Caution: FAKE NEWS!!!

Increasing our collective digital literacy appears to be the best way to combat fake news– as well as the dangers that come with it. There are endless variations of ways that one could teach about digital literacy and fake news.

What about the age range in particular that I will be teaching in the future? An example would be to incorporate the goals of the NCTE framework. For those who may not know, my goal is to be teaching secondary students one day. I’m taking summer classes this year to catch up and finish my second year of classes and move onto my third. Specifically, I will be teaching my students English and Drama courses (my major and minor). Read More

Worms, Dirt, and the Pursuit of Stars

This week for my learning project I decided to have a little bit of fun! Amongst my many hours of scrolling Instagram, I came across a video from a recent trend (on Instagram and TikTok). Some may recognize this one– the split birthday cake from the animated TV series, Max and Ruby. It seemed to me that anyone participating in the trend had baked any kind of cake they had liked, so I settled on chocolate because I already had the ingredients in the house. Read More

Cyber Safety + My Experience

Cyber safety is the act of taking precautions to protect your network and security from any malicious cyber attacks or viruses that may make their way to your devices. Cyber safety is important for the protection of your personal, confidential data. A breach in your personal data could result in financial damages, reputation damages etc. Data privacy is extremely important, especially in this day and age– as we are living in a digital world.

There are various types of cyber attacks:

  • malware
  • identity theft
  • phishing (regarding emails)
  • cyber bullying
  • plagiarism
  • data leaks

Read More

Raspberry For Your Muffin?

For this week’s blog on my learning project, I went to Pinterest to scavenge for another recipe. What I found was a white chocolate and raspberry muffin recipe. Like the many times before, I didn’t have the proper chocolate chips that the recipe called for, so I used semi-sweet chips instead. This recipe was different from what I’m used to baking on my spare time, so it seemed like a fun challenge!! Read More

Participation Culture Evolving

In the beginning of Michael Wesch’s video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPAO-lZ4_hU), he makes an example of the YouTube platform, and how it was able to grow so quickly, reaching many different types of audiences. This falls in line with the topic of the site’s algorithm, which is very important to note. An algorithm is “a set of scientific or mathematical rules used by social media platforms to determine what content a user most wants to see and in what order” (Buffer, 2024) There are three effective ways for YouTube users to discover videos on the platform: Read More

“C” is For Cookie

This week, as I continue with my learning project, I decided to bake some good ol’ chocolate chip cookies. My family had quite a bit going on at the house this last week, so I moved locations to my friend’s home to steal her kitchen for about an hour, haha.

My project this week turned out well, I think. I felt a bit out of place using appliances and ingredients that hadn’t been in my own home, but that meant my friend could sit back and enjoy the cookie dough when I had my back turned. You could say that it worked out for both of us. The recipe I used I had found scrolling on Pinterest. Read More

Round One: Brownies

In the first blog post I made introducing my learning project, I explained that I would be trying out an AI tool to help me come up with recipes to attempt in the following weeks. The AI tool/ website is called DishGen, and all you need to do is type the name of a specific dish you desire into the search engine (or a group of ingredients), and the website will give you a specially-made recipe to try out.

DishGen Homepage https://www.dishgen.com/

As it turns out, DishGen has a ‘Demo Quota’ as to how many times you can use the search engine without being a member. To use this website more than once, a free account needs to be created to collect what is called search credits, and to save the recipes that are generated with the tool. I would still like to explore the world of baking with my learning project, but I am deciding if I want to find a different website with an AI-operated search engine, or use a variety of different sources. Read More

Daily Use of Technology Run-down

The use of technology has completely taken the world by storm, whether that be for educational, work, or personal purposes. Admittedly, I am what you call a “chronically online” individual. I can truthfully state that I may or may not have a million tabs open on my laptop as I am writing this blog post. Spotify, Google Docs, WordPress, and a whole lot of random search engines for any spontaneous thought or question I may have.

Technology has progressed and advanced rapidly in recent years, and I wanted to take a little stroll down memory lane. I grew up watching reruns on reruns from various channels on my parents’ cable– Disney (Good Luck Charlie, Wizards of Waverly Place, Sonny with a Chance, Lemonade Mouth, Camp Rock, Hannah Montana, A.N.T. Farm, etc.), Nickelodeon (Drake and Josh, iCarly, Big Time Rush, Zoey 101, Winx Club, Invader Zim, Rugrats, etc.) or whatever my dad had playing in the living room when he got home from work in the evenings. Whether that be Family Feud, The Price is Right, or Jeopardy! on the Game Show Network. Read More