network literacy

Week 8 – Pros and Cons Function

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Excel has many templates you can choose from for various different activities such as a to-do list, an inventory tracker, a weekly timesheet and much more. After looking through all these templates one in particular really stood out for me, the pros vs. cons template. I like this one because it is useful when deciding between two things, which is a common occurrence in my daily life.

The pros and cons template is different than just making one by hand because you can rate the value/ importance of each item. At the end when you have inputted all your data excel will calculate the values of each one and tell you which one (pros or cons) wins! This function helps you to make a decision but it also provides a place where you can put your thoughts down. It helps you to compare and analyze the data in your list. Here is what the template looks like when you first click on it.

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To use this template you enter items into the item section and enter values under the importance section (scale of 0-10). You enter the value of importance to indicate the weight of each of those items. 10 is the highest importance and 0 is the lowest. Excel calculates the total value of all the items under the pro section and the con section to show you, which one is more important to you. The rating scale is basic but very helpful. You can categorize the items alphabetically to help you organize your list or just put them in whatever order is most helpful for you. I made my own pros and cons list using this template and I found it super helpful and easy to use. I especially like how they calculate the values up to show you which one wins. This made it easy for me to realize which one is more important to me. Here is the beginning of the list I made. Screen Shot 2018-11-15 at 12.11.08 PM.png

Overall, I would highly recommend this Excel template to anyone who likes to make pro and con lists. It is an easy way to observe and value your items.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for next weeks post!

References:

https://www.vertex42.com/ExcelTemplates/pros-and-cons-list.html

Twine and Google Classroom

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Today in class we talked about two tech tools, google classroom and twine.

Twine is a tool that allows its users to tell interactive non-linear stories. It was created in 2009 by Chris Klimas but it is now maintained by several people. Twine is free to use for any way you wish to use it, including for commercial use, and it publishes directly to HTML, which allows you to post your work almost everywhere. It is used by most of its users to develop hypertext narratives and games. It does not require any programming languages that most game development tools do. This makes it very desired for those who do not know any programming languages. It is a tool that can be used by anyone who is wanting to create interactive fiction. In class, we created our own one by an example given to us by our teacher. I have never been good with technology so it was interesting for me to see how Twine works. After some practice, I began to get the hang of it and learned about some basic coding for design elements. Within Twine, you do not have to code, but if you want to add certain design features, such as bold writing, underlining, background colors etc. you can code them into your writing. After you have finished creating your interactive story, you can play it and see it for your self which is a cool feature. You can also share what you have created with whoever you would like.

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This is what it looks like when you are creating your interactive story

The other tech tool we looked at was Google Classroom. Google Classroom is a web tool that was created by Google in 2014 specifically for schools but can be used by anyone who has a Google account. It a free to use and allows teachers and their students to connect with each other both inside and outside of school. Within Google Classroom you can create classes, distribute assignments, post materials, and announcements, communicate and stay organized. It is a great tool to use that saves you time, is easy to set up, and is affordable.  Students can be added to a classroom by a private code or automatically through a school domain. Students can submit their assignments and post questions they have or add to discussions within the classroom.

I used Google Classroom a lot throughout my time in high school and I found it a really great tool. It makes it easy to see assignments that your teachers give you and various materials that are useful for the course. I like how you can ask a question or start a discussion on Google Classroom, this allows you to collaborate with your peers. In class today we created our own classroom to see how easy it is to create one. For someone not very tech-savvy it was very easy to set up and to add materials within your classroom. Google Classrooms is a great tool to stay connected with your students and is a paperless way to give assignments and materials. I am definitely going to use Google Classroom when I begin teaching.

Overall, both Twine and Google Classroom are great tech tools (for very different reasons).

 

Creative Commons

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In today’s class, we learned about the non-profit organization called Creative Commons. This website gives users a large range of creative works that they can build upon legally and share. Creative Commons was founded in 2001 and is used by many different search engines such as Flickr and youtube.

To use Creative Commons you go to the CC Search part of it and type in what you are looking for. For example, if you wanted to search for sunflowers you would write that in the search bar and then choose the search engine you want to use. For my example I choose Flickr. You also have the choice of clicking off if you want it to use it for commercial purposes and/ or if you want to modify, adapt or build upon it (see picture below). Since I was not looking for an image I could use for commercial purposes, or a photo I could modify, adapt, or build upon, I did not click off either of these boxes.

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Once you have decided what you are searching for and chose the categories you want, you can search for the image you are looking for. From here you get a large variety of photos from different authors. When you select a photo you can see who the publisher is, the views, when it was taken and the rights. The photo I chose has some rights reserved and with these rights, I can share and adapt the image, but cannot use it for commercial purposes. When you want to save the photo you can choose the size you want (square, small, medium, large, or original size). After I looked at how to properly save the image, I saved it by username@searchengine.copyrightcode. For my image, I saved it as Kristine@Flickr. CC BY-NC 2.0.

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Flickr by Kristine licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Here is a link to the Creative Commons search – https://search.creativecommons.org/

Curation – Diigo and Feedly

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In my Technology Innovation class, we talked about curation and a few resources that assist users in collaborating with others and organizing resources. Two specifically that we talked about were Diigo and Feedly.

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Diigo is a social bookmarking website launched in 2006,  standing for “Digest of Internet Information, Groups, and Other Stuff”. Diigo allows its users to tag and bookmark web pages. This is a helpful resource because it allows for you to get easy access to these saved pages. It helps you to stay organized and you can share these resources with others. Diigo designed their app so you can save bookmarks through tags, which makes it easier for you to find the resources you are looking for later. For example, if you are researching about travel tips you can create a tag named travel tips, so then when you are wanting to see these resources you can go to the tag instead of looking through all your bookmarks. The bookmarking tool helps you stay organized and allows you to easily find your resources.

Another useful tool of Diigo is the highlighting and sticky note tool. The highlighting tool allows you to highlight important parts of a text directly on the website. Highlighting is helpful for you to remember which parts of the text you thought were important and were wanting to remember, and also to share with others and show which parts you wanted them to see. The sticky notes tool lets you add notes, comments or reminders directly onto the webpage. This is another great feature that is very useful for both the user and for collaborating with colleagues, students, peers, etc. As a university student, both of these features would be extremely helpful to me for researching and collaborating with my peers.

Diigo is a great tool for curating, organizing bookmarks, highlighting text, adding sticky notes of information to web pages and collaborating with others.

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The other web tool we discussed was Feedly. Feedly was released in 2008 and was created to be used as a news aggregator and to help you discover insightful sources. Meaning it finds similar news feeds from various online sources and groups them together for easy access and viewing. The user can then customize this and share their sources with others. Feedly has an app that is available on both iPhone and Android making it accessible for many people. It is a great tool to discover many useful online sources, such as news publications, blogs, and youtube videos. Feedly allows its users to organize their work and collaborate with others.

Feedly is another great curating tool that allows you to discover sources in an organized and customized way and to share with your teammates.

All in all, I learned a lot about curation and gained two great resources to help me organize sources and collaborate with my peers. These will be useful applications for me to use in the classroom.

Diigo’s website: https://www.diigo.com/

Feelys website: https://feedly.com/i/welcome

 

Week 4 – Creating my own Budget Spreadsheet

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My first three weeks of learning to use excel have taught me a lot about the basics of it and I already feel more confident in my ability to use excel. For this week’s blog post, I have created with my new skills, two budget spreadsheets. One is of my monthly living fees (rent, food, internet, hydro and electricity, my phone, and miscellaneous) and the other is a budget I have created is for a trip to Sweden I may be taking (flights, accommodation, groceries, meals out, transportation, and miscellaneous).

To create these budget spreadsheets I had to use my basic inputting data skills and the formula function. The research I did prior to this helped me to be able to create these spreadsheets as otherwise, I would have manually added together the numbers, instead of just using a formula and making excel do the work for me.

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My Monthly Living Expenses
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Trip to Sweden Expenses

I highly recommend using Excel to anyone who is looking for a fast and fairly easy way to create budgets for themselves and the various expenses they have. With a bit of research, you can learn the basics of Excel and can create your own basic spreadsheet. If you want to use more complicated functions in Excel you definitely need to do quite a lot of research as there are many features Excel has to offer.

Overall, I have really enjoyed learning how to use Excel and have already started to see progress in my understanding. I look forward to learning more about Excel and the other features that will be useful for me.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for next weeks blog 🙂

Twitter

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Twitter is a very popular social media platform used to interact with others via messages called “tweets”. It was created by Jack Dorsey in 2006 and fastly gained popularity among young adults. It has now become popular for a wide variety of people to communicate about news, important issues, and their daily lives.

If you create a twitter account you have a “handle” which is your username. You create your own username and it can be whatever you want to make it. This is how other members search for you by searching @ and then your handle. You can customize your profile as much or as little as you would like. You have the choice to add in a profile picture and a bio or to leave it blank. You also have the option to make your profile public or private depending on the level of privacy you wish. If you have a private profile, people have to request to follow you and you have the choice to accept or decline. If you have a public account, then other users can see your profile and tweets without requesting to follow you.

A tweet is a 140-word message that is sent out to one’s followers. If you hashtag (#) something on your tweet and you do not have a private account others who are searching up that hashtag can see your message. If you do not want people being able to see your message then you can make your account private. When you have a private account only those who you have allowed to follow you can view your tweets. If your account is public then anyone can view your tweets and they also have the option to retweet your post, favorite/like it, or reply to it and create a conversation.

The hashtag that I briefly touched on earlier is a way of finding something that interests you or a way for you to start a conversation. You can search up a topic you want to see what other people have been saying about it by searching for example #dailynews. Another way to use the hashtag is on your own tweet. You can add hashtags to start a conversation and for other people to find your tweet. If people want to reply to your tweet they can also hashtag the same thing and add to the discussion. Hashtags are also used to create twitter chats. Twitter chats are conversations on a certain topic (a hashtag). They are a good way to connect people who have similar interests, questions, and/or beliefs. Many people participate in Twitter chats including educators.

Many educators are on twitter to get new teaching ideas, to see what other teachers are doing, and to stay connected with fellow co-workers. It is a great way to start a discussion with other educators and to see their opinions on certain topics such as technology in the classroom. It can also be used by teachers for their students to see what is happening in class, when things are due, and other important notes. Since technology is becoming more and more prevalent in classrooms, twitter is a good resource for teachers to use to stay connected and to learn more about education.

All in all, Twitter has many great features and allows people to share their interests and to keep up to date with what is going on. It is a useful tool for businesses, educators, and individuals looking to stay connected with others and share their opinions. It is good to know the privacy settings of Twitter before creating an account and posting tweets.

Social Media Concerns/ Usage as an Aspiring Teacher

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Social-Media-e1518208936600.pngWith an increase in technology use over the past few years, social media has become more and more popular. Sites such as Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, and Snapchat are all being used for creating and sharing ideas/content and for communication. With the popularity of these websites come many safety and privacy concerns, which many people are unaware of.

In our Technology Innovation class, we had guest speaker Jesse Miller come in to talk to us about the concerns of social media with kids, social media and the workplace, and the best practices for privacy online.

A few current concerns of social media with kids is how it is continuing to get younger and younger, it makes them feel special, and there is increased affirmations. There has been an increase in the presence of primary aged students on social media platforms. Without proper knowledge of privacy and safety online this can be a huge issue for kids. Another concern is how it makes them feel special, this makes them want to keep using it and keep adding friends etc. Lastly, children see a lot of the positives of social media such as there favorite Youtube stars making tons of money from creating these videos and they think “I can do that too”, which has its pros and cons but it could lead to a decrease in their academic involvement.

Social media use is also related to the workplace. Social media can be used to search up future employers. This is why your privacy and what you post on social media is a big issue. It is important to balance your personal life with your professional expectations. Especially being a teacher, many students will be searching you up so you want to be cautious of what they will find.

One major focus of social media privacy is digital rights. Before posting pictures, videos, etc. you need the consent of anyone who is featured in that photo. As a teacher, it is important to note that if you are taking a picture of your class you need three levels of consent: the students, the parents, and the school. If a student does not want to be featured in the photo you can use image editing to, for example, put an emoji over their face to keep their privacy respected. To keep your own privacy you should be making sure to read the privacy statements of the platforms you are reading so you know what you are signing into and be aware of how you can make your account more private. You need to have an understanding of what the consequences of using these platforms are.

One topic that Jesse talked a bit about was gaming and the world around that. I did not know a lot about gaming as I am not a gamer myself so this was very informative for me. We learned about a streaming service called Twitch where there are live videos of people playing video games that others can join into and watch. I also learned that there are tons of gaming tournaments that go on around the world where the winner can make up to millions of dollars. This is relevant for me as a teacher candidate as elementary children love video games and gaming is very prevalent in their lives.

Overall social media has a very large presence in many peoples lives and needs to be used with caution and understanding. We should be open about these platforms and have open dialogues with employees, co-workers, friends, and family.

 

 

Learning goals for my tech inquiry

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The goal of my tech inquiry is to learn something new to do with technology that can be of use to me as a student and a teacher. I have decided to learn how to use excel. Excel is a very prominent web tool used in many jobs and is an asset to have when looking for work. Excel has many features that are very helpful for budgeting, scheduling and making charts. I believe it is something that will come into use in my life and that it will be very beneficial to learn how to use it. I have created a schedule of what I am going to learn over the next couple months.

Week 1: Learn how to enter data – cell and workbook basics

Week 2: Learn how to sort and filter data (alphabetize lists)

Week 3: Learn how the formulas work

Week 4: Create my own budget spreadsheet

Week 5: Learn how to insert tables and use them

Week 6: Learn the charting function – how to make charts

Week 7: Learn the calendar function

Week 8: Learn the pros vs. cons function

Week 9: Create my own list of pros and cons of using excel

Week 10: Review everything I have learned and reflect on it

I used a web app called trello to help me organize my schedule. Trello is a project management app that allows you to create lists of your inquiry project/question, what you plan to do, what you are currently doing, and what you’ve done. It is very helpful and anyone can use it. Screen Shot 2018-09-27 at 4.00.38 PM.png

Stay tuned to see more about my experience learning excel and to find some useful tools if you want to learn as well 🙂