Something to take note of...

That is Evernote. Not bad, right? The wit and the app I mean. I should stop there.

I recently heard about this handy app in one of my classes. As one who is always behind on new and useful things (mainly technology), I expected there must have been plenty of information about this app already. Not surprisingly, there were numerous amounts of articles floating around the web.

The first thing I looked up was the uses of Evernote. There’s almost nothing better to look up when first learning how to use anything. Since Evernote is so popular, it was simple. I found a list of uses that I could apply to make my life a lot easier. Notable features include:

Taking a picture - Pretty simple but important feature. Everyone with an iPhone or android has access to a camera. However, Evernote immediately uploads your picture onto a new note. Pretty useful for organizing or saving time. Catching a bus but you’re still writing notes? Snap a picture, write a caption, and leave. It’s also helpful to take pictures of homework, schedules, and lists.

Web Clipper -  It’s too helpful. This feature is pretty much a portable bibliography. It allows users to store their articles onto a single research notebook, which is much more organized than manually keeping track of all the sites used for research.

Audio recording - This is extremely helpful for language classes, lectures, music, and more. Also when a teacher is giving a demo or explaining complicated instructions, I find myself using this feature.

A feature that I had wished professors used is the reminder. Evernote allows teachers to set notifications for their students at certain times. For example, before students leave school, teachers can set reminders for homework, tests, projects, or pretty much anything. As a forgetful student, it’s difficult to keep track of all your work without some kind of planner, so this feature is greatly welcome.

On another note, while researching Evernote I happened to come across another helpful app. Where is the most convenient place to put your small things on the go? That’s right, your pocket. Pocket is a free app that allows users to store sites to read or reread later. Extremely handy for busy people. Personally, I love to save my tabs for later use, but I end up just leaving it there which eventually leads to countless tabs piling up. I’m sure I’m not the only one with this bad habit.

Connectivism
Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach discusses a new theory known as connectivism in chapter 2 of The Connected Educator. This theory applies connections and relationships to learning. Connectivism is much more personal, meaning the learning is directed by the learner and not a teacher. This is where connections come into play. Learners begin sharing knowledge and theories and eventually build a large connection of learners with different mindsets but similar interests. In the digital age we can expand this network online, which is extremely significant due the vast amount of possible connections that the internet has made possible. It's beneficial due to learners having an unrestricted time frame to take in knowledge, and having a much more open learning community rather than a small, cramped classroom. I personally have learned much more from the internet than my art professors. Now they aren't bad professors, but there's a limit to what they are able to teach me. Professors can only spend so many semesters with a student before moving on. Not to mention, professors only offer one point of view as opposed to the internet and its multitude of ideas.

Digital Safety

In this digital age, social media has become extremely important in areas such as communications and careers. Although I’m not as deeply involved as I should be, I believe that, despite the widely known negatives, being a user of social media can greatly benefit everyone. However, if used wrong it can also greatly damage one’s reputation, career, and emotions. I’m still surprised, and maybe a little disappointed, that people are daring enough to post pictures of themselves in extremely degrading situations. It’s even worse when they’re proud of it. I was reminded of this reality from a video that my professor had showed me in class last week. Unfortunately, I can’t recall the title of the video, but it was simple; a man walked into an interview, falsely presented himself in a positive light to the interviewer who was checking his social media, and walked out of the interview completely oblivious to the fact that he would not be getting the job. The video itself was quite comedic, but sadly it was also a decent representation of unaware social media users.

“The internet offers companies a gold mine of information about potential hires” - Leslie Kwoh

Honestly I couldn’t have said it better myself.

There are several social media safety issues that people should be aware of. Here are some listed by Joe Ross:

Oversharing: A simple concept. Why share more than you need to? And to so many strangers? The more you share, the more information can be used against you. A few examples include identity theft and stalking.

Reputation: Many people are still unaware of the risks that a poor digital personality can cause. Jobs and colleges do look through digital profiles.

Cyber bullying: An increasing problem within social media. The feeling of being anonymous on the net boosts confidence and allows many people to act without restraint.

From my perspective, cyber bullying can also go hand in hand with trolls. Trolls are people who have nothing better to do with their lives other than instigate. They gain satisfaction and pleasure from causing emotional distress to others. I’m personally guilty of trolling in the past and I can honestly say, it’s a waste of time. I gained momentary shallow satisfaction. I realized it was worse than eating cookies or other baked goods.

Fortunately, Twitter is taking big steps to quell trolls by establishing a Twitter Trust & Safety Council. This council advocates self expression online, which is currently difficult due to trolls. Honestly, I’m skeptical about this because people have a right to say whatever they want, but I’m also interested in their possible solutions.

To end on a more positive note, I recently read a chapter from Untangling the Web by Steve Dembo and Adam Bellow. The chapter discusses several convenient tools for gathering and storing important information. The one that stood out most to me was social bookmarking, which is essentially tagging. As simple as it sounds, many people including myself rarely use this feature. I recently used it and found it to be useful and will probably continue to use it in the future. The book discusses several tools such as Diigo, a popular bookmarking site that continues to update, and EduClipper, also a bookmarking site but mainly for classroom use. It is possible to use Diigo in an academic environment as well due to its networking capabilities. Since this tool is 100% online, it is much more convenient to store bookmarks this way. Once your Diigo account is created, you can access your bookmarks from anywhere. Lastly, it's also possible to bookmark privately, meaning Diigo can be used both personally and publicly.

Google's Omnipotence

                Now with pictures… or something like that. I understand, both as a lover of art and as a visual arts major, that pictures are visually pleasing, but I do enjoy reading walls of text at times; there is just a kind of gratification that is felt when I finish a huge box of text, like finishing a box of cookies, but I digress. Anyway, although the title is quite an exaggeration, Google is still a powerful tool. It seems, despite the lack of hands, it is much handier than even the best handyman. Unfortunately I also happen to be a lover of horrendous, distasteful jokes. But seriously, even though Google is so convenient, I rarely see it used in a classroom setting. I had never even thought about it until this week’s class when my professor introduced me to Google Drives, which I had barely used in the past. I was astounded. Google Drives provides blank documents, spread sheets, and forms. These are essentially watered-down versions of Microsoft Word and Excel. I asked myself, “Why did I install Microsoft Office?”

                Like Charles Cooper, I completed switched over to Google Drives. It’s just that much more convenient. Microsoft Word has constantly been updating interesting feature, however I find that a vast majority of users never used more than the fundamentals; fonts, text customizations, spell and grammar check, and simply typing up papers. The majority of the users are casual, and therefore the amount of people who actually need the advanced features are questionable. On the other hand, Google Drives is simple and straightforward. It uses the same fundamentals as Word, with the exception of being completely free. As a miser, I find it completely unnecessary to pay for something that I could simply use for free.

                Google Docs and Sheets aren’t all that Google can offer. Google has uses in educationaltechnology as well. Unfortunately I have never seen teachers apply this technology in a classroom setting before now, and my feelings are generally positive. Google Drives provides three main features that contribute to education:
               

Hangouts

Teachers and students are able to meet outside of the classroom using this feature. It is extremely helpful during bad weather and teacher absences.

                Circles

Teachers are able to create sharing circles to provide students with efficient, up-to-date material.

                Google Plus

This feature is essential for group work. Students are able to work together on projects, in real time, without even having to meet up in person.

Lastly, Google has updated another efficient feature specifically to help people break language barriers.  This feature is the well-known, trusty Google Translate. I personally am not a big fan of this feature because it played a crucial role in helping me score significantly lower on my high school Spanish quizzes. However, this feature is a step forward for those who travel often and those who wish to learn new languages. The update allows users to aim their phones at texts of different languages and translate them on the spot, without internet or data. I still remain skeptical due to some iffy and awkward translations that can occur, but overall I believe the update has the potential to be quite successful. 

Social Networking and Blogs

I love sweets. In fact, I love them enough that after a brief exchange of words with my professor I was given the privilege of waltzing out of the classroom with a pink box full of Luscious & Sweet Gourmet Bakery cookies. Is this a proper way to introduce myself? I wouldn't know because I'm an introverted, socially awkward college student, but from those several sentences I'm sure many can at least begin to imagine the type of person I am. And from this sentence as well.

Moving along to the bits that the majority would find uninteresting. I am a student studying in Richard Stockton University and my hobbies include drawing, gaming, reading graphic novels, pretending I can perform martial art techniques, and relaxing with a cheap plastic cup of tea while occasionally watching cartoons. You may have noticed that these hobbies tie into specific majors, and the sharper or luckier ones may have realized what my major is. Right. It is visual arts. My dream occupation is simply a digital illustrator, specifically focusing on character and environmental design and book covers. I also have a strong interest in 3D modeling and animation.

Recently, I have read many articles related to education and found several that interested me. I have no plans to become an educator, but I do believe educating others will help me reinforce my current skills as well as discover new knowledge. However, I’ve learned that there are better methods. The most appealing appears to be the idea of integrating social media, a tool that almost everybody with technology has access to, into education through the concept of developing a personal learning network. According to chapter 6 of Sheryl Nussbaum-beach’s, The Connected Educator, many professionals have already begun to create networks through social media to interact with communities and share ideas. This system of give and take is essential to building a foundation for digital learning. The more diverse the community the more ideas.

Starting these networks is quite easy but also takes time. Nobody begins with a vast digital base of knowledge and ideas. The most important step to establishing a network is to begin by making yourself more recognizable. This can be done simply by using the same username for your different networks. The next step would be to wisely pick the people you want to follow because they will be providing the stepping stone into the community. Through their connections, you will be able to find other people who share similar interests. The next step would be to try meeting new people, connect with them, and share ideas and inspiration. Eventually, this will lead to a well maintained network.

To my surprise, even schools such as St. Julian’s School in Newport have begun to incorporate social media into their learning systems. Twitter is used to inform students and even faculty members about events, new technology, techniques, and more. This is extremely convenient because students can keep in touch with teachers in an extremely convenient manner. Parents are also able to keep in touch with teachers as well as receive regular updates on their child’s progress. The staff claims that schools should keep up with technology instead of shunning it.

On the topic of twitter, an elementary school principle confronts an interesting topic that I have never put much thought into. What is the point of using Twitter for educational purposes when following a large number of people causes a massive and chaotic information stream? Unfortunately I haven’t used Twitter extensively enough to reach that extreme, but I then wondered how people would be able to organize something so chaotic. It turns out the answer was simple. PrincipalJ brings up a convenient tool: Twitter list. Users group their connections into different lists and choose the list they would like to view. Other users can also follow your lists.

Lastly, because this is my first blog, I found an article by Emily Hill and Eleanor Jones on the possible blunders that I could, and possibly have made, to be interesting. Several expected blunders included poor grammar and frequent misspelled words, poor presentation, rehashing articles, and lack of links. Other mistakes that caught my eye were lack of visuals, like this blog, and not including social media. Although these last two mistakes seemed like common sense, because it’s hard to read a wall of text as well as navigate to a blog without any sort of promotion, it never occurred to me to actually think about such things while I wrote my blog. I have always been someone who would listen, and I would be extremely surprised, and maybe devastated, when I made a mistake that I had been warned about. For me, some things just don’t click until I have actually made the mistake myself, just like my experience with this blog.