Hopefully everyone is having a good week and enjoying learning more about mashups and creating them.  I just wanted to take a moment to highlight the example of a mashup that I created that is located at http://www.patrickrunfit.com/emerging/mashup.html.  I created this example writing the HTML and than uploading it directly to my website.  You are more than welcome to do the same thing if you have the time, knowledge and a place to upload the web page.  For this assignment you can make a new page in your Blog and than add all of the different items that you would like to add to it to create your mashup.

The first part of the assignment you will create a map using Google Maps between two points.  After creating the map you will want to embed it into a web page that you have created.  Next you will want to add at least three other items to the page to create your mashup.  For example, you could add your book marks from the Social Bookmarking website that you explored during the second week.

This is are final week of this course and have released how quickly things have gone by.  This week we will be taking a look at Mashups and creating a web page in our blog that will contain a web page with several different items.  A Mashup is all about taking several different items and combining them together into a web page.

This week we will be keeping things simple by taking things that are ready available and combining them into one page.  Several different companies and websites are making an API which stands for application programing interface that allows you to use their data.  Several companies such as Amazon, Google, and EBSCO make API’s available. If you know a little bit about HTML and/or programming you can do several different things with an API.  I look forward to working with everyone over the next few days to finish up this course.

Regardless of how you create a storyboard it is about being able to layout your thoughts and ideas before working on your tutorial.  It you are creating a video tutorial it allows for you to think about the script in relationship to the visual elements that will be appearing on the screen.  This will help you to flush out your ideas that will help communicate what you want to get across to your audience.  As someone mentioned in their blog less is more.  This is very good point to consider no matter what medium your tutorial will take shape in.

If you are creating an interactive piece you want to consider the different elements that you want people to accomplish and consider the background information that a person may need to know to accomplish a task.  By laying out the main points that you want to cover will help you to communicate your message to your target audience.  If you are creating an audio or vide piece writing a script is very important and a storyboard will help you out in your ideas.  A script is also important because it will make the content available to people that may have a hearing impairment.

In looking at the storyboards that people have created they have all focused on creating a video tutorial.  In creating tutorials please do not forgot about other great tutorials that have already been created that talks about important elements that you may want to communicate to your audience.  There maybe a tutorial that already exists that will meet your needs.

This week we will be exploring online tutorials and creating a sketch, wire-frame model etc. for a tutorial.  By creating a storyboard or wire-frame model will help you to plan out your thoughts and ideas for your tutorial.  I have a background in audio and video production and in teaching for the Art Institute of Pittsburgh students often find creating a sketch or a storyboard not being useful until they actually create them.  Creating one helps you plan and organize your thoughts in a way that makes it easier to put together a tutorial.  It allows you to plan out all of the different elements that you want to communicate to your audience.

One thing that I find that is useful to do is to start be creating a short outline of the major elements that you would like to cover.  This helps you to put your thoughts down before you begin.  Another thing would be to determine what you would like for someone to learn at the end of the tutorial.  We do not have time to create a tutorial this week, but if you are currently thinking about a tutorial or working on a project please use that for creating your storyboard or wireframe model.  You are more than welcome to use a past idea that you would like to improve.

This week we continued with our exploration of blogs with taking a look at feed readers.  In reading through what people have written several of us used Google Reader in the past and where disappointed when it was discontinued.  I found it to work very well for me and it allowed to be to keep my feeds organized in a way that allowed me to read items in a way that was very convenient.  When looking at alternatives, I chose to use Digg as my replacement and it has been working ok for me.

Between everyone we have selected a variety of different feed readers to use.  This will allow us to learn about several different ones from other people.  Depending on the experiences that people have with the reader that they have selected, I may choose to use a different reader in a few weeks.  By using a feed reader it will make it easier for us to keep track of each others blogs in one place instead of needing to go to several places to learn what other people have written.

Delicious is the most popular social booking tool among everyone.  I have used delicious in the past and still have an account, but I ended up coming across netvouz and found it to meet my needs.  In reading through what people have written most everyone uses a tool that allows them to keep track of their own bookmarks in a way that works out for them.  I do the same thing using netvouz to keep track of different websites that I have come across that I have found useful.  From a personal stand point I do not share or search other peoples bookmarks.