Report and Reflection 7- Practising Digital Literacy

For week 7 we explored online collaboration and learning. When I was in elementary school and even high school we used collaboration for a number of different projects. We had peer editing and reading for certain written projects, and collaborated on other things such as presentations and slideshows. Collaboration can be a useful tool to further one’s learning and improve their writing, as discussed in the article Institute for Writing &Rhetoric! Collaboration can help students understand writing as a public or communal act as opposed to a private of isolated one. Collaboration can also help a student develop a sense of audience. There are many ways that collaborative learning could be practised, depending on the intention. It could be done with an entire class, small to large groups or even in pairs, in order to properly reflect the student’s needs and learning objectives.

Since my early days of schooling, collaboration has definitely involved. Having access to the internet and the cloud, along with Google Docs is one example. Google Docs is an extremely useful tool that allows users to collaborative on the same document at the same time remotely from different devices. As detailed by Lefever (2007), Google Docs can be used to upload documents online and allow multiple users to edit and revise (or create) all at the same time, with any changes made being saved immediately. Google Docs is not just for documents either; it can be used for spreadsheets and presentations as well. Using Google Docs is not only simple but it is free!

For my own PLE, I already have Google Docs on it, under Education: Learning/Creating, because I have been using it for collaborative work since my first year at Brock. I primarily have used it for group papers, but have also used it for Powerpoint presentations. It made things much easier because instead of having to find the time to all meet up, which was different with everyone having different school schedules, we could simply divide the work and use the Google Doc to work on it when we could. This allowed us to save time and still allowed us to collaborative and reviews each other’s work.

(2013, April 12) Google Docs [Online image]. Retrieved from http://www.edgalaxy.com/journal/2013/4/12/20-google-docs-secrets-for-busy-teachers-and-students

This week on my Feedly I came across an interesting sports article titled: Stephen Curry’s legend continues to grow at an unprecedented pace. The article highlighted a basketball game between the Golden State Warriors and the Oklahoma City Thunder that took place last night, and specifically the performance of Curry. Curry tied the record for most 3-pointers made in the game, which included a buzzer beater to win it in overtime. The article goes into detail about the level of play Curry has risen to and how it has never been seen before.

Talk with you next week!

-Jordan 

Report and Reflection 6- Collaborative Notes and Documents

(2012, May 14). Evernote [Online Image]

 Retrieved from http://mergy.org/2012/05/use-the-

evernote-clipper-with-safari-on-ipad-and-iphone/

This week we explored Evernote and its capabilities. I personally had never heard of Evernote, but after learning about it and trying it out it seems like a very useful digital tool. I have heard of One Note, which is a similar service but I was unfamiliar with Evernote, so I was initially intrigued.  “Evernote is a cross-platform app that serves many purposes—it can be your digital file cabinet, note-taking tool, daily journal, task or project management system, recipe-keeper, and more.” (Pinola, 2012) Evernote allows you to integrate so many things into one place. Terry (2012) states a number of different things that Evernote can be used for, such as storing your work schedule, bookmarks, blog posts, ebooks, brainstorming notes and more. It allows you to save web pages and send emails, tweets, and more to your account. It is a way for someone to keep things organized. It is perfect for storing any physical information, like school notes for example and digitizing them. These notes would then be backed up and added to the cloud. What makes this feature so useful is that the same Evernote account can be accessed on multiple devices. This can be very useful is someone wanted to view their notes on their phone while on the go. 

Evernote could definitely be added to just about anyone’s PLE since it is such a diverse application. There are many ways that someone could use Evernote. One could use it as a social tool, an educational tool or even for your job. For example someone could use it for typing notes for class and keeping them stored and organized online. Someone could also use it socially as a journal, or for blogging. One could also use it as a way to organize things at their work, if they had an office job for example. For students I believe the main use of Evernote would be your notetaking and keeping your notes for all your classes organized and in one place. If I were to use Evernote this would be what I would use it for, so it would fall under the educational side of my PLE. However since I have less than two months left of school before I graduate, I will probably just stick with the current methods of notetaking I have now. However Evernote may be a useful tool to keep myself organized when I am working after school, so I will keep it in mind.

This week on Feedly, I read an educational related article titled “Should you get a Master’s Degree?” which talked about whether or not it is worth it to get one. The article weighs a number a factors in deciding whether it is worth it. For example one’s age plays a role is whether or not to get one, and the field that the person is going into. Having a master’s degree effects the income earned from each field differently so sufficient research on the field you are looking to get into is needed. This article was an interesting read for me since I am graduating soon and it I gave me a number of pros and cons to weigh.

(2014, July 14). Masters Degree [Online Image] Retrieved from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140714093126-101777985-masters-degree-is-it-a-good-idea

That’s all for this week, talk to you next week!

-Jordan

Report and Reflection 5- Microblogging and building your PLN

This week, going back to the Personal Learning Network we are given further understanding.  As defined by Kate Klingensmith, a personal learning network is the entire collection of people with whom you engage and exchange information, usually online. (Klingensmith, 2009) Personal learning networks can be very beneficial to anyone that uses them. “The beauty of people communicating online is the ease of finding and sharing information and – if you ask for it – the group feedback that you get on ideas and projects.” (Klingensmith, 2009) Your PLN can be built through a number of different online tools that can further one’s learning, such as Feedly, blogs, RSS feeds, Twitter and even Facebook.

These personal learning networks can be built up over time and can always be reformed or improved upon based on your learning goals. For example a student’s personal learning network may change based on what they are doing in school, as described by Vicki Davis. A PLN can become a student's virtual locker, and its content changes based on the student's current course work. When a term paper is assigned, the students will search the Web to sign up for information that will feed into their personalized Web page to construct a PLN for that topic. When they get a new project, they will assemble another page. (Davis, 2009) Another way to find information is by networking, and one of the main tools to do this is twitter.

(2015, July 28). Twitter [Online Image]

 Retreived from http://www.thekissagency.

com/make-real-connections-on-

twitter-with-advanced-search/

Twitter is an extremely popular networking site where users can connect with their friends and family, their favourite celebrities, educational or personal accounts and so many more. Twitter allows you to not only follow and look at others ideas or information, but allows you to create and add your own and collaborate with others to richen your learning network. Personally, I did not get twitter until I started university and do not really use it often. I don’t post anything of my own, I just use mostly to receive sports updates and to follow different accounts that I find funny. I find that while the content of twitter may not be that rich (only 140 characters per tweet) is provides the fastest updates for anything, whether it be new related or sports related, etc.

This week while browsing my Feedly, I found an interesting article titled “disparity in life spans of the rich and the poor growing”. The article details how the life expectancy gap between the rich and the poor is growing. A study found that for men born in 1920, there was a six-year difference in life expectancy between the top 10 percent of earners and the bottom 10 percent. For men born in 1950 the difference more than doubled to 14 years. I found this to be an alarming statistic, and one of the possible causes stated in the article was that the amount of smokers among the rich is declining, comparing to those less fortunate. Two other possible causes were obesity and drug addictions among the poor.

This was another week of learning and building my PLN, and again I found an interesting article that I never would have known about if it wasn’t for my Feedly! I am looking forward to what is in store for next week!

-Jordan