Tutorial Eight: Assistive technology

A definition of assistive technology

"Any item, piece of equipment or product system whether acquired commercially off the shelf, modified or customized that is used to increase or improve functional capabilities of individuals with disabilities.

One assistive device that I looked at...

Fiber optic eye blink switch

Size: Small padded clip with small sensor box attached.

Cost: A lot. $1068 including the power box.

Functions: Works best when a eye blink is all the client can do. The sensor can be set to sensitivities to activate with a purposeful blink compared to a normal blink. It is used to control switches.

How does the blink switch increase functional capacities?

The blink switch gives the user options and a form of independence that otherwise might not have had. It facilitates the operation of radios, blenders, TV, any device that you can plug power into.

Retrieved 7th June, 2008, from http://www.spectronics.co.nz

Tutorial Seven: Posting You Tube videos and Flickr badges to blogs - explaining the process

~ I am going to try and make this sound as uncomplicated as possible :) ~

Step by step process to embed You Tube videos into your Blog

1. Go to http://www.youtube.com
2. Search for the video you want to post on your blog.
3. Click on your video to bring it on the page.
4. On the right hand side there is a sentence of Java script under "Embed."
5. Select all of the script.

















6. Paste Java script into a new post.
7. Give your video a title.

Step by step process required to embed a www.Flickr.com badge into your Blog

1. You need a yahoo.com ID to log onto www.flickr.com
2. Sign in.
3. Browse and upload photos from your computer following the guide.

4. Edit your photos details and add a description - to make a photo badge, your photo has to be set to "public"

5. Once you've uploaded your photos, preselect the ones you want for your badge by making them"public." If you don't want them on your badge, make them "private."
6.Now, at the very bottom of the page there are several options you can do. In the "help" row, selected "tools."
7. Then on the right hand side, select "build a badge."


























8. Follow the guide to make a badge.
9. At the end of the guideit prompts you to copy and paste the "code."
10. Back to your blog, go to your blog "layout."
11. Click on "add page element."
12. Select "HTML/JavaScript.
13. Paste code and give you badge a title.
14. "Save."
15. Check out your lovely new photo badge on your blog.

Tutorial Four and Five: Video production sessions

Plan a storyboard
Check

Set up a U Tube account
Check

Post video on U Tube
Check

You Tube and what it offers

You Tube is a website that allows people to upload and share original videos worldwide. Anyone with internet can watch You Tube providing they have the internet. You can watch current event, people's documenting their lives in a video blog, hobbies, skits, music videos, anything you could want to watch and most likely you'll find it.

The use of planning a storboard

Storyboards are a series of illustrations displayed in sequence for the purpose of previsualizing an animated or live-action film. A storyboard is essentially a large comic of the film or some section of the film produced beforehand to help the directors and cinematographers visualize the scenes and find potential problems before they occur.

Tutorial Two: Digital camrea use and its applications

“A new technology is rarely superior to an old one in every feature”- This statement in relation to digital technology...

You can create something new to bypass problems tha a old technology might create, yet the creation of new technology usually has increased downfalls and problems.

Digital camera technology vs. Traditional film based cameras

The old film cameras that every family use to have were bulky, could only take as many photos as the roll of film allowed and you could never be sure of how your photo would turn out until you got it developed weeks later. With digital camera technology you see yuor photo instantly, you can delte if you don't like it take another one until your happy. Digital cameras have the capacity to take hundreds of photos, and most likely you'll run out of battery before you run out of space.

How digital images can be stored, transferred and manipulated using other communications technology.

A digital camera is an electronic device used to capture and store photographs electronically in a digital format. You snap your scene and the digital image is saved to the wee memory card. You can then upload your images to your computer, and from there you can alter the image's size, colour, sharpness, the list is endless depending on your editing program (check the pictures down the sside of my blog that I edited). You can also upload and share your photos on a website such as flickr.com or even a blog based website such as bebo.com.

Ethical issues

As I explained in tutorial one blog, the ethical issues arise around privacy and confidentiality. Effectively a person whose image is captured in a photograph should have every right to teh confidentiality of that picture. But in the day and age photos are usually put on the internet with out a secound thought. However on some photo uploading websites or toher sites such as online communities, photos can be selected to be view either privately or by invitation.

Digital cameras and OT

Personally, I have rarely seen a OT use a digital camera in practice but I can imagine they could be very useful. A OT could take images of a person's home environment for housing mods or of equipment within the client's home. The camera could also be applied in getting clients, say at a day center, involved in activities, uploading the photos to a computer and showing the cliens and even alter the images with the clients.

About Flickr.com + another

Flickr.com is a photo and video storage website that allows you too upload photos and videos for free - on a basic account. If you want more, including more space to upload more items you pay a membership. You can oraganise, share and set tags to your images and it is also a way to keep in touch with family and friends. They can leave comments or tags to images and give feedback. Group can come together around a common interst e.g flowers or people can share their interest in photography and techniques used.

Another photo storage website - http://www.snapfish.com/

Difference between digital and optical zoom...

Optical zoom works like the zoom lens on a camera, the lens changes focal length and magnification as it is zoomed. This retains the image quality of the image. Digital zoom is where the image is just cropped and then enlarge to fill the frame - it is very easy to see the pixels and the image has poor quality.

Mega pixels...

Digital images are made up of squares called pixels. Though the picture looks smooth, it is made made up of millions of tiny squares. Megapixel stands for 1 million pixels. So a camera with 5 megapixels has 5 million pixels.

Tutorial Three: Blog creation tasks

Set up a account with Blogger
Check

Contrust blog
Check

Begin postings
Check

What Blogger offers

On the 'About' link for Blogger they explain that they are "focusing on helping people have their own voice on the web and organizing the world's information from the personal perspective." And thats exactly what Blogger allows the user's to do. Once you've set up your blog you can add almost anything to it - videos, photos, video bar, links. You can also leave comments on other people's blog for them to reply to. This also encourages other people to have a look at your blog and leave comment on your blog - eventually making connections with people who have similar interests and ideas.

Another blog host...

www.squarespace.com

Upload photos onto Flickr.com
Check

Meaningful Occupation through graffiti =P

Tutorial Six: The internet and online communities

Chosen community

Bebo web address: http://www.bebo.com

Focus of the community

"Bebo is a social media network where friends share their lives and explore great entertainment."

What services are provided? How interactive is the site? How can people contribute?

Bebo enables people who are signed up to it to contact friends from their childhood and link up with new friends. On Bebo you can share and comment on pages, photos, add videos and music, add blogs to your page, private message people, join groups and bands and lots more. Bebo is a very interactive social networking site - you add friends or friends add you, you can comment on your friend's page, blog, photos, - there is even a tally of how many people have visited your profile. You can create your own polls and quizzes, create a white board for people to add drawings to your page, even make your own group.

Why people choose to contribute to Bebo? What are they seeking?

Bebo facillitates "socialability" to the extent that peopole who join have an easy way of communicate with friends, no matter where they are, as long as they access to the internet. Social networks allow people to keep in touch with friends in other countries.

They types of topics discussed on Bebo

There are different types of Bebo pages and therefore different topics. There are the personal pages and the topics on them will obviously be personal and related to the person and their life. However there are groups that you can become a member of. Some a funny and some are serious. For example you could join the 'Daniel Carter fan club' or perhaps the "Stop animal cruelty club.' Theres group are less disscusion and are ore of a way of uniting with other people who believe the particular group.

Ethical issues

As Bebo is a worldwide it means that your profile has the potential to be viewed by anyway. The way to prevent unwanted people viewing your profile is to restrict its viewing to "friends only" and you monitor who you give permission to. However not everyone restricts their Bebo, and this can lead a vulnerable person open to being the victim of misuse from other people.

Benefits of Bebo

Simply it allows you a "lazy" way to keep in contact with your friends and family. However there is a huge range of ways to keep in contact. It doesn't cost to sign up, you can connect on a certain level with people who have similar interests, basically, your page is your personality.

Bebo compared to a traditional community

Bebo can be a double edged sword. On one hand you're making connections with old friends, present friends and new friends, yet if you bebo a "bebo addict" you're being socially lazy in the real world and with traditional communities. There is even a application on Bebo that you can add to your page that calculates how addicted to bebo you are by the amount of time you spend on it.