My Customized Google Map

I want to showcase the use of maps for students. I have created the map with the features that are essential to know for the students who come to Karlskrona, Sweden (my home town) to study higher degree courses like masters degree.

The features are:

·      3 Supermarket locations for busying daily groceries etc.

·      2 Banks.

·      Railway station i.e. Karlskrona Central Railway Station.

·      2 Hospitals. ( 1 main hospital and the other centrum vardcentral)

·      4 Restaurants.

·      Library.

I have created the talbe “markups” in the database with the same number of fields as resource 1 suggested. And then I have started adding locations, and I have used resource 2 to get the longitude and latitude values of the locations.

And in main map.html page, I have added more location placeholders with the names as restaurant, library, bank etc. and then added the icons, which will be suitable for these locations from resource 3. And then I have changed the central position of my map so that all the locations of the map are shown in one frame. I have also modified the zoom level to 14 and the window width and height of the content frame. Check the live example HERE

Mashups

Mashing is the compounding (“mashing”) of two or more pieces of complementing web functionalities to create a powerful web application. This is usually achieved through the use of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), where API’s are the defined, and generally published, interface of a software or hardware that can be addressed and used by another software. According to Webopidia – “Web sites. A mash-up, for example, could overlay traffic data from one source on the Internet over maps from Yahoo, Microsoft, Google or any content provider. The term mash-up comes from the hip-hop music practice of mixing two or more songs.”

According to WIKIPEDIA – “The main characteristics of the mashup are combination, visualization, and aggregation. It is important to make existing data more useful, moreover for personal and professional use. To be able to permanently access the data of other services, mashups are generally client applications or hosted online.”

I have used Yahoo Pipe to create a pipe to showcase latest posts from my blogs ( one is cooking blog (www.vegetariansworld.blogspot.se) and the other is my web designing blog (www.mywebdesigningworld.blogspot.se ) ), along with latest news info from my favorite news website Telegraph ( www.telegraph.co.uk ). And I also want to experiment with yahoo local search. I have tried to search one near my home town Karlskrona, but that location search is not available.

Check my Yahoo Pipe

http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=e3e99b7c316ecc1f41b95c1143acbf68

The wire frame behind the pipe is as show in the picture:

To read the whole report CLICK HERE

Post Study Reflection of Social Network

For the past 5 months, I have been studying about various social networks that are present in the current web world for the users using which one can share the information, collaborate, share media etc.

I have been analyzing the website in-regards to the characteristics described here < CLICK HERE >

After the study of social networks impact on current society, educational field and other related fields, my opinion on the social networks have changed.

Here is the video which shows a little glimpse of the post-study reflection.



The following summarize my post study reflections:

• I used to think that people only use social networking websites such as Facebook, twitter etc to share their details about the personal life. But after closely observing and following these sites so far I am kind of hooked to them. One can explore new dimensions. I have observed that so many education institutions are using these websites, to inform their students about current news or information about the courses, assignments and deadlines. I am currently following Luleå and Umeå university websites, that is really helpful for the students.
• Facebook seems more like personal social networking site, but on observation and analyzation I came to know that, there are so many apps that are present ( As Facebook Pages). One can even subscribe to the updates of the news channels, entertainment channels etc. In the same way Twitter is also being used for updates. But in comparison with Facebook, I found that Twitter is more sophisticated and easy to use. 
• In Facebook the information the user wants to update is known as "Wallpost" but in Twitter it is called as "Tweet".
• In Facebook there is no limitation to the number of words that user wants to enter, but in twitter it is limited. So the information is precise direct to point. 
• When user share the links those links will change the url that is displayed to the user in Twitter, but in Facebook, it is shown as Thumbnail.
• Even though both websites offers photo sharing, in Facebook , the users can create albums and share them with the people by either giving link to the album or by adding them as friend. But twitter does not allow that.
• If user adds another user in Facebook, they called Friends, but in twitter they called as Followers.
• Twitter uses @ and # symbols for discover and relate topics, there is no such terminology in Facebook.

I have seen some of the presentation of course peers about their post study reflections.

• There is one about Twitter, and even though I do agree about spam in twitter as presented in the video, there are security options available for the user, so as to avoid spam effect. I have been also using the twitter and tweeting for the past 4 months or so.. but i did not found this kind of annoying spam tweets. 
• I have seen one more video about Myspace. The presentation made me to explore more about myspace, upon doing some research I found that myspace is little confusing and privacy options are not so much sophisticated as the others. But still it is another great website.
• And its great to see slideshows about facebook, they have shown all the important information in regards to the website.

Site Evaluations

Just finished one of the assignment for the course of Social Software & Web 2.0. This assignment mainly focus towards the collaboration and also evaluating the sites that offer different services for the users.

I have shared the following apps in collaboration part of assignment.

• Office Live Work Space
• Doodle
• Shutterfly
• SlickPic
• DropBox
• Groovshark
• Raaga.

For complete report < CLICK HERE >

The second part involves the evaluation of the sites. To read the report < CLICK HERE >

The online presentation of the above websites is provided as a screen cast with the help of Quicktime in Apple's MacBook Pro.

My First Widget

I have designed a widget for converting temperature from Celsius degrees to Fahrenheit and vice versa. In this widget a text box is provided for the user to enter the values. Up on entering the values the user can then choose between two options of C to F or F to C.
I have approached as follows:

•  First I have created the config.xml. In that I have provided name for the widget ( tempconverter) along with the icon, description.
•  Secondly I have created a javascript file named script.js. In this I have defined 2 functions. Both of them gets the input from the html file and converts the values respectively from C to F and F to C. And the result is displayed in html format with bold text by using getElementById().innerHTML.
• Then I have created html page named index.html. In this page I have created the form.The form has the following elements. 
• A paragraph to give little description about the widget and how a user can use it.
• A text field through which the user can enter the value.
• Two buttons, one with the value C to F (which converts form Celsius to Fahrenheit) and the other from F to C (converts from Fahrenheit to Celcius).
• A div element which is used to display the result of the above buttons.
• And I have included my external java script file in the header. And I have called the java script functions in their respective onClick attributes of the buttons.

How the widget works?

When the user runs the widget, the widget will give an opputunity to enter the number. And if the user wants to convert to Fahrenheit then the user can clicks on C to F. Then the “toF()” function is called and result is displayed in the div element of the html page. And if the user clicks on F to C button then “toC()” function is called. The result is displayed in bold text for visible clarity.

Collaborative Software in Educational Field

In educational institutions, collaborative software can help teachers in various ways. Using these softwares the following can be achieved.

• Allowes classes to interact with each other.
•   Teachers can create assignments easily and these assignments can be easily shared with students, have discussions on those assignments and students can submit those assignments. Eg: www.cyn.in
• Teachers can make documents, course and reference materials available to the students in one place, and these can be made available at all times.
•   If a new notification is needed to be informed, then teachers can create a new notification and school events and make them available.
• Studying can be fun. This concept can make the students want to learn more, don’t get stressed. 
•  One can share knowledge with the world, which inturns helps more people. For eg: www.wikipedia.com

There are some negative points to this kind of educations:

•  Some times it might become hard to maintain and update the information about latest happenings.
• If the discussion board is public, then anyone can change and even delete some important information.
• Some times users may post unimportant and in-appropriate things on the public page.
• Having more fun can lead to more problems, students may don’t want to study anymore.
• For teachers it can become hard to prepare materials upto current scenario, as the face of education and means of education are changing rapidly, they need to update their content almost daily.

Digital Story Telling

Digital story telling has now became of the best ways to communicate ones ides. The story may include simple tales for kids to social awareness stories like courage shown by lot of people. As per the old saying goes.. A picture can speak a thousand words, these digital story creating softwares can bring life to the stories. 


According to wikipedia. One can think of digital storytelling as the modern extension of the ancient art of storytelling, now interwoven with digitized still and moving images and sound. Thanks to new media and digital technologies, individuals can approach storytelling from unique perspectives.


Digital story telling in Education


In education digital story telling can do magic. Because using digital story telling tools that are freely available in the world wide web, teachers can prepare generally a 4-7 min presentations, on the required topics, which will make the students to understand those topics very efficiently. Using these latest web 2.0 tools the main topic of the study can be made directly to the point without any problems. The students can understand the point directly without much need of going through lot of study materials, and reading. This will help students in to understand the study materials directly which leads to more time for work related research.


Even the primary school teachers can also take benefits of this Digital story telling. They can create short moral stories with the help of tools such as Kerpoof studios etc. and show those interesting stories to children. Please click on the link below the image for one such example..

Princess Tansa

One other example of digital story telling is to give information regarding the latest websites that offers free education online. Different colleges and universities are using these websites to give free education to the students that are present all over the world. Here you can see one example of such way of giving information for the user..

Media Used And Idea behind:

For story for children , Princess Tansa, I have used Kerpoof Studio, this is the tool that is very simple to use and can also be used by children, in this one can create images, movies, story books etc.  The idea behind using this is to create a simple story and show how one can teach morals for the children.

The other media I have used is Windows Live Movie Maker, the idea behind creating this story is to provide information about one website that helps students all over the world, for free. I have participated and learned so much from that website, so I wanted to share that information with the students over the world.  To make it simple without annoying animations etc etc., I have created a simple paint images to make a movies.

My study of social network

For the past couple of years, I have been a member of Facebook, Orkut and Twitter social networks. As the time passed on my attachment with Orkut has faded. But I am still very much enchanted by the other two networks viz., Facebook & Twitter.

My list of criteria to focus these networks have been the following:

• What exactly user want the world to know.
• How frequent are the user visits.
• Are the updates are more in-regards to general purposes.
• How much new information the users can get.
• Any use in educational and teaching fields.
• Only personal information is being shared.
• How many new apps and pages are being created, and what domain they belong to.
• What kind of tweets get re-tweet.

I will post my summary pretty soon!!

Social Networking Services

As I have stated in my previous blog entry social network is now a big part of every one's life. Currently there are number of social networks are available for the users. And they are categorized too. Some for people older than 13 years and some are for ages 18+. For finding friends (new or old acquaintances) to dating, education to fun .. all types of networks are available.

Down below I am listing some of the famous social networking sites currently very popular with users:

• Facebook: This is the most famous social network with more than 845,000,000+ registered users. In this one can post status updates, photographs, videos, create pages , create apps, create polls, play games etc etc. This network is open for any one to join (13+ yrs) and gives different options for the user to select security levels.
• Twitter: Twitter is a popular social network which allows the user to micro-blog, generate RSS and do the status updates. Unlike Face book, twitter allows user to enter only limited number of characters for updates. This service is more famous for teaching purposes. It has around 300,000,000+ registered users.
• Google+: Google+ is a very recent social network by Google Inc. I have not used it much but lot of gmail users are now using it. It has around 170,000,000+ users. This network also allows the users to update their status, which will allow all the friends and family to get up to date information.
• Linkedin: This network is for business purposes. i.e, It is a business and professional networking sites. In this network user can update their professional information and keep business contacts as friends. This network is helps recruiter and agencies to find a professional and perfect candidate for the jobs.
• Orkut: This network is very similar to Facebook. But unlike facebook, users of orkut cannot create apps. But they can update status, photographs, videos just like Facebook. This network is very famous in India. And this is currently acquired by Google Inc. 
• Flickr: This is a photo sharing network. The registered users can comment on other public photos, upload photos in best resolutions. One can register as a new user to this network or as it is acquired by Yahoo Inc., the user id of yahoo can also be used for log in. 
• Geni.com: This network is very interesting in my opinion. In this network user can find and create the family tree. 
• Livemocha: This networks helps the users to join a community of people who are willing to learn new languages. So the native speaker can help them with language. 

So many other networks are also available. To read more about them visit Wiki Page Here!

Social Network - Impact on Current Society

In current world social network sites became one of the necessary things for internet users. There are a number of social networking sites are available today for example, Face book, Myspace, Twitter, Flickr, Digg, Reddit etc..

These social networks have a huge impact on current society. They have changed the ways of communication. Before social networks if one want to share information they need to call or send a bulk mail etc etc., but with the help of social networks with just one message or as one can say, with one click of the button the whole world can know about the info.  Not only communication, the way of how one creates a invitation or polls also changed.

Social networks have a huge impact on the teenagers, one must say. They want the world to know about their where-abouts, new things that they have thought of, share the music that they love to hear etc etc. Now-a-days it is very hard to find a teenager who does not have a twitter or Facebook account.

The way of Recruitment world is also being impacted by social networks. With the professional networking it became easy to recruit people of good technical credentials without going through the hassle of recruitment agencies. One good example of these type of social network is Linkdin.

Entertainment industry also bloomed with the help of these social networks. The new and upcoming artists who want to showcase their talents, are using these networks to let the world hear about the talent. As the word flies faster with these sites this will create an opportunity to become famous. Example of one such artist is Justin Beiber, he became so popular by uploading a video to You tube.

Marketing Industry is also using these social networks in a best possible way. As these networks create a platform for advertising which will allow it to reach millions and millions of people without much effort and it is very easy to use.

People who do not know anything about creating a websites are also using these networks to share the knowledge they have. For example, if one knows how to cook (French cuisine for ex.) and does not know A,B,C of web designing he /she can create a page in Facebook. It is very easy to create.

The above are some of the impacts of Social Networks, as the time goes on, I am sure that these networks will open the doors to more fascination and exciting features.

Optimizing Images for Web - corrections

To further reduce the image file sizes I have proceeded as follows:

For Austronaut image:
I have reduced the indexed colours to 4 and image quality to about 30%, as this is a photographic image even though I have reduced the colors and the quality, the image can be visible perfectly.The thumbnail occupies only 8KB and image of 500X500px occupies only 37KB.

For Bunny Image:
I have flatted the image keeping the same file dimensitons. And I have also changed indexed colors to 4 and resolution to 72pixels/in. The resultant image has a file size of 16KB and thumbnail occupies only 8KB.

For Asian Image:
I have flatted the image keeping the same file dimensitons. And I have also changed indexed colors to 4 and resolution to 72pixels/in. The resultant image has a file size of 8KB and thumbnail occupies only 4KB.

Social Network - Characteristics

Now-a-days social networks are like air, water and food for people. One cannot live without sharing what they are doing or what they are going to do and tell the world about their achievements. And one question always haunts a novice.. that is "WHAT EXACTLY IS A SOCIAL NETWORK???"

According to WIKI "A social network is a social structure made up of a set of actors (such as individuals or organizations) and the dyadic ties between these actors (such as relationships, connections, or interactions)." Speaking in normal words... A social network is a place on web like a website where group of people can share the information, send personal messages or collaborate with the world by using only minimal amount of words. Various examples for social network are Twitter, Facebook, Linkdin, Myspace etc etc.

What are the main characteristics of social network? This is the question of vital importance.

• A social network is a user oriented website. What I mean by this is.. the users will build the network by connecting with friends, family and acquaintances. So when ever the user upload the new information that can be read by others and inturn others can also participate in the discussion or they can leave a comment, Unlike the normal websites where only one user uploads some information and world can read about that. Normal web is not build on network. Social network makes the life more colorful in the sense that any one can take part in the discussion which will show a new angle or concept in one simple discussion leading to new information.
• One more fascinating characteristic of social network is the interactiveness. Unlike the normal chatting services they provide gaming, polling etc etc. Which makes it more fun to use. For example there is a game called FARMVILLE which was very popular in Facebook. In this user friends can also participate in the game, like a online multiplayer game. 
• User can get emotional security with social network unlike normal websites. When ever one feels sad or angry about something they can update their status and friends and family can see that immediately and can give precious advice which will assure the user. So no matter what happens there will be friends with in the reach.
• A social network is also community based. This will create an opportunity for the people who share same kind of interests to share and to discuss about their interests. For example if one likes tennis, in that community all of the tennis fans can collaborate and share their thoughts , likes and dislikes.  This will lead to exchange of new information. 
• New relationships can be build by A social network. This will lead to human network, which will open the door to new horizons. New people can meet to be friends , to be life partners etc ..
• Meeting the old friends is also possible by Social network. For example if there is a school page then who ever had attended the school can join the page and meet the old friends. 

The above are main characteristics according to me. Even though one can argue or agree with the above, one cannot fully describe the characteristics of a social network. Because it is rapidly growing. Now one can create apps, pages etc which will help in developing business. 

Twitter in Teaching and Learning

Twitter can be used very efficiently in education. In teaching it can be used  to give info about class room activity, seminar discussions, conference informations as well as assignment deadlines etc etc.  Also if there is one scientist who is doing an important research, then he can share all the info by tweeting and people who are interested in his work can follow that person for immediate updates.  They can even reply to the tweets.

If one wants to share a great resource about one course, they can just tweet it, and people who follow him/her can get the info very quickly.Teachers can also perform live quiz with twitter, and all students can reply to the tweet. It will be a very fun way of learning. If any one shared an important news, then it can be retweeted by other so that more tweeple can get the news.

By using Hashtags (#) number of tweeple (the people who tweet) can join in the discussion. By this one can get inspired and get new ideas. And one great thing about tweeting is, people can share information with very few characters from any where from iPhone to iPad or from any other mobile devices. 

Teachers are increasingly bringing the real-time communication power of Twitter into the classroom to help students learn. 

The use of Twitter in education can be summarized as below:

• Internet resources like Twitter give students access to information — more importantly, perhaps — to people beyond the classroom walls. Students can post inquiries online and receive responses in real- or near real-time.
• A Twitter account for a school or a teacher can be another means (and a paperless one at that) to communicate information to parents on things like events and deadlines.
•   Twitter has become a key tool for creating personal learning networks, enabling anyone to build their own connections with other Twitter users, sharing learning resources and support. 
• People use Twitter to communicate, to ask questions, to ask for directions, support, advice, and to validate open-ended interpretations or ides by discussing with others.
• Twitter has mashed up personal publishing and communication, the result being a new type of real-time publishing.Each user is able to monitor the notes of other users, who will be listed inthe profile, under Following. Thus the user becomes Follower for them.

How to open an External link

Some times while designing a webpage we need to refer to some other webpage, It can either a completely external page or a page within our folder. We need to hyperlink it to that. The following video teaches how to create a link to an external page

Optimizing images for the Web

For the 2nd assignmnet of a course from Highschool of Kristianstad I have started to read about the topic of optimizing images for the web. Now I understand how important it is for web developers and designers while designing a website. Because pictures or images plays an important role to engage the user of the website. And if the Image is of too large size then it will take more time to load which intrun makes the visitor of the web imaptient. Lot of webdesigerns and developers optimize the images so as to occupy less diskspace along with preserving same quality.

First image is austornaut.ttif which is having more than 8MB size. I have tried to compress the image as either in a PNG format or in a JPEG format, because JPEGs work best for photographs or images with smooth color blends.PNG files can contain any image type and are often a good substitute for the GIF format.(According to Course literature Learning Web Design, by Jennifer Nierderst Robbins). They can also contain images with transparent or partially transparent areas..I have used GIMP software (free software for optimizing images). I have tried to compress the image in png format, and found out that the size it is occupying for dimenstions of 300X300 pixels is 193KB, so I tried to compress the same image in JPEG format, In this format the quality of the image is kept at perfect level, and the size it occupied for dimension of 500X500 pixels is only 102KB.

For the other images I have chosen to go for gif format. Because GIF format is appropriate for images containing only a few colours and having large monochrome parts, for instance graphical objects, icons, illustrations, logotypes etc. The images occupied very less size afterwards.
link to the webpage http://home.hkr.se/~padu0002/assignment1/index.html
And I have created one screencast for creating link to an external website. http://home.hkr.se/~padu0002/assignment2/linktonewpage.html

Use of Microblogs in Education and Teaching

The first assignment that I have been given for the course of Social Software Web course from Umeå University is to blog about "Use of Microblogs in Education and Teaching".


First of all, what is MICROBLOG? According to Wiki - "A microblog differs from a traditional blog in that its content is typically smaller in both actual and aggregate file size. Microblogs "allow users to exchange small elements of content such as short sentences, individual images, or video links""
And according to Webopedia - "Microblog is type of blog that lets users publish short text updates. Bloggers can usually use a number of service for the updates including instant messaging, e-mail, or Twitter. The posts are called microposts, while the act of using these services to update your blog is called microblogging.  Social networking sites, like Facebook, also use a microblogging feature in profiles. On Facebook this is called "Status Updates"."

Educational hype has a long and resilient history of jumping on the latest technology as the means of making education better, cheaper, more available or more responsive. The wise use of web 2.0 technologies in education addresses this call for students to develop 21st century skills. Blogging, wikis, e-portfolios and social networks are all excellent tools for allowing learners to clarify concepts, establish meaningful links and relationships, and test their mental models. 

Both teachers and especially students have been using blogs as well as social networks to get the job done, have fun and learn something in the process. The end goal is to make education more efficient, but also a little bit less of a task. That’s why microblogging might be the answer to a lot of educator’s needs.


Microblogging is a Web2.0 technology anda new formof blogging, that let the users publish online brief textupdates, usually less then 140-200 characters, sometimesimages too. The posts can be edited and accessed online,or sent as SMS, e-mail or via instant messaging clients.Usually the microblogsauthors embed theirposts as awidget on blogs or sites


The reasons can be summarized as below:

• Even though Wiki's and other blogs are available to share huge information and there are other sharing services are available , most of the time people want to share some important and valuable small snippet of information. Instead of uploading huge files, it will be easier to microblog about the info will reach the end users in an effective and efficient manner.
• A text field and friend list on the other hand, found in most microblogging software, is simple and easy to grasp. Also, with such applications as Twhirl and about hundreds of others, users can access the microblogging network any way he or she wants.
• By making the people express in less no. of characters, people will try to figure out the main point of the discussion i.e. get to the point quickly.
• If a teacher wants to inform about some deadline for an assignment etc, it can be shared with microblogging very easily. 

“E-learning and Social Networking Handbook: Resources for Higher Education“,  does not gave any info about the microblogging, it is main concerned with web 2.0. But in my opinion, the microblog is very powerful and perfect way for modern teaching.