected upon the history of hypertext. The author’s web site offers further information on The Web that Wasn’t. Alan Levine, vice-president of the Austin based New Media Consortium, clearly was the darling of the audience. Unfortunately, his talk took place in parallel to my own presentation on social tagging, but Alan has created a web site with his slides and hyperlink collection that gives a vivid overview on “50+ Web 2.0 ways to tell a story.”

A leitmotif of several keynotes was the conflict between open constructivist learning environments on one side versus instructional design models and design principles derived from cognitive psychology on the other. Stephen Downes advocated the learning paradigm of connectivism and praised self-organized learning networks that provide, share, re-use and re-arrange content. For those interested in further information on connectivism, an open content class starts in August 2009. This radical turn to free flowing, egalitarian knowledge networks was not a palatable idea for everyone. As an antagonist to Downes, David Merrill presented his “Pebble in the Pond” instructional design model that — similar to “ADDIE” (analysis, design, development, implementation, evaluation) — foresees clear steps and predictable learning outcomes. Tom Reeves, in turn, dedicated his keynote to a comprehensive criticism of multimedia principles derived from the cognitive load theory, picking up on an article by Kirschner, Sweller & Clark (2006), “Why Minimal Guidance Does Not Work . . . .” The audience, in particular the practitioners, reacted to this debate true to the Goethe verse “Prophet left, prophet right, the world child in the middle.” As Steve Swithenby, director of the Centre for Open Learning of Mathematics at Open University (UK) posted in the ED-MEDIA blog: “Well, actually, I want to do both and everything in between. I can’t see that either is the pattern for future learning – both are part of the ways in which learning will occur.”

With blog, twitter feed, flickr group and ning community, the conference was ringing with a many-voiced orchestra of social software tools. Gary Marks, member of the AACE international headquarters and initiator of the new ED-MEDIA community site, announced that he has planned several activities to foster interaction. So far, however, the few contributions are dedicated to potential leisure activities on Hawaii. The presentation “Who We Are” by Xavier Ochoa, Gonzalo Méndez, and Erik Duval offered a review on existing community ties of ED-MEDIA through a content analysis of paper submissions from the last 10 years. An interactive representation of the results is available online.

Twitter seems to have developed into a ubiquitous companion of conference talks. Whether the short messages add to the academic discourse and democratize ex cathedra lectures or divert the attention from the presenter, replacing substance with senseless character strings, is a controversial discussion. Accordingly, twitter received mixed responses among the conference attendees and presenters. In the end, 180 users joined the collective micro-blogging and produced approximately 2500 postings — an overview may be found at Twapper. As a follow-up to this year’s ED-MEDIA, participants were invited to take part in an online survey, designed by the Austrian/German twitter research duo Martin Ebner and Wolfgang Reinhardt. The results will hopefully further the understanding of the pros and cons of integrating microblogging in e-learning conference events.

The AACE used ED-MEDIA as an occasion to announce plans for future growth. Already responsible for three of the largest world-wide conferences on teaching and learning (ED-MEDIA, E-LEARN and SITE), the organization extends its catalog with two new formats. A virtual conference called GlobalTime will make its debut in February 2011. Additionally, the new face-to-face conference GlobalLearn targets the Asian and Pacific regions.

Is ED-MEDIA worth a visit? The sheer size of the event leads to a great breadth of topics, which often obstructs an in-depth discussion of specific issues. At the same time, there is no better way to gain an overview of multiple current trends in compact form. Another plus, all AACE conference contributions are accessible online through the Education and Information Technology Library. The next ED-MEDIA will take place in Toronto, Canada, from June 28 to July 2, 2010.

I instantly found myself confused and additional research didn’t help provide much clarity, so I will pass this somewhat perplexing comparison onto the rest of you…

Because today’s post is open topic, I put “multimedia” into Google just to see what would come up. And thus, I discovered “hypermedia.” The best that I could come up with for what exactly “hypermedia” is could be described as, “A combination of media whose locations are linked to provide an easy way to navigate documents.” This same source described “multimedia” as, “The presentation of information using text, graphics, animation, audio and  video.” Granted, this “source” that I found includes students talking back and forth in preparation for a test, but it appears that the information provided probably came from class notes or a study guide.

What I don’t understand is how they’re different exactly. I could see how multimedia may or may not be hypermedia as well depending on the style of multimedia that it is, but I would think that most hypermedia would be multimedia as well. There’s so much crossover between the two that I’m not sure about the purpose for having two separate categories.

Then again, maybe there’s a broader difference that I’m just not grasping here. Either way, it gave me something to write about. Anyway, just because this is somewhat dry, here’s an image that came up when I Googled “Hypermedia vs. Multimedia.” Enjoy!

This is kind of how I feel at this point...

WebServices RESTful

Palestra apresentada por Jim Webber (ThoughtWorks)

Introdução

Jim, que na minha opinião, foi o melhor palestrante do evento, fechou o evento falando do mesmo assunto que seria destinado a Bill Burke, WebServices RESTful. Após apresentar sua MiniBio ele apresentou os tópicos da apresentação:

• The Richardson Maturity Model;
• Web Architecture;
• Tunneling and POX;
• URI templates and CRUD Services;
• Hypermedia Formats;
• RESTful Services.

The Richardson Maturity Model

O modelo de maturidade Richardson é definido em quatro níveis:

• Level 0: SOAP, XML, RPC, POX (single URI);
• Level 1: URI tunneling (muitas URI’s, único verbo);
• Level 2: Muitas URI’s, muitos verbos (CRUD Services – Modelo Amazon S3);
• Level 3: Level 2 + Hypermedia (RESTful Services).

Web Architecture

• Conceito Web: baseada em recursos, acessada por URI’s (nunca diga URL’s: Deus mata crianças e gatos se você fizer isso, de acordo com Jim), arquivada em meios físicos, acessada por meios lógicos (WebServices) e distribuída para aplicações finais (usuários). Tudo é baseado em verbos HTTP;
• Tudo é acessado via URI’s. URI é um endereço de acesso a recurso(s) de sistema(s);
• A Web é muito poderosa: é escalável, tolerante a falhas, recuperável, tem baixo acoplamento, interface uniforme, modelo stateless e fail-over fácil;
• HTTPS é uma tecnologia madura (baseada em SSL) e deve ser aplicada na Web;
• Web != REST  (não abuse da Web).

Tunneling and POX

• URI tunneling Pattern: URI’s com assinatura padrão e facilidade de manutenção, acesso e mapeamento;
• URI tunneling Strengths: muito fácil entendimento e usabilidade em outras linguagens;
• POX Pattern: como “parsear” padrões de texto, processá-los e disponibilizar as informações de envio;
• POX Strenghts: simples, apenas usa HTTP POST e XML, facilidade de reuso, sem suporte a metadados;

URI templates and CRUD Services

• Web já detém a maioria dos recursos. Deve-se usar o CRUD e pensar nele como base (Jim apresentou exemplos de sinalização de mensagens usando GET, POST, PUT, DELETE);
• CRUD é bom? Sim, mas CRUD não é REST. Modelo CRUD ainda é muito implementado para armazenar dados somente.

Hypermedia Formats & RESTful Services

• Microformatos na semântica W3C;
• RESTful services é o level 3 (media type rules!). Logo é preciso implementar formatos hypermedia e XML (e/ou Application XML) não pode conter links. Do contrário não é nível 3;
• Application /vnd.restbucks + XML: é o formato XML para hypermedia; não é padrão para a IANA;
• Links descrevem protocolos, fluxo, regra de negócio. Logo podemos pensar em “Link as API” e tudo como framework;
• Se você não tem hypermidia você não tem o RESTful;
• Use a Web para escalabilidade massiva, mas com tolerância;
• HTTP tem estados e header para todas as situações. Queremos ter baixo acoplamento e isso pode ser auxiliado por meio dos links hypermidia.

Para finalizar Jim Webber deixou um link de um artigo seu escrito para o InfoQ, contendo os mesmos exemplos da apresentação. Agradeceu a recepção e o interesse do público brasileiro. Da minha parte fica a impressão de quão incrível são os palestrantes internacionais e a desenvoltura para fazer apresentação e explanação de idéias sem igual.

Intertwingularity is not generally acknowledged, people keep pretending they can make things deeply hierarchical, categorizable and sequential when they can’t. Everything is deeply intertwingled – Ted Nelson

According to Educational Technology magazine, “Digital convergence brings four (previously) distinct industry sectors in collaboration/competition with each other. Thus, we have Media/Entertainment, PC/Computing, consumer electronics, and telecommunications industries all interacting more closely with each other than ever before. This version of digital convergence is happening all around us.”

Even though I do not think that the four industry sections were necessarily “distinct” prior to digital convergence to begin with, it is undeniable that with the advent of the Internet the convergence possibilities have multiplied.  Nevertheless, the digital and the academic have not (yet?) converged. As hierarchical structures are still in place – albeit temporarily displaced at times – some educational institutions (or, at least, some educators) are embracing the digital and manage to successfully incorporate it into pedagogical techniques.

Convergence misleadingly implies a smooth fusion of two supposedly discrete entities that have forged a symbiotic relationship. But, of course, convergence is the term we use for lack of a more adequate word.

While it is tempting to generalize the impact of digital learning on the quality of education on a global scale, the truth is that some countries cannot keep up. I want to talk about what I know, so I will focus on Europe – and specifically Greece- for the time being. Is Greece’s educational system on a par with the rest of Europe? Well, of course that depends on which European countries we are focusing on. Despite the European Union’s attempts to homogenize Europeanize standardize its participating members (e.g. in terms of exchange currency, educational language, and anglicized place naming), the educational system is still not uniform in terms of standards and quality. But should it be? Wouldn’t that mean that quality will subsequently be standardized and undiversified?

The Aftermath of the Riots?  – - – Digital Learning in Greece – - –

The introduction of digital learning in Greece might not be directly related to the rioters demands and the public’s disillusion with the Greek educational system. I am not trying to see the positive in the disaster here. It seems to me that the promotion of digital learning is more related to the allegedly impending recession that was looming even before the riots began.

In an attempt to enhance digital literacy, the Hellenic Republic is strengthening ICT infrastructure and supporting the development of digital content and educational software. The Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs wishes to modernize the administration of education via the incorporation of ICT into pedagogical strategies in all levels of education. The Ministry is also planning to introduce informatics as a subject in high schools and technical schools. In addition, three new projects have been proposed by the Ministry of Economy and Finance and the Ministry of National Education and Religious Affairs. The tentative names of these projects/ campaigns are: Get Digital, Portable Computer for Every Student, and Blog Out.

This seems promising, but there have been other projects prior to these ones that have never officially been launched.

Perhaps I can get myself a job in Greece if I ever finish my degree. Perhaps by then they will introduce Film and Media Studies in higher education. And perhaps students might actually be interested in enrolling. One can only hope. . .

Most of my family thinks I am making movies in grad school. They do not understand what the point is in studying film without actually producing it…

There is no “new” media. The contemporary technology doesn´t replace the old and traditional media. It borrows their characteristics and keeps their references. Thus, digital media logic fits in many purposes, including the religious and sacred narrative.

Virtuality, the unreal space,  multimedia, hypermedia, and non-linear time are the raw material of religion since ancient times.

If virtual world refers to another reality, the religious narrative have been providing access to parallel, unreal and magic world since ever.

Neither multi and hypermidia are recentness. The religious practice always used images, texts, and sounds as media to connect the individual to the sacred. In a temple, all kind of media juxtapose and complement each other in a non-linear reading for building the sacred.

If web encloses many and diversified temporalities, the sacred time is not the time of the calendar, but the subjective one. A time that comes from perception. Times that refer to dreams, epiphanies and aesthetic contemplation.

Thus, the digital environment provides the creation of many kinds of worlds. Virtual worlds.  Meantime, worlds that are not strange or just contemporary, but familiar and ancient. Mythical and religious worlds, supported by codes, symbols and cultural signs that we already know. But now, a digitalized one.

Internet has developed in leaps and bound back its apparatus and for the accomplished two decades. It has become accepted as a average for advertising. Internet commercial is adopted by consumers and businessmen akin due to its low amount and the ample advance of Internet users and as it has a far and advanced reach. Internet can abduction text, images, video and audio. The advertisers can aftermath logos, affective banners, activated and three- dimensional adumbration and with the aggregate of these, advertisers aftermath acknowledged and low amount Internet commercial solution..Computer Help And Advice

Internet commercial is affordable and aswell helps to calmly transact and deliver with the consumers, aural a actual abbreviate amount of time. With just one bang and Internet advertising, consumers get all the advice appropriate by visiting any website. Internet is the alone medium, which satisfies both the agent and the clients, from the abundance of their corresponding homes. Meeting in being consumes money and time and success in commercial is not guaranteed. But low amount Internet commercial solutions account the company, area the casework and articles accept sales as aswell the consumers accept abundance and satisfaction.

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The web website publishers are aswell benefited through Internet commercial by breeding commercial acquirement from their unsold business inventory. Internet commercial absolutely satisfies the consumers, companies, advertisers and even the accepted people. Internet commercial gives the adeptness to admeasurement the appulse and afterimage of the companies. Internet commercial can be acclimated for creating accepted casting awareness, casting advance and for alluring superior cartage to their websites.

Creating a blog is one of the cheapest and able means of Internet advertising, area the website is answer and comments can be posted. Hotlink barter or argument hotlink barter is addition bargain adjustment of Internet advertising. There are added big-ticket Internet commercial like pop ups, pod casts and paid seek engines. Pop ups is the adjustment in which the advertisement appears in amid the site, blocking the appearance to the site. This is absolutely annoying and advancing and is absolutely expensive.

Pod casting is addition adult adjustment of Internet commercial but the abstraction of globalization is accepting a close basis and anniversary aggregation is appetite its best to bazaar the artefact to adeptness the consumers in the alcove and bend of the world…Computer Help And Advice

Clearly, Internet commercial bureau acts as a arch amid the aggregation and assorted web sites. Internet commercial is accessible 24x 7 acceptance admission anytime and is actual able and efficient. There cannot be a bigger average than Internet to accomplish the commercial action in the awful aggressive business.

]]> http://1yeespin.wordpress.com/2009/01/11/160/ Sun, 11 Jan 2009 23:35:00 +0000 Yera Espinosa http://1yeespin.wordpress.com/2009/01/11/160/

Communication is a very important part of our lives. It keeps us in contact with the happenings in the whole world, but which types of communications can we find nowadays?

We could say that there are three ways of communicating: Orality, writing and hypermedia.

Orality is a verbal expression, and Walter J. Ong (American Jesuit priest, professor of English Literature and cultural and religious philosopher) divides it into two different forms:

• Primary orality: It is used in places where people have no idea of writing or reading
• Residual orality: It is used in places where writing has arrived, but is not used in people’s daily life.

Writing, on the other side, is what we could call the graphic representation of a language. It uses sings as a method of communication, and it is said that the first writing techniques come from the year 4000 b.C.

Finally, hypermedia is a type of text where sounds and images appear. We can find texts, videos, audios, maps and other media in it.

The best example of a hypermedia we can have is the World Wide Web (Most commonly known as www).

At first, orality was the most popular way of communication, because people didn’t know how to write, but some years later, writing started taking more and more importance, being used by a lot of people. Now, the hypermedia takes both orality and writing together, so we could say that it’s the new way of communication.

References:

•  Hypermedia. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 19:06, January 10, 2009, from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypermedia
• Walter J. Ong. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 20:32, January 11, 2009, from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_J_Ong
• Orality. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 21:00, January 11, 2009, from: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Orality&oldid=238417313
• Escritura (lingüística). In Wikipedia, La Enciclopedia Libre. Retrieved 22:45, January 11, 2009, from: http://es.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Escritura_%28ling%C3%BC%C3%ADstica%29&oldid=21317754