Weekly Report and Reflection #11

Hello Everybody!

Can you all believe that this is my 11th blog talking to you guys about my experiences with a variety of technology? This will be the second last blog from me, where I will be talking about my experiences exploring tools such as SoundCloud and RecordMP3.

Wikipedia. (CC) 2016.

For this week in particular, we were looking into the world of webcasting and the different types of tools that can be implemented for this venture. I learned that creating a podcast is both deceivingly easy and difficult all at once.  As I was navigating around SoundCloud, I found that creating a membership was incredibly easy, and the site to be straightforward. I easily could find the steps on how to start recording and how to redo my attempts. However, I became frustrated while I was using the tool, as one of my attempts became unusable after I tried to 'rewind' it too many times, resulting in an annoying static sound and another clip got lost after I mistakenly clicked the wrong button. Both of these situations could very well be my inability to work a computer properly, but I would like to believe it was SoundCloud. I also explored RecordMP3, where I found it was very similar to SoundCloud and quite easy to follow. However, as I tried to create a clip, the tool would not pick up my voice.

I can see both tools being very useful in educational activities, even implementing either tool into projects. I think they would be a great starting place for children who are wary of public speaking and children who excel at it. I also think it is valuable to have more people speaking out about topics , which could include school projects, allowing for other people to hear from the perspective of another age group. I also think these tools are excellent, as it allows the listener to connect more with the speaker and really listen to what they are saying. I would definitely include this in my PLE under my education blurb. However, I would have to ensure that when listening to other people who have implemented these tools, I look out for the citations to determine if the facts are true.

After reading Andrea's post this week, I liked how she related these tools to VoiceThread, as I never made the connection myself. It is interesting to see that although the tools are similar because the main selling point is the use of your voice, I never saw them as being similar. This may be because I prefer to type, where VoiceThread gave me that option, as SoundCloud did not. I also liked her idea of multimedia with incorporating these types of tools in blogs, to give your words a literal voice. I also found it interesting how Andrea and Tyra  spoke about enunciation and interviews in relation to tools such as SoundCloud. I did find that I had to speak more clear, but unlike the ladies mentioned, found it to be bothersome because once I started to script out my speech, I started to sound robotic and flustered. However, I do see how these tools would be excellent to use in practicing for future interviews.

Wikipedia. (CC) 2016.

This week, I found an article from Feedly that ties into the digital aspect of the course and the school year drawing to a close. Nielsen's blog post focuses on the use of LinkedIn and the important role it plays in career readiness. If this topic intrigues you, please check out Nielsen's blog!

Until next time!
Nicole

Weekly Report and Reflection #10

Hello Again!

This is a two-part blog post, so I want to give you a reflection of everything that I learned from Animoto and my thoughts about my continuation as a Digital Learner!

As I mentioned in my latest post about Animoto, I had a good time using it, but I never went into the problems that I had with that tool. While using Animoto, I found that I would become stressed with the tool because it was lacking a lot of the features that should have been customizable. The text was something that I had the most problems with because it was very inflexible and did not allow for creativity to be expressed. As you must pick your design before you create the slideshow, you virtually have no control over the font, size or colour of what you want to write, On top of that, you also can only fit in a certain amount of words into your slideshow, which I found to be highly inconvenient, causing me not being able to get my point across. I was able to see how Animoto would be convenient because it walks you through the instructions on how to use it and the format is quite easy to follow, but I would still prefer to use Word's Slideshow.

Prezi. (CC). 2016.

I do believe that someone would be able to use Animoto in an educational context, yet I think Prezi would be more useful. I have found that navigating Prezi is much easier, plus I have had professors who have told me that they prefer Prezi. It is for that reason that I would choose not to include Animoto into my PLE.

With that being said, I did learn more about being a digital learner this week because of Animoto. I learned the importance of respecting copyrighted work, as well as coming to the realization of how many images are under copyright online. Smart Copying talks about the importance of understanding what copyright is and you should definitely take a look at their site if you have any lingering questions!

Wikipedia. (CC). 2016.

This week in my Feedly, I found an article from Michael Geist that relates to the constant battle that the Copyright Board fights with the Education Board. I found this article to be very interesting because I noticed that professors were becoming more wary about the content that they were allowed to scan onto the computer. If you want to see the progress the two Boards made, you should check out his blog!



Until next time,
Nicole

Weekly Report and Reflection #9

Hi Again! (x2)

As you may have noticed, this is my third post this week, as I have been doing many different things this week to talk about digital citizenship. I am aware that I have already given my opinion on VoiceThread, but I will touch upon this tool again for my weekly reflection. 

VoiceThread. (CC) 2014.

As I have previously mentioned, although I do see how VoiceThread can be useful, I do not personally think I will be implementing this tool in the future. My favourite part of this tool is the fact that I can hear the voices of the people leaving comments on this site. I listed this reason because you are able to actually hear another person talk about their opinions on the topic that you have clicked, which can help you establish a sort of intimacy with another user. This can also help to ensure that there is not a misunderstanding between what a person is saying because you are able to actually hear them (something that is a problem if you are just reading a comment). However, as I thought about this more, I realized that because there still is an option to just type out your comments, the possibility of misunderstanding is still there. I also thought about how this site may not be the most useful for people who are deaf or hard of hearing because they would be missing out on the voice comments. 

That being said, I still would not know how I would incorporate this site into my life as a student and for that reason, I would not include it in my PLE. I could understand why someone would want to implement this tool into their PLE, although I have no idea how they would do so. I feel that I would prefer to just find a blog and provide a written comment, that I would have to ensure makes my point clearly. 

Polldaddy. (CC) 2016.

Another site that I looked into was PollDaddy, which I thought was interesting. I like the idea that you can create your own polls, surveys, and quizzes. I find that this would be more useful than VoiceThread, as I could see how I could put this tool into action. I would recommend PollDaddy to psychology students, as it has been in those classes that I have had to create polls for. However, as I am not a Psychology student, I would also leave this site out of my PLE because I would not need it. 

I decided to read other classmates' blogs about VoiceThread to see if they shared my opinion of the site and found that Andrea had brought up an interesting way in which it could be used in the future. I was pleased to see that Andrea would not implement it currently, which made me feel slightly relieved that I was not missing out on a great way to use the tool. I highly suggest going over to her blog and seeing her perspective!

From this weeks Feedly, I found Richard Byrne posted about three updates that Google Docs has done this week. Although this does not relate to this week specifically, I have written about Google Docs! These updates will definitely make you a more efficient digital user and encourage you to use Google Docs more. One update in particular could be useful to teachers, in allowing people to export the docs to an EPUB format. If you are interested, please read more at Byrne's blog!

Until next week!

Nicole

Technology Use Scenario #1

TeachThought. (CC) 2016.

Scenario: Sean decides to create a website that is a parody of his school's website. Sean uses the same website style as the school, but makes up stories and misinformation about the school, such as features about weekend drinking parties. Because he is in the class that makes changes to the real website, he is able to direct people to his website instead of the real one. The principal, Ms. Martinez, finds out about the change when an angry parent calls to complain about a story on the website mentioning her daughter. Ms. Martinez contacts the school technology- support person, Mr. Jones, and requests that he remove the parody site. She also asks Mr. Jones to find out who is responsible. 

It is quite evident upon reading the first sentence, that Sean is not being appropriate. To be a digital citizen, it is important to keep your digital footprint as clean as possible, which is something that Sean is not keeping in mind. It is also important as a online user to be respectful of others, just because you are typing from behind a screen, that does not mean your words are not effecting someone else. Sean has conducted wrongful behaviour by creating a parody that is misleading others, posting false, offensive and hurtful content, spreading awareness to the site and by using the class meant to promote his school in negative ways. TeachThought blog talks about 20 rules to abide by to be a good digital citizen. Sean has failed to consider his digital footprint, has not considered the people that he may be hurting in creating his parody site and has made his site personal by attacking people and his school. On top of that, he did not properly think out the consequences of his actions to not only himself, but the people he has written about. Sean should have first thought out how he would feel if someone were writing untrue words about him and what would happen to him as a student if he went through with his idea. That alone should have prevented him from creating this site, as I think none of this should have ever happened if he properly thought out the repercussions. 

I want to know if you have any ideas of what Sean should have done differently or if you agree with me that there was not one thing that Sean had done right. He was committing identity theft in stealing an institutions identity, slandering their reputation. I would also like to know how you think Ms. Martinez should punish him and if there are any ways to avoid this situation in the future.

 

Reflection #8 - Wikipedia

Hello Everyone!

I am back again this week to talk to you about a topic that I am quite familiar with. This site is one that I have been prone to peruse from time to time, but have also had experience creating pages. Of course, if you read the title of this blog, you would see that the topic this week is Wikipedia. Wikipedia is an interesting site because you can create your own page about anything you would like for the public to see. This tool also allows you to easily add pictures and references, while integrating a coding component, which is fantastic for tech savvy individuals. Unfortunately, as I have mentioned many times, tech savvy are two words that are not associated with me.

Wikipedia. (CC) 2016.

I have created two separate Wikipedia pages within the span of a year and found that I absolutely hated my experience. Both of these projects did happen to be group projects, but it was not my partners that made my experience so awful. Although I do see how Wikipedia can be useful, I was always taught that it was not a reliable site because anyone can create a Wiki page. I understand that you can virtually find any topic and can incorporate various components such as images with a variety of texts, while being able to have multiple people input data at once. However, it was the coding aspect which I absolutely despised. As coding is very sensitive, if you are off by one slash or character, you cannot complete the function you were trying to accomplish. There are various errors that you can encounter while coding and you may not know how to fix them, which makes working with Wikipedia incredibly frustrating for me. I very much prefer Google Docs, both when working solo or with groups because I find it to be more straightforward and it is easier to understand.

Wikispaces. (CC) 2016.

I think that Wikipedia could be a great tool to gather information for a project, but I also do not like how anyone can create a page. I think this makes the pages suspect, as you do not know how accurate some of the information is. I also would not recommend creating Wikipedia pages as a project because I do not think it is fair to mark someone on designing and coding, if that is not their forte. I could understand if the class was specifically aimed at coding or websites, but I think it is unfair for a class that does not involve either. I do see the importance of becoming more tech savvy, but as my experiences with Wikipedia have been awful, I would prefer to learn in other ways.

To end this week's blog, I wanted to share Lisa Nielsen's article this week called Don't Waste Student's Time with Note Taking. Something Better. I felt this was a relevant article as a fourth year student, that tackles the issue regarding student note taking. The article stresses the importance of children being supplied the notes prior to class, so they are better able to focus on what the teacher is saying to create meaningful connections. If you are interested in this point of view, feel free to check out her article!

Until next time,
Nicole