Weekly Report & Reflection Post #12

Hey everyone!

This is the very last post for my ADED 1P32 class. This term has really flown by; I can't believe in two weeks I will be done exams and on my way home! Then I will be half way done my Sport Management degree; it feels like I just started it!

Retrieved from: http://www.forbes.com/2013/05/24/farewell-and-good-bye/

So this week we were asked to google ourselves and see what comes up. Unfortunately for me, when I googled "Emma McCann" I found out that there is a very successful children's book illustrator from the UK also with the name Emma McCann (She's actually pretty good, check her out!). So she is the first name to pop up, including her website, Facebook, and Twitter, but after a bit of scrolling I found my own Facebook and Twitter, and if I added the words "ADED 1P32" or "Brock University" I came right to the top and saw this blog and my LinkedIn. At the beginning of the course if
I googled myself, my Facebook would be the only webpage to pop up, but now I have four that come up.

Before this class started I knew it was very important to have a positive presence on social media sites when looking for potential employment, but this class taught me ways in which I could be a better digital citizen and have a positive digital footprint, and how to expand it. I learned that I need to be very cautious of everything I put on the internet, even if it is a private messaging site. Even if there is a delete button, it will always be on the internet.

I have learned a lot of useful information and have been exposed to numerous useful tools that I will continue to use beyond this class.

Thank you to everyone who followed me on this adventure!

Emma

Weekly Report & Reflection #11

Hey everyone!

Only one more week to go of classes! It is crazy how the term has flown by. I can’t believe I am almost half way done my undergraduate; It feels like I just started.

This week we explored webcasting tools. We looked at both podcasts and webcasts. A podcast is “any audio file that is embedded in a web page” (from our weekly outline).  The tool I used this week to make my podcast is SoundCloud. It is a very user-friendly tool that allows you to record or upload an audio file to your account and can set it to private or public. I believe that podcasts are great tools to share information and opinions in a way that portrays emotion. To learn more about SoundCloud and to view my attempt at a podcast visit my new page on my blog.

Retrieved from https://twitter.com/SoundCloud

A screencast is a digital recording that is usually accompanied by audio. When I first saw the word screencast I was not sure what it was referring to, but after watching one I recognized it. Here is a link to an example of a screencast, for those of you who were unsure like me.  I believe that screencasting is a great tool for “how-to” tutorials about something on the computer.

These creation knowledge expression tools are fantastic tools for those who like to listen and watch, as opposed to reading. Personally I use screencasts for anytime I have technological issue on my laptop to try and fix them and to follow along. I will not be adding either to my PLE as I will not be using them for knowledge to further my digital knowledge, but if I were going to they would be under all three of my categories (Learning, Social, Career) as they could be a very versatile tool.

Retrieved from http://www.apple.com/iphone-se/

This week you may also notice an addition to the bottom of my blog. I have embedded a Creative Commons license to protect my work. After learning about creating and sharing work I urge all of you to look into it as well.

Article of the Week

This week Apple made a huge announcement, releasing their next iPhone. My Feedly has been chalk full with updates about the Apple anouncement. One of the many articles contained a podcast about what Apple holds in store for the rest of us! It is called AppleInsiderpodcast recaps Apple’s ‘Let Us Loop You In’ event live from Cupertino. The podcast is very interesting and is nice to be able to listening as opposed reading it. It is crazy what Apple is doing these days! Give it a listen!

Until Next Week (for the last time)!

Weekly Post & Reflection Post #10

Welcome Back!

This week we explored lots of different slideshow tools. They were Animoto, Fotababble, PhotoPeach, Prezi, PowToon and, Zoho Show Presentation. After exploring all of these tools we were to pick a tool and create our own slideshow video with the program. I personally chose Animoto as it was very user friendly. I discuss this further in my new page on my blog called Animoto and even create my own presentation

Retrieved from: https://animoto.com/

. These tools are very useful for any level of education or even for personal or business presentations. I find that you could make it as professional or fun as wanted with the plethora of different themes and music choices.  I will definitely be using these programs for presentations in the future. I have previously used Prezi, but wanted to explore a new tool to expand my PLE.
These tools are very different than the tools we have used in the past, as we have never voiced our ideas and thoughts in a video presentation form. I believe that the presentation tools have more specific uses than tools we have used like Wikis and Twitter. They also relate in the way that they allow you to share your opinion or information that you have learned with others in a digital manner. I think that this class has allowed us to learn about tools that share information on many different digital platforms and to do so in a safe and appropriate manner.

Retrieved from: https://hbr.org/2013/06/how-to-give-a-killer-presentation/

Article of the Week

This week I found an article on Feedly by Harvard Business Review that is called How to Give a Killer Presentation. I thought it was fitting even though we were focusing on digital presentations as opposed to verbal presentations. This is a very thorough article that incorporates TEDTalks as examples of great presentations.

The tips from the Harvard Business Review are as follows: frame your story, plan your delivery, develop stage presence, and plan the multimedia. The last piece of advice applies to this week’s activities most.  It discusses that we have so much technology that we should take advantage of it. The advice is to keep the presentation simple enough to not distract those from the message of the presentation, but instead to enhance the presentation. Slides can help to frame their story and help to guide the speaker in case they forget what they are talking about.  

Overall, the author believes that used properly, technology can enhance a presentation to make it much more powerful.

Until Next Week!

Weekly Report & Reflection Post #9

Welcome Back!

Retrieved from: http://www.wcpss.net/Page/7368

Another week and another digital tool (or tools in this case)! As you have probably seen this week I have been more active on my blog than usual. I have posted a page for a tool called VoiceThread (that I will discuss later) and a blog post analyzing a technology use scenario.

As I previously mentioned we were introduced to a tool called VoiceThread. I have described what it is in my page about the tool. We also used a tool called PollDaddy. These were both tools that allowed many people to voice their opinions. In VoiceThread you could post video, audio, or written comments on each slide of the slideshow presentation. In PollDaddy you answered a poll question with one of the options below the question. We explored the tool by answering questions on if technology was being used appropriately in specific scenarios. It was interesting to see people’s different perspectives on different scenarios. I found that in VoiceThread you were able to voice your opinion fully unlike PollDaddy where you were only given options.

Retrieved from: http://web20summer12.wikispaces.com/Polldaddy

I think that they would be good for different situations like teaching or lecturing. I discuss in-depth on my VoiceThread page how teachers could incorporate these tools into their lessons. I believe that they are less applicable for my PLE as a student and therefore I will not be including them, but if I were going to I would add them to the education section. These tools could contribute to my PLN, if I were to use them, because they allow you to interact with people. Even though that I do not think I will be using these tools in my future I think It is still very interesting to learn about them and I could suggest them to others to use. For example, my mother is an elementary school teacher and I believe that she would enjoy using VoiceThread in her classroom as she is always looking for ways to add digital components to her classroom. I think this would be the perfect addition to her classroom!

Article of the Week

Retrieved from: https://twitter.com/debateorg

As discussed in my last post, this week’s article (or rather voting site) is about whether cell phones should be allowed during school hours. It is called Should Students be Allowed to Use Cell Phones in School. It also related to the collective knowledge building tools we used this week as it involves the opinions of many people. It is somewhat of a combination of PollDaddy and VoiceThread, as it has a voting component, but also had a section to support your opinion on the subject at hand. I think this is a very interesting hybrid of both of the tools that we used this week! The website this “debate” was on is debate.org where they have many other controversial debates where you can voice your opinion and see the opinion of others. The downfall of this site is it does not have any reputable information to support either side of the debate and only has the opinions of others. So although it is very interesting, you should also do your own research online before you believe what others have posted on the site.

Until Next Week!

Technology Use Scenario

Scenario #3: Sarah received a smartphone for her birthday. As with most smartphones, hers has the ability to take photos and video. During algebra class, she decides to take a picture of Ms. Everett, the substitute, while her back is turned to the whiteboard. She uploads it to her Facebook account and talks about how boring class was. What are the issues?

Photo: Jupiterimages, Brand X Pictures.

Sarah is not using technology appropriately in this situation. It is inappropriate for many reasons. She violates digital etiquette by being on her cell phone when she should be listening and focused on her substitute teacher. Sarah is also violating her substitute teacher’s privacy by posting a picture of her online without her permission, thus violating the teacher’s digital right to privacy. She is also not following the rules digital etiquette and the digital responsibility of being kind to others, as she is disrespecting the teacher by calling the lesson boring. Sarah is creating a very negative digital footprint for herself that could get her into a lot of trouble with the school. Sarah should have kept her phone off and away until an appropriate time to take her phone out. She also should not have posted a picture without the teacher’s permission, and not have commented hurtful things below it.

Overall, Sarah needs to think about how her consequences can negatively impact herself and others before she posts on the Internet again. Sarah should delete this post, apologize to the teacher, and learn from her mistakes so she does not make them again in the future.

Article of the Week
This week's Feedly article I found relates to cell phone use in the classroom called Should Students be Allowed to Use Cell Phones in School. I located this as it was discussed within an article I read on my Feedly. It is not specifically an article, but it is a controversial topic from debate.org where the website outlines the positive and negative attributes of the issue at hand, and then allows you to vote yes or no. Some of the positive aspects of allowing students to use their cell phones in school are that phones can be used for educational purposes and and they can be used for safety (calling the police if the situation needs it). Some negative aspects are that it can be a distraction to students or be used inappropriately (like in the scenario discussed above). I urge you all to do your research on the subject and vote!

Weekly Report & Reflection Post #8

Welcome back!

I cannot believe that it is already March; next month is exams! This term is really flying by! This week we learned about wikis. A wiki is an Internet database that gives you the option to view, edit, share and delete information. The most well known Wiki is Wikipedia. I have talked about Wikipedia on my blog as a source that is not reliable, but this doesn’t mean that it is not useful. It can be a great tool for jumpstarting ideas for papers, or it can even just be fun to read up on subjects that interest you.

Retrieved from: Wikipedia.org

In this class we have already been shown how wikis can be a useful tool as we have used them before. We have a wiki tab on Sakai where we have multiple wikis to post our twitter handles, our blog URLs, and other things. An interesting thought I had is that a Google Doc could also be considered a Wiki as it allows people to view and edit the information. This means that a Wiki can be used to collaborate on a project with a group.

Previously I discussed one of the huge issues with Wikipedia: reliability. Because anyone can alter a Wiki an uneducated individual can change or add any information on Wikipedia, making it inaccurate. As mentioned in my fourth Weekly Report and Reflection Post I have found a way around this problem by browsing the reference section of the Wikipedia page for more reputable sources.

McCann, E. (CC) 2016.

This week we also learned about digital rights and responsibilities. We were to choose that we believe are most important. I picked the right to be heard, giving credit where credit is due, and being kind to each other. We also used Popplet, which I have previously used, to illustrate our choices. I believe that Wikis can be a good place to be heard, and when used correctly, use property citations to give credit where credit is due.

Article of the Week 

While cruising through my Feedly, I found a funnier article this week that I thought was appropriate for this week. The article is titles The Funniest Acts of Wikipedia Vandalism Ever from Huffington Post. Although it is a very funny article, it also makes you think about how easy it is for someone to change information on Wikipedia to make it inaccurate and people, especially students, should be very wary about using this information. 

Until Next Week!

Weekly Report & Reflection Post #7

Welcome back!

It has been awhile since I have posted because last week was Reading Week! It went by so fast, but its also nice to be back. This term is flying by; I can’t believe second year is almost done.

Retrieved from: https://twitter.com/googledocs

This week we were introduced to two tools: Google Docs and TodaysMeet. TodaysMeet is a tool to talk online with a group for presentations. Google Docs is a tool that allows many people to edit and view a document at the same time over the Internet. You are able to view what others have contributed to the document and changes that have been made. This tool is excellent for group projects. In university it is no surprise that we are all very busy and it can be difficult to coordinate a time that everyone can meet, this way everyone can work on the document at different times, in different locations, without anyone missing out on what is going on.  You can make documents, slideshows, spreadsheets, and drawings. This is the first example of one of the ways Google Docs can be used. Next, it can serve as a substitute for Office Suites, or Microsoft   I found that working on Google Docs in conjunction with TodaysMeet was a good combination of tools to work digitally with my partner for the project easy. We were able to communicate through TodaysMeet on ideas we had for our presentation, and able to demonstrate these ideas through Google Docs in the Slides component. I found this almost more easy than collaborating in person!

Word. These applications must be purchased and are very expensive, whereas Google Docs has many of the capabilities of these programs, and is free! Thirdly, my favourite feature of this tool is that IT AUTOMATICALLY SAVES! This is amazing so you never have to worry about losing any work you have done.

I will definitely be adding Google Docs to my PLE, that I created in Week #2, within the educational section. I am very surprised I did not include it on there in the first place, as I have been using it for years! I will most likely not be adding TodaysMeet to my PLE due to the fact that in today’s digital society we already possess so many tools for communication such as texting, iMessage, email, and Facebook messenger.

Article of the Week

I found an article on Feedly about Google Docs called Forget Keyboards: We Dictated This Story on Google Docs, which is fitting as it was the focus of this week’s exploration. Google Docs has introduced a voice-dictation tool on its app. I use voice dictation to send iMessages and text messages to my friends on my iPhone and I love it. I find it much faster than typing and I think that it aids me with my train of thought because when I type I sometimes forget what I was trying to get across. I also believe that this will be amazing for disabled users, making the digital world even more inclusive.

Until Next Week!