Throughout the semester, we were required to interact and connect with – classmates and others in the field of education to contribute to the learning of others and help build a personal learning network (PLN).  There were three ways we were instructed to do this: using the Slack platform, using Twitter, and interacting with each other using our blogs.  This blog post will go over some of my interactions with others using each of these platforms. Slack Prior to this semester, I had never heard of the slack platform. It is quite similar to Discord, which is something I have used quite extensively, so I had no trouble navigating the…

This week, I dove into some coding.  During our weekly lecture, we were shown a website called Code.org.  On their website, there are activities that are categorized as an “hour of code.” These activities are typically designed to be completed in an hour, and there are tons of them.  You can sort the activities by topic, grade, classroom technology, length, language, and activity type.  The goal of this website is to give kids an opportunity to learn some basic coding, and the great thing about this website is there are even some activities for classrooms where students do not have access to computers.  I did some searching, and I tried…

This week our topic was about something I find important and something I take very seriously—digital literacy.  It is becoming increasingly difficult for people to decipher what is real and what is fake, and that is a major problem.  And this fake news doesn’t just come in text anymore.  Deepfakes are getting more and more advanced, and it wouldn’t surprise me if we start to see these deepfakes used to propagate fake news in the near future  (if you are unfamiliar with the term deepfakes, I have attached a video below).  Now, these deepfakes aren’t perfect yet, but the technology is relatively new, and with how fast technology progresses in…

“Everyone presents an edited version of life on social media. People share moments that reflect an ideal life, an ideal self.” This past week, the topic of discussion was all about digital identity.  A couple of years ago, I decided that I would be better off without social media, so I deleted my Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for good.  I thought having no online presence, no “digital identity” would be a good thing.  I did this for a few reasons.  The first reason relates to the quote I posted at the beginning of this paragraph.  I believed that social media was negatively impacting my mental health—I was comparing my “low-lights”…

This past week, the topic of discussion was the concept of digital citizenship.  Digitalcitizenship.net describes digital citizenship as “the continuously developing norms of appropriate, responsible, and empowered technology use.” If you are still a bit confused as to what this means, I have attached a 3-minute video below that discusses some areas of being a good digital citizen. The Digitalcitizenship website also highlights nine elements of Digital Citizenship. These elements include: Digital Access, Digital Commerce, Digital Communication and Collaboration, Digital Etiquette, Digital Fluency, Digital Health and Welfare, Digital Law, Digital Rights and Responsibility, and Digital Security and Privacy.  According to Jason Ohler, there are two main trains of thought when…