week 3 Assignment #2 Affordances of Educational Technology

Nowadays, people employ various platform to communicate and enhance their career. Here are three of them and their affordances.

Technical features of Voki and its affordances

Features of the technology	Affordances
Account signing	Easy sign up but need to pay fee for more services.
Avatars creating	More and more characters are developed and provide options of appearance adjustment. Allowing all participants create their own avatars that makes users engage more and enjoy process even including adding accessories and setting the size of avatar.
Voice recording	Participants can use phone, text and self-recording to enable avatar speaking. The option of text also provides service of multi-language and tone. After creating the voice or upload already-made file, users can save it for other purpose.
Background setting	Tons of choices belong to different categories, users can even upload personal picture as customized background.
Sharing	After creating, participants can chose their preferring platform to publish the vedio sharing with their targets.
Voki Class	Teachers can invite students to join the virtual classrooms to share the content, hand out assignments and grade performance.
Voki Presenter	Users can use this platform to design their presentation content and narrate it.
Voki Teach	Teachers are empowered to share their presenters on this platform for their teaching plan as supplements or incentives.

Technical features of Screencast-O-Matic and its affordances

Features of the technology	Affordances
Account Signing	Easy to sign up an account. For more features, like hosting group, need to pay fees.
Video Recording	No software installation needed that allows users access easily while internet available. Users employ embedded webcam and microphone to record “Screen”, “ Webcam”, or “Both” within 15 minutes and up to full screen size. When choose “Both” recording, users can allot their own images position. Users can set up their recording preferences as well.
Channels	Users can create their own categories according to their needs. And display in three types,” by Title (A-Z)”, “Most Recent”, “Last Updated” to cater to users’ desires.
Upload Managing	Each recorded video can be uploaded individually or in group.
Video Editing	Even video was uploaded, users still can copy link, edit files’ description or delete. These functions can empower users edit their files anytime.
Supports	Home page also provides “Tutorials” and “Support” for new learners to get hand on this platform.
Sharing	After finishing recording, users can share video to popular platform. After sharing, users can use search engine to find it.
Link Copying, embed code and download	Besides upload, users can save as video file in cloud and employ “direct link”, “custom link” to make a link. Custom-link making can make users classify contents more easily. If users want to embed in blog, embed code is available. Or download Mp4 as private recording.

Technical features of Blog and its affordances

Features of the technology	Affordances
Account Singing	Easy to sign up an account.
Post	Author can use word-process tools to write, edit, and post articles, pictures and videos on blog. Delete later as well if necessary.
Stats (some blogs)	Author can put more effort to connect to their target through this category.
Comments	Author can comment on post article.
Earnings (some blogs)	Placing ads on personal site allows author to earn money.
Campaigns (some blogs)	Complement with Earning function. When author adds this function, it can enable site get more attention and gives feedback to improve.
Pages (some blogs)	When author chooses this function, they can add stand-alone page in the display.
Layout	Allow author to organize the display and add extra functions.
Template	Author can utilize this to customize the display, including various background designs.
Settings	Author can arrange basic information related to blog, e.g. reading setting, adding other authors, changing language and time zone setting.