Weekly Report & Reflection - Week 7

Welcome back everyone, 

Well to start off I don't know about some of you, but this week using Google Docs it was my first time exploring this tool. Of course I had heard of the tool, but I had never used it personally the only experience I had with it was watching someone else who knew what they were doing quickly navigate to where they needed to be. After spending some time working through and trying things out for myself I found that it was pretty easy to navigate through and that there are multiple different features available

Tomlinson, A. (CC) 2016

that make group projects that much easier. I think that having this tool is going to make working in a group a lot easier because before I knew how to use Google Docs I would usually just email or Facebook the document, presentation, etc. to the other person/people that I was working with. So I like the fact that you are able to all access the document/presentation and make changes and I or the others would instantly be able to see the changes that were made. I think that one way this could be used in the classroom would be that the students would be able to work on a presentation together from different computers and all be working on it at the same time. Another way would be that students are able to type up for example let's say a short story they had to write and they would be able to share it with the teacher, instead of having to print it out and hand it in. A third way that this could be used is in a work setting, for example let's say something is creating a set of instructions for something and as time goes by one step changes and the original person who created the ddocument is not there anymore, this allows other to go in and add, remove and change the document. This has helped me build my knowledge about working collaboratively because now that I have this tool, I will feel better about doing group work and working with others just because of how easy it is. This has helped me learn to be a better digital citizen because I am able to see how these tools are meant to help us and that the digital world it makes it easier for everyone to share ideas, etc.   

When it comes to my PLE I think that Google Docs would for sure be something that I would add to it. I think that it would go great in the collaborative and organize sections because these are both big contributors to how Google Docs works. I don't think that I will be removing any of the tools we have learned about from my PLE just because I find that they are all useful to me in some sense and that I want to continue to learn about them and pass them on to others.  

One article that I found on my Feedly account this week is actually one that relates to the topic of Google Docs for this week. The article mentions how there is a new feature that is voice talk. This article about Voice Feature mentions how there is now the tool for people to talk into the program and it will type what you have said. I think that this is great for children that are not able to write quite yet, this allows them to be able to still do some work without having to write anything because the program will do it for them. At the same time I think this could also prevent children from learning to write/type and in a sense make them lazy because that way they don't have to spell anything or physically type it out. I just thought that this was an interesting piece that related to this weeks topic, and it could potentially be a feature others didn't know about.

Until next time,
Amanda :) 

Weekly Report & Reflection - Week 6

Welcome back everyone, 

First off I would like to say that I hope everyone had a good and relaxing reading week! 

After I explored Evernote I found that it is a very good tool to use in multiple different aspects. For one, I find that this is very useful when I am doing a research project or paper and I am able to have all of my information in one section and easy access. For this particular course I find that it is going to be useful as we work on our research project because I am able to share with my group members and show them what I have and I am able to see what work they have so that we do not overlap and make sure that we are not collecting the same information. When looking for valid and reliable resources I make sure that they are not websites that anyone can access and put information in because then I feel as though some of the information would not be valid. I also look to make sure that it is a professional website and that the information is reliable. 

As we are working our way through this course my PLE is expanding every week because of all the different tools we are using and exploring. I will 100% be putting Evernote into my PLE. I believe that Evernote would fit into a couple of sections on my PLE such as organization and create. I believe that it fits into both of these categories because when it comes to organization everything is right there in front of you once you have bookmark, clipped, etc. Then when it comes to create you are able to create these notes that have pictures, videos and other academic articles in them as well and you have the option to share with another person. 

I find that this week really ties into digital literacy because even in this weeks instructions and activities we were given multiple different options on how to view the instructions or the video to know what we were doing. Going off of this the tool Evernote that we learned about this week is also something that goes along with digital literacy because we were exploring a new tool and as we added new information to that tool we were able to learn about different topics (this week it was focused on our research topic) and would be able to revisit the webpages that we have bookmarked for later. 

The last thing I want to mention this week is that this week a lot of my articles or other posts on my Feedly this week can't really connect to the topic this week, because I am doing digital communication for my research project I tried to find one that related, but unfortunately did not have any luck this week! But I will keep my eyes open! But there was one article that I read, and if you did not know this about me I am a big animal lover and an article came up about how a dog in Nova Scotia saved a family from a fire. This article really touched my heart because I think that is incredible that a dog is able to do that and risk their lives to save their families.

Until next time,
Amanda :) 

Weekly Report & Reflection - Week 5

Welcome back! 

Each day that I am using my Feedly reader I am able to connect a couple of articles and blogs that I follow together, for example I follow a couple of education pages and blogs and this is something that I am interested in as I am hoping to go to Teacher's College next year and being able to read these different blogs about what is and isn't working in some classrooms is really giving a wide variety of ideas for down the road! 

Twitter is something that I think is great to use for advertising or even connecting with different people, through tweeting each other and having the option to direct message. I have used Twitter before so it was quite easy for me to navigate my way around the website and being able to set up my account for ADED 1P32, I think that this is a great way to connect with other students in the class, because we are able to use a type of social media and I believe many of us probably use on a day-to-day basis (I could be wrong!). I also believe that this is going to be useful in my education learning because the accounts that I am following are or are similar to the different online tools that we are currently learning about and using for this class. I think that being able to communicate and view these different tools from a different perspective is cool. 

When looking back at my PLE I would say that Twitter would probably fit under the Connect section because it is a network that is allowing me to keep in touch with everything from friends to potential future jobs. But I do think that Twitter is going to help build my knowledge because depending on the type of accounts you follow you are able to keep up to date with the weather, news, and daily activities going on in your area and I think that this is going to help me stay involved. 

One last thing I want to mention is a post about a teacher's classroom, and because this past week was their 100th day, they did activities in the classroom that involved 100, for example they hypothetically read 100 books, put together 100 puzzles, etc. I thought that this was a cool idea, and that it in some ways would motivate the students to want to do more, so that they were able to see the progress they were making throughout the rest of the year. This is something that I may use in the future! 

Until next time,
Amanda :) 

Weekly Report & Reflection - Week 4

Hello Everyone, 

I hope that everyone is having a good week and enjoying the weekend! 

This week we were asked to look at a couple of different bookmarking and tagging webpages and use them to save websites and articles that we found interesting. I used Diigo and personally I think that it is a great webpage, due do the fact that not only does it save my favorite articles and websites, I am able to insert sticky notes and highlight text that I feel is important or I really like the fact that I am able to save it and select the option to read later. I believe that this will be helpful to me in my educational future because I am able to save articles that I am using in papers or other types of research and having the ability to highlight and save for later is a great feature. I also like the idea that after looking through at what it meant for a bookmark to be valid and reliable, I am able to tell what sites are useful and are going to be good references to me as I am working towards papers, etc. This has expanded my knowledge about what websites are good to use and which ones I should watch out for. 
 
The next thing we were asked to look at were different curation tools, and I personally liked a couple of the options that we were asked to explore. The one that I liked the best though would have to be Paper.li I liked this one the best because it showed everything that I was interested in, in one webpage. Which is essentially like Feedly, but it is set up differently. I think that this tool is going to help build my knowledge because I am going to be able to get new feeds and articles everyday and I am going to get important updates on a daily basis and this is going to give me the chance to expand and explore what I already know. 

When referring back to my PLE I would say that both of these types of tools would go under my Organization category because they are both helping me organize my interests so that I am able to have them all in one place. I think that in some sense they could go under entertainment as well because while using my curation tool it incorporates some sources of social media as well. When looking at digital citizenship it talks about how being effective plays a role and I think this ties closely to what we were working through this week it being effective and having multiple sources in one area. As I was going through my Feedly today I came across an article about getting better grades (Feedly - College Blender) and as I was reading through it I was able to see that by changing some of my current habits I would be able to focus better and land better grades. 

I hope you enjoyed this weeks entry! 
Until next time,
Amanda :)  

Weekly Report & Reflection - Week 3

Hey Everyone!
 
RSS Feeds? Before starting this weeks session I honestly had no idea what they were or what they did. But now after completing this session and doing the discovery activities, I have a better understanding and know how to navigate them as well. 

One of the feeders on my Feedly that I am interested in and that helps me learn on a daily basis would be Buzzfeed, this website is something that I am able to find helpful tips and tools about pretty much anything. I am able to learn new things from this website everyday. It has everything from cute pictures of animals to tips on how to travel lightly and the best places to visit. My learning has grown both from using Feedly and seeing how the format of the website is very easy to follow and how everything is laid out along the side and easy to access. 

RSS feeders have helped build my knowledge on digital literacy because while I was generating my feed I used multiple different search engines and browsers to find the different blogs that interest me. I believe that these different search engines have taught me how to navigate through different websites and by using these multiple browsers and search engines we are essentially teaching ourselves how to use the internet. This has also helped me understand digital responsibilities and that we have to respect and use the internet in "proper" ways. I interpret this as making sure that we are using it to research something, get images and more many youth and adults for social media. 

 

Feedly is something that I would most definitely put into my PLE under the Organization category, because I find that it is an amazing website and being able to see all of the blogs or webpages that you are interested in, in one place makes it that much easier to keep track of them all. It would also fit into the Connect section of my PLE because by following the blogs I am able to keep up to date on things that interest me and then I am able to reflect on them. 

Overall, this week has been very informative for me and I am looking forward to what the course has to bring! 

Until next time,

Amanda :)