Summer EME 6414- J Foxx

This week was very chaotic for me personally and it was tough to devote time to anything other than my personal family matters, but when I finally got the chance to do so I was very happy with this week's content. Learning about networked knowledge activities and playing around with new tools really inspired me to think about how I can improve my craft next year- in the traditional classroom and if we continue with digital learning.  I have also thought about how I can incorporate a lot of these things into my instructional design aspirations. There are several ways that social media and networked knowledge activities can be woven into instructional design for education and corporations. They truly support formal and informal learning.  I am also very thankful that I have created these new social media accounts and networks specific for my career interests, because now instead of my Facebook and Twitter feeding me puppy pictures and political news, I am getting updates and inf...

This week the tools focused on writing/publishing, annotating, and mind-mapping or concept mapping. These are all types of tools that I would love to incorporate in my classroom and share with colleagues. There is such a need to help students improve their critical thinking, writing skills, planning out their writing, thoughts, or arguments, and these tools may be tools that can aid in teaching those skills. I tried out several of the tools that were recommended and then explored one of my own as well. Here are my thoughts for each tool.  Framapad is a collaborative text editor for writing/publishing. At first glance, this tool feels very similar to Google Docs allowing multiple users to collaborate on writing and editing a document. Each user is assigned a specific color, which is nice, it makes is very clear who has added what content- easy for users to edit and easy for teachers to grade. There seems to be a lot of different ways users can collaborate as well, mind maps, graphs...

So I took a step back this week to focus on myself. I buried myself in housework and yard work, and a good book. It was peaceful, it was relaxing, and most of all it brought back a sense of normalcy that has been missing from life lately. During this time I stayed away from social media, I did not spend hours on my laptop reading through news articles and watching YouTube videos, and I did not think about the news or schoolwork.  It was so refreshing to not feel the pressure of being connected all of the time, and after walking away I can definitively say that pressure is exactly what I was experiencing. Having access to information and social media is powerful, and wonderful, but with it comes responsibility. Responsibility to use it wisely- we tell our children to be careful about what personal information they post online and should probably heed our own advice. But there is also a different kind of responsibility that I realized I feel due to social media. I feel a sense of res...

The past two weeks have been mentally draining in reality and in graduate school but it seems like we are all trudging through the best we can. I forced myself to be more involved this week but also more kind to myself with breaks when I felt overwhelmed, anxious, or just plain tired.  I continued to participate on Reddit and lurk on Facebook for my community norms project, which has been interesting to say the very least, however, I am now dreading writing the paper because I have so many thoughts swirling through my head.  I thoroughly enjoyed checking out the Week 5 tools and fell in love with Refind . I now have something fun to start my mornings! Instead of having my coffee and watching the news and checking my emails, social media, Canvas notifications, etc. I have my first cup of coffee with my 15 Refind articles that are all picked for me and my interests, and when I set up my account I made sure I picked FUN interests- food, travel, entertainment. I stayed away from a...

I didn't set out this week to write a blog post discussing the current events and protest, but nevertheless, the universe and my research have brought me here. Several of my classmate's blogs mentioned social media use in education and we had a very thorough class discussion regarding ethical considerations using social media in a K-12 environment. I was curious to explore other opinions and suggestions for integrating social media in my classroom so I searched through Ted Talks to see what I could find.  I actually found two Ted Talks that discussed the pros and cons of using social media to organize protests and social movements. I watched both and found the discussion very interesting and relevant for what is going on in society today.  The first of the two is titled, Let's design social media that drives real change  and he is the person who created a Facebook group that led to the revolution in Egypt during the Arab Spring. He reflects on the ease of organizing this ...

The readings and discussion this week has mentioned several projects and resources that I have never heard of. The reading mentioned Project Gutenberg , a collection of over 60,000 public domain books, all cultural artifacts that are being digitized for public use and preservation. I am amazed that I have never heard of this project before, after all my BA is in History, this kind of thing is right up my alley. There was also mention of Open Course Ware, which was kick-started by MIT's Open Course Ware program in 2002.  I took a few minutes to browse MIT's course offerings and I am simply amazed at the amount of knowledge and resources that are free to access and use. As a historian seeing this type of work makes me proud, it is deeply rooted in historical and societal traditions to pass down knowledge and expand access to knowledge. Without the expansion of travel and trade and without the invention of the printing press it is hard to believe that society would have progresse...

A question was raised in class this week- are you a chronic bookmarker? Yes, guilty as charged. I bookmark a ton  of things that I find online- mildly interesting things, resources to use next year in class (that I forget about), lists of cool products on Amazon, etc. They pile up quickly, are a jumbled mess, and most are never looked at again.  As someone who is a self-proclaimed neat freak, and my closet is organized by type of clothing and color, I cannot believe how atrocious my bookmarks folder looks. I could and would  organize these if I used them more often but I don't. This begs the question- do I not use them more often because they are not organized? Or do I not organize them because I don't use them? A true paradox.  However, this week is the week that I realized the virtual toolbox does not have a bottom. It is truly limitless. We explored several new tools this week and I got on to almost every single one of them just to view and peruse briefly, and the...