Weekly Report & Reflection #11

Alright, well that went by quick, time for one final blog for this ADED course.

In my exploration of webcasting tools I have learned that I am not as tech-savy as I had thought I was going into this course. I had believed that I had experienced all that the internet had to offer, before really creating anything long lasting for the internet. While completing this week’s exercise I have noticed that by saying what you are thinking rather than just typing it you are reinforcing it in your memory, making it easier to learn, and easier to connect as a listener to what people are saying. To hear someone’s voice instead of reading what they have wrote you are connecting on a much more personal level. Podcasting could be useful in my educational activities simply because it adds that extra dimension to things such as group projects, or online presentations.

SoundCloud contributed to my work in building knowledge by allowing me to connect with others and hear their voices. There’s a lot that you can gather from a person’s voice, their inflections, their nuances, how deeply they feel about different subjects can really come across differently compared to when you are just writing something that they have written in the past. The best example of this is texting. Many people love to text, and that’s fine, but it’s no replacement for a phone call once in a while.

SoundCloud, Muziboo, and the other creative knowledge expression tools are different from previous collaborative/communication tools because of the keyword in its title. EXPRESSION! As we type, we are limited to the ways that we can truly express our feelings, of course we can use italics, all caps, even an exclamation mark or two, but that doesn’t give you the real feeling, the vibrato, the inflections used.

 This one wouldn’t be too difficult to integrate into my PLE, as I stated earlier by saying things out loud it simply reinforces these thoughts and forces you to articulate them in a more polished style. You may feel that you have a very good grasp on any given subject, but to truly understand anything, it’s helpful to be able to teach it, to tell other people how to do it. While coaching baseball in the past, I have realized that showing younger kids how to do something is way easier than specifically breaking down the individual steps involved through verbal communication. However, telling the kids the individual steps involved creates better fundamentals, and at the same time reinforces these basic principles that I have long forgotten. This in turn, makes me think more about the basics of baseball and helping me in becoming a slightly better athlete.

This week’s Feedly article of the week that I am linking to this blog is What Your Students Really Need to Know About Digital Citizenship by Vicki Davis. In her article she talks about proactive knowledge and experiential knowledge and it corresponds with this course perfectly.

Alright, well with this being my final blog I’d just like to say one more thank you to everyone who has followed me thus far, hopefully you check back in once in a while!

Gideon Burton https://www.flickt.com/photos/wakingtiger/3156791845/

Kevin 

Creative Commons Attribution

Kevin's ADED1P32 by Kevin Gillies is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Podcast!

This week we are looking at podcasts! This being the first time I have ever done was at first I was a little bit nervous, however while completing the other tasks involved in this course I have realized that there is nothing to be worried about while working online. 

Colleen AF Venable -  https://www.flickr.com/photos/abletoven /322 

Using a podcast contributes to my digital citizenship through forcing me to create the two way street that I have talked about in the past. Before this course, I would constantly take from the internet, I would take from YouTube, I would take from google scholar, Facebook, Instagram, always an uneven one way street where I was taking information, I was not much of a contributor.  Although being a digital citizen is about creating a two way street, being a GOOD or GREAT digital citizen is about much more than that. To be a great digital citizen there are other rules which have been adapted from real life situations, those ideas include, leave everything better than how you found it, and remembering the human, or treat others as you’d like to be treated. Often people feel a disconnect when they are typing away from behind a keyboard, not only does this make you a poor digital citizen, it leaves behind a very negative footprint, that will remain with you forever.

This course has taught me that not only is this digital footprint a direct representation of you it will remain available for anyone to find for the foreseeable future.Hopefully my footprint is on the positive side as I am finally beginning to contribute to the online community rather than constantly taking from it. Hope everyone has enjoyed my podcast, and as this class winds down I would just like to say Thank you to everyone who has been following my blog thus far. 

Kevin  

Weekly Report & Reflection #10

Immediately after posting my previous post about copyright infringement in music, I came across This great article on my feedly reader. In it, it continues the discussion of copyright in regards to the music industry.



Another case of questionable copyright infringement is shown in the mash up of these two songs which is made to compare the commonalities between the two. Now, copyright is a huge topic that could easily cover a whole course. Copyright is supposed to be a way to protect original audio, visuals, thoughts etc. However things such as fair use are where copyright becomes fairly confusing, especially in the music business. Sure you can use a little bit of the idea, some of it, not a lot of it but maybe a little bit is OK, the question is where do you draw the line? As a student who has been writing essays for years copyright is something that I have been avoiding for quite some time. Unfortunately with the internet amalgamating everyone’s ideas into one place this has created an issue. As I have previously mentioned in my blog I am beginning to feel that there is a finite number of original thought, or original guitar chords, or original drum beats, and this is where copyright can become a scary thing. I’m not cheating because I have borrowed from someone else’s thoughts, just because Sam Smith used similar guitar chords as Tom Pettys, or Pharrell has used similar drum beats as Marvin Gaye, should these new artists be responsible for searching out the entire history of music to give credit to someone who may or may not of helped them create their own sound? If this was the case it may be impossible to write an essay without a thousand references. As far as how this affects me being a better digital citizen it worries me. Copyright can be a scary thing.

After using Animoto I was slightly concerned because of the template that is set up and that I selected, sure I added a couple of photos, and a few words, but the whole background of the slideshow was not my original content. If I post this online is that copyright infringement?  That would be a shame because in my exploration of the slideshow tool Animoto I noticed how easy it was to look professional. I simply added a couple pictures to a predetermined style of background and the webpage did the rest of the work for me. These tools are so useful in my educational activities because it makes it look like I spent way more time than I actually did developing the slides! These creative knowledge expression tools are different from other collaborative/communication tools I have explored because of the output of information. The webpage is very simple to use and gives off such a professional look at the end. With the combination of Animoto and Google Docs a group could create a slideshow in twenty minutes that would look like they spent a whole week to put together. This is definitely going to get added to my PLE for future presentation.

Sam Smith's "Stay With Me" and Tom Petty's "I Won't Back Down"

This weeks studies made me think of this, thought I'd share it.
what does everyone think? Copyright infringement?
Sam Smith settled with Tom Petty although Smith claimed to have never heard this song in his life!



Kevin

Animoto

Hey again,
This week we got to play around with Animoto!
First check out my slide show, then we can talk more about Copyright




As you saw in my slide show the Mickey Mouse Curve is a huge issue with Copyright, if you aren't familiar with the Mickey Mouse curve, you can learn more here.  This week using Animoto contributed to my digital literacy by allowing me to experience how to properly cite copyright free work online!  Also this week we have been focusing our time on the issues of copyright. Copyright is a very tricky thing to have to deal with, after watching videos and reading articles about it, I am scared to write anything because I am scared that I may be infringing on other peoples thoughts. This makes me think of the millions of monkeys on millions of typewriters because simply based on the number of people in the world, it’s hard for me to imagine that my thoughts are “original”, in other words “everything is a remix” (Ferguson, 2012) After reading these previously assigned articles and watching specific videos my thoughts have been created based on these previous experiences of watching the same videos as the rest of the class.  The idea that there are a finite number of original thoughts comes to mind. Is this possible? Is the world limited to a number of original thoughts? Although this is an original thought, has it been thought of before? Luckily I can type this into Google, and I'm willing to bet that I wouldn't be the first to do this. Which makes me think of Schrödinger’s cat…..Maybe we are limited in original thoughts, but only if we look to see if our thoughts have been thought of before.  I don’t even know if this string of thoughts is original any more.  Hope you enjoyed the video, and make sure you check out my reflection which will continue to look at copyright

Kevin

Weekly Report & Reflection #9

VoiceThread

In this week’s blog I will be discussing VoiceThread. VoiceThread is a web based platform which allows students to collaborate on specific ideas, through various methods, including texts, audio and video.  Using VoiceThread for my personal academic learning was a huge success as I often learn better while experiencing different ways of inputting information. The ability to see and listen to other students made class much more exciting. VoiceThread will definitely fit in with my PLE however, what I really enjoyed about VoiceThread is my ability to expand my personal learning network. After gaining digital access to VoiceThread and leaving behind my digital footprint on the discussion, I then received emails any time that new students would post in the same thread. Having the ability to "meet" these students who are interested in the same topic as I am through hearing there voice and sometimes actually seeing them speak, I felt as though I had expanded my PLN. VoiceThread was easy to use, and allowed me to progress my academic learning while using proper digital etiquette and interacting with people who like to share in similar discussions. Below you will be able to view the VoiceThread that everyone has been able to interact in. 

This week I also came across this great article in my Feedly which mentions VoiceThread as well as many other useful tools that you can add to your toolchest.  The article talks about different content-sharing platforms, assessment aids, as well as the capability of electronic note taking, and cloud syncing. My favourite part in this article is where Vicki Davis mentions linksharing through sites such as diigo, and others that we have visited this semester. Definitely worth taking a quick look at.
Well thanks for reading, until next week.
Kevin

Weekly Report & Reflection #8

In this week’s Weekly Report and Reflection, I will be reflecting on wiki’s!

http://goo.gl/zfft0t

Wiki's are webpages that allow for group collaboration, through access to one webpage, that can be edited and saved.  Wiki's are basically a word type document that can be shared, edited and saved, and then shared again. Wiki's allow for many authors to input different thoughts and ideas onto one common page, creating an easy place to access useful information. There are however concerns with Wiki's. Wikipedia, is probably the most well-known wiki out there and it is well known that the problem with this website is its credibility.  When a webpage is available for nearly anyone to edit it can quickly lose its credibility. Wiki's do have the option to be shared amongst people who are chosen to access the document. 

http://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/wikis/

Out of the web 2.0 tools that we have accessed this far in the course I would say wiki's fall right in between blogs and Google docs. Where a blog is more of a one way street, wiki's are shared and more of a group effort, but not nearly as group orientated as Google docs.  In a similar fashion to Google docs wikis can be edited by whoever the file is shared with, where wikis such as Wikipedia can be edited by nearly anyone if it is left public. This is where the problem with credibility comes into play.  

After using Google Docs it’s going to be hard to find a web 2.0 tool much better than that.  When I think of ways that I may use a wiki to plan a vacation, (as mentioned in Wiki's in Plain English ) for homework, to organize a sporting event, I have a hard time convincing myself that I would use a wiki over Google docs. I personally believe Google docs has everything one would need to collaborate and communicate. The main differences between the two are the ability for groups to work on a word document at the same time. While wikis are just as easy to use, access and share, Google docs are just as easy, with more capabilities.  Google docs allows your group to work on something at the same time, everyone gets their own colours, you can publish and set to view only, you can insert links, and so on. I truly find that Google Docs to be the best 2.0 tool that I've had the pleasure of using this semester.

There are many ways to use wikis to support learning. I would use a wiki to encourage group work and to send and share useful information while working on a group project. Wiki's can be used by teachers and set to a view only setting where students could see the updates being made daily, but not given the ability to delete, change or edit. 

While exploring my Feedly reader this week I came across this article by Vicki Davis called  What Your Students Really Need to Know About Digital Citizenship. I found it extremely insightful as it spoke about the 9 P’s of digital citizenship.Passwords, Privacy, Personal Information, Photographs, Property, Permission, Protection, Professionalism, and Personal Brand. Definitely worth taking a look at. 

So again this week I reflect on what I am learning about becoming a digital citizen and the rights and responsibilities of living in a digital society.  I realize that I am learning new things every week, and those things are numerous.  I learned that being a digital citizen is a two way street. I have learned that a digital citizen follows the golden rule of treating others the way you want to be treated, talking to people as if they’re in the same room as you, that we need to work together to determine appropriate-use framework acceptable to all. (Ribble, 2011) and that rights and responsibilities include being a good citizen, by doing to harm.  

Week Report & Reflection #7

Alright, in this week’s class we are working with Google Docs. Having a little bit of experience with this tool and  already critiquing it in our Great Tools discussion forum gave me a slight head start, however since that time I have grown even more infatuated with the tool. Google Docs is a smaller portion of a larger Google Drive, which includes Google Docs, Google Slides, and Google Sheets. Google Docs main concept starts off very similar to a Microsoft Word. The page layout and things you can do on the main page are common with Word. Which is a nice familiar place to start but then Google Docs keeps improving. To begin it is stored on the cloud so it is almost always available to you, even when you don’t have your original laptop that you started the document on. Secondly, it is accessed by more than one individual and can be used to collaborate with a group who are working to complete a common goal. Google Docs saves the process of sending information through email back and forth to each other which creates several different documents. 

Gillies, K. (CC) 2015.

It solves this problem by storing the information in one place, and allows multiple users to edit, submit, and collaborate towards the completion of any task. 

Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRqUE6IHTEA 

With Google Docs I can share the document online with someone who is going to help me edit and we can work on it together saving time, and effort in the very important final process of any good paper.  When two people are collaborating on a paper, or working on a project, something like Google Docs is incredible. The more people included in the work, the more amazing this tool becomes. 

Three ways that I could see people benefiting from Google docs being implemented in the classroom, could be from greater interaction between not just students alone, but teachers, students, parents, or principals. Google Docs could simulate an online classroom when large groups are all logged in together. A second way that Google Drive could be used in the classroom would be through using Google Sheets, to produce instant feedback on grades, keeping students and parents up to date. The third and final way Google Drive could be implemented into the classroom would be to create presentations using this fantastic tool. 

In my RSS feed this week I came across Raleigh Werberger’s blog in Edutopia, where he spoke briefly about Google Docs, and his attempt to use them in his high school. He spoke about its share-ability, and the power of the post it note giving more credibility to using Google Docs in the classroom. 

As I’ve mentioned a couple of times in previous blogs, adding these new tools to my PLE is becoming more and more difficult. This one is by far the most difficult. I feel that my PLE could revolve around Google Docs, as it can be used to create, collaborate, share, organize, and connect. Although I have always felt as though I have been a digital citizen when creating presentations, and completing projects, having to do so strictly online I feel as though my digital citizenship is finally becoming a two way street. Previously I have taken so much information from Google, and created a paper or created a project that would be handed in, or presented in a seminar.  Leaving my work online creates more information for other people to see which enhances my digital citizenship.  Leaving this positive digital footprint and increasing information instead of continuously taking information is new to me.  What I have gained this week, is the idea that being a digital citizen is a two way street. Not just acquiring, and manipulating, but also sharing.  

Weekly Report & Reflection #6

                                                                Evernote

http://i3advantage.com/blog/tag/digital-communication/

Last week I received an email from a friend who tried sending me a link to something on Evernote, knowing that this week we had to spend some time with Evernote, I signed up a week early to see what my friend was sending me. My friend attempted to forward me something that a friend had sent to him, to receive this I had to ask my friends friend permission to see the note, which I was not granted.  Although my very first experience with Evernote wasn’t very successful it did give me a chance to reflect on how Evernote worked. This kind of thing never bothers me because I like that my information is secure. By not being granted access to my very first Evernote I was actually happy to see how secure it was. 

Now that I've added so many tools, my PLE was becoming a little bit overwhelming. Luckily another tool was introduced this week.  After connecting Evernote and Twitter through Zapier and learning how it works I was extremely impressed. Zapier connects all of your important tools and makes them work together. While I am still mastering Evernote I have begun to notice how easy it is to save and store things online allowing me digital access to all the things I need. Having a reliable online bookmark that I can log into from any computer makes things so much easier, from not having to bring my laptop, to being able to do work while on vacation. All I need now is Wi-Fi and I’m able to have my work done and saved in hopefully a secure location that is only accessible to me and those I wish to share the information with.

Of course this will be added to my ever growing PLE, but the problem is where will it fit in? As I’ve mentioned in my previous blogs the lines between gathering, sharing, collaborating, and organizing are becoming more and more blurred, as many of these fantastic web 2.0 tools don’t fit into just one specific category.

This week while searching my Feedly account I came across two amazing articles the first by Beth Holland in her blog in Edutopia, which discussed a few of the new websites I've had the pleasure of working with. Evernote, Feedly, Pinterest, and Diigo were all discussed in the following blog. http://www.edutopia.org//blog/building-your-tech-ecosystem-beth-holland In this blog Beth describes building your PLE, or as she calls it an Edtech Ecosystem and other interesting thoughts such as when to use Diigo over Pinterest, and why we need both Drive and Evernote.

                          Photo Credit: RICHARD WELLS http://www.edutopia.org//blog/building-your-tech-ecosystem-beth-holland

The second article that I found in my Feedly this week is by the self proclaimed Educational Technology Guy, who has created an Evernote Tips and Tricks Series. On the corresponding webpage David Andrade discusses the ability that Evernote has to scan a business card and then add it to a contact list. The webpage discusses examples of using Evernote as a teacher, student, and admin. As well as many other extremely useful links all associated with Evernote. I definitely recommend the second link as you can find all the tips and tricks you need to know about Evernote. 

Week Report & Reflection #5

This week I have became more accustom to using Feedly and Diigo, which are both incredible ways for me to access a ton of knowledge in an efficient manner. Adding more tools to my quickly growing arsenal, we were able to add one this week that many of my fellow students and myself are already accustomed to. So, this week we got into Twitter. 

 

Twitter Logo. (2012) Retrieved from https://g.twimg.com/Twitter_logo_blue.png

 As we probably all knew in advance Twitter is an online social network/messaging forum, which allows people worldwide to connect instantly on similar topics. This web 2.0 tool is created by us for us. The content in twitter is largely people’s thoughts, and feelings about any subject. There are so many amazing things about twitter:

- Easy and free to sign up, easy to use.

- Comments that are short and sweet (140 characters).

- Ability to search for likeminded individuals/tweets through hashtags

- Twitter recommends people for you based on people you are already following

These are the main reasons why Twitter is my favourite tool used so far in ADED 1P32.

Getting back on Twitter for me, was extremely easy to do across both my laptop and cellphone, one of my favourite things about twitter is how easy it is for me to keep two accounts active at one time.  The click of a button allows me to switch from my scholarly twitter back to my more social account.  My work account, and my play account. My personal learning network, and my personal network.  In my exploration of Twitter I quickly realized that many people have the same type of accounts. In my previous experience with Twitter I have mostly came across the social accounts, with jokes, photos of food, inappropriate comments (poor digital etiquette) which may be the reason why I don’t use Twitter on a daily basis. Through this exploration of Twitter however, I have come to find a much more educated group creating a more successful personal learning network. With like minded people who are committed to leaving behind a better digital footprint, who know what it means to be a good digital citizen. 

Twitter will be useful in educational activities not only because as the Twitter Handbook for Teachers states you can leverage your PLN with hastags, but also because it allows me to get up to the second notifications of people are looking to contact me. This will be useful when completing the next sessions group assignments. As most people constantly have their cellphones within reach Twitter is just an instant messaging system that allows me to contact my group members instantly. This means if anyone finds something relating to a topic of research it can be utilized instantly by all members of the group allowing us to build knowledge quickly and efficiently. 

Reconnecting with Twitter and modifying it to achieve academic learning has already changed my PLE. In the future with the more followers that I can accumulate it will only become a better tool in my collection. The final question this week was what are you learning about becoming a digital citizen?  I have come to realize that by surrounding myself with better people (a better PLN) in the digital world, similar to our daily lives, creates a better environment fostering better results.

This week I have found this relevant webpage from my feedly, which is all about the trust that we need to have while using new technology. I was very interested in this webpage because it talks about how we all need to trust technology to create a better learning environment, while getting more tech into the classroom.

Weekly Report & Reflection #4

                                                         https://www.diigo.com/item/image/55aq9/5a46

This week I have experimented with Diigo and ventured into the world of the cloud.  Diigo is a next generation social bookmarking service that allows its users to generate modified content to pre-existing webpages giving you the ability to highlight, tag, comment and add sticky notes to any webpage.  This allows you to easily share and collaborate with others in your online personal learning network by posting things to your social media, or quickly and easily connecting them to your blog.  Being able to share webpages is common place amongst groups who are working on research projects, and friends who are just trying to get through classes together.  The ability to share pre-existing webpages after highlighting or adding sticky notes to them is a great practice for students and teachers alike. I personally have shared hundreds of webpages, and sent corresponding emails or texts along with them. The ability to annotate on the webpage itself through highlighting and sticky notes simplifies that process, and allows for greater clarity. Having things saved to the cloud only makes life easier. As someone who has little experience with cloud technology it is very simple and a fantastic way to link everything together nicely. Through Diigo and the cloud all of my bookmarks are saved to a spot where I am capable of accessing them from any one of my computers. My favourite feature of Diigo aside from the toolbar making it easy to highlight and sticky note, is the ease of sharing the information by adding the link to my blog or social media website. 

Through the exploration of bookmarking tools, I have come to realize how beneficial they truly are. The ability to create my own webpage through Diigo allows me to follow only relevant articles, which I can use in my studies and papers.  Thanks to Diigo, I am able to organize articles, which I know are both credible and current. This saves me time and effort and allows me to accomplish more in a shortened period of time.  I can also see how this will help me with group projects and many other school endeavours in the future. Tagging bookmarks with specific titles enables me to quickly connect with different subjects. At first it would appear difficult to label Diigo into my PLE diagram because Diigo could fit into all four of the categories.  Diigo definitely helps gather and organize and an argument could be made that it allows sharing, and connecting as well. 

To date this course has quickly become very humbling.  I was under the assumption that I was technologically advanced but it turns out, I'm not. Having no experience with many of these tools we are beginning to work with (RSS feeds, online cloud based bookmarks, google alerts…) I am pleasantly surprised how beneficial all of this technology can be. 

While spending some time with my new tools (Feedly and Diigo) I came across this article on symbaloo which gives the ability to embed various web 2.0 tools from across the internet. Tools like Google Docs, Flickr, Slideshare, TeacherTube and more. Which is something I have bookmarked to look at later possibly as another great tool. 

 

                                                                                             https://www.diigo.com/item/image/55aq9/5pnb