Tute 3: The BLOG Creation!

Tute three is all about creating our own blog using Blogger.com.

So... heres a bit about the services offered by Blogger.

Blogger.com is a free online forum to allow anyone an oppportunity to speak or record information fr just themselves or the whole world to have access to.

With Blogger comments, you can choose to keep these private or allow other people to make comments and as the author of you blog, you have the ability to delete any unwanted comments.

Access controls also allow you to decide who can read or write on your blog, so it can be useful for group work where a number of people can contribute.

Blogger profiles allows you to find people and blogs that you share a common interest with and visa verser.

Blogger has all the usual design features such as templates, customised colours and fonts, drag and drop page elements so that you can move entries of interest around and post photographs. You can even send photographs and txts straight from your mobile phone when you are out and about with Blogger Mobile (Sunderland, J. personal communication, March 2, 2101).

Blog Hosts:

There are a number of Blog Hosts but not all of them are free. Many are designed for a particular purpose such as Blogs for professionals, for self confessed computer geeks and some just for the general population. Just host.com is a professional blog host where users pay for the service.

so...with my Flickr account up and running, my next task was to upload some photos to my blog .....and here they are...

Some summertime pic's at Matauri Bay in Northland and one of our little puppies.

Robinson, A.M. Personal photographs, January 12, 2009, unpublished source.

Informed Consent is respecting a person's autonomy to make personal choices based on the appropriate appraisal of information about the actual and/or potential circumstances of a situation (Butts & Rich, 2008, p. 43)

Therefore, in order for me to publish photographs of my family, as I have done above, I have to have their written informed consent before using the pictures (which I have done).

My Opinion: Will a great understanding of ITC and the ethical issues it encompasses help us in our practice and daily lives?

ITC certainly has its place in our world and will continue to do so. Therefore having a good, if not great understanding of ITC will certainly help, particularly in our practice. ITC brings with it opportunities for us as therapists to tap into and use as means to enhance the lives of the clients with whom we work. It allows us to become creative and use these advancements to overcome challanges of the daily occupations of our clients. If we dont keep up with new technologies, we may be missing out!

Ethical issues in relation to online activities are very important and should be paramount in all ITC training. In recent years, our private lives have suddenly become public knowledge with the use of digital cameras, mobile phones cameras, surveillance equipment and media such as facebook, bebo and my space. Ethical issues have not been addressed nor have many of the users been educated in ethics. In both our practice and in our daily lives, we must ensure that ethical issues are considered especially in respect of privacy, confidentiality and copyright.

References:

Butts, J. B., & Rich, K. L. (2008). Nursing ethics: across the curriculum and into practice. (2nd ed.). London: Jones and Bartlett Publishers International.