Evaluation of Spotify

Spotify is an Audio streaming programme that supports playback of almost every known artist, album and song in existence. Anyone can download this programme, listen away and take advantage of it's features. Some of these features enable people to make playlists of their favourite songs; which then makes them easily accessible, Discovery of new music artists and extension of known music artists, 'Spotify Social'; a complete social connection with friends on Facebook, and many more.

Although this sounds great and like a free version of iTunes, the free version does come with limitations. It only allows 10 hours of streaming a month and songs can only be played a maximum of 5 times each. Even with these limitations it is still a worth while programme to download.

There is an option to upgrade to Spotify Unlimited for £5.00 which is the same as free but unlimited playback of music. There is also Spotify Premium for £10, which gives you unlimited playback, High quality audio, and access to music anywhere on your mobile phone. These features are worth the money, and they even do a 50% discount on Premium for NUS card holders.

Free music, Free enjoyment... What more could you want? Download it today and Educate yourself with Music.

Use of Technology in Teaching

Over the past 20 years technology advances have been great, quick and for education, seemingly essential to the learning process. When I was back in year 6 in primary school, my year was one of the first; within the school's history, to have a lap-safe within the classroom.This made written work a lot easier, neater, and quicker to complete. Now it seems like this is an ordinary thing, even as early as year 3. It was just 2 weeks ago that I was given an iPad 2 to record a video for part of my module. 

Technology like Computers/laptops and SMART boards have made some aspects of teaching much easier for teachers, but subjects like Science, P.E and Handwriting etc still remain handwritten and hands-on subjects within schooling. And these hands-on subjects like P.E, seem to be the more enjoyable subjects of a school day.

I believe that technology has improved education in amazing ways. It is such a useful resource for teachers and makes their jobs easier. Although this is the case, do we rely too much upon technology within schooling? and how much do children actually take in and receive when being taught through technology? This could mean that as technology advances even further we could potentially be making a negative impact upon education and the learning of this schooling generation.

I found an Article written by 'Jennifer LeClaire' for a website called 'TechNewsWorld' called "How much is too much?" This article states many pros and cons and the effects technology can have on children. Click here for the Article 

So What is the future of education? Are we going to be illustrating from our minds to a screen or working with holograms? Is this good for education or should we be moving backwards, and encouraging more hands-on, handwritten tasks? We'll have to wait and see.

Twitter and Facebook

Twitter is a very Popular Web 2.0 Application used by people and celebrities all over the world. In one of my earlier posts, I spoke about the Pros and Cons of Facebook. I think Twitter is better than Facebook. This is purely because it seems to offer exactly what Facebook has to offer except in a more slim lined, simplified, mature version. Also with the connection between twitter and Instagram (where you submit statuses through picture sharing), you have all the visual features that you have on facebook that you miss by just having Twitter.

Although Twitter seems to have a lot more to its name, Facebook is a lot easier to use and is a lot easier and more suitable for a younger audience to use as well as older, as opposed to Twitter. Facebook seems to have a larger self obsession aspect to it and people can find they start to live on facebook as opposed to real life, and become depressed if they haven't submitted a good status or other silly things like this. This doesn't seem to happen anywhere near as much in Twitter.

Both Twitter and Facebook have educational aspects to them and are quite similar to blogs, as you can Add/Follow people or organisations or applications that post news, play educational games on Facebook and follow People that post useful facts and other general knowledge.

Blogging at University

Over the last 4 months I have been blogging as part of my Visual Communications: Culture and Creativity module at Swansea Metropolitan University. When I first began blogging I didn't see how this could be a useful resource and seemed to me like a waste of time. As time has passed and I have submitted posts on this blog, it has become personal to me, and I have begun to see the useful side of this resource. It has been nice to have an assignment in the form of a blog as I haven't really noticed the build up of words and content in the same way as a written assignment. I believe this creates a much easier feel and working on it has been much more enjoyable than writing a standard 2500 word assignment.

I sincerely recommend creating your own blog; whether for educational reasons or not, as it is an easy way to keep your thoughts together and submit posts on subjects close to your mind. It can also be used to follow other blogs. For example, Your friend is going on a trip around Asia and if he posts on his blog during the trip. If you follow him, you can be with him through this trip. Hearing about everything he's doing. Or for instance, the Lifehacker blog; that I currently follow. This blog contains useful information for everyday life.

Simon!

Voki

Simon is my ‘Voki’ Character creation. Acting as a pure example of this web 2.0 application, he is going to speak for me about it's Usefulness and easy accessibility.

Just click on the Play button to hear what He has to say about His website, how to use it, and how well it can be used within an Educational context.

What Simon didn’t tell you is it is absolutely free! It is also upgradable to ‘Voki’ Classroom which adds many other useful features for use by teachers in the classroom.

To make your own 'Voki' Character and start making use of these features go to http://www.voki.com and click on create.

Pros and Cons of Facebook...

Pros:

•  Instant contact with your friends (Especially now with Facebook apps on mobile phones).
•  Discover new opportunities through joining/liking groups and pages.
•  Find long lost friends or family who you haven't seen in a long time.
• Create Events and Invite friends and others to come a long. Also get invited to events and parties etc.
• Make new friends
• Arrange outings with friends.
•  Create your own personal Profile and space (with picture).
• Upload photos of your everyday life and share with your friends.
•  Promote companies, products or Music Artists. Even Promote yourself as a music artist and become known.
• Post Status's about everyday things, or updates which people can follow.
• Keep up to date with birthdays.
• Keep up to date with General News, Sports News and weather, etc.
• Easy resource to waste time on.

Cons:

• Easy to become self-absorbed within Facebook; so much so it can become your life!
• A big distraction from coursework and other types of work; as it is so easy to access.
•  Can get in trouble with companies, managers, parents, etc, If you post anything inappropriate.
• Fake groups/posts that can invite unwanted virus's and other bugs into your computer (If clicked on).
• There are lots of people that aren't who they say they are. (So it is important to be careful).

As you can see there are a lot more pros and cons to Facebook (That I can think of anyway). It is a very useful resource in many ways, although you do need to ensure you use it safely and in the correct way. If you're not signed up already... What are you waiting for?

Ted Talks

Do schools kill creativity??

I am going to be writing a reflection on Sir Ken Robinson’s talk on whether or not schools kill creativity. He talks upon the importance of an education system that nurtures kids’ creativity as opposed to killing it. Sir Ken Robinson starts off his talk by stating 3 themes.

These themes were: One, The extraordinary evidence of human creativity, Two, how education has put us in a place where we have no idea of the future and what could happen, and Three, that Children have an extraordinary capacity for innovation.

The second theme was about how education can change so quickly and because of this it is hard to teach children today. This is because we don’t know what the world is going to be like in 5 years let alone by 2065 which is when he states children starting school today will finish. Ken has raised a good point here, as by 2065, 2060, or even 2055, the education system could be completely different and the teaching they would have had up to then would be useless.

In the third theme Ken brings up how Children have an extraordinary capacity for innovation, He then goes on to talk about how many different creative gifts and abilities children have and how school can ruin them. In schooling the top subjects are always Maths, English and Science. What schools don’t realise is that children are super creative and these abilities are extremely precious, and should be valued and developed to the full. Naturally these subjects are at the top because they believe they are most important for work, and they believe they what is needed to be intelligent.

This is wrong.

The world has been taught that people are only intelligent if they are smart in the 3 main subjects. What the world doesn’t realise is that children that are creative are also extremely intelligent; it is just a very individual, unique type of intelligence. If this intelligence is nurtured it can lead to amazing prospects within the world of work. For example Sir Ken tells a story about a woman that was hopeless in school, and had many problems in academic ability. A doctor put the radio on and told her Mum to watch her daughter; she then started to move and dance. The doctor told her mother to take her to a dancing school, which in the end she flourished in, she became world famous and to this day is now a multi-millionaire. If this woman’s creative talent hadn’t been nurtured and noticed, she could’ve been put on medication and told to tone down, concentrate and improve in school; which would’ve meant this incredible talent and intelligence would’ve been lost. This shows how important it is to value children’s creativity, that creative subjects can be just as useful as academic subjects and can lead into just the same line of work.

Before watching this video I believed that schools were a great source of knowledge and would naturally build upon children’s creativity. After watching this video my view has been changed and I now know how much schooling can ruin a child’s creativity if not looked after and appreciated in a different context.

'Lifehacker' Blog Review

I Currently follow an Educational blog called 'Lifehacker'. This is an easy to use blog that posts useful tips for people on everyday life, every day problems and current issues. Varying from 'Resolution of a certain issue in work' to 'How to keep your drawers organised'. It is clear, simple and aesthetically pleasing with pictures, colours and bold headings.

I Think this is such a useful resource and stood out to me originally when I saw one of his posts on how to gain more energy from day to day each day. I found this to be very useful, as it is very current for me as I am always trying to get as much out of my day. Especially when being at uni, it can be so easy to mess up your sleeping pattern. This ultimately means missing your whole morning; Which is proven to be the most productive part of the day. So this looked to be so useful to gain some tips and ideas on how to boost your max energy and efficiency in a day.

'Lifehacker' Posts approximately 12 posts every day (sometimes more, sometimes less) so you're guaranteed to find something useful. If you cant or want something specific there is a search bar featured which enables you to find a certain story on a certain subject. Why don't you give it a try for yourself? You can also go to www.lifehacker.com.