TECHNOLO

GICAL ARTEFA

CTS

WORD DOCUMENTS

VS MOVIE FILE

S

Welcome to all who are joining us today in our discussion. The discussion I am going to present to you is on two examples of technological artefacts used in many areas of our lifestyles but today we are going to look into them in the teaching/learning environment.

DEFINE: TECHNOLOGICAL ARTEFACT

“Technological Artefacts are products of an economy, a force for economic growth, and a large part of

everyday l ife”

• Taken from the Wikipedia page “History of technology”

TWO EXAMPLES

Today I wil l be comparing the good and bad between the fol lowing examples

• A Word Processed document

• Movie/Video Fi le

A WORD PROCESSING DOCUMENT • A word document is produced by word processing software whether

Microsoft or other software.

• This although called a technological artefact is widely used for

documents, letters, assignments, assessments etc.

• A word document however is a f lat document that can only be read

by one person at a t ime if printed onto hard copy or if needed for a

larger audience would be displayed by a projector or similar.

• To read a word document the teacher or learner must be able to

read and be at the same l iteracy level as the document’s creator to

understand this ful ly.

POPULAR WORD PROCESSING SOFTWARE

• Office (Word) - 1998 to 2010 (Microsoft)

• Open Office, Abiword (Open Source Software, Linux, pc, mac compatible)

• Pages (iWork) – Apple Macintosh

• WordPad, Works, Word Perfect – (earl ier Microsoft products)

MOVIE OR VIDEO FILE• A Movie or video fi le is produced to give a visual and/or audio perspective

from the teacher or learner.

• This technological artefact is very much used in many areas of workplace and

teaching environments as a presentation tool or a way to answer a question or

a scenario in a creative and informative format.

• The movie/video fi le caters can be tai lored to suit most learners. Even if they

cannot read the presentation they can l isten and watch and sti l l fol low along.

• This is a three dimensional learning or teaching technology and can contain:

• Pictures, words, web l inks, animations, audio

SOME MOVIE SOFTWARE

• Adobe Premier (Microsoft compatible) Popular program taught in Tafe Courses and schools and installed on most

NSW school laptops for students Part of the Adobe Cs Suite

• iMovie (Apple Macintosh) Used as a teaching aide in Tafe and University courses when the teacher is

using Apple Macintosh computers instead of Windows based Pcs.

• Photostory 3 (Microsoft compatible, Windows XP and Windows 7 ) Also used as a teaching aide in Tafe and university courses to give students a

basic usage converting photos or slide to a movie format.

THE GOOD POINTS – WORD DOCUMENTS

• Word documents are sti l l the most beneficial way to create a written

account or document.

• Most word processing programs are very easy to use even for

novices.

• Letters, documents created on a word processor can look very

professional for business usage.

• You can also use word processing for casual correspondence or

individual documentation.

THE BAD POINTS – WORD DOCUMENTS

• Word documents rely on the audience being visual, whether i t is one

on one reading a document or many through a projector etc. then

they have to read the document visually.

• Word documents therefore need adjustments for special needs

audiences which can be done but sometimes better to look at other

options that may include audio as well as written words.

• Word documents are one dimensional and even with photos/graphs/

tables may not be as interesting to look at or create for an audience

attention to keep focused.

THE GOOD POINTS– MOVIES/VIDEO SOFTWARE

• Movies and presentations are definitely a creative way for someone

to express themselves and have many usages where audio and

displaying photos.

• Videos or animations make displaying work fun for students,

teachers and/or presenters, they also cater for a wider audience

rather then just the visual recipient and can be displayed to many

people at once or even streamed through the internet across cities

or countries.

THE BAD POINTS – MOVIE/VIDEO SOFTWARE

• Most movies or videos require specialised software that may not

come standard with office software and need to be additional

expense. (however there is free software that may just need an

internet connection to be downloaded).

• Some movie software may only work on a windows pc and some on a

mac.

• Making a movie can be time consuming for a novice and some

software is not novice fr iendly.

• Some of the commercial movie making software l ike premier may not be easi ly edited after completed if changes are needed.

CONCLUSION

To conclude –

• In my personal opinion the more options we can offer our teachers or learners to express themselves the better.

• It is neither good or bad no matter the technology used just the instruction how to use and where.

• Some situations may require word documents, some animations, videos or even audio f i les.

• Technology changes and updates every day and more objects become artefacts giving more choice to al l .

• Thankyou for watching today.

REFERENCES

Web Sites

History of technology, last modified on 22 August 2011, accessed 23 august 2011, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_technology

Pictures

Microsoft Office, 2011 Microsoft Corporation, accessed 23/8/11, http://office.microsoft.com/en-au/word/

Open Office.org, Writer, accessed 19/8/11, http://why.openoffice.org/images/writer-big.png

iLife-iMovie-Read about movie trailers and features, 2011 Apple Inc, accessed 19/8/11, http://www.apple.com/ilife/imovie/

Media College.com, Adobe Premier Pro Tutorials, Wavelength Media , accessed 20/8/11, http://www.mediacollege.com/adobe/premiere/pro/

Softonic, Microsoft Photo Story, SOFTONIC INTERNATIONAL S.L. © 1997-2011 , accessed 21/8/11, http://microsoft-photo-story.en.softonic.com/images

Edmodo – troy martin