Be wary of unintentionally downloading unwanted software from the Internet - and what to do about it when it happens!

Have you ever downloaded a recommended application from the Internet and in so doing downloaded some unwanted third party software as well? Yes? It happens to us all at some time or other I think. It happened to me yesterday on my Windows laptop!

Yesterday I put out a tweet about a useful application program that I had discovered and liked, and someone replied mentioning a similar application that they use successfully.  So, of course, I decided to download their recommended application and try it out. In doing so downloaded some unwanted programmes unintentionally.

Sometimes, one downloads a new program from a secondary source, like I did, only to find that after installing it, you also have a toolbar in your browser and your default search engine has changed to Ask.com, for example.  (But, also remember that sometimes companies will bundle toolbars or other junk with their free programs. so as to offer those programs free, while still making money.)

 
My antivirus screamed at me as I was downloading but I kept clicking on ignore because, after all, my download was recommended software! I was also very careful not to click any of the suggestions my download included. But still I ended up with an unwanted application called ‘Search App by Ask’.

I tried hard to uninstall ‘Search App by Ask’ using the Add/Remove Program feature in the Window's Control Panel, but it wouldn’t uninstall. It kept telling me to close Google Chrome and the point is that Google Chrome wasn’t even open!  This application had somehow made some changes in the registry so that it couldn’t be uninstalled.

If for some reason an uninstallation fails, as mine did, there are other Internet programmes that promised to get rid of unwanted software. Feeling apprehensive about downloading yet another problem due to ignorance I was thrilled to come across Microsoft's Uninstall Fixer utility which claims it will help fix problems with programs that can't be uninstalled at support.microsoft.com, namely from the following link:
http://support.microsoft.com/mats/program_install_and_uninstall

This is what is says:

What it fixes...

• Corrupted registry keys on 64-bit operating systems
• Corrupted registry keys that control the update data
• Problems that prevent new programs from being installed
• Problems that prevent existing programs from being completely uninstalled or updated
• Problems that block you from uninstalling a program through the Add or Remove Programs (or Programs and Features) item in Control Panel

It was a relief to get this message and to be able to confirm that the problem had been fixed.

I shall be relating this story to my various classes at school this week.  We need to be very cautious about unintentionally downloading software from the Internet!

I have signed up for the MOOC ‘Powerful tools for teaching and learning – Digital Storytelling’

Not too long ago I signed up for a Digital Storytelling MOOC run by Cousera. https://www.coursera.org/course/digitalstorytelling. I am quite excited about this especially as I have just created and run a digital storytelling course for the African Storybook Project for teachers in Africa.

The course is about to begin.

There will be participants from 170 countries! That’s amazing if you consider there are only about 195 countries in the world!

In  fact the course has begun! Yay! Its a free MOOC that will be using Wevideo.  Here is an outline of the course over the next five weeks.

Over the course of five weeks, we will cover the following topics:

Week 1: Choosing a topic and purpose
Week 1 introduces you to the basics of digital storytelling. You will learn to identify the fundamental elements of a good digital story and review examples used by educators across a varied curriculum. By the end of week 1, you will be able to choose a topic and define the purpose of the story you want to create for your classroom.

Week 2: Writing an effective script and creating a storyboard
Week 2 will focus on scriptwriting as you learn the steps in developing and writing a script for a digital story. You will explore the basic elements of a script, such as introduction, character development, tension and resolution that are necessary in developing a useful script. By the end of this week, you will begin to understand the important steps and elements of scriptwriting. You will also learn to recognize the importance of selecting appropriate images and the value of creating a storyboard. During Week 2, you will also explore several useful ways to choose images for your digital story, including taking your own photos with a digital camera, using software applications to create charts, graphs and other images, and finding and downloading images from the web based on size, quality, type and usage rights. A step-by-step approach will be used to illustrate how these images will be used to support your script as a part of creating a digital story. By the end of this week you will be able to envision your story's script in a visually interesting and useful storyboard.

Week 3: Recording audio narrationIn week 3, you will learn to record audio narration using digital devices so that your voice can be added to the digital story you will create. You will gain hands-on experience using some of the most common features of audio recording software to create high quality audio narration. In addition, you will explore ways to improve your audio recording with basic editing tools. You will also learn how to find and download appropriate music for your digital story that is in the public domain or is free of copyright restrictions. 

Week 4: Using technology to build a digital story
In week 4, you will learn to use WeVideo, a free online video editing application to assemble all of the elements (text, images, narration, music) to create the full  version of your digital story. In addition, you will learn to use basic editing techniques to improve your digital story so that all of the components of your story fit together and look and sound good.

Week 5: Revising, publishing and sharing the final digital story for use in the classroom
In week 5, you will revise the final version of your digital story, publish it online and discuss how it might be used in the classroom to support teaching and learning. You will also have an opportunity to reflect on the digital storytelling process and discuss the challenges you faced, how you dealt with these challenges, the most significant things you learned during the course and how you think you might use digital storytelling in your classroom,

Ways of illustrating digital stories

We had a number of really excellent stories from teachers who discovered their writing gift within them. Something that fascinated me during this course was the ingenious ways that teachers used to illustrate their stories. Take a look!

Fabric with felt cut outs which were then captured with a camera as shown in  ‘Emily and the Seagull’.	Own photos with words at the side and a colourful background as shown in ‘There’s a zoo in my school’.
Some used royalty-free images from  the Internet such as in ‘The sheep who wanted to knit’.	Some asked different learners in their class to illustrate each page as shown in ‘Sisipho signs away’.
Some teachers asked their students  to create their own illustrations using Microsoft Paint such as in ‘Bunny  tells the children’.	Some asked their own family to do their illustrations
Some created templates and coloured  them in such as in ‘Khotso goes to the  zoo’.	Some asked a talented friend to do their illustrations for them such as in ‘The noise in the night’.
Some used royalty free pictures from  Pixabay such as ‘Angus the Dinosaur’.	Some created tasteful collages made from different materials such as in ‘Nonyane’.
Some used whole, original photos and pasted the words in a convenient spot  as in ‘On Safari’.	Some used commercially obtained illustration programmes owned by their schools such as in ‘Monsters under my bed’.

We are looking forward to the launch of the African Storybook Project website later this year.