A Reflection on Digital Conveniences

It’s already the end of my semester. I’ve learned a ton of things in my course on digital portfolios which I will be sure to bring with me. The main thing I’ve learned is that blogging in this manner is something I find mentally draining. Instead, I would prefer a blog with more pictures than words like an art blog, which I’m thinking about starting once I’m more confident in my skills. This last blog will discuss my progress and reflect on the things I have learned.

Firstly, I learned how to build a personal learning network (PLN) from my class. It’s an idea that many people are actually unconsciously building. Or then could be like me and be completely oblivious to it and try to steer clear of any sort of social media. The simple act of following professionals in your field of interest and communicating with them serves to build a solid PLN; this is something I have been trying to do over these past few months. How’s my progress? Extremely poor. I’ve only followed 18 people or groups on Twitter, but a start is a start. Using Twitter in this way has helped me build my knowledge on illustration, so I’m planning on continuing to build my PLN.

During these few months I have been exposed to digital tools that I never would have thought existed. Honestly I don’t think I’ll be using the majority of them, but just knowing they exist can make my life a lot easier at times. The tools I absolutely want to be using are:

Prezi: This presentation tool looks much more professional than Microsoft PowerPoint in my option. The transition between slides feels much more fluid, and it’s just more engaging overall. Learning the basics took all of five minutes of tutorials and three minutes of tinkering.

Paper.li: This tool automatically pulls stories from your field of interest. I personally find this helpful because all the information is brought to me. I’m quite a fan of doing less while gaining more. It’s convenient. More information here.

Where to Go?: An amazingly simple, but helpful app for finding places around your area. It uses gps to guide you to restaurants, hotels, hospitals, and more. I consider myself horrible with directions, meaning this app is my light house.

Lastly, I’ve learned the importance of creating a website; this is especially important for aspiring illustrators in the digital age because it allows anyone to view your artwork. In other words, it’s exposure. By posting artwork on the internet, you’re opening yourself up to a giant audience. Unfortunately, I’m still in the process of building my site, but I find that this is definitely something I’ll be taking with me when I move on from college.

I’ve learned much more than I mentioned here, but that would make for a lengthy blog so I’ll end it there. I definitely want to continue to use social media as a means of learning, so I will be on the lookout for helpful new tools, sites, articles, and whatnot. I hope you enjoyed this blog and thanks for reading.

Utilizing Social Media Connections

Last week I had the opportunity to sit in on a talk with Robyn Hrivnatz, a marketing and educator programs manager at Microsoft. The talk primarily consisted of the topic of using social media as a professional. By now I probably sound like a broken record, however I personally manage to find new and interesting information on this topic. One of the important points Hrivnatz mentions is using social media to find out what your competition is doing. I always like to remember Sun Tzu in situations like this with his famous “know your enemy” quote. It’s kinda hard to put copyright on a tactic, right? If you find yourself lacking options, may be “borrowing” some of their ideas might not be a bad idea. 

On the flip side, social media can also be used to communicate and connect with the group giving you the most direct feedback on your work: customers. Whether or not something is working in your company can be quickly found by customers. They serve as the audience that you have to understand.

Hrivnatz also briefly mentions some helpful tips about LinkedIn. This site is one of the most professional social media sites out there, which i’m sure many people know. Linkedin provides users with digital profiles which can act as a resume in many cases, however Hrivnatz believes this is an extremely poor way to portray yourself. By turning your profile into a resume, you lose what little information you can provide about your personality. Instead, she suggests to let your profile be a summary of your strengths and your private and professional life; this way a personality is built.

On a loosely related note, Sheyl Nussbaum-Beach discusses the four core components of learning in the final chapter of her Connected Educator. The components are as follows:

Knowledge - Due to being able to access a plethora of information through the web, it’s impossible to take in all knowledge. Instead, Nussbaum-Beach suggests creating a connection of minds that are able to branch out to different sources of knowledge.

Pedagogy- This one applies more for teachers. Instead of being a students only teacher, they will show and encourage students to create their own learning connections.

Connections -This is where innovation really begins to show. Connected groups experiment, brainstorm, discuss, reach out to professionals, and analyze the subject of their passion.

Capacity - essentially, by building a connection, people are able to broaden their perspectives and keep an open-mind; this allows for curiosity, exploration, and ultimately discovery. People are simply more independent and can learn at their own pace.

Conveniences of Social Networking

This week, I discovered an interesting app that allowed me to schedule reminders or just automatically handle tasks that I would label as a hassle. IFTTT is an amazing app that can tie together two unrelated devices. Users can create recipes that cause one device to trigger a response from another. Why is this useful? Well, you can decide for yourself after checking out these few helpful recipes, including:

Social Notifications: Connecting your smart lights to any social media and allowing that to help notify you whenever there’s an update.

Weather: When weather conditions change, linking weather apps can help notify you of temperature or just bad weather. It’s pretty convenient.

Light switches: I personally find this the most helpful. You are able to link your lights at home to your car, meaning there will be less instances where you waste electricity.

Another helpful app that I have recently decided to use again is Pinterest, a well-organized social bookmarking site. This site covers many fields of interests, and it just so happens that it’s perfect for illustrators. I can find many great art tutorials, inspirational images, or just reference images for poses and such. Users have boards which they pin bookmarks to, these can be from mostly anywhere on the web. If a user decides that they would like their board to gain popularity, be helpful, and help them build connections, there are many methods to help them do so, such as:

Keywords: Something as simple as this can make navigating to your board much easier for others.

Avoid spam: This is common sense, however many people can forget that tons of pins at once can cause inconvenience for your followers. Don’t be surprised if you lose quite a bit in this case.

Organization: I definitely stress this as one of the most important methods. I personally loathe poorly constructed, illegible, and ugly pages.

New pins: rather than simply repinning (like me), it’s important to introduce pins that people have never seen before; it’s simply more eye-catching.

Moving on, my professor recently presented great information about the bio page of a website. The page is generally known as the “About Me” page. Unfortunately, I talk very little about myself, which means my bio page is generally… let’s say one sentence or less. Informative? Very much so. I now realize however, that this page can be used as a mini-portfolio. The “About Me” page is the perfect way to portray one’s personality, background, and provide visitors with a means to contact you. Doesn’t that sound like a business card? Next, you can provide a photo that can further emphasize your personality because it’s easy to judge a book by its cover when given little information. It’s time to work that in your favor. For more information, check out this article.

Lastly, I would like to touch on a few social networking tools mentioned in Untangling the Web. The authors, Steve Dembo and Adam Bellow, firmly believe that social media is a great way to connect with people despite all the interaction being digital. Rather than replacing real life meetings, it can allow for people to create a chance to expand on personal meetings through the internet. It’s a great point, but what of the socially awkward people? Whether they communicate online or offline, they’re still awkward. I believe one main cause of this is the lack of face-to-face interaction. When they suddenly have access to a large, expanding digital community, how are they able to use these digital connections to further their personal connections? Just a thought. Anyway, Dembo and Bellow introduce extremely useful tools that aid in digital communication:

TodaysMeet: The app essentially allows users to create a room that can be used for discussion. In an educational environment, this allows students and teachers to freely discuss issues without time restraints. Students are also able to discuss problems with each other, creating an ideal, out-of-class learning environment. Since everything is digital, it’s much easier for the shy students to speak up. Students can help each other or just consult with the teacher and receive an answer that benefits the entire class.

Skype: This extremely popular app was considered taboo in my high school; students were banned from using it, and those who did received a polite invitation to the principle’s office. The main advantage of Skype is the video chat feature. How can this be used in classrooms? Students can simply connect with other students from all over the world. I can see language courses benefiting tremendously from Skype. The app now contains a feature specifically designed for education. Teachers are able to connect with professionals using designated Skype lessons, which essentially allows students to have professional contact before stepping into the real world. This feature is definitely revolutionary to education and should see an increase in usage when more educators realize its significance.