Weekly Report and Reflection #7

Hello Blogger!

I am now back to the grind after reading week! Unfortunately no reading was done as it was my 21^st birthday and I was to busy relaxing. As lots of you may be stressing out because midterm season is fast approaching, I thought I would share a blog I found on my Feedly reader.  Here is some study motivation for you all to hop back on the study bandwagon and do well on your midterms! Remember to BREATH. FOCUS. TRY AGAIN. 

Raashka, 2016

This week in session 7 I explored and learned a lot about Goggle Docs. I learned how to use Google Docs in order to create PowerPoint’s for things such as presentations I can use for class, spreadsheets, documents and many more. I found Goggle Docs really useful and a valuable because it is very accessible for the general population as it is given available with out any charge. When looking at the most common programs a university student like my self downloads on their computer (excel, PowerPoint, and word) these programs can be very pricey.

Being said that most students such as my self, and even adolescents use these Microsoft programs on a regularly or daily basis I believe that Google Docs is an easy tool to transfer their skills with out much confusion. If you have read my blog posts from previous weeks, Diigo and Evernote both have “cloud like” features to allow you to access your stored information from anywhere you would like. Goggle Docs has the same feature of saving your work which is very appealing to myself as there have been many occasions when I have forgotten my laptop at home and needed a site I bookmarked or researched for a current project. There has also been a time where my laptop has died at school and using Google Docs would mean that I could access my work when I am at school regardless of an unexpected situation. Using Google Docs is very effective when completing a group collaboration project. This is very beneficial for the next assignment I am completing in my ADED 1P32 class as I have to do a Google Doc project. This will be very helpful as this program also has a forum you can chat on with your partners to work together while live.

Cangeloso, 2015

I believe that I can add Google Docs to several aspects of my personal learning environment such as organization, creating, and even socialization. Organization as I can store my information in a cloud, creating because I am able to create spreadsheets, documents, and presentation via the tool, and socialization because I am able to collaborate with group partners over the program via the chat forums.

With technology advancing so quickly, and learning about several new tools throughout the duration of this course, I do feel that it can be overwhelming. Since many of these tools also have some similar features, I do think that I could remove some of them from my PLE. I do not know which ones I would delete just yet, as I am still getting familiar with them all. However I feel more digitally literate then ever before. I now realize how aware I am with some of the online tools that are available to me. These tools can benefit me in many ways like my educational journey and daily life.

Thanks for reading!

Jess

Weekly Report & Reflection #6

Hello Blogger!

Being that spring break is upon us, I thought that I would share some reading week ideas with you! After looking through my feedly, I came across a Student City Blog . This blog talks about different spring break packages and cool destinations you can go last minute!  The blog shares what a day is like in different destinations, which helps you decided where you would be interested in going! Unfortunately I use this feed to just live vicariously through travelers, as I am always busy studying on reading week!  

Student City Blog, 2016

Throughout this week’s session, I learned a lot about a new tool called Evernote. It has so many fascinating uses and I think it is a really good tool for university students like myself to use. This was my first time learning or ever hearing about Evernote and I believe it has some really similar uses as Diigo as it is also a form of bookmarking. I am able to track my work and all my life’s information in an organized manner. I am able to control my information allowing for extra time in my daily researching routine.  It also allows you to share and tag key words almost like twitter and Diigo. I find Evernote really reliable as I am able to grant my information from anywhere at anytime. How Evernote works is any websites or information I find…gets transferred in to a “elephant cloud” which automatically categorize my information. I love this tool because I am I huge organization freak and I hate wasting time trying to re-find research. This will be very useful in my educational activities because for example, when I am doing a research project it is very time sufficient and I will be able to collect several forms of information on a single webpage so my information will be organized.

Limav, 2016

These valid and reliable online bookmarks contribute to my work in building knowledge both in and out of school. I would definitely add this tool in to my personal learning environment or even my network because I can use this tool daily as a university student. When adding this tool to my PLE I would absolutely put this under my organization category and even creating. I would put it under creating because this tool is a major stepping-stone leading up to creating a final research project or presentation as it provides the foundation of my research. Organization represents this tool well as I am able to categorize all my notes under different tabs which is very sufficient for things like note taking and like I said before research!!

This tool along with many others I have learned about in this course (twitter, diigo, ect) are helping me grow technologically. Each and every week I am learning more and more about becoming a digital citizen and gaining digital literacy.  As my awareness of different tools are constantly increasing I find that I am able to use my time more wisely and in turn benefiting my educational journey.

Thanks for reading!!

Jess

Weekly Report & Reflection #5

Darnelle, (2015)

Hi blogger!

This week I have came across an awesome article that I found on my feedly that us university and college students may find very helpful throughout our educational journey. This article talks about 10 simple hacks to land better grades. I believe is very evident to my learning because it is always nice to see how others achieve their goals and if these recommendations will make a difference in my education.

This week I added another tool to my personal learning environment called Twitter. I deleted twitter back when I was in high school as I did not find much use for it other than tweeting what I was doing or retweeting what others have tweeted. After using it throughout this weeks session, I have found many more uses for it that can benefit my education and make me grow as a digital learning. I am sure most of you know what twitter is or have used it before. If you are new to Twitter or have no idea what it is, it is a social networking tool. It allows you to send and read tweets which are short messages containing 140 characteristics. You can also include "hashtags" in your tweet which is represented by a pound sign (#). These hashtags allow us to identify messages on a specific topic like this course #ADED1P32. By clicking on hashtags will then bring me to a page where others have hashtaged the same topic. This tool will be very useful in my educational activities as there are many ways you can use twitter in the classroom. By tracking a hashtag topic you can communicate and collaborate with others that are tweeting about the same thing. I can also connect and network with educators such as kinesiology professors who have twitter by following them as they post insightful ideas regarding my degree. Every week I am learning more about becoming a digital citizen and gaining a positive digital literacy. However, after becoming more digitally literate with twitter I have also learned that it can become really negative if you post inappropriate tweets because as soon as you tweet anyone in the twitter world can view it if you are open to the public which will build a negative digital footprint.

This week I also learned about my personal learning network (PLN). It is an informal way of learning that allows people to interact with each others because anyone who I interact with over social media or networking sites build my PNL. These interactions build my knowledge in both technology and collaborative skills as you need to communicate with others. When looking at my personal learning environment, I will definitely add this to my week 2 PLE of technologies that I use. I would categorize twitter under collaboration because it allows me to share information with people that I may not normally communicate with. By doing so, this opens up my circle of contacts to an ever-growing community of like-minded people. I would also categorize twitter under socialization because I am able to engage in informal conversations with other twitter users as well as sent direct messages to others.

Thanks for reading!

Jess