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I used yahoo to create my avatar. I really got into it and added some scenery. I love avatars AND extra credit!!

Cloud Computing

I would like to first say that on second thought, the live meeting on Thursday did have its benefits. At the time I was asked if the breakout was beneficial, I had been shuffled to three different rooms. The last room I ended up in was actually productive. I do think in the future one might assign a leader to each group so poles can be deployed to get faster responses to the group's decisions. Also, remember that as a teacher, one is much more savvy with these operations and that possibly more time and less tasks would enable the students to enjoy more successful experiences.

Now, I head to the clouds. What a wonderful place. I love the idea of cloud computing and am thrilled with the amount of "green cred" they earn. Clouds are much more clear to me after this week. Basically, a cloud is a server managed by another company. Choosing cloud computing saves time, energy and money. Let's take the Amazon's EC2 and S3 for example. The New York Times wanted to archive 150 years of newspapers online, searchable. This would have taken more computing power than they had available. The team, instead, began uploading massive amounts of data to Amazon's servers. Viola! 24 hours and 100 servers later, all of the history was available via Amazon's S3. This job would have taken The New York Times' IT staff over a month and who knows how much money.

One might think that clouds are costing us jobs but in fact, with a little flexibility, a company can not only save money it can also free up the IT team to create new business. IBM is a great example of a company that is moving with the times. Cloud computing offers hardware services and software support. These are two of the many new opportunities businesses have with the use of clouds. 

There are risks as well. What if the server crashes or looses network connection. Solutions are coming. We must continue to support cloud computing and research. Cloud computing is the wave of the future and that makes Mother Nature happy. If you would like to study more about clouds click this link: http://computer.howstuffworks.com/cloud-computing/cloud-computing.htm  

 

Presentation Project

Wow! What a journey. At this point, I feel accomplished but what a journey. First, I made my storyboard. Next, I created my Power Point Presentation. I thought that was a lot of work but actually the really hard work was to come. How was I going to get a voice onto my presentation? I tried Jing. No luck there. I called every friend I knew and no one could help me. Finally, I downloaded Camtasia. It looked like it was out of my league but I watched to the tutorial videos and got started. Phew! What a job. I learned how to record myself giving my presentation, how to edit my sound bites and finally how to post the final product to the web. Web 2.0, that is. I can't believe all of the work that went into this project. Although, it was well worth the learning experience. I hope you like it. Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEq6K5FSrWM&feature=youtu.be

 Additionally, here is an article from the Gainesville Sun talking about the potential of charter schools.
http://www.gainesville.com/article/20120226/ARTICLES/120229610/1139?p=1&tc=pg

Understanding Software

There are two types of software; system software and application software. We use system software every time we turn on our device. System software enables us to use our hardware. Application Programming Interface connects the four layers of communication through the device. The user is the outer layer. The application is the next layer followed by the operating system. The operating system (OS) communicates with the hardware then the information travels back through that path which ends at the user.  The OS is like a traffic cop to the application software. We view our applications through a platform that communicates with the OS and the hardware. There are two types of application software: Desktop software, for one person, and enterprise software, for many people.We use desktop software individually and  on a daily basis when we use applications like Microsoft Word and Open Office. These applications require a purchase and a license agreement. What happens when we are part of an enterprise and we have a lot of different needs as well as users? Software packages. More precisely, enterprise resource planning software packages. ERPs integrate many functions of a business such as finance, inventory, human resources and accounting. Though not easy to integrate, a time-saver in the long run. ERPs can aid in sales by monitoring each sales rep's progress, satisfy their order fulfillment and  trigger inventory replenishment. ERP systems not only aid in sales and inventory departments. They now assist customer relationship management, supply chain management and business intelligence. If you want to research more about enterprise resource planning systems, check out this website: http://www.erp.com/. You can see the top providers of ERPs and even read reviews about them.

Muddy/Clear Presentations

What an exciting lesson. Presentations have come a long way since the old Power Point days. It has become an art with highly specialized people in the field like Nancy Duarte and Garr Renyolds. Duarte has built an entire company that specializes in training for and also the creating of fantastic presentations. Duarte has several videos on the website duarte.com that will open the presenter's eyes to presentations that stick. Duarte provides presentation tools as well as resources. Nancy Duarte explains the difference between slides and documents. How often have you gone to a presentation where the presenter simply reads each slide word? Slides like these are actually more like documents. Documents, Duarte says, can be distributed at the end of a presentation to help solidify the information explored during the presentation. It is extremely important for the presenter to use the slides as a guide while they tell their story to the audience. Slides should have very few word and an image that evokes connection to the part of the story being told. Storytelling is an art in itself. Stories are so powerful in our memories that they have been passed on from generation to generation. When one gives a presentation, they want the information to be memorable and even passed on. Duarte has decoded the steps to success for presentations.

Garr Renyolds is another amazing resource in the field of presentations. Reynolds wrote a book called Presentation Zen that shows how to keep presentation clean, clear and simple. Presentationzen.com is a valuable resource for the presenter. As we know, presentations are part of the business world. They are used for a variety of needs including new products, new work spaces, new technology and training. Like I said, there is an art to presenting. Audiences can loath going to presentations at work. It seems like audiences are more often bored than educated. Garr, through his books, is able to enlighten the presenter and bring excitement back to the presentation world. 

Other resources for creating effective presentations can be found at http://www.heathbrothers.com/ and jnd.org.

Technology and Strategy

Porter's Five Forces were very clear to me this week. Porter is a business professor at Harvard University. He identified five areas that impact competition and strategizing in the business environment.  Potential new entrants, rivalry among existing competition, threats of close substitutes, power of buyers and power of suppliers are the forces Porter identified over 30 years ago. First, an organization must run an industry analysis to identify their industry and how that industry is changing. As companies analyze their competition and identify the areas of opportunity, they use the guidelines discovered by Porter. Identifying constraints and the strategies  to conquer them as FreshDirect grocery did, provide a strong competitive advantage in the market. Porter's robust framework can be applied to any industry. And he suggests that not only the employees of the company, but also the buyers, suppliers and the substitutes, should understand the strategy and the whole team will then strengthen that strategy's results. Here is a link that further explains Porter's Five Forces. http://hbr.org/2008/01/the-five-competitive-forces-that-shape-strategy/ar/1