Thursday, May 14, 2009

tutorial seven~ ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY

Assistive technology is used to give function to people who have lost this as the result of an impairment(physical, physiological or anatomical) and an environment designed to suit the dominant population resulting in the individual being disabled. Assistive technology is available in many forms- devices, services, strategies and practices.
During our tutorial we looked at a number of assistive devices that are used with children from Kimi Ora School. The definition of an assistive device from the Cook & Husey (1995) reading defines assistive technology as....
"Any item, piece of equipment, or product system whether acquired commercially off the shelf, modified or custimized that is used to increase or improve functional capabilities of individuals with disabilities".

An example of an assistive device is the Buddy Button. These can be purchased from
http://www.star-educational.co.nz/ for $110.00.They are available in a range of colours and designs.

Use to activate- -
electrical appliances via an environmental control unit
battery operated adapted toys and games
a computer through a switch interface
AAC device through a switch port.

Specifications-
63mm activation surface
Height 18mm
Equipped with a 2m cable

The Buddy Button can be used to switch on and off appliances. I've seen this switch being used in a school to make scones. This can be useful to teach children about cause and effect, hand eye co-ordination and decision making skills but over all the buddy switch provides the user with a sense of CONTROL .The buddy button provides audible and tactile feedback to the user and if the user has poor contol over upper extremities there is a bigger buddy button avialable from the same website.



tutorial six~ THE INTERNET & ONLINE COMMUNITIES

This week i checked out the couch surfing community which can be reached by going to http://www.couchsurfing.org. Once here you have access to a community of people who all share the common interest of travel whether this be providing a couch and meeting new people or going to new places and experienceing the life in that community through staying with a kind local found on this website. This is reflected by the sites mission statement "CouchSurfing seeks to internationally network people and places, create educational exchanges, raise collective consciousness, spread tolerance, and facilitate cultural understanding."

To become part of this comunity you first need to create a profile and become a member. Once you have completed this process members are able to contribute to the community through offering a couch ( or even just a coffee) to be slept on or if you are travelling make arrangements to stay with someone whos couch is being offered. This site provides a link for communication between couch surfers and couch owners around the globe but really its up to the individual how they make use of the site.

People place postings on the site such as the following ,about someones personal view and experience of couch surfing.
"Couchsurfing is the best thing that happened in my life, I could meet, host and be hosted by great people, some even bacame friends, I have now found the best way to travel and wil always try avoid staying in a boring hotel, and if I do go to hostels/hotels I'm sure I'll get to meet some cool people to hang out with. So far (after 2 years) my experience has been wonderful and I'm sure other wonderful experiences are waiting for me..."
Cecile Benedic (Czech Republic)Jul 20, 2008

Safety is a big issue surrounding this community. People are putting themselves into a vulnerable situation by staying with people who are still random strangers in an unfamiliar environment. The site understands that there are many safety considerations and provides the best safety measures available (verification, references and vouching, safety advice) however even with these in place couch surfing still poses a lot of risk and really it is up to the individual to look out for themselves and use their common sense.

When looking at this comunity in comparison to traditional communities they are very much related and compared to many other online communities this one has much greater links really.
with other online communites people communicate and learn about each other through a computer screen however for couch surfers the computer screen is just the beginning. the computer screen links people from vast communities accross the globe and brings them together. it provides the opportunity for people to leave their own community and get to stay with locals where they can experience first hand how locals from other communities live. From reading the entries on the site i can see that after couch surfing some people feel really connected to the communtiy they have visitied and continue to keep in touch with them. That is the reason i chose to look at this site........it offers more than a computer screen relationship.

tutorial four & five~ VIDEO PRODUCTION

You tube was created in in February 2005 and purchased by Google Inc. later in the following year. You Tube is a site where people are able to view and share videos.

Videos on you tube range from intructions for how to create a blog, video clips, to hilarious cat videos and people creating their own songs. The list really is endess with over 68,000 clips being uploaded to the site each day. Videos on the site are monitored with a block on inappropriate and offensive material.

services offered by you tube include:


  • videos
  • comments by other users
  • popular videos
  • number of views video has had
  • list of similar videos available on you tube
  • tells you how many viewers are also watching the same clip as you at current time

if you are registered with the site you can do all the above +

  • comment on other peoples videos
  • upload your own clips


http://www.youtube.com/

In class students were given the task to create a video and post it onto you tube after creating an account. To make a video we used sequencing and storyboarding.....

sequencing is when al the shots are edited together so that they flow from one to the next. This creates a story. When sequencing it is best of the angle/ size of the shot changes from one scene to the next as this creates and keeps the audences interest.

Storyboarding is a series of drawings which depict how the film will progress. These pictures are important to the outcome of the film as they provide the "plan".

Check out how Tania(the theif ) and her groups video turned out...........


tutorial three ~ BLOGGING 1

The blogger site was started in August 1999 by Evan Williams and Meg Hourihan (Pyra Labs). In February 2003 the site was purchased by Google whom it is still owned by today.

Services offered by www.blogger.com

  • Creating a profile and designing your personal blog choosing from a range of templates and colours to make it 'you'.
  • Publish your thoughts through posts such as this one. Posts can be viewed by people all over the world so this is your space to say whatever you want.
  • Communicating with friends. You can choose whether select friends can view your blog or all bloggers. You have complete control and can decide which comments stay/go under each post.
  • Post photos to your blog. This can be a personal picture or one from the net. Whatever it is feel free to add a pic to your blog.
  • Blogger Mobile allows users to send photos or messages to their blog via their mobile. This is handy for on-the-go bloggers.

Another blog host is www.opendiary.com

To create a blog follow the instructions in this video


tutorial two~ DIGITAL CAMERA USE AND APPLICATIONS

Like all new pieces of technology there are pros and cons to go along with it. Traditional film based cameras have the advantage of clear quality photographs which are a surprise as to how they are going to turn out and actually require skill to take a truely good photo where as digital cameras do not. However digital cameras also have advantages. Cheap photo printing (you are even able print photos in your own home), larger memory capcity, transferrible to other technology, can edit photos prior to printing them, optical and digital zoom, user friendly with a larger screen to see the image on.

Digital cameras can store images on the camera itself . on a memory (SD) card, computers (online and on the harddrive), cellphones, USBs and ipods etc.The advantage of this over traditional film based cameras is that you can then delete the photos when you are ready and reuse the storage space.To transfer the photos you can often use the same technology which can often be shared between devices or have a send option. The editing function is usually attached to such devices as the camera itself, cellphones, computer programmes and instore photo printing machines.

Increased ethical issues surround digitial photograpphy due to the easy transference of images. Someone may take a picture of someone else and place it on the internet without their consent where people all around the world are able to access the image.

Digital cameras are comming more common place in Occupational Therapy settings. Refer to tutorial one to see how we used digital cameras on my placement.


The website http://www.flickr.com/ is an online community where accound holders are able to upload, store and share images. This site is renowned for bloggers storing their images here.

Another photo storage website which offers a service similar to flickr is http://www.photobucket.com/

Most digital cameras have both optical and digital zoom but what is the difference.
optical zoom is a better quality zoom as the camera lens moves in closer to the object when taking the photo to magnify the image.
digital zoom crops the image and enlarges that cropped area until it fills the screen area causing a loss of picture quality.

Each digital image is made up of millions of tiny squares (pixels).
1 Megapixel (MP)= 1 million pixels.
A camera with 3 MPs would be suffiecient if producing 6x4 photos however a larger pixel count would be better for producing larger photos.

For more info on digital photography follow this link http://photo.net/equipment/digital/basics/


tutorial one~ INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND ETHICAL ISSUES

Information technology(IT) is any technology involved in acquiring, storing, processing and/ or distributing information via electronic means.
Collin, S. (2003). Dictionary of science and technology.London:Bloomsbury

IT is comming more and more common in society. During my own lifetime i have seen many advances in this area. For example 10 years ago i knew no one with a cell phone,laptop or digital camera in fact i probably didnt even know what they were yet now they are so common it is strange when someone doesnt have one.

I feel comfortable to use laptops, televisions, email, ipod, digital camera, telephones (landlines and cell phones), social netwroking sites such as facebook, search engines, photo copiers and pen drives.

My last occupational therapy placement was in a pediatric setting. In this placement we used the following forms of IT .

  • Email used to contact fellow team members, and other people involved with the child to make arrangements and keep people up to date with how the therapy is progressing.
  • Digital cameras used to take pictures of children or the tasks they'd accomplished and were sent home to the parents to show progress.
  • Digital cameras were used when creating activity programmes for parents and displayed images of what we would like the child to continue working on.
  • Cell phones were used when team members went into the community so they always had a communicaiton device in case of emergency.
  • Telephones were used to ring clients and arrange appoinment times.
  • The internet was used for searching activity ideas and sourcing pictures eg. spongebob to be used for colouring in activities.

Computer Ethics deal with how professionals in the computer industry should make decisions concerning professional and societal conduct.Retreived on 24 May 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_ethics

Intellectual property (IP) are legal property rights protecting property from original thought. Common types of intellectual property include copyrights, trademarks and patents. Retrieved on 24 May 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property

Social justice, also referred to as civil justice, is the concept of a society in which fairness is achieved in all aspects, rather than simply in the administration of law. It is commonly thought of as a society which gives all individuals and groups equal treatment and fair treatment. Retrieved on 23 May 2009 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_justice

Informed consent is a legal condition where a person must first be clearly informed of the fatcs and risks of an action before their consent is given. Retreived 23 May 2009 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informed_consent