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.