What is the Multiuser Technology?

Multiuser technology allow us to create an environment of interactivity where users can interact with each other inside virtual world.

By using Robin Sever, we were able to create an online game that more than one user can play together, or we can create an online Chat room where people can share information, resources, and ideas.

Two of the amazing websites that use this technology are the Second life and Clubpenguin for kids.

My Experience

When I start learning about the multiuser technology I thought it will be hard, because I had some trouble at the first class to get the first example working, I saved the files in a wrong folders and that make me little bit behind, I was busy trying to fix my problem rather than concentrate at Dan explanation. At the end of the class I was able to fix everything, but I felt that I missed a lot .
In the second class everything was different, I got a better understanding on how to use the technology, so I was able to think of an idea for the multiuser assignment.

Multiuser Assignment

The first idea came to me was to update the chatting room, I loved that example I loved how the background is moving like a wave. My idea was to add more emotion to this chat room, by creating a menu for quick message, like greetings, love, Yes and No messages. At the same time, when we send love message the color of the title will change to red and green color with happiness message and so on. My concern was if I can work at this assignment at home?
Can I redo all the steps we did on the first class? And I don’t have the XAMPP server I have the WAMP server on my computer. But what I found that Robin file can’t work with my server, when I tried to run Robin I got the following Error:
Running robin.php
Parse error: parse error in C:\wamp\www\robin\classes\Socket.php on line 156
So I downloaded the XAMPP server on my computer, and everything worked fine.

Bouncing Ball Game

I thought of making two levels of this game, but then I preferred to focus on the first level to make sure that it runs without errors. I started off with just a ball breaking bricks, and I thought that was a little boring,
so I decided to add the walls in both sides to make the wall bouncy. So the ball would bounce off the wall and make it challenging to control the ball.



As a final touch I added the timer with a limit of 10 seconds, so the player who finishes before the 10 sec will win the game. In addition, I added some sound effects to make the game more interesting. To test the game, I asked my kids to play and try it. They just love it, and they asked me to do the next level, but because of all assignments I have I can’t go further more. In the future who knows, I’ll be more than happy to go back for my old assignments and invest more time to enhance them and may be find markets for them.

Tilt Assignment

This posting is about my new Tilt assignment which I really enjoyed too much. I learned many , things about this technology. In the class, our instructor Dan explained to us Penguin and how it lets us work with mobile devices rotation and translation. I very excited to learn how Penguin technology works! I started thinking if it will be possible to rotate the 3D shapes while we are rotate our mobile? People who likes working with three dimension shapes be able to spend their time playing with shapes, converting shapes from one to another just by rotation their mobile? The idea came and I was eager to try to do it. This idea came while I was researching for shape recognition (club project). Through my research, I visited some interesting web sites like "WonderFl build flash online", and the HYPE framework . I was amazed from what these sites could provide, and the amount of information and codes available. All we need is to find a good idea to build on. It is not easy to obtain one, but codes have become available on the net through some open source Flash solutions. I was able to get the class of codes to rotate a 3D Shape by a mouse, then I got the classes I needed for mobile device rotation from Dan’s blog http://penguinsflash.wordpress.com/ . . I’m really happy because there are a lot of wonderful people who like to share their experience and their knowledge with all people around world.

This assignment enhanced my appreciation for beauty and impact of the technology. I was able to rotate the 3D Shape by using the Penguin Tilt Emulator. That was fun, but I got another idea of making a Bouncing ball game. I liked the idea; especially I’ll have a chance of doing some design. Which will help me to enhance my design skills and at the same time it will be a good opportunity to apply the Tween classes.

My Learning Experience

As a user of technology, I found Ostrich Flash very helpful to raise my understanding of pioneering technologies. More precisely, I learned about Video Motion Capture. It was an a amazing experience for me. I was able to create objects designed to follow my motion.

To demonstrate my learning, I managed to develop a working sample of this technology. The idea of my assignment was to a simple interactive game for kids. The game includes a farm with few animals (cow, cat and rooster and butterfly). The flying butterfly follows the player motion, once the butterfly lands one of the farm animals, the animal moves down and makes sound and the name of the animal pops out. Using this game, helps young kids interact with animals and recognize animal names and sounds in an attractive way. Like any other project, this assignment remains a work in progress. I definitely enhance its usability and interactivity to meet the needs of young kids.

I look forward to learn more about this exciting technology and apply in teaching/learning Arabic in Canada and beyond.

Transformative technology

New developments in the world information technology including social media and mobile technologies has made creativity and innovation as the driving forces for success in the new century. Technology users including companies are always looking for new ideas. Individual users are searching for innovative ways to interact with technology and others. This shift has transformed the role from a recipient of instructions and information into content creator. For example, my children on WII game and video games they create their own aviators, they keep records of games to assess their progress and improve their performance over time.

What is Technology?

Technology is usually defined as a way of doing things or means of organization to help individual and groups do their daily activities and overcome barriers. In the last century, industrial technology was focused on expanding the power of physical muscles to maximize material production and consumption. As result, all kinds of machinery were created to facilitate the expansion of industrial economy. This include cars, planes, manufacturing machines. In fact, machines shaped our lives and societies in the 20th century.

With the revolution of information technology, namely social technologies including social media, mobile devices and interactive games empowered individuals and societies in new ways. Networking technologies multiplied the brain power within groups and organizations. Knowledge and ideas replaced physical capital as the real source of production.