Aggregating Adventure - Week 4

I must say the aggregating experience adventure for this week was pretty fun and exciting to say the least.  Prior to actually attempted the assignment, I was pretty overwhelmed and thought it would be another extensive assignment.  However, once I got started and actually explored Protopages and Netvibes, it was pretty self-explanatory.  Look at the examples for both also made it easy to choose which tool to use and give me an idea on how to create my personal page look. 

So I chose Protopages.  It seemed to be the better choice as for being user friendly.  I also was a little nervous in Dr. Bigenho’s instructions to make sure to make the page public for Netvibes.  So after registering all of my information I was off and running.  I decided to personalize mind more by adding a picture and creating a brief bio of myself.  After that, I wanted to go straight to what was required, which was linking our blog page, twitter feeds that relate to our course, class wiki, Youtube channel with embedded playlist. 

All of the required widgets was pretty easy, I did have some issues with the Youtube channel embedding the playlist.  However, after watching a quick Youtube video, I was able to embed one of my five playlist. 

Overall, it was extremely user friendly.  I didn't play with the tabs too much but I can definitely see it to be useful for separate classes, courses or subjects for the classroom.  Below is the link to my Protopage.

 Winston's Protopage

 

 

Twitter Adventure (cont.) - Week 3

I’m starting to really have a better appreciation for Twitter.  Again, it hasn’t been one of my favorite social platforms.  However, from a professional stand point, I do see the infinite possibilities with sharing information, utilizing others thoughts and research and the sharing of articles for personal or professional viewpoints. 

I had the opportunity to look at a few of the hashtags from the link provided.  Wow!  It was a very exhaustive list of all sorts of interest areas.  A few that peaked my interest were #careerteched, #busedu and #blackedu. 

The #careeteched hashtag was amazing.  I was able to see the common sharing of what is really near and dear to me as a CTE educator.  One article that really spoke to me was  about blending academics and technical skills among academic colleagues.  Time and time again, I mention to other CTE teachers that its more than the skill set in CTE.  Students must understand the conceptual meanings of what they are doing.  This is where the relevance piece comes alive.  I’ve been in a couple of career academies and this is the one thing I look for.  Is CTE and Core classes integrating?  Which is another discussion in itself.  Every year as the leader of my CTE department, I create a committee of teacher leaders.  I think I may be able to come up with Twitter article study as opposed to a book study which is what I’ve done for years. 

The #busedu hashtag surprisingly had a few topics of internships and CTE related information.  There was also lots of discussion on school finance and business ethics.  This peaked my interest not for the CTE portion surprisingly but the finance piece.  A lot of what I do at the central office level deals with our federal and state allotment monies.  And let me just tell you.  Our district is pretty small and my department (CTE) alone brings in $12 million. 

The #blackedu hashtag was very eye opening.  There were lots of controversial topics such as, “Do educators (teachers) have a lot to do with how interracial friendships of kids decline as adolescence?” I found a lot of the conversation to be similar.  However, there were some great articles of African American successes in education. 

Overall, Twitter has definitely been overlooked by me.  However, I’m aware of the functions of Hootsuite and TwitterDeck, I’ve just not found a use for them at my level of exposure.  I’m sure that I will.  This course in general has given me tons to consider through my career as an educator. 

YouTube Adventure - Week 3

I am still amazed at the continuous learning I’m going through with this course.  I will admit other than just searching videos, I’ve never created my own channel and explored creating new playlist.  It was pretty simple as a first timer.  I created the first playlist which was about using Twitter and exploring Twitter Tools.  I found about three great videos that peaked my interest.  I also was about to sort the videos in playlist order of my choosing.  After exploring these videos, I learned a little bit on Tweepi which is a tool you can use to target more followers or you can use it to unfollow folks that don’t follow you or haven’t in a long time.  I had to ask myself why was this so important.  I now realize that millions of people use Twitter and if you want to get your messages out there your follower and follow numbers are important.  That’s what Twitter is all about.

 I then created a playlist for videos about Wikispace.  I learned tons just by exploring the video.  Wikispace is more than just allowing invited users to edit or see who edited a document.  You can make your page extremely interactive by adding links, images, and widgets which really take the document to a new level.  Widgets allow you to add videos, maps, slide shows, RSS feeds, etc.  Wikispace also allows you to add additional pages, assign projects if you are starting a PBL, create events and assign when assignments or homework is due.  The best feature for teachers is the assignment tool which allows the teacher to check for activity. 

Next, I created a playlist of videos about Web 2.0 tools for learning.  I came across some amazing videos.  One video spoke about a few interesting tools.  Articulate storyline which allows you to create a highly interactive online courses.  Trello which is a project management application that allows you to collaborate with team members and track the project as it moves through production.  You can create boards and list for the group to work from in the classroom.  Also, Diigo is a social bookmarking which allows signed up users to bookmark and tag web pages. Users can share these tags in the Diigo community or outside the app. 

My fourth playlist creation was about Career and Technical Education (CTE) courses.  Many of the videos were about the great opportunities students gain by being in a CTE course in high school. I’ve taught, been a coordinator, director and now an executive director in a very robust CTE department.  I’ve been in 3 different school districts all in the CTE realm and I see how it changes lives of many privilege and unprivileged students and moves education forward.

Overall, I’ve learned lots this week with working with Youtube, Wikis, Blogs, Google Docs, Twitter and the list of Web 2.0 tools go on.  I must say intentional planning and exceptional learning outcomes are key.   

 

 

My YouTube Playlist

https://www.youtube.com/user/wcminix01/playlists?sort=dd&view=1&shelf_id=0

Twitter Adventure: Week 2

All I can say is WOW! This week has been such a learning curve.  I’m must be honest and share that I’ve NEVER had a Twitter account until now.  I’ve always had a Facebook page, Instagram and most recently a Snapchat.  It wasn’t until I had to create a Twitter account recently for this course that I can now say I’ve started tweeting. 

I don’t see the big difference from my other social media accounts, such as Facebook.  However, there are a few differences such has in Facebook, I’m used to seeing a running scroll of all of my friends’ posts.  On Twitter, I don’t see that yet if it exists.  It looks like you have to go to individual followers to see what they posted on their timelines.  Another fun tool I’ve discovered and played with is the hashtag. This seems like a fun way to share common thoughts and basically be a part of a group.  The issue that I’m finding with hashtags is that I get so excited to share something, I forget to add the hashtag code.  For the most part, I’m enjoying tweeting.

 I’m excited to say that I did add Hootsuite and Flipboard to my list of tech toys and apps to start playing with.  Hootsuite seems like a fun tool to combine all of your social media to one centralize controlling spot. I also saw the feature for scheduled feeds. I think this would be cool if you have similar content going out to all social media.  For me, I’m a little more personal on Facebook with pictures, videos and jokes than I am on Twitter.  I’m still learning Flipboard and was able to post an interesting article about Google classrooms on Twitter.  However, I’m still learning to navigate my way through. 

As for my apps on my phone, I can utilize Twitter through Facebook and Instagram.  I have a news app on my iPhone I can share on Twitter as well.  With my iPhone, there really is almost anything I can share on Twitter. 

Being an educator, I definitely see the power of Twitter and students being able to share their common thoughts.  Being that I haven’t been in the classroom in some years, I haven’t had the opportunity to try Twitter in a lesson or for fun.  However, I see that Twitter can be a fascinating tool to allow students of this tech age to learn in a new way.  It definitely changes the teaching and learning realm. 

Vanity Search

This Vanity Search assignment was very eye opening.  To be honest, I actually google myself and others all the time. However, I’ve never dissected all the various areas of my personal digital footprint.  I’m always excited to see where name and info pops up.  I was able to search my name pretty easily because my name, especially my last name, is very uncommon. 

Googling my name popped up several webpages that I’m associated with.  The social accounts were reflected in my search which were LinkedIn and Twitter.  A number of the webpages resulting from the search of my name were associated with my position in my school districts webpages, such as our CTE department webpage and documents.  I also had results from previous blogs I’ve created from other courses.  I was surprise to find out I was associated to articles and events from my professional relationships and involvement with our Grand Prairie Chamber of Commerce and our city council.  I did click on the images tab on Google and found many photos from the various webpages including work, social, blogs, etc. 

I’m still amazed and a little nervous that the web holds a lot of information about our careers and personal information.  From my search I feel I’m represented in a good light with my involvement in my school district’s role and in the community. 

I believe this is a great assignment for adults and students, especially secondary students to see the importance of their digital footprint.  I hope to expand more positive information about myself through this course and play with other technologies that will assist in this expansion.