Social Media certainly has it’s way of getting back to you. Sadly, for Justine Sacco, it ended her career. Just before she got on an 11 hour flight to South Africa she tweeted, “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!”. With only 170 followers, Justines tweet ended up going viral. The top trend of that day was #HasJustineLandedYet?. It was truly a disgrace because she has South African family and she had embarrassed her own heritage. She was the Senior Director of Corporate Communications at IAC. You would think because she worked in the communications field she would know not to post something as inconsiderate as she wrote. This is just one example, of many, how social media could really hurt you. It could have easily been avoided if she was either told, before she was hired, about posting certain things to social media. I think any type of company holding a social media etiquette meeting would definitely be beneficial, and maybe even save someones career. Sometimes people post things as a joke, but they don’t consider what it could actually lead to. Always remember to THINK before you post!
Chapter 5 in the Connected Educator gives us some tools that will help support Connected Learning. It tells us one major tip that we should follow is to use the same username and password for all these sites so that you will never get any confused. Social bookmarking is a great start on how to stay organized. You use different categories in order to make different folders and know which one holds what. They suggest using a website called www.delicious.com. It is an easy way of bookmarking and
you can also use it to search like a google search, but it will search using your interest in mind. In order to build your PLN you can use resources such as: blogs, google reader, podcasts, microblogs, twitter, wikis, and many more. All of these will be most useful for yourselves and your classroom. The chapter also gives you many online tools for social networking. Some included: Ning, Classroom 2.0, TeacherTube, and Netvibes. All of these tools would be useful for both teachers and students. While you use all of these websites it is important to make sure you know how to manage your online reputation. In order to do this you need to make sure you track yourself and watch what you are posting. Be professional at all times and make sure you use the right type of websites to build good information of yourself on the web. As long as you are cautious you should be good to go!
This week in class we played with some new APPs that used augmented reality. This includes making an image more enhanced by sound, picture or other real life information. Some of these APPS included: Space Needle, Anatomy 4D, ZooKazam, Spacecraft 3D, and Quiver. One that really stood out to me was Quiver. Professor Calderwood handed out two sheets of paper for students to color. Once they were done he collected them and opened up the Quiver APP. Once you open it, you aim the camera onto the coloring sheet and it brings it to life! It even uses the colors that you used to color in your picture. I really do wish I had these apps as a child in school because I think augmented reality is really going to help further children's learning experience.
During class we also had our 2nd APP Smackdown! Alexa Seary introduced an App called “Remember the Milk”. It is basically an online to-do list and task manager. What I really liked about it is that you can set reminders that will pop up to remind you what needs to be done. Many people these days are obsessed with their phones and are always looking at them so these reminders can reiterate when you need to accomplish the next task before it is due! I also tend to have problems keeping things very organized, so I believe this APP will be very helpful for me.
According to dictionary.com, augmented reality is described as, “an enhanced image or environment as viewed on a screen or other display, produced by overlaying computer-generated images, sounds, or other data on a real-world environment.” Drew Minock explained the best way he likes to describe augmented reality is to picture yourself walking in the halls of Hogwarts. If you have ever seen Harry Potter, you know that all of the picture frames in the halls are moving. Each picture can talk and they are all interactive. What’s really cool about augmented reality is that it’s just like that! It makes the boring world in front of us come alive. You can take a simple piece of paper and make a 3D figure pop up above it from your piece of technology.
ZooKazam was another of the APPs we got to experiment with during class last week. You can start by downloading the APP to your Apple or Android devices. Then you can download the grass pattern, or simply use the back of a dollar bill. The size of the target will affect the animal size. There are many animals you can use from dinosaurs to insects. Once the animal pops up you can see the lifetime & status, size & weight, and their habitat & diet. This type of augmented reality will change the learning education of children. Instead of learning by hearing, kids will learn by reading. There are even separate modes for teachers and students.
Google cardboard was another APP we got to play with in class. It is a very simple concept that allows for virtual experience to all with little to no cost. It has actually helped a woman see for the first time in 8 years. The patient, Bonnie, had Stargardt disease, that is a form of vision loss which can lead to complete visual loss. The
cardboard shows a stereoscopic image that you can view from a phone's image that delivers the same image to each eye. For whatever reason it was, this was enough to help Bonnie see for the first time in eight years! It is inexpensive because most people already have a smartphone so they just need to download the APP. Cardboard viewers can start at $20, or even be hand made at home. There also are other things to purchase such as plastic viewers that have head straps and can be worn without holding for a small cost.
Last week in class we discussed online presentation tools to use in the place of PowerPoint. Some of them included: Office Mix, Sway, Emaze, Haiku Deck, PowToon, and GoAnimate. Office Mix is pretty awesome because it is like Powerpoint, but you can have slide recordings, quizzes, screen recordings, screenshot. It makes up for the the features that PowerPoint was missing. Sway is another Microsoft product. It is similar to google docs as it will let you invite other people to edit the one document at the same time. You can also embed a PowerPoint into it. With Emaze you can either create a new presentation, or even upload a PowerPoint and it will "Emazify" it.
This week in class we had a google hangout with Astronaut Abby. Abby is a first year college student that wants to be the first astronaut to go to Mars. She told us how her mother was always very supportive when she started talking about this when she was just little girl. Of course, in the back of her mind she thought it was absurd. She continued to stay supportive and tell her to focus her pursuit of study in math and science. Not only her family, but her friends too , were always there when she needed it. Abby told us that if you think something is important enough you will find the time to do it. She is a part of MARS Generation, that is completely voluntarily run. There is a board of 4 people, then professionals in the space industry, social media industry, and a handful of others not in those industries that
volunteer their time. There are about 15-20 people working with them. Something very important she told us was that when you make a new connection, within those first 24 hours, you should contact them and send them a personalized message on linkedin, twitter, email or whatever social media account they give you. It is very important so that person remembers who you are and can possibly help you make other connections. If you wait too long it could be awkward if they do not remember who you are.
Prezi is a presentation tool that more people are starting to use as an alternative to PowerPoint. Instead of flipping to slides, it zooms over to the next part of your presentation. In the article for “A “how to” guide on using Prezi in an academic environment” , it reminds us that even though it is a great tool to use, you have to know how to use it. What’s good from presenting a Prezi is it immediately gets the audience's attention. When they realize they aren’t sitting through a boring PowerPoint they become intrigued. Your ideas are also allowed to be drawn out the way you would like. Whereas PowerPoint seems to almost force you where and how to put your important information. On the other
hand, because you are allowed to be more freely on Prezi, sometimes people tend to overdo it and make their audience dizzy with all the movements. By doing this they tend to forget about what the true meaning their presentation is about and just make it all about the movements. Some tips they give us are: Coherence matters, use the top-down full presentation view, take responsibility for the motion sickness, choose your visual theme early, and make sure you sign up with your academic email address.
Sway digital storytelling is a new part of Microsoft that is another substitution for PowerPoint. It has been made for today’s technology use with phones, tablets, laptops, etc. Unlike PowerPoint, the purpose of Sway is to show information easily, clearly, and quickly. They can also be easily shared and embedded. Sway is designed so that the presenter should follow a storyline. This flexibility allows for a more free flowing presentation. It does not allow for many adjustments, but because of this, it keeps the presentation
easy to follow. By doing this it also reduces the amount of time you have to spend on editing it. You can view a Sway presentation either horizontally or vertically. Once you know how to work Sway, you can decide if it is the right choice for the type of presentation you are making.
I have just recently been acquainted with GoAnimate. It allows you to turn a script into an animated video. It offers backgrounds, music, templates, and characters; which allows someone who maybe isn't that artistic to successfully use it. You basically set up every scene and then it collectively adds up to a full video at the end. Both teachers and students can use it for lessons and presentations/projects. A good thing about the final video is that not just anyone can find your video online. It can also not be published publicly without a teacher approval. This will allow a fun new way to teach / learn a lesson in the classroom environment. I also believe it was very easy and enjoyable to make.
In chapter 3 of Untangling the Web, it presents us other presentation tools other then PowerPoint. PowerPoint is used majority of the time for teachers and students to present projects. While some are okay, many can put you to sleep. It starts by telling us about Slideshare; a website that lets you upload your presentation to share with other educators around the world. Poll Everywhere lets you ask your classroom a question and they can respond via text message. Voicethread allows you to share pictures and videos and you are able to comment on them. While all of these sites are very easy, the more you go in depth, the more features you will find out about them. One of the last ones the book goes over is Prezi. Prezi is an awesome presentation site that is similar, but better than powerpoint. Instead of clicking to another slide, the Prezi zooms over to another piece of content.
Neil Pasricha had been going through a rough patch. His wife told him she didn't love him anymore and soon after, he lost his best friend. One night he came home and came up with the idea of making a blog, 1000 awesome things. The blog included the little things that make your day that you never really think about too often. He was soon given a Webby award for best blog. After that, he put his thoughts into a book, The book of Awesome, which was the #1 International bestseller for 142 weeks! The book focuses on the three A’s: Attitude, Awareness and Authenticity. Having a great attitude no matter what pain you have and moving forward is a good start. Being aware is knowing that you have seen everything for your first time once before. Authenticity is just all about being you. You should put yourself in situations that fulfill your heart. Neil concludes his TED talk with telling us how we only have 100 years to enjoy all of these little things in life. He stated a quote that really stuck out to me, “You will never be as young as you are right now”. This really hit home with me and made me realize that I need to truly live every day to the fullest because you don't know what tomorrow will bring.
Rita Pierson has been an educator for over 40 years. Because of this, she states how she has seen basically all school reforms. There are many students who suffer from poverty, negative peer influences, and lack of support from family. One thing that she stresses will help teaching students with these things are relationships. Valuing and the importance of human relationships are needed to educate. Teachers need to want to have a healthy relationship with their students in order to successfully teach them. The significance of leaving a legacy is also very important. For a teacher to touch a student's life, is truly when you know you have had a successful educator.
This week in class we had a google hangout with Adam Taylor. He is the founder of SciStuChat and a high school science teacher in Tennessee. He educated us on how he started #Scistuchat. Scistuchat is a twitter chat with high school students and scientists. It all started Mr. Taylor's second semester in 2011. They had an online chat with a scientist outside of the classroom, while the students were at home. Later on, another teacher wanted to join in on it, and they started doing this once a month. Taylor first found out these scientists were on twitter from a magazine. He then found twitter lists of these scientists and started contacting many of them. He also told us about one of his most memorable chats which was talking with the US Department of Energy. We also spent a portion of class making a LinkedIn account. Luckily, I made one last year so I know a lot about the website. However, I did not know that you can join groups. I joined a few Social Media and Media Marketing groups. In these groups you can connect with others, post and view jobs, and make business contacts. It is really very helpful and I'm happy I learned that this is available on the site.
