Embedded Task One

Embedded Task One

So far I have found Blogger to be somewhat easy to navigate, and found myself enjoying writing, editing and using the program to convey what I want to say through visuals and video. Blogger is a blogging program that allows you to customize a space where you can write blogs and edit the way you want.

Through exploring this program I stumbled into the settings where I found personal information, privacy settings, location, profile photo/audio and general stuff like about me information. Privacy is super important as you don’t want someone getting your hands on private information and so I found that Blogger gives you the option to show my profile which I kept on so other colleagues could view, read and comment on my reflections and turned off email address and used a stage name for security reasons. The blog author is set to one that is the admin, so only I can post blogs; however there is a setting to set up a third-party option to share your blog and get others involved and has the opportunity to write blog posts.

Blogger has many options in customizing your blog to suit you, on the home page there is a sidebar that has the following customization tabs, pages, layout, themes and settings. I found that quite easy to modify to my liking choosing a theme and background that can be imported from your own personal saved photos or using one already allocated on the program itself.

It is important to note that once registered one should go through their settings to customize it for themselves as some people may want everyone to see their posts whereas some people may prefer verified users to have access to their blogs. There is many opportunities to edit or delete blog posts through clicking on the posts in the sidebar and then hovering over the post you wanted to edit or delete and the options should pop up.

Blogger makes it easy to insert videos, photos, audio and links through the writing or editing process, as icons are present in the top bar, even if you are unsure if you hover over the icons they tell you what they do. In my blogs I inserted pictures that have been outsourced as well as videos from YouTube, which is an option when clicking on the video icon you can search YouTube and embed the video onto your blog.

Personally, I have never used Blogger, in fact have never used anything even close to blogger but I found that it was quite easy to use and if you spend long enough just doing the rounds and clicking on every button you will eventually figure out what is what and after a few minutes will be able to navigate yourself around the program.

Speaking in a legal and ethical sense, what should be considered when using outsourced resources should be given credit to (with more than 10% used). Using something without someone’s permission can arise legal problems and can be seen as plagiarism. Another ethical dilemma could be child protection and if inappropriate for children’s use should be locked or blocked to children to avoid breaches. One last thing that could be added to ones blog supports cultural awareness, by providing warnings at the beginning.

This tool correlates with the SAMR model in which it conquers all levels of substitution, augmentation, modification and redefinition. In my teaching context, focusing especially on legal studies, one of my teaching areas, I will use the SAMR model through ICTs.

Substitution could be using laptops or iPads as a way of documenting information as well as using online resources for sources of information thus diminishing using notebooks and decrease the time in finding books with relevant information.  

At the augmentation stage we can supplement books for videos, videos that may include the author, the judge, the lawyer, the victim or any media source that may tell a clearer story that invites students to critically think, instead of reading inserts or books.

The modification level of SAMR is a change in learning tools, one that encourages creative thinking and may focus more on particular programs or mapping instead of writing into a word document or PowerPoint presentation, for example perhaps using a program to map out the seats in a court room explaining which person does what job and using their thoughts and ideas to do this in a way that makes sense to them.

The redefinition step could include students stepping away from videos and text but rather get involved in their own projects through programs where they can use sources to create their own space to elaborate on certain cases and proof behind that. This space could involve embedding video, speeches, multimedia, audio, interviews, pictures, performances, maps and anything else that comes to their creative minds to show me how they have processed the content.

Through the SAMR model and ICTs it can be seen that Blooms Taxonomy is worked through until reaching the create stage where students are producing new or original work and this can be seen during the redefinition stage of the SAMR model where students design, assemble, construct, develop, formulate and investigate.