Gravy's Blog

TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION 8...

2008-06-10T15:06:00.000-07:00

Tutorial Eight: Assistive technology

Provide a definition of Assistive technology (your Cook and Hussey reading may be helpful with this).

“Any service that directly assists an individual with a disability in the selection, acquisition or use an assistive technology device”.

“The science or study of the practical or industrial arts, applied science, a method, process, etc. For handling a specific technical problem”.

Describe one piece of equipment introduced in the assistive technology tutorial. Provide information on size, cost and functions.

A communication device. Has up to 96 recording options, you push the button/square and it speaks out what you want, need, feel e.g. yes, no, I want a coffee.

Made by advanced multimedia devices.

Runs by a battery

30cm x 15cm = face

10cm = depth

$4000-$5000.

How does your chosen piece of equipment increased functional capacity for the user? Provide examples here from the tutorial and lecture.

This piece of device allows communication for someone who is non-verbal, has intellectual disability, limited physical function. You need to have some level of hand function, however you don’t need to push hard, some cognition is needed to know what you want. It is visually stimulating. You don’t need others in order to function.

TECHNICAL DECSRIPTION 4 & 5...

2008-05-27T16:10:00.000-07:00

Tutorial Four and Five: Video Production Sessions

Task One: Follow instructions and work in a small group to plan and produce and edit a 30 second short.

Task Two: Set up a U Tube account

Task Three: Follow instructions to posting your video on U Tube.

Task Four (Blog Posting): Provide a brief summary of the services offered by U Tube. Information can be drawn from the week five tutorial hand out.

Youtube is a website where you can upload video's on a website and then other people of the public can view them. It allows you to upload such things as; video clips, music clips, movies clips, blog videos. It is free to sign up and is easy to find your way around the site. As a viewer you can rate and make comments on peoples posts, and search for a wide variety of clips by using the search tool.

Task Five (Blog Posting): Provide a brief account (1-2 paragraphs) on how the use of planning (storyboarding and scripting aided your groups short film.

As a group we sat down and discussed ideas we had for making our short film. Once we had decided on what we were going to do in our film we then turned to the story boarding. We drew in what we would be filming and how we would film it. This was very valuable as we could agree on what we were doing so when it came to filming we knew what we were doing.

During filming we referred back to our storyboard so we knew where to go for the next scene. Woth the descriptions aswell we were able to recall how we were meant to film each piece.

I felt it aided us very well, and it meant filming was quick as all the decisions had been made and we could just do what we had agreed on. It also acted as a visual aid of what we were doing rather than just words.

TECHNICAL DECSRIPTION 3...

2008-05-27T16:00:00.000-07:00

Tutorial Three: Blog Creation Tasks

Task Four: Provide a brief summary of the services offered by Blogger (this will be your third posting. Information can be drawn from the attached hand out). In addition to this name one other Blog host.

You can use blogs for everything from updating your friends and family about your life, giving your own advice column, discussing your political views, or relating your experience in a topic of interest. You can host blogs with multiple contributors, or you can run your own solo show.
It is a place where you can share your thoughts, feeling, photos, communicate with others and check out other peoples blogs too. You can add links to other websites, upload video's and post information you would like others to see. other uses of blogs can be in the site bebo: www.bebo.com for if you are a member.

TECHNICAL DECSRIPTION 7...

2008-05-27T15:44:00.000-07:00

Task One: Explain the step by step process required to embed You Tube videos into your Blog . Consider using screen captures to provide a visual representation of these steps.

How do I post a Youtube video?

The easiest way to embed a YouTube video into a blog post (or page) is to copy the video’s embed code and paste it into your blog post.

YouTube embed codes can be found next to any video on YouTube.com:

After you paste the code into your post and save the post, the video will be embedded for you. When you save your post, the embed code will also be automatically translated into a shorter, WordPress specific code that will look something like this:

You can move this code around your post to determine where the video should be shown.

You can embed multiple videos in a post.

Another way to embed a YouTube video is to copy the URL of a video, go to to the Add Media section of your write page (the page where you compose your blog posts), click on Add Video, paste the URL into the box, and click the Insert into Post button:

↓

Task Two: Explain the step by step process required to embed a Flickr Badge into your Blog . Consider using screen captures to provide a visual representation of these steps.

Step 1: What sort of badge would you like to use?

There are two types of badge to choose from: HTML or Flash. You will be able to select to display things from your own collection, one of your groups, or everyone's uploads. You can also filter any of these options by a tag, if you wish. (The examples below are set to show your photos.))

An HTML badge

A Flash badge

www.flickr.com

what is this?

Step 2: Choose content

Choose the things you'd like to display on your badge from your photostream, or everyone's uploads.

Yours

All of your public photos and video

Your public stuff tagged with:

Only your public content will be included in your badge.

Everyone's

Step 3: Colors

Background

<<<

Border

Links

Text

No background

No border

( Restore factory defaults )

Click below to set the background color.

Your badge!

This is the code you need:

All you need to do is copy and paste this chunk of code into your website where you'd like your badge to appear.

(could not add code).

TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION 2...

2008-05-27T15:09:00.001-07:00

Tutorial Two: Digital Camera use and applications

“A new technology is rarely superior to an old one in every feature”. Briefly discuss this statement in relation to digital camera technology. What would you consider to be some of the pluses and minuses digital camera technology holds in relation to more traditional film based cameras?

POSITIVES:

Can delete pictures if they aren’t right
Doesn’t take up a lot of storage space
Small and compact
Easy to put on your computer
Instant pictures
Print at home

NEGATIVES:

Don’t have the joy of getting a film developed not knowing what the pictures are.
Quite technical
Expensive

List some of the ways that digital images can be stored transferred and manipulated using other communications technology.

Computer hard drive
CD’s
DVDs
USB

Given the prevalence of image capturing devices, and thinking about the issues discussed in tutorial one, consider what sort of ethical issues may arise with their use.

Un wanted people can access your images.

Other peoples faces in pictures that may not have wanted to be in the picture – privacy issues.

Briefly discuss some of the ways that digital images could, or are, being used in occupational therapy practice.

In occupational therapy practice digital cameras are used to get photos of client’s current environments so then they can see how they can modify them. E.g. a photo of the front door to see what ramp, rails or new gradient of the steps.

Provide a brief summary of the services offered by Flickr.com

Flickr.com is a website where you can upload photo’s and send the link to friends and family so they can view your pictures online. Also used to store pictures.

Name one other photo storage website which offers a service similar to Flickr.com

Ringo: www.ringo.com

Explain what the difference is between a digital and an optical zoom

Most cameras have both optical zoom and digital zoom. Optical zoom works just like a zoom lens on a film camera. The lens changes focal length and magnification as it is zoomed. Image quality stays high throughout the zoom range. Digital zoom simply crops the image to a smaller size, then enlarges the cropped portion to fill the frame again. Digital zoom results in a significant loss of quality as is clear from the examples below. It's pretty much a last resort, and if you don't have it in camera, you can do a similar job using almost any image editing program.

Explain what is meant by the term mega pixel

One of the main ways that manufacturers categorize their digital cameras is in terms of pixel count. What this is is the number of individual pixels that go into making each image. Today this number varies between 1 million (1 Megapixel) to around 14 million (14 Megapixels). A million pixels is abbreviated to MP, so a 1MP camera has 1 million pixels and a 3MP camera has 3 million pixels.

Our OT Student life...

2008-05-20T16:20:00.000-07:00

Mummy wow i made a video...

...im a big kid now :)

BLOG 3: Tutorial Six: The internet and online communities

2008-05-20T15:19:00.000-07:00

Provide the web address and the name of the community you are investigating

www.thelowdown.co.nz.

What is the brief or focus of this community

The Lowdown is a site where if you or someone you know is experiencing depression you can find information about it.

The Lowdown is part of a national public health campaign (the National Depression Initiative) and has been created to reduce the impact of depression on the lives of New Zealanders, as well as being a component of the New Zealand Government’s approach to suicide prevention.

The Lowdown aims to help young people recognise and understand depression. This site encourages and enables them to seek appropriate help, or puts them in touch with trained professionals. Through encouraging early treatment of depression the NDI intends to reduce the impact depression has on the lives of young New Zealanders, now and throughout their adult lives.

What services are provided? How interactive is this site? How can people contribute?

You can hear from musicians, celebs and everyday people sharing their own personal experiences with depression. If you have any questions or you want to talk to someone about how you’re feeling, you can text or email The Lowdown team in the Chat section. Or you can just chill and listen to some great kiwi music from artists featured on the site.

It also provides a number of other services that you can contact for depression. It also provides facts, answers and questions and stories that others have shared.

Consider material presented during the lecture and make comment on why people choose to contribute to this community. What is it they are seeking?

Community organisations: range from informal family or kinship networks, to more formal incorporated associations, political decision making structures, economic enterprises, or professional associations at a small, national or international scale.

The website offers and provides a place for people seeking information on depression and an opportunity to discuss with others the effect depression has on them and their stories/experiences. This allows people to feel they have a place they can talk and know there is support out there and are not alone.

Cut and paste an example of the type of topics being discussed (you may have to provide a context to your excerpt).

This is apiece from the Text section of Stories on the website.

Hi There

My name is Jordyn Fisher, im 15 yrs old and I wish to share with you a piece of writing i created to give hope to those that suffer from depression. My poem is entitled "Merely A State Of Mind".

Hopefully this helps to make a difference or give some form of hope. Depression hits close to home as one of my friends has depression. Thanks for your time and I hope this helps :)

Considering material presented during the course and make comment on the potential ethical issues that may arise in this community e.g. lack of identity and accountability.

Ethical issues that may arise are people not taking the site seriously and abuse the opportunity to use the site seriously for those that most need it.

Ethically it is good that they have 6 people monitoring the site in which are full qualified in this area making sure there is no misconduct. You can also be anonymous which allows you to keep your identity safe.

Consider material presented during the lecture and make comment on the benefits this community holds over traditional notions of community e.g. communities reliant on geographic proximity

This is site is very reliable as you can be anonymous when sharing your experiences. It is a service than can be accessed nation and worldwide as it is a web site and there are always people contributing to the site. This is a benefit as anyone can access, at anytime of the day is there is not opening hours like a traditional community service. It has role models of celebrities that contribute to the site which is a huge inspiration, especially for teens. It allows people to know there are others out there that suffer too and you are not alone.

Consider material presented during the lecture and make comment what this community lacks or can not provide which traditional communities can.

This website lacks the chance to have personal contact which makes building rapport a lot harder. By only have written contact it is sometimes hard to express your feelings and how you really feel.

TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION 1...

2008-03-04T14:14:00.000-08:00

Tutorial One: Information Technology and Ethical Issues

Provide a definition of Information Technology/Information Communications Technology (APA reference required)

· Information technology (IT), also known as Information and Communication(s) Technology (ICT) and Infocomm in Asia, is concerned with the use of technology in managing and processing information, especially in large organizations.

Retrieved February 14, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Technology

Information technology n. The production, storage and communication of information using computers and microelectronics.

Hanks, P. (ed). (1989) Collins Concise Dictionary. Glasgow: Bath Press.

Consider the definition of IT you have provided. How is this form of technology prevalent in our society? How common place has it become?

Technology, in particular computers are very available in society today. Not only have PC’s in the home become a thing of the norm, lap tops are now becoming more in more common. Especially for students and business people. Technology is progressing fast, increasing the abilities of what they are able to do for us. Computers also have added equipment that act as a storage, e.g. USB chips, that are also very common in society.

What IT devices or system do you feel comfortable and competent using?

I fell comfortable and competent using PC’s, laptops, digital camera’s, ipods, video camera’s, USB’s, CD’s. DVD’s.

Thinking about your own fieldwork experiences consider how IT is being used in Occupational Therapy practice?

Sometimes video recordings are used to video interviews with clients, with their consent, in order to use for assessment and observation.

Computers are used to type up clients notes, and store important information, files and documents. They are also used for communication via email.

Digital camera’s are used for taking pictures of equipment and clients homes in order to find suitable equipment. They are also used to document moments e.g. activity groups.

What ethical implications arise from the capturing, sharing and transferring of information via IT devices (e.g. mobile phones) or systems (e.g. internet)

Implications with capturing, sharing and transferring information via IT devices (e.g. mobile phones) or systems (e.g. internet) include not having informed consent from the people you’ve capture and then using these images for your own use. The information is easily transferable and can be accessed by anyone if they have the skills and knowledge of how to do so.

Provide a definition of Computer Ethics (APA reference required)

Computer ethics is a branch of practical philosophy which deals with how computing professionals should make decisions regarding professional and social conduct.

Retrieved February 14, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_ethics

Provide a definition of Intellectual Property (APA reference required)

In law, intellectual property (IP) is an umbrella term for various legal entitlements which attach to certain types of information, ideas, or other intangibles in their expressed form. The holder of this legal entitlement is generally entitled to exercise various exclusive rights in relation to the subject matter of the IP. The term intellectual property reflects the idea that this subject matter is the product of the mind or the intellect, and that IP rights may be protected at law in the same way as any other form of property. However, the use of the term and the concepts it is said to embody are the subject of some controversy

Retrieved February 14, 2007, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property

Provide a definition of Social Justice (APA reference required)

Social justice mostly refers to an ideal of society, where "justice" refers to economic status rather than to the administration of laws. It is based on the idea of a society which gives individuals and groups fair treatment and a just share of the benefits of society, although what is "fair treatment" and a "just share" must remain unclear or subject to interpretation.

Retrieved February 14, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_justice

Provide a definition of Informed Consent (APA reference required)

Informed consent is a legal condition whereby a person can be said to have given consent based upon an appreciation and understanding of the facts and implications of an action.

Retrieved February 14, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informed_consent

In your own words briefly summarise why (or why not) a great understanding of ITC and the ethical issues it encompasses will help us in our practice and daily lives.

Having the knowledge and understanding allows you to do things as and when required. You are able to store information and documents which mean you do not need to take up physical space. It’s an easy way to communicate with fellow clinicians if you cannot see them in person. It allows you to access information globally and use as a research tool. For these reasons I feel it is important for OT to be apart of the changes in technology and to keep up with it, in order to reap the benefits.

First Blog...

2008-02-26T14:34:00.000-08:00

Set up my blog today which is quite exciting! its a bit different to other networks i've been on before so its all very new to me. Doing this in Participation in Occupation - think itl be a fun paper :)