This semester I’ve been lucky enough to retain a lot of information about exploring and creating my digital portfolio. While The Connected Educator taught me many new things, I also could not have learned everything I did without the help of Professor Calderwood. I have learned about social media etiquette, how to grow my PLN, and much more.
One thing that The Connected Educator taught me was to use a consistent username throughout all my social networks. I started to do that and I thought it was very helpful. I was always forgetting usernames and passwords so this really came in handy. It also told me that growing a PLN would take time, effort, and determination. Boy was that true! If it wasn’t for this entire semester I would not have known where to even start. I am now much more comfortable with social networking and understand how I can use it to my advantage. I was even lucky enough to have the honor of the author of The Connected Educator, Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach, follow me on Twitter!
Although I already had a LinkedIn account before this class, I never knew about the groups I could join. Groups allow you to connect with others, view and post jobs, and make business connections. I also learned a lot about Twitter. I never used Twitter the way I do now. I enjoy
mentioning companies and people, and even loved getting responses back! Twitter lists were also a new thing introduced to me. This was awesome because it organized my tweets into categories. It is very helpful, I believe, because twitter can sometimes get a bit overwhelming for some people.
Throughout the semester I’ve used many new sites. One of my favorite ones was GoAnimate. We were asked to make a 2-minute commercial for our major. I never really used a site like this one before. It was also very easy to navigate through. Another new tool I learned to use was different types of presentation sites. Instead of just using PowerPoint, we were taught about Prezi, Google Slides, Powtoon, Office Mix, and one of my personal favorites, Haiku Deck. I used
Haiku Deck for two of my projects in this class, and even a project for another class. I know I will be taking all of these sites with me into future classes because they really are more interesting than PowerPoint; especially for a communications major.
Every single thing I have learned from this class will stay with me throughout my career and life. I have learned when to, and when not to, post something. I know now to THINK before I post and watch my online reputation. I will always be professional and have the right sites to build good information of myself online. I also had the chance of having very creative classmates which made the experience that much better! Exploring Your Digital Portfolio, #GEN2243, has been a very rewarding class and I would recommend anyone at Stockton to try and take it!
Chapter 9 of The Connected Educator was called “What the Future Holds”. It states that Connected Learners know that the internet is not only a great curriculum resource, but even more, a learning resource. The web is used to find people, share insights, opinions, and exchange ideas. As Psychologist and computer scientist Roger Schank states, learning is about adding new knowledge to existing understandings. It is also understanding that we sometimes have to unlearn, to learn new material. This then allows us to be able to innovate.When you are thinking about change in education and technology, you must change everything about how you have learned. Four core components should be kept in mind when you understand what change means: Knowledge, Pedagogy, Connections and Capacity. We are lucky enough to live in a time where technology offers integration in learning and education. We cannot simply just read this book and leave all the information behind. We have to bring what we learned with us in order to be successful in the real world.
This past week we had a Google Hangout with Robyn Hrivnatz, who is the Marketing and Educator Programs Manager for US EDU for Microsoft. Although she is in the Education department, she talked a lot about social media and technology. She said it is very
important to use and watch social media to understand what the competition is doing. It will also be beneficial in making the right business decision. Being an employee at Microsoft, she said she is able to post freely, but must make it known that she works with Microsoft. Therefore, she is not allowed to share anything on disclosure, and was trained. Robyn actually transitioned from education to tech, having a minor in computer sciences. She changed her career because she explained that she loves the “pluther” of information out there that we can learn about. Video technology is one of her favorites, which I thought was pretty cool because I love video technology as well. She admitted that she misses having that student-teacher connection, but she loves her job and is happy where she is.
For the duration of class, we were told to get into groups and were each handed a Makey Makey box. We were told to put it together, with no instructions. It was hard at first because we all didn’t know where to start. We then decided to plug in the USB to the computer and connected it to the Makey Makey board. After some trial and error we figured everything out. We used items that included bananas, play-doh and aluminum foil. It was a fun group activity and luckily I had a very hardworking, easygoing group.
Chapter 4 in Untangling the Web, talks about social networking skills. Technology in the past two decades has certainly made its mark. TodaysMeet is a backchannel website that a teacher can use for discussions and classroom interactions. It can be private, or even public. One thing you can do is let them answer questions while watching a video.It can be useful for writing and answering questions.
Another network you can use is Skype in the classroom. Skype was one of the earliest online video chats to come about and has become very popular. Video conferencing has become a huge thing in businesses, as well as for individuals. You can now use Skype in the classroom to find other educators and experts, as well as the other way around.
An additional site is called Kidblog. Kidblog is a blogging tool that is designed especially to have a safe space for students to blog. What is great about this blog site is not only do you express your thoughts by blogging, but you get to create your blog look. An idea they give teachers is to have a Drop Everything and Blog Time. Once you teach a lesson, you can then give students time to express their learning experience. Edmodo is another useful site. It was actually one of the first social network sites assigned for schools. Teachers sign up for free, make a class, and the students enter a code to join the class. It is similar to a facebook page. Teachers will be able to post assignments, questions, quizzes, polls, and notes online for everyone to see. They can even add documents. You can also broadcast messages to the class, subgroups, or an individual.
The last social networking site they give us is Twitter. This semester is really the first one where I have used Twitter for social networking through my major. I never fully understood how I can use it, but now that I do, I understand how beneficial it can really be. You can send a direct message to someone, post a tweet, and connect. By
hashtagging you can find certain tweets, as well as, connect with a certain company or individual. Tweetdeck is a way that you can keep track of certain steaming tweets. You can filter them into different categories to help stay organized. It can seem like a lot to handle, but when you stay organized it really is beneficial.
Pinterest has become a new phenomenon that shares ideas through pin boards. You can create different pin boards for different subjects. It is almost like bookmarks for the internet so you can save ideas and come back to them later. Teachers have recently began using pinterest to their advantage. If you are new to Pinterest it can definitely be confusing at first. The website gives us examples of how beneficial Pinterest can assist teachers. You can start by finding lesson plans and other ideas for subjects. There are pictures and craft ideas to decorate and rearrange your classroom. You can even use it to find field trip ideas. It is also helpful to learn new ways to teach a lesson, or even download some material. You can even share your ideas and pin it to share with other educators!
IFTTT is a website that allows you to make connections through social sites. You can choose one thing using the statement; if this, then that. It is also compatible with Evernote which is awesome. This Evernote article gives us 5
examples of IFTTT to Power your day. One of the combinations includes if you tweet, then it will save it to Evernote. The second one is if you make a Gmail purchase, it will send the receipt to Evernote. You can move tagged articles as research into Evernote, and can even send a text and include a # as a to do list and it will send straight to Evernote. Lastly, you can submit your fitbit information straight into Evernote. These 5 seem very useful and I can’t wait to try them out.
Weebly is a website that helps build new websites! It is super easy and guides you through steps. They have released the third generation of their product, Carbon. Carbon gives you an app center that can help other business needs. The apps will allow people to see which ones are relevant to their business. Don’t worry because all of the apps in the app center will be approved by Weebly first. Weebly’s look as a whole has changed. It even is compatible for IOS and Androids now.
In class we were discussing websites we can use that will help us create a website. Google sites and Wix are two of the websites we learned. What’s great about these are that they are both easy and free to manage and work with. One of my favorite sites that I will be using to make my own website is Weebly. It allows you to pick a theme that you want your
website to have. You can drag and drop text and images onto your website where you want them. There is no coding required! You can even make an eCommerce store.
mentioning companies and people, and even loved getting responses back! Twitter lists were also a new thing introduced to me. This was awesome because it organized my tweets into categories. It is very helpful, I believe, because twitter can sometimes get a bit overwhelming for some people. 
Haiku Deck for two of my projects in this class, and even a project for another class. I know I will be taking all of these sites with me into future classes because they really are more interesting than PowerPoint; especially for a communications major.
