Unit Three - Technology Implementation - Digital Publishing

Technology Development Environment

      Analysis of Technology Development Environment

            Within this unit, we focused on digital publishing online that is available for the Web, Mobile, and Social environments. We had the following choices to evaluate and decide on an environment to produce a deliverable for this unit.  My evaluations of these environments are as follows:

i     issuu digital publishing product

http://issuu.com/

o So this application was very easy to use.  I created a Digital Publishing Product out of my INST 6137 Final Project document.  The only requirement was that in order to create a digital product, the file you upload into it must be a PDF.  This was very straightforward, but I am curious about the other choices, so I will continue on in the quest. 

o I can see this being useful in a classroom setting, as well as for individuals looking for ways to share documents and pictures.  As I was creating this, I kept thinking, this would work really well as a way to digitally organize and share family pictures.  When I moved out here to Houston, I have been going through tons of photos that my mother had in her house in El Paso.  I have been scanning and labeling them.  This program would be good for creating a digital family album to be able to share with our family members who live in other countries.

      Joomag digital publishing document
          https://www.joomag.com/

o  This application was also very simple to use, it also requires a PDF file in order to create a digital product.  Again, I uploaded my INST 6137 Final Project as a PDF document, also after creating a digital product with my assignment document, I wanted to see how color pictures would look. I think the issuu.com gives a cleaner version, but essentially they work the same. 

o  Between issuu.com and Joomag.com, I think I prefer the simplicity of the final product done with issuu.com.

CoverPage digital publishing product

https://www.coverpageapp.com/

o With coverpageapp.com, I signed in, but then it wanted me to download another program in order to create a digital document.  Since I have already had success with issuu.com and joomag.com, I really did not want to spend that much effort in getting to the part where I could actually create something.  I decided to move on to the next option.

Scoop.it! digital publishing product
http://www.scoop.it/

o I signed into this program, but seemed very complicated to muddle through.  I exited before actually creating anything.  The way I understand the concept behind this application, you are not actually uploading and creating a digital document, it appears to be a sophisticated search engine that goes out and finds articles (via the web, social media, etc.) and gathers (scoops) it into an organized folder for you to view content of similar topics.   

Paper.li digital publishing product
http://paper.li/

o Paper.li appears to have a similar concept to scoop.it, but I couldn’t even figure out how to make it “gather” articles for me.  Next….

Yudu digital publishing product
http://www.yudu.com/

o After the ease of use of the first two choices, this seemed way to complicated from the onset, I didn’t even make it past the sign up screen.  As I reviewed what the program offered, it did not seem to be something that would be beneficial to me at this time.

ePublish digital publishing product
http://epublish4me.com/

o This program was very simple to use, it also requires documents to be uploaded as a PDF file.  It has the added bonus of allowing you to publish the digital product you make automatically to a website, blog, social media site, etc

Development of Technological Product

            So, for this unit, I had no prior experience with any of the choices, unlike the last two units. However, as you can tell in my analysis above, the majority of these applications were very simple to access as well as to develop a very decent looking digital product.  I enjoyed reviewing the different options, and can see myself using some of these applications both now and in the future. I finally decided to use issuu.com because I felt it provided a clean product without ads popping up. 

 

Reflective discussion about Experience:

      This was actually a fun unit, I enjoyed reviewing the various applications from which we had to choose from.   The online digital publishing environment was a completely new environment for me.  I had no prior experience with any of the choices, unlike the last two units. I decided to use issuu.com for my final product due to the ease of use as well as the lack of pop-up ads.  This unit was very interesting and I am looking forward to exploring the next unit’s technology options.   

Access to my Digital Products: 

•  ISSUU.COM DIGITAL PRODUCT #1 
  (I used a copy of my final project in INST 6137 to create this digital product) 

• ISSUU.COM DIGITAL PRODUCT #2 
  (I used various pictures that I had taken to create this digital product) 
  
  
  Thank you for reading my blog and for viewing my products. 
   Remember to leave a comment below. 
  
  
  Alice