WEEK 7

This week, we touched on the basics of Macromedia Flash 8!

For starters Ms Nah showed us what a Flash file was and what the program could do. Then it was up to us to read the introduction off OLE and play around with the software. I never touched on ANYTHING to do with Flash before, but it was all rather interesting.

The simple animation wasn't too simple for me at first, but soon enough, I got the ball rolling! (LITERALLY!) Realised it was all about the converting to symbols and just pulling the ball to different positions on the board at different time-frames. I got even more excited when my ball could bounce, and to end it all, I made a second ball bounce across the screen at the same time then both merging and disappearing! Oh, the satisfaction! But I got a bit disheartened when I saw people around me morphing their circles into squares and funny faces! Oh well. This wasn't their first time!

Next, we had to do a Flash banner. Ms Nah said it was all about understanding the frames and stuff. Honestly I started getting a little confused from here onwards. Unlike the first exercise, we had to overlap two different banners. There was a lot of Motion Tweening and time-frame adjusting to be done to get the blinking and cool effects. But truth be told, I DID IT! Yes, I think my banner looked pretty cool too! (:

Finally, the last task was making a spotlight effect on the Singapore Zoological Gardens' Logo. I think this was the COOLEST ONE OF ALL! I barely grasped the concept of all the layers and masking, but still I managed make a spotlight! We had to make 3 main layers. First layer was the coloured logo, then the black and white logo and finally the layer of a circle that was to be the spotlight. The spotlight layer was rather similar to the first exercise where we had to roll the ball around. And with the patience and help of my wonderful lab partner Syawal and Ms Nah, I MADE A SPOTLIGHT ANIMATION EFFECT!

I think Flash is a rather tedious but the results sure make it all worthwhile! Kinda hope to learn more interesting Flash tricks. WEE

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
(and happy reading too Ms Nah! CHEERS)

Task: APEL Overview Powerpoint

Task
- in your blog, state the goals, objectives and target audience

GOALS: Help the user understand more about APEL 1 and what are it's objectives.

OBJECTIVES: To provide an understanding of principles of the intra-personal effectiveness to help in nurturing of dispositions such as attitudes, skills or knowledge towards these principles.

TARGET AUDIENCE: TP freshmen, APEL 1 students.

WEEK 6

As i was MC for the previous lesson, I missed out on the lab practice for Hot Potatoes. Luckily I was given a practice sheet to try out though. Managed to make a quiz, crossword and a cloze in the end! Satisfying (:

I'm going to finish up my powerpoint slides hopefully by tomorrow and add audio into my slides. I don't think there'll be enough time to put my narrations in, so I'm resorting to just some nice music.

Off to do my linking! I'll leave my Breeze conversion for Friday I suppose~

I'M OFF!

RESEARCH: E-Learning Websites

Task:
- research on 2 e-learning websites
- evaluate what is good and bad.
- state the goals, objectives and target audience





E-learning Website #1: Creativity-Portal
Objective:
To provide informative articles in all kinds of Arts. From small crafts to music & even writing.

Goals:
To share knowledge and to inspire creative expression and exploration

Target Audience:
Hobbyists or people interested in learning in picking up something new.

Good:
I think this website on the whole, is pretty impressive. I'm quite sure there is an article on ALMOST every kind of art there is! Even if there wasn't, there would still be helpful links to related websites. As a crafts lover, I couldn't stop ogling at all the different mini projects, ideas and short tutorials as well. The instructions and language used was casual, approaching and simple, which makes the site recommendable for a young user as well. There are friendly tips in between to help users tackle common problems they might encounter in their learning process.

Their adverts are catchy and cute too! Such as this:







And as quoted from another review,
"If you have the desire to learn photography, writing, fine arts, graphics design, music making, origami, balloon twisting, needlework and a whole lot of other things, then this is the right place for you to begin your learning adventure!"

Bad:
Although the instructions are simple and easy to follow, I think the website lacked visuals. It would have been alot more interesting if there were step-by-step pictures for the user to follow, or maybe a sample picture of an end project?

The lack of colours and bold fonts makes it rather dull after awhile. The articles are also chunky sometimes, this could make the reading or learning process boring for the younger age group.

___________________________________________________________________







E-learning Website #2: Webmonkey
Objectives:
Provide users with information how to build websites.

Goals:
To be a resource page catering to all the different levels of users.

Target Audience:
Web developers ranging from beginners to experts!

Good:
The first thing that caught my attention was the web layout! Not only was it all colourful, but there were mini cartoon icons as well! Super artistic!

Next up would have to be the impressive menu at the right side of the screen. Short and sweet, it summarizes everything! There is a How-to-Library, Quick Reference links, a search bar and even a user's choice of web capability of Beginners, Builders or Masters! (wow!)

This website is extremely well detailed and organised. I also like the fact that even when you're in the middle of a certain topic, there would still be a drop down Quick Link to hop to another topic.

Bad:
Maybe it is because I hardly do web developing, but even as a beginner, I doubt there is much I would complain about this website. Some might beg to differ that the main page is too blue or hard to see, but I think it suits me just fine.

As I would like to quote another reviewer again,
"Whether you are just starting out to built your own site or are a professional web-master, you just cannot give this site a miss. With hundred of articles across categories like web authoring, design, multimedia, E-business, programming, etc...... ....Even if you are only remotely interested in IT or the internet, you won't be disappointed if you visit this site!"

__________________________________________________________________________

REFLECTION:Even though I'm an Arts lover, I couldn't help but be impressed by Webmonkey. Given a choice to choose between either website for E-learning, I would definitely give web programming a shot! Creative Portal has a wide range of articles, but it seems so much more boring and dull compared to Webmonkey!

WEEK FOUR

Luckily I had my Powerpoint slides in class yesterday! Phew. At least I managed try using Breeze for my slides. We also used a program called Audacity to mix up and edit sound files. Sadly I only had sound files from Ole to play around with.

I also had some problems with importing audio files with Breeze. Turns out I had to first EXPORT my edited audio file as a .wav in Audacity THEN import it! :s

We watched an example of a Powerpoint converted to with Breeze in class. All the videos and the narrations really made the presentation a blast! Though I doubt I'll be about to put Flash in mine, but I hope it'll be alright.

We spent the last few minutes of class leaning how to use a kind of photoshop to edit pictures. Sadly the software isn't freeware, I think it was rather good.

Oh well, thats all for this week! (:
Cheerios~

Ahem ahem!

EELD isn't as easy as everyone said it would be! But still I do think it's pretty interesting. We get to learn how to use IT's cool software.


WEEK ONE
Since it was still the add/drop week, it was only an introduction of the CDS and a brief run through of all the programs we'd be using in this CDS.

We're going to be using Breeze and maybe a bit of Macromedia Flash to make a powerpoint into a learning package. Then there's this other program called Hot Potatoes..........??


WEEK TWO
Had a bit of a mini "ice-breaking" session before class commenced! It was FUN :D I think we should have it more often!

ANYWAYS, we were divided into groups of three to research on the definition of E-learning. Electronic learning or eLearning is a general term used to refer to computer-enhanced learning. Using computers, online forums and such.

We've got to dig out our APEL 1 books too. I wonder where mine is........


WEEK THREE
This week was OPTIONAL.

Did a rough powerpoint for my to-be APEL1 Learning package. And so here I am, my very first time using blogger. I hope I have not put too much redundant information here! My apologies (:

CHEERS.