Blog Post 7: Professional Learning Network

My experience when it comes to the professional learning network I would say was enlightening to say the least. It wasn’t a very social experience and there were some things within the network I don’t particular like such as the RSS feeds. I did find out what I do like about the system and how it can help me gather and process data on topics I’m interested in. for example, I just found out that there will be a Black-Friday sale for one of the components I need for my research project that I otherwise would have never known about. It also, in part, has probably brought on this more self-improvement mind set I have adopted as of late. I find myself watching a lot more “how to” videos as of late pertaining to everything from crafting things, programming and just every day self-improvement. For me, this is what I think is so valuable about a learning network. It gets people to search out information they otherwise would not be able to see. This can help people trying to better them-self or in the case of education and students, show them that there is more to what they are learning than what is presented in the classroom. I know that sounds vague but what I mean is that if student can find outlets outside of class that they can apply their knowledge to, the learning becomes all the more meaningful.

Journal 6: Self Reflection

Let’s see, I would have to say that I have been enjoying this class so far. I personally like these kinds of classes that focus on project based lesson plan rather than remembering random bits of information. The modular nature of html lends itself well to this learning process. You, can build your knowledge bit by bit as the course goes on. First starting out with the syntax of the head and body then working you way down to understanding things like mark-up. The moment when the course really began to make me feel like I could build an actually web page was when we did the exercises in ch7. In my option it had everything you would need for a rudimentary web page, good mark-up, list, links to other pages and pictures. It wasn’t the hardest activity but it was one that felt like I was in control of the web design process and not just following along with what the book wanted me to do.

liknk to exercises in ch7
http://www.cpp.edu/~tmworden/Ged512/Book/Ch6/Exercise%206-1%20to%206-7/jenskitchen/index.html

Journal Post 5: Try Twitter

I for one am very surprised with how the past couple of weeks have gone learning about twitter. As I have mention before I believe I am normally someone how doesn’t use social media. For the most part, I use it more as a way to keep tabs on old friends or to get the latest general news. This is primarily the reason that I avoid twitter. For me it was just a bare bones version of the Facebook posting system where people posted silly things they did throughout the day. While that is the case for some twitter users, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that there were some users using the platform for my educational and personal intrigue purposes. I have been able to gain a lot of knowledge on the people and the topics I find interesting as well as getting it several times faster then with other media sources. I could see myself definitely using twitter in my professional development in the future. I also liked some of the suggestion that where put up this week on how to use twitter in the classroom. In particular, I liked using it as a question message board and using it to let the class post research material. It can also be used to create a short story where the student would trade off being the author. What level of use they would get in a physics class though I do not know. In education nearly anything can be an educational tool. You just need to know how to use it.

Q1 How can you add a twitter feed to your web site?
If you want to add a twitter feed to your website all you need to know is how to add widgets to them. Twitter provides an easy way to create widgets on your personal twitter account or searching for certain #’s. all you have to do is go into your twitter account and access the settings tab which can be found by clicking your account icon. From there, find the widget section and select create new. This will generate an imbed code for your website widget.

Q2 How do professionals use twitter?
Professionals use twitter in many ways. Some of these include interacting in a community, keeping up with college’s and friends, or simply to keep up with industry news. They approach twitter as if they were creating a profile for a professional conference. The biggest thing they do is just staying active on the platform. If you would like more info check out How to Use Twitter as a Professional. http://www.wikihow.com/Use-Twitter-as-a-Professional

Journal Post 4: Project Plan Assignment

  Note: The dotted line means that this file may be not connected some times.

Site title – Tanner Worden Personal Website (Worden Website)

Developer – Tanner Worden

Rational or focus – The site is meant to be my personal/professional profile website. In it, interested people can find information about myself, my interests, my particular skillset and what I am currently working on. It will also be a platform to share things that I have worked on in the past such as the web sites we work on in this class. I hope to use this site to market myself and provide a one-stop location for any information a potential employer would want to know.

Main features outline – The site should have a simple navigation tabs at its top that will lead users through the site. Its primary areas will be personal information, professional information (resume), and works.

Content – The Web site, at this point, will have seven main pages including the homepage (index). There are three main sectionals to the site - Personal information, Professional information and Works.

§  Personal information

·         Interest

·         Bio

§  Professional information

·         Resume

·         Contact

§  Works

·         Portfolio

·         Projects

Target audience – Potential employers and people who share similar professional interest as myself.

Design considerations. The site should be primarily easy to navigate. It should also be simple but still give off a modern feel that would make viewers interested to continue exploring.

Limiting factors – There are some elements I would like to add to the site i.e. a message board, contact sharing features and other interactive content. Since I don’t have much in the way of java scripting knowledge, these features will be left out for now.  

Journal 3 Blog Post: Social Media Concerns and Opportunites

Social-Media-in-the-Learning-Setting.pdf. (n.d.). Retrieved October 13, 2016, from       https://itconnect.uw.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Social-Media-in-the-Learning-Setting.pdf

For this week’s posting I read an article called Social Media in the Learning Setting: Opportunities and Challenges. In it they discuss the findings of the 2014 ECAR survey which draws from 250 instructions of higher education. in It, they discussed the use of social media in the classroom such as Facebook Twitter and LinkedIn. Overall they found these results:

• There has been more use of social media in the classroom.
• Student desire the instantaneous communication social media facilitates.
• There is evidence to show that social media is a preferred platform of discussion.
• There is a small adaption gap for student to incorporate social median into their education.
• Student prefer holding office hours over social media.

Some concerns that arise from the survey where:

• Privacy censers between student personal online activity and their professional one’s.
• That social media maybe a distraction for students.
• Communicating proper policies when it comes to social media in the classroom
• Faculty’s inexperience with the potential uses and benefits of social media in their classrooms.

After reading this article, from my perspective, the use of social media in the classroom seems to be a very beneficial thing. It is a learning platform that students have great knowledge and confidence in using. If utilized well, it should greatly enhance the educational experience of the students but should also increases the teacher’s potential teaching time. As is with all new technology and teaching technics, it needs time to develop not only as a teaching tool for the classroom but also as a skill for the educators. It is unrealistic to believe that any technology no matter how beneficial will gain instantaneous success in the classroom. With that said, I feel this can only strengthen the argument for its potential use in education.

Q1 How wide spread is the use of social media?

According to Best Masters In Education back in July of 2013, 96% of students with internet access reported using social media at some point and about 60% reported using it for educational purposes.

Q2 What are some ways that social media is already being used in the classroom?

In general the most basic uses of social media for education is Blogging or creating social groups like the ones found on Facebook. Blogging helps by making students feel like their work is reaching a larger audience and not just the teacher. While groups on Facebook allow students to collaborate and help one another even outside of the classroom.

Journal 2 Blog Post: Thoughts on RSS readers and Affinity groups

During this week, I finally joined the infamous twitter community. Just to make things clear, I personally don’t care that much about social media. The only reason I have a Facebook was to have a news feed and to keep in contact with old friends. I also deal with the learning disability known as dyslexia which makes reading more of a chore then a pleasure. This I hope, will give context to my experience with Affinity groups and Feed readers. While I do believe that Affinity groups and Feed readers are useful tools to gather information and people of like minds, from my experience I don’t think it is very good for me. My Dig page, for example, gathers tons of articles but what I found out is it wasn't all that interesting. Most of the information was cursory information about what’s coming out or people’s opinions on a particular topic. When I look for information I tend to search with a more targeted idea in mind. So searching through a Digg feed winds up being slower than me just finding the information by searching. The same thing goes for the Affinity group. Actually the groups would post something actually interesting but that wasn’t because the post itself said something interesting. More like, I was able to draw interest from the subject of the post. For example, I was watching a video from my feeds about a new game coming out and the most interesting thing wasn’t about the game but the new control mechanism they developed to minimize simulation sickness. It wasn’t the post itself or the trailer but my own prior knowledge coloring the way I was viewing it. In short, I don’t see this technology being part of my daily internet routine though.

Virtual Reality News @InsideRealityVR

https://twitter.com/InsideRealityVR?lang=en

Virtual Reality News @VRReports

https://twitter.com/VRReports?lang=en

Q1 How do you follow a # on Twitter?

Turns out the # naming convention is not an officially supported feature in twitter. It was developed by its community in order to search for relevant and related tweets faster. If you actually wanted to follow a tweet, you need to seek the help of a third party software.

Q2 Where and when did affinity groups start?

Apparently affinity groups started formally back in the 16th century with dining clubs in Britain that would meet regularly in the same area. Think of a group of food blogs meeting at a bar every year.

Journal 1 Blog Post: Chapter 1-3 Learning Web Design

Robbins, N., & J. (2012). "Learning Web Design: A Beginner's Guide to HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Web Graphics" (4th ed.). Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly Media.

For the most part the first three chapters of this book tries to orient the readers on what they need to know. It covers from the basic concepts of vocabulary all the way to what equipment someone would need in order to begin pursuing a career in web development. While a lot of the information is useful, as someone who is familiar with programing and computers in general there was very little information that I didn’t know already. What did intrigue me though was the software for web design as well as what operating systems was best for using said software. I am for the most part a PC user so hearing that Macs performed better and had more options really surprised me.

Q1          What are the three main parts of a URL address and what function do they serve?

The three main parts of a URL is the protocol, the site name and the absolute path. The particle is used to determine what specific particle will be used to retrieve the information from the WEB. For the most part this is http:// also known as hypertext transfer protocol. The site name as the name implies is essentially a mailbox code for the information you are trying to retrieve. For example, the www. refers to a profiler server while everything after refers to a particle site. The path is the direct file path in the server where the information is stored and being retrieved from.

Q2          What are the three main things web designers use to make web page and what do they do?

The three main things are HTML, cascading style sheets, and Java Scrips. HTML is text based coding language that tells browses how to display thing on the monitor. Cascading style sheets determine how specifically things like the text and other element look when displayed. While Java Scrips is used to create interactions in the page like buttons.