ARTSYS --The Articulation System for Maryland Colleges and Universities. When I first read the title I did not understand what the website was used for. Obviously, it is has something to do with Maryland Colleges and Universities. However, what is the purpose of the site? How do you use it?
What is the Purpose?
This website is a great tool for students who plan on transferring from a Maryland college to another. The job of this website is to help students see if their course they have taken or will take will transfer to another college. It was very helpful. It is usually up-to-date but I would double check both schools to make sure they still offer those courses.
Using ARTSYS:
On the left hand side our tabs. Click on Course Equivalences. After clicking on the tab, it will take you to another screen.
You type in your current College or University. You also type in the college you plan on attending. The first drop down button will ask your Transfer From/Institution and the next drop down button will ask you the Transfer To/Institution.
After these steps you can search courses that will transfer to the college you want to attend. Example: Harford Community College to University of Baltimore. It will ask you to type in the Course ID: ENG219.
Next it will show you this screen verifying if University of Baltimore will accept ENG219 as a transferable credit. This screen shows you the following: how many credits you will receive for it, what grade you have to have for it to transfer, is it a GenEd to a specific area. In this example, it is to Literature AREA.
I have used this website and have found it to be very helpful. I observed that the website was not accurate for the most up-to-date courses that both Harford and Univeristy of Baltimore offer. In my web browser I opened another tab that had Harford's courses they were offering in the 2013-2014 and I compared them to the ARTSYS website for accuracy.
Recently, I went Baltimore City for a conference at University of Baltimore. A group of us drove down and parked in the train station. As we were walking by the Dogwood tree's were in full bloom. They were stunning!The top picture is of the clock on the Penn Station building. This is a picture I took and uploaded to this blog. The picture of the Dogwood blooms (bottom) is from Google images that resembles what I saw at the station. This picture I upload using embedded text. The difference between to is this:
Embedding an image or video in a blog is when the image or video appears within the context of the post, although the actual data remains on the server that hosts it. The disadvantage to this approach is if the owner of the video or image is removed or deleted from a website (Flickr or Youtube for example), then that image or video will no longer appear on your blog. When embedded in a blog, the HTML code instructs the browser where to obtain the video or image and how to display it (Web 2.0 Concepts and Applications).
Uploading an image or video from your own computer takes up space on your computer. The advantage is that you do not have to fear that it will no longer appear on your blog because it is your image or video. It also allows me to upload several images at a time. If I wanted to embed all my images, I would have to do them one at a time.
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Have you ever used a search engine to look up fun facts about this world? I did. My favorite search engine for this specific search is Google. Below are a couple of facts that I found. If you click on the title it will take you to the article I am referencing.
After learning about Web 2.0 there are a lot of tools that I want to keep for the future that I found to be very helpful. One thing that I have found to be very helpful is my portal page.
"A portal page displays customized online content from different sources on the same page."
Examples of this are web sites like MSN, iGoogle, and myYahoo. Portal pages are personalized and includes content that the user enjoys. Data on a portal page can include all types of content including text, audio, and video.
My portal page includes:
The Weather
Youtube
My Calendar
The How to of the Day
Wired News
And many more practical things. Another tool that I use is a web site called Technortai. This web site is a dedicated blog search engine, which monitors the Web frequently for up-to-date information posted to blogs. Overall, I enjoyed learning how to use social media including: Twitter, Flickr, Blogs, Delicious, and Subscribing to RSS Feeds. I had heard about all these tools but never understood how to use them. Click here to go the the Technorati website and see what you think. As a blogger myself, I find it very helpful.
This is great presentation that shows you the benefits of SlideShare. Learning how to use SlideShare and becoming proficient at it can impress prospective employers and colleges. You do not have to know PowePoint to create a SlideShare. You can also share your work on LinkedIn. SlideShare has many uses that could be great skills to learn and have in the future. This is taken from their "About Us" tab.
SlideShare is the world's largest community for sharing presentations. SlideShare features a vibrant professional and educational community that regularly comments, favorites and downloads content. SlideShare content spreads virally through blogs and social networks such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Individuals & organizations upload documents to SlideShare to share ideas, conduct research, connect with others, and generate leads for their businesses. Anyone can view presentations & documents on topics that interest them, download them and reuse or remix for their own work.
I am comparing the social bookmarking site Delicious to Google. My goal is to see how many results are the same on the first page, which set of results do I find more reliable, which ones are more useful, and which ones are more current.
I am doing a research paper on American artists, the particular artists I chose was Norman Rockwell. Below are screenshots of what Delicious and Google come up with when typing in his name.
When I searched, Norman Rockwell, I received many different articles and websites from both these sites. I did not get the same result on the first page of each. Google gave me 5,260,00 results whereas Delicious gave me a couple thousand results. Delicious lead me to the Smithsonian website and gave me a lot of information on each piece of Norman Rockwell's. Google gave a lot of information from pictures, to biography's, to the website to the Saturday Evening Post (which who the main company Rockwell illustrated for). I found Google to be more helpful with this search. I am sure if it was a more popular topic Delicious might be more helpful with updated articles. Google had more up-to-date information. The sites I found on Google were more reliable as well.
I use the Internet a lot but I do not have "favorite" websites. The ones I use on a daily basis are: Gmail, Blackboard (I am a student), Facebook and Pinterest.
Gmail was added to Google applications in 2004. It is a free web email services. Over the years Google has integrated other services and products that Gmail offers. When you have a Gmail account you also have access to Google Calendar, Google Talk, and Google+.
I use Blackboard for my college classes. Blackboard allows my college to have their own site for students. This is apart of their e-Education platform--designed to enable educational innovations everywhere by connecting people and technology. In February, my school added the mobile app for a smartphone that you can pay to use blackboard on the go.
Facebook is a social media site that I use to connect with my friends and family. I am able to be constantly update about whats going on it their lives. I recently created a page for my moms local business. I can share what's going on in my life with text and pictures.
Pinterest is a fabulous site! It is a tool for collecting and organizing the things that you love. When you "pin" you add an image or video from a website or your own computer. It will show the thumbnail of the image or video you pin. A user can repin any post. When a user clicks on the thumbnail it will lead to the original source.
People are using wiki's now more than ever. We here the term wiki a lot because it is an application we can use all the time even though we don't know we are using it. Many companies now will use wikis for collaboration. What is a wiki?
A wiki is a collection of Web pages where users can add, discuss, or edit existing content that they, or others, have created. People who contribute to a wiki use a wiki application to enter content on a main page and discuss the content of the main page on an associated discussion page. They have an open structure that support creating new pages and linking to existing pages within the wiki.
Companies such as Pixar, are using wikis for collaboration. Specifically, Pixar uses wikis to manage film production. They did this with the film WALL-E. They were able to use a wiki to "coordinate new computerized animation tools."
Sources:
Shelly, Gary B., and Mark Frydenberg. "Understanding Wikis." Web 2.0 Concepts and Applications. N.p.: Course Technology, Cengage Learning, 2011. 64-65. Print.
"7 Effective Wiki Uses and the Companies That Benefit From Them." Stewart Mader. N.p., n.d. <http://www.stewartmader.com/ 7-effective-wiki-uses-and-the-companies-that-benefit-from-them/>.
I am making chocolate chip cookies for a group of people who will be volunteering this weekend. Chocolate chip cookies is an American favorite and I was wondering who came up with the idea. After researching online, I found who it was.
Ruth Wakefield
Ruth Wakefield was the woman who invented the Toll House brand of chocolate chip cookies. She was a dietitian and food lecturer. She and her husband purchased a tourist lodge named, Toll House Inn, where she prepared and served meals to the guests. One day she was making her favorite batch of cookies, Butter Drop Do (which date back to colonial times.) However, she did not have her main ingredient which was baker's chocolate. So she substituted a bar of semi-sweet chocolate which she broke into pieces an placed in the dough. She believed that the chunks of chocolate would melt and absorb into the dough creating a chocolate dough. Instead, the dough was vanilla based and the chocolate pieces did not melt all the way. She served it to her guests and it was a hit.
The semi-sweet bar of chocolate she used was a gift from Andrew Nestle from Nestle Chocolate Company. They became extremely popular in her local community, her recipe was published in Boston newspaper. Sales soured for Nestle semi-sweet chocolate bars and Ruth Wakefield and Andrew Nestle made a business deal. Nestle Chocolate Company would print Wakefield's Toll House Cookie Recipe on their packages, in exchange for a life-supply of Nestle chocolate. What a wonderful story! You can still find Ruth Wakefield's original recipe on the back of any Nestle semi-sweet chocolate chips!
As a family, we have a tradition that when it snows we bake chocolate chip cookies. This tradition brings our family together and is something I can't wait to do in my household. Click on the Link above (Chocolate Chip Cookies) and you can bake your own!
"We don't have a choice on whether we DO social media, the question is, how well we DO it." ~Eric Quallman
What is Social Media?
Social Media-forms of electronic communication (as Web sites for social networking and micro-blogging through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (as videos).
There are so many types of social media. Three major ones are: Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Facebook is a social utility that connects people to keep up with friends, upload photos, share links and videos. Similarly, LinkedIn is a networking tool for professional connections. Also used to recommended job candidates, experts and business partners. Twitter, is a social networking and micro-blogging service utilizing instant messaging, SMS or web interface allows 140 character updates.
Today, more than ever, businesses are utilizing social media networks. Why? Because millions of people use social media everyday. What better when then to connect with your customers through Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn? It is inexpensive, easy to use, and doesn't take a lot of time.
When using anything there are always advantages and disadvantages. The disadvantages are:
Legal Risk
Multiple Platforms
Hidden Costs
Measuring Results
The main legal risk is false advertisement. Companies need to understand that this can happen using social media and they need to be careful what they advertise on the internet. There are multiple platforms which business can use to promote their products; Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are the most popular. However, there is Pinterest, YouTube, GooglePlus, Blogger and a hundred more. Will your company commit to several or should they focus on just one. If they choose more than one do you understand how much time can be consumed maintaining it? Also, for business advertising on these main social media sites cost money. Is it worth the money? Lastly, a disadvantage is measuring the results. Experts differ on the monetary "like" of Facebook or the "follow" on Twitter. Has this helped your business?
However, there are several advantages to social media:
Inexpensive
Establish Brand
Build Relationships
Reach Internationally
Accessibility
Traffic
Word of Mouth
First, social media is inexpensive compared to other types of advertisement which saves your company money. Social media helps your business to establish it branding which creates a specific identity for your service or product. Building relationships with your customers is vital in this day and age. This is a way to connect specifically with your customers on a personal level like never before. Because social media is on the internet it is out there for all people to see, including people all over the world. No longer are businesses confined to just a building, they are able to connect with their customers on the internet. On the flip side customers are able to connect with business on the internet and it is very accessible to them. Traffic is so important for businesses. Once you products and/or services reach a viral status they can be plastered on major search engines which increase marketing for your company. One of the main reasons social media is a major advantage for businesses is because word of mouth is so important. 90% of customers trust peer recommendations compared to 14% that trust advertisements. People will tell others if they liked your product and services which in turn with will create more customers if they have had a positive experience.
The main legal risk for companies using social media is false advertisement. Don't do it. Even when using social media there is an "unspoken" code of ethics that a company is expected to follow. Is it right to false advertise? No. It is very important that your business is aware of this and all your employees.
So what do you think? Is social media important for companies to embrace? Here is a short video to end this blog post. Enjoy!
Sources:
"Social Media Networking for Job Seekers." 14 June 2012. PDF file.
"How Small Businesses Are Using Social Media (Infographic)." Intuit Websites. Intuit, n.d. Web. 25 Feb. 2013. <http://www.intuit.com/websites/small-business-social-media-infographic/>.
Sandilands, Tracey. "Disadvantages of Advertising with Social Media." Azcentral. Gannett,n.d.Web. 26 Feb. 2013. <http://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/disadvantages-advertising-social-media-5467.html>.
"20 Reasons Your Small Business should Use Social Media." Blissfully Domestic. Ed. Shana Albert. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Feb. 2013. <http://blissfullydomestic.com/life-bliss/20-reasons-small-businesses-should-use-social-media/7414/>.
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