Social Media Etiquette

Social media etiquette is everywhere now a days. Social media etiquette is engagement on any social site. You have to consider how your comments will be perceived before you actual post them and think about logic over emotion. If you don't then you can end up like Gilbert Gottfried. He made some offensive tweets that cost him his job with Aflac Insurance.

My Social Media Etiquette Voice Thread

Social Media Etiquette

Hey classmates! Above is my social media etiquette and I decided to do mine on Blake Shelton. Enjoy!

Digital Storytelling

1. Here are my 3 ToonDoo comics below! I did some related to the semester ending, Christmas and not being in the right state of mind due to those 2 things.

2. Here is a link to my storybird. I wrote a story about a girl named Jaimie and her dog, Spot!

https://storybird.com/books/jx2453nddp/

3. Here is a link for my zimmertwins. I made a movie about a boy who is happy and celebrating good news with a friend!

http://www.zimmertwins.com/node/1704762

I hope you guys enjoyed my ToonDoos and other web tools!

Digital Storytelling

I started my digital storytelling assignment with my three Toon Doos.

1.) I miss surfing was the first Toon Doo that I had created. I always grew up living by the Jersey shore. When I was younger one of my favorite hobbies was surfing. I do miss it, however, the older I get the less I miss how bad a wipe out hurts.

2. ) The second Toon Doo that I created was about soccer. I started playing soccer when I was 3 years old. I would be put onto the field and start crying. However, I stayed with the sport. I played on rec, travel, select, school, college and now a women's adult league. I love the opportunities that soccer has provided me that I became a girls high school soccer coach.

3.) The third Toon Doo that I had created was how I meet my boyfriend. I went out to Denver University about 9 years ago and met him at a party. For years we stayed in touch through the internet and phone calls. Eventually our paths crossed again and we have been together ever since. Our long distance relationship was well worth it. He now lives in NJ with me.

We had to choose 3 other sources to create digital stories. I had chosen Pixton, Picture Book Maker and Smilebox.

1.) Pixton: I created this comic strip about vikings. When I was looking at the Pixton site it gave an option of vikings. I am Norwegian, so it gave me the idea to come up with this little comic about the vikings leaving Norway to find new land. I found this app to be a lot of fun and user friendly.

2.) Picture Book Maker: I created a story about a penguin named Pengy. I got the name for the penguin from my friend's 5 year old son. One day when I was babysitting him, I brought him to Jenkinson's aquarium. I bought him a penguin stuffed animal and he named it Pengy. Then I thought about how the animals behave after closing time. I just changed it up a little and made it a zoo scene.

Closing Time Means Party Time

3.) My final digital story telling webtool I used was Smilebox. I decided to base it around my last trip to Europe. I visited Lisbon, Portugal, Czech Republic, Munich, Germany and Amsterdam, Netherlands. I enjoyed using Smilebox because it was easy to use and I enjoyed seeing some of my vacation photos as a video! I enjoyed how I can make videos out of my photos. However, I wish you didn't have to sign up for a premium account to be able to share my creations.

Smilebox

Web Tool Smackdown- EDpuzzle

For my web tool smackdown, I decided to use EDpuzzle. I have recently used it in one of my other classes this semester and I found it to be really fascinating. EDpuzzle is defined as a site where you can select a YouTube video and edit it by recording an audio, adding questions within the video, and cropping it. It's very useful for a teacher because it's a visual for students which is very helpful when it comes to learning a new lesson. Students can also use this site in a student's point of view and can use it for a project or a homework assignment. Students can even use it as a way to study.

For my EDpuzzle lesson, I went with something simple just to get the point across on how to use this site. I used addition since I also want to teach younger grades such as kindergarten and 1st grade. Throughout the video, you can pause at any given time and you may add a voice recording, a comment and a question. In my video, I couldn't show how to use the recording since I was in the process of using my microphone for my screencast. But there are buttons you can click if you are struggling and it will show you how to use the recording. You can record a comment or a little lecture and maybe word the sentence in an easier way if the video isn't making it very clear.

When you create a question, it can be either an open-ended, multiple choice or a short answer. As a teacher, you can create those questions. As a student, you must answer those questions but cannot create them. I chose EDpuzzle because as a future educator, it's definitely something I could use often and it's so simple!

Smackdown Tool # 2

  The web tool that I had chosen for my smackdown is Storybird. Storybird is a visual storytelling community. It is also a global hub of readers, writers, and artists of all ages. The website is user friendly. You get to choose the artwork you would like to implement into your story or poetry. You also get to choose how many pages and different artwork. Incorporates everyone into their storytelling community. From educators, parents, artists, writers to fundraising. Everyone can use Storybird.

• Educators can use Storybird for all ages and grades. Educators can use Storybird to inspire their students to be creative and imaginative in creating storybooks andor grades K-5 educators can have their students create picture books. For grades 5-9, students can create longform chapter books. It is a fun way to incorporate the classroom lesson into something creative. 
• Parents can find Storybird to be beneficial to your child’s imagination, writing skills and confidence. Storybird offers monthly writing challenges. This helps your child become more engage in their creativity while boosting their writing skills. 
• Artist can benefit from Storybird. Artist can receive exposure. Just one piece of art work can be used in thousands of stories. The artists get to have copyrights over their own artwork. Also, artist can receive royalty. They receive 30-50% royalty every time their artwork is used in a storybook or poetry that is sold from the site. 
• Writers can use Storybird to share their stories. By sharing their stories writers can receive feedback. They are also able to interact with the Storybird community. 
• Fundraising can be done through the Storybird website. Students create and write their original books and poetry. From their teachers can turn on the fundraising option and pick a start date and a date when the fundraiser ends on. Individuals can log onto Storybird read and purchase the student’s creations. Which could be hardcover books, softcover books, stationaries, journal and art products and art prints. Schools receive 30% of the sales. Then the orders get delivered to the classroom in 4-6 weeks. 

Overall, I am excited to have discovered Stroybird and I look forward to using it in the future once I become an educator. I think it is a wonderful way to get students, parents, involved and even have the option of raising money for the school. 

                                                Check out the site at Storybird!

Chapter 7- Sustaining the Momentum

                                             Chapter 7 – Sustaining the Momentum

Chapter 7 discusses the making of virtual learning communities. Also, how to keep people engaged and interacting, in other words, sustaining the momentum. One way in sustaining the momentum is with appreciative inquiry. Appreciative inquiry is where learners learn from a “what if”, or strengths, perspective. This method helps sustain the momentum of virtual learning communities because it allows the participants to consider each other’s’ ideas and perspectives. From there they can start asking questions and start conversations. An example of a model for appreciative inquiry is a cycle that it continuous that begins with discover (share stories with each other), then onto dream (everyone envisions the future), then to design (creates designs for the organization) and then to destiny (everyone puts the changes into effect).

Another method besides appreciative inquiry is action research. Action research usually occurs in the school setting, but is also capable of occurring in online communities too. This method is performed by a learning and doing mentality. The steps that take place in action research is to identify what the issue is. Then gather information and data about the issue. From there interpret the information that has been collected and form an intervention. After that step the collected data to see if the intervention was successful. From there the cycle starts again.

Chapter 7 mentions that in communities it is important to understand the concerns of the participants. There have been 7 stages associated with how some may feel. 1. Awareness. 2. Informational. 3. Personal. 4. Management. 5. Consequence. 6. Collaboration. 7. Refocusing. From there, there has been 8 levels to creates to help participants to focus on change. These 8 levels are 1. Nouse, no action taken. 2. Orientation, gathering information. 3. Preparation, planning ways to incorporate. 4. Mechanics, concerned with mechanics. 5. Routine, implementing with comfort. 6. Refinement, looking way to improve. 7. Integration, collaborating with others. 8. Renewal, investigating new innovative ways to implement.

As a future educator I find this chapter important to implement into my teachings. I found it to be very interesting the 7 stages on how an individual may feel. This has made me more aware to look for the stages in my students. I will have virtual learning communities where I make sure to keep the momentum going, by having the participants engaging, asking questions and working together to form ideas.

                       How has chapter 7 changed your view towards your major?

Chapter 7- Sustaining the Momentum

This chapter in The Connected Educator  discusses a few different stories about sustaining the momentum. There is one teacher named Courtney who shares her experience in the book. She talks about how she learns from her students in the classroom almost everyday. She got to work with ELL seniors and learned a lot from them as they prepared for college. Their main focus was college-bound. They held different events throughout the school year and did some community service so they would be seen in their college applications. She helped them look at the financial aid option if that would he helpful for her students and their families. She watched her students work tremendously hard in and out of the classroom.

Unfortunately, her and her students came to realize that a member of the class was diagnosed with kidney failure. The students worked together and set up jars to raise money throughout the school and community. The ill student could not afford a huge surgery like that so the classmates stepped in and tried whatever they could do to help. They were all in the moment and worked together which made Courtney overwhelmingly proud as a teacher and a human being.

Back in high school, one of my best friends Mikey was diagnosed with a one in a million disease called HLH (Hemophagocytic Lymphohistiocytosis). It is a life-threatening disease which unfortunately took my best friends life at the age of 18. He was so well-known around my school and community. No one ever had a bad thing to say about him. When people found out he was seriously ill, my friends and I who were the closest with him sold shirts that said "Team Mikey" with drums on them because he played the drums. We sold them for $10 a shirt and tried to raise money to help his family out. After only 2 weeks of being ill, he passed away.

We took all that money and put it towards research for the disease and then held a fund raiser for the cause. We ended up making a bunch of money and put it towards research since it is not a well-known disease. 

When I am a teacher, I hope to get my students to come together and work together within the classroom an community. I want to be a teacher like Courtney and live in the moment with my students by making little differences in the world. I can relate this chapter to my major (psychology with education concentration) because it helps form a bond between the teacher and her students. It also forms a bond between the classmates.