Participating in the #SaskEdChat last week was eye opening. I have always avoided social media because I thought it posed more of a risk than anything. I was always afraid that something that I posted could be misconstrude and used against me later in life when applying for jobs or if I ever ended up in a position of public scrutiny.

That opinion changed during the #SaskEdChat because I realized that there are several potential benefits to networking on these sites, in addition to communicating with other like-minded individuals about ways to improve lessons or approaches in the workplace.

Katia has given us an opportunity to develop a new skill throughout the summer semester, and I choose to focus my time on learning the ins and outs of 3D printing so I could teach tech in highschools eventually. In addition, it has given me the perfect opportunity to video some of the successes and blunders during the early stages of this skill. I have created a YouTube channel where I am going to start posting those videos. Because the community is so niche, other beginners like myself can learn from my mistakes and I can use those videos in the future as a learning tool for students.

I have come around to the concept of social media being a professional tool.

Hello world, this is my first attempt at blogging. My name is Morgan Smerek. I am your average generic middle aged male, caught inbetween Gen X and millenials. Growing up our schools used floppy disks in Mac 1s until 7th grade, and then jumped to Mac books. This blew my mind, mostly because I grew up poor and didn’t have access to computers outside of school. In highschool everyone had the first Iphone and teachers were using SMART boards. Since then the world has completely changed, and the trend is to become more reliant on technology.

I have absolutely zero blogging experience, and quite frankly I hate social media. That being said, I have noticed that my career and hobbies would benefit from a presense on the internet. My instagram account has never been active because I always treated it like a forum and only subscribed to people I actually liked to be updated on. My handle on there is GenericWhiteDude. https://www.instagram.com/genericwhitedude/

I am an education student at the University of Regina, which is situated on Treaty 4 land. I am a returning student after previously graduating in 2019 with a degree in sociology and history. Currently I am a student athlete on the university rugby team, and a coach for other competitive rugby leagues around Saskatchewan.

I hope you find my Eportfolio interesting. I am a bit old fashioned and do not have any social media accounts to link you to, so if you wish to make contact with me my email is Smerek20@gmail.com.