Life. Evaluated

Five fellow classmates completed the evaluation survey. Their responses indicate that though required for class, the content of the blog caused each classmate to do something. Some explored other TED videos while others explored how to use RSS feeds as a direct result of a posting. Each response indiciated a different cateogry for content which is interpreted as a desired outcome to be broad enough to be labeled as science & technology, education, how to, or personal.

The not so techy audience rated the ease of navigation as a 4 out of 5 while requesting more frequent postings and enhancements to navigation. A later change to navigation was adding an assignments page that allowed visitors to quickly and easily navigate to a particular assignment related to the class. However, it is suggested that lack of blog experience amongst several visitors may account for a difficulty in navigation.

Of those classmates that responded, most visit about once a week and will continue to do so after the class is over. This inspires me to hopefully continue contributing posts to engage the readers and share about my life.

For a self evaluation, I think put a fairly good amount of "lessons learned" from previous blogs in the creation and maintaining of Life. As a      and a graduate student. The requirements for the class prohibited me from using my ongoing professional blog which initially I would have liked to put the time and energy into. However of the past several weeks, I have enjoyed the topic and opportunity to artistically create videos and posting for this new blog.

The earlier videos were short and simple. Unfortunately, I did not put as much effort or time as I had hoped into creating the closed caption video. I have an appreciation for those who take the time to make CC available in their videos. It requires the storyboard and script creating BEFORE making the video. I will have to restrain from discussing my personal beliefs regarding CC in nursing education from a disability and/or language necessity.

Life. Each day a new day

StoryBoard for CC Video

I am running a little behind on getting the video posted. But I will try and make the wait worth while. Preview of the storyboard

Life. Evaluation

To view results, click here for Google Document

Life. Infographic.

And yet I always seem to need more time each week. Where does all the free time disappear to?

Blogger Pages vs Posts

I have noticed than many of you have utilize "Pages" in blogger to post your assignments and utilize the page link toolbar. Though this works just fine, it does however eliminate one often forgotten feature, RSS feeds.

As information on the internet grows exponentially every day, many people resort to using an aggregator to retrieve new information in an organized fashion. A great example is Google Reader. The down side of Blogger Pages is that newly created pages are not included in the RSS feed that your blog automatically produces and therefore not typically included in aggregator services. Thus, people are not directed to look at your blog for new content.

This translates into relying upon a different mechanism for letting someone know you have added or update a page on your blog. Luckily, Dr. Stoner has required a fail safe in the class by using Twitter to serve as an ongoing "go look at my/their blog" tool.

So keep using Twitter to announce new pages or comments for us to read. Another alternative to using pages is to use the post method and copy and paste the url of each post that is an assignment in a customized toolbar.

Just an opinion. Everyone is doing so great and I need to catch up!

Missing for 2 weeks

Wow. You forget to put on the student hat for 2 weeks and there is a lot to catch up on. Though I have done a closed caption video in the past for other project, I am working on one that will fit within the topic as assigned for our class. 

Meanwhile, I have enjoyed classmates posting their videos and there seems to be a common theme of taking care of ourselves amidst the stress of life.  I have been able to adjust my daily schedule to allow for some early early morning exercise before work. To do so, it meant giving up "unwinding" time each night, but the early morning rides are well worth starting the day out right. 

Additionally, if you haven't heard, my wife and I are expecting our second child due in November this year. So LIFE is getting very busy, but living day by day makes every minute worth while.