Professional Practice Assignment - Part 1, Section 1, a, b

a) Reflect on how each of these tools in the learning environment has supported our learning so far:

  

1) Communication tools:

1. BB Discussion forum
   It's quite useful communication tool between all participants (students of BSc Applied Computing, tutors). Forums are made up of individual discussion threads that can be organised around a particular subject. This really helped at the beginning, if you want to ask something then you post your question in a particular subject thread. I like the BB Discussion forum,because tutors and students can share of helpful information, answer on the questions and etc. Tutors react a very quickly on our "needs" and provide necessary information.
   
2. BB Group Discussion Board
   The BB Group Discussion Board lets our group PP4 to post and discuss questions which concern only our group. Other student groups of BSc Applied Computing can't see our discussion. Using the BB GDB our group decided questions regarding communication tool between us (we decided to use BB "Send Email" system), announced about blog http://pcashu.blogspot.com, set up meeting online using BB Chat Tool and etc.
3. BB Chat Tool
   The BB Chat Tool lets our group to discuss questions regarding the assignment online. I tested it several times and it works quite good at home, but It wasn't work at Prague College. 
4. external blog (http://pcashu.blogspot.com/)
    The blog was recommended to be created by SHU. I tried to create our blog area in Blackboard ("John O'Connor"), but it wasn't possible (error message: "You do not have permission to view this content: Not blog member: ID 5ECB0EE9D41BDC4A13DD04F61608FDC5").
   That is why was decided to create the blog on the Internet and was chosen - Google's Blog - http://googleblog.blogspot.com/.
   We can use this blog to add/keep some useful information, tips, photographs, links and other media. 
   Every member of our group can edit posts in this blog (setting of Google's Blog lets to give admin permission) and also set up e-mail notification (up to 10 email addresses to have your blog mailed to whenever you publish).

2) Assessment tools:

1. Turn-It-In
   Probably it's quite nice system, but we have not tested it yet. I know that, Turnitin is an Internet-based plagiarism-detection service. How I understood, Turnitin stores our works and let us and tutors to check for plagiarism. After checking, If we want we can make changes and resubmit our essay (if resubmission was allowed by tutor, but for this module seems allowed).
   Heather: "Turnitin does store your work - but you may want to make changes after you've read the report and this way you can submit when you are ready."

3) Resources tools:

1. Library Gateway (http://library.shu.ac.uk/)
   Through this gateway we can find SHU library's catalogs, books and etc. A lot of material are offline and I'm not sure that this service will be quite useful for us.
   
2. LitSearch ( http://litsearch.shu.ac.uk/ )
   Through LitSearch we can access to many databases which contain different kinds of information. Now are available 32 databases regarding subject IT.
   
3. e-SHU Library (http://reader.eblib.com/ )
    There we can find many books about Web 2.0. But, if you want to copy some text, then you'll be charge for it  by Sheffield University (it says:
   In order to perform this action, you need a loan. Do you wish to continue?).
   How I understood for each article and chapter which you want to copy SHU charge £1.00. You can see it in your library account for each item.
   
4. Ebrary (online library of Prague College)
   That's great system, because it's free of charge. But you can't copy the whole book or chapter, only page by page.
5. The Internet and Internet Gateways (e.g. http://www.intute.ac.uk);
   I like Google Books and I think we can use them too. Also we can try to find relevant sources over http://www.intute.ac.uk

4) Content holding tools:

1. File Exchange
   I don't know how works File Exchange, but I think It's only for our group and nobody can see and use it.
   
2. Wiki
   
   
3. Learning Materials (Study Guide, how it helped )
   
   

b) Critically evaluate the use of communication tools on this module. Identify any future uses or developments to enhance the course further.

1. Blackboard function:
- email notifications don't work
- ease of navigation