Week 12!

To start, I googled my name yet again.  Wow, what a difference from the beginning of the semester.  Instead of just a little more than half a page of results actually relating to me, there are now almost three full pages!  My digital footprint sure has grown in the last 12 weeks.  I am very happy to see that all of my search results still lead to a positive digital footprint. It is crazy how experimenting with various tools that I didn't use before can expand my digital footprint so much.  The majority of the search results are my blog posts throughout the term, mixed in with the various social network profiles that I have, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
For me, having a positive digital footprint is very important when I am working in the digital environment.  As my career goals are leading to the economic profession, I don't want anything on the Internet that could lead to a bad image of myself.  No matter what you are doing on the Internet you should always make sure what is being posted, on Facebook or other social networks, isn't something that could hurt your reputation.  These are things that employers look at when they are considering hiring somebody.
As a digital citizen, it is important that you are also promoting a positive digital environment. Using Internet resources as tools for learning and not tools to hurt other people, as it happens often on social networks. It is probably would be very helpful for many people, particularly those that weren't educated in school about it, to read some Nettiquette resources as those are great guidelines on how the Internet should be used.  People should always use the Internet as a place to learn and develop themselves further as digital citizens and building their positive digital footprints.

Lastly i hope anyone reading this enjoys their semester at Brock or at any college/school you may be at!

Podcast/Week 11

A podcast is a digital recording made available over the internet for download to an iPod or other music player.  These pod casts can be subscribed to and are automatically downloaded for you to listen to when you have time.  There are many pod casts available on iTunes and other audio sites, but they are not limited to just that.  You can create your own pod casts! Teacher's can record their voices into pod casts and use them as a different sort of lecture that students can listen to at home.  A great tool that I explored this week was Voki. Voki would be a very great tool to use with younger students in the classroom as it allows you to set up an avatar for yourself that looks like it is speaking what you had recorded earlier.  A very engaging tool that students can have some fun with when they are using it! I don't think that I would use pod casting tools as part of my educational activities since I can't think of anything I could use it for.  To me, this is a tool that would be more effectively used by teachers if they wanted to upload recordings of their lectures for students to listen to, particularly could be useful for online courses.  This isn't something that I would add to my PLE.

The second tool we looked at was screencast's.  Screencasts are great tools to help the visual learners.  A screencast records your voice as well as what is going on on your computer screen.  These are great for instructional video's and showing someone how to do something on the computer.  One of the screencasting tools we looked at was Jing. Jing is free and allows you to create screencasts easily.  Screencasting is something that I can see myself using in the future, since I am usually the one that helps out friends and family with their technical difficulties.  It would allow me to record and show them how to do something without actually physically being there.  This is something that would likely fit in well with the rest of my PLE in the creative section, since it is a tool that allows me to create something to express my ideas.


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Animoto

Animoto

Animoto is a very useful creative tool that allows you to create a quick 30-second slide show. It was extremely easy to use and took seconds to learn.  Once I learned how to use it, I was able to create my slideshow easily.  You can create slideshows more than 30-seconds long if you pay a subscription fee.  Animoto can be a very useful tool in my educational activities because it catches your eye and keeps your attention. It is a very flashy and interesting slide show to watch.  A very good way to get your peers or students attention and keep it for the duration of the slide show.  This tool would be a welcome addition to my PLE as a replacement for applications such as power point.

 A very interesting topic that we learnt, copyrights and creative commons.  I really learned a lot when it comes to copyrights relating to on-line content.  I knew that there was laws protecting the ownership of digital items, but I was not properly educated before on how to follow them.  When something is copyrighted on the Internet, or anywhere for that matter, it means that you are not allowed to use it without the owners permission.  This includes photo's and other images.  I was not aware that simply referencing an image was not necessarily enough to protect you from infringing copyrights. When it comes to creative commons, you are allowed to use someone else's work as long as you reference it properly and some items have additional rights reserved. You may not be able to alter their work or use it commercially for example.  The image shows the various tags that are used to determine how the digital media can be used by others.

Google Docs

This week we used a tool I am most familiar with, Google Docs! This is a tool used to create presentations, spreadsheets or word documents with a group of people. This is great because multiple people can be working on the document at the same time and see the process that has already been done as well. I have used Google Docs for some assignments this semester. It saves time, rather than meeting up as a group all the time, its an easy way to communicate what has been done and it is so efficient. Google Docs is my favorite tool. Google Docs can be used in an office to share and work on files between co-workers who are all over the world. Many businesses today have offices internationally and share files and project. Google Docs is an effective way to share documents and also add information collaboratively. It is also great to use even if I am not in a group, if you are working on a file instead of saving it to your computer and only being able to use it on your home computer, it makes it easy to access the file anywhere you have internet access. I do not have to bring a USB plug, email a file back and forth or just be stuck in one location. I have already included Google Docs in my PLE since I find it so useful for my everyday needs.


This week we started working in groups by creating a presentation on Google Docs. Working with others can be a learning experience to learn how well you work with others.  We mostly communicate through Today's Meet. I prefer using Facebook because I get notifications to my phone and so I can keep in touch easily with my partner in case we have any questions or problems with our group work or individual assignments. We can help each other with work from this ADED course.


Still trying to get used to my Feedly Reader as an important resource.

Week 7

This week we used a tool I am most familiar with, Google Docs! This is a tool used to create presentations, spreadsheets or word documents with a group of people. This is great because multiple people can be working on the document at the same time and see the process that has already been done as well. I have used Google Docs for some assignments this semester. It saves time, rather than meeting up as a group all the time, its an easy way to communicate what has been done and it is so efficient. Google Docs is my favorite tool. Google Docs can be used in an office to share and work on files between co-workers who are all over the world. Many businesses today have offices internationally and share files and project. Google Docs is an effective way to share documents and also add information collaboratively. It is also great to use even if I am not in a group, if you are working on a file instead of saving it to your computer and only being able to use it on your home computer, it makes it easy to access the file anywhere you have internet access. I do not have to bring a USB plug, email a file back and forth or just be stuck in one location. I have already included Google Docs in my PLE since I find it so useful for my everyday needs.


This week we started working in groups by creating a presentation on Google Docs. Working with others can be a learning experience to learn how well you work with others.  We mostly communicate through Today's Meet. I prefer using Facebook because I get notifications to my phone and so I can keep in touch easily with my partner in case we have any questions or problems with our group work or individual assignments. We can help each other with work from this ADED course.

Week 6

This week in class we learned about Evernote. Evernote is a tool to write notes and add tags for websites. You can create notebooks for all your classes and share with your classmates. This is useful to share resources for group assignments but also for individual assignments.  Classmates should share study notes and resources to gain the most knowledge about the subjects. I will continue learning about Evernote for this course to learn what else it can do. Other sources I have used for resource sharing is Google Docs. I really like Google Docs because you and group members can edit papers and create power point slideshows at the same time from different computers. You can see as people add information and also chat with the members as you are working on assignments. Considering I have some experience with group sharing digital tools it will be interesting to see what Evernote has to offer.

We are learning about so many different digital tools in this course it is important to determine which ones work best for my work ethic. I do not have the time to use every single resource and some do similar things. I have to recognize which tools are most appropriate for the categories in my PLE. Tools I find efficient, easy to use, helpful and necessary for my lifestyle. I noticed my PLE is rapidly growing from tools in this course and now I need to analyze and test each digital tool and see how it applies to my lifestyle. Filter the tools that do not apply to my learning style and useful to my needs. I do not think I will add Evernote to my PLE because I have other tools that provide similar actions. Google Docs is also more commonly used by other classmates; therefore we are all familiar with what it does and how it works.

Feedly Update: I am still not sure I am using this properly! I don’t think I have a use for Feedly. I do not need to use the links I have attached for school work or my career search. I am wondering is there a way to use my Feedly to find jobs I am interested in? This would make Feedly much more appealing to me and my needs.

Technology Scenario #7

Mrs. Peters enjoys working with technology.  She has been working with computers for several years now and has her own website to allow friends to keep up with what her family is doing.  Every year she posts her family's holiday photo on the website.  A friend who lives overseas contacts her an says that she saw her family's photo being used as an advertisement.  Neither Mrs. Peters nor her husband know anything about it.  How do you protect your identity?

I think Mrs. Peters had a great idea to keep her friends and family updated with what her and her family have been up to, especially since she has family and friends that live far away from her.  There is nothing wrong with what Mrs. Peters did.  What I will say is that I think there are better tools out there that are less public that Mrs. Peters could use to ensure that only people she invites can see what her and her family have been up to.  For example if Mrs. Peters created a family blog that she updated she can set the privacy setting so only people on the list she creates can read it.  This will eliminate people she does not know taking pictures from her website and using them for advertisements.  Although I do not believe Mrs. Peters was using the technology inappropriately she should be aware of ways to protect her identity from those people who take advantage of the many things you can find and perhaps take from the internet.  After researching this topic there were many tips on How to protect your Identity.  For example this Article suggested that you do not make personal information public, you should check privacy settings, strengthen and use multiple passwords.  If Mrs. Peters took the time to learn more about how to protect her and her family online, this issue could have been avoided.  Although she was not doing anything wrong she needs to remember that there are many people out there that do not use technology appropriately.  The person that took her families photo and made it an advertisement is definitely using technology inappropriately because he/she is using Mrs. Peters picture without consent.