Weekly Reflection- Week 7

(Lewis, 2012)

This weeks learning activity allowed me to experience something that I have yet to do in my lifetime; which was to work entirely on a group project without ever seeing who my group members are, let alone meeting up with them. This allowed me to fully experience the term “Teamwork” as we had to make decisions all over a platform called “TodaysMeet”. At first I was a little overwhelmed with TodaysMeet, however after a quick YouTube tutorial, I was well on my way with this assignment. TodaysMeet allows you to connect with individuals from across the world in live time on a chat platform similar to Facebook Messenger. Once we established a quick group connection and intro, we were quick to get started on this weeks Google Docs presentation.

(Google, 2016)

Google’s online platform where you can create documents, presentations, spreadsheets, forms and drawings is an excellent tool for students and should be more recognized in the coming years. My first favourite feature with these Google platforms is that you never have to worry about saving your work. As you do you work, it is automatically saved and can be accessed on any computer at any time no matter where you might be. A bit extreme but you could be in China without your personal laptop and still access all your work from a different computer over there. Secondly, and most important is that all of your work can be accessed in the palm of your hand through the compatibility with IPhones. I have personal experience with Google Sheets and using it on my IPhone. In the summer when I am running my landscaping company and tracking expenses, I can quickly input them on my phone and they will automatically be accessible for me at any time on any device or computer.  Thirdly, this platform has the unique ability to let you invite group members to edit your docs and you can see in live time the changes that they are making. This came in handy with our group assignment, as I was able to correct some of the content that my partners had put up.

This weeks Feedly Article that stood out to me was titled “95 Inspiring Websites of Web Design Agencies”. This first caught my attention because I recently finished designing my own website for my company “Andy’s Home & Lawn Service”, so I knew that I would be able to relate to this article. This article provided creative tips to helping your website gain more attention. I am happy to have come across this article, as I will certainly be putting some of these tips to use in the near future (once all my school work slows down).

Weekly Reflection- Week 6

Hello Bloggers,

I hope everyone had a good reading week, I know I certainly did as I type this blog post over here in Florida. This week in session six, I was introduced to a new program called Evernote. Evernote allows you to take all of those unnecessary notes you have lying around the house on scrap pieces of paper and put them in a digital context. You can also take a picture of those old hand written notes you have and upload them onto your Evernote account. What I found most interesting about Evernote is that once you take a picture of a handwritten note, the program can convert it into a text format. Once converted into a text format, you can search for key words that are in your hand written note.

(Event, 2015)

The topic that I will be researching with my group members will be Digital Security. I began using Evernote to create a centralized area of all my research finding about the topic of Digital security. From YouTube videos to Image screenshots, Evernote has the ability to hold everything in one place. Another creative aspect of Evernote is the ability to share your notebook to other individuals. Just by hitting the “Share” button and typing in the recipients email address, you have the ability to view and chat about the notebook.

Evernote would fit perfectly under the “organization” section of my PLE and I certainly plan on using it in the near future. On a daily basis, I often find myself writing things down on little crap pieces of paper to remember. The unfortunate part is that I loose the piece of paper and subsequently forget what I made note of in the first place. Owning a landscaping company, I often make onsite job notes whether I’m quoting for a new job, or working on an existing clients property.

(Antonio, 2014)

Upon exploring on my feedly account this week, I did not find too many articles that sparked my interest. However one article that did stand out to me was titled 5G Is a New Frontier for Mobile Carriers and Tech Companies. Being a bit of a tech guru myself, I instantly recognized that they were talking about a new cellphone technology as soon as I sat the word “5G”. This articles talks about how a research is being done at Surrey University to create a faster form of wireless technology. This technology is supposed to be 100 times faster than the previous “3G” and would allow someone to download a movie onto their smartphone or tablet in just 5 seconds.

Week 5 : Twitter and Personal Learning Networks

As is sit here late on Sunday night, after another great Super Bowl, I can’t help but notice that my feedly home page was exploding with sports articles about the big game! The article titled “Peyton Manning RidesBroncos Defense to the Title” sums up the entire game in one sentence. The Broncos offense had a strong first half, and their defense took over the second half to give them a big 24-10 victory over the Carolina Panthers.

(FoxSports, 2016)

Once again, I was able to further explore a tool called Twitter. Most people now a days are familiar with Twitter, however I feel that it is used in so many different ways. It wasn’t until this weeks learning activity that I was able to fully understand the educational purposes that Twitter can bring. For those who do not know what Twitter is, it’s a social media platform that allows you to connect with individual accounts and get live updates on the go. The unique feature of Twitter is that the updates must be under 140 characters. Twitter can be compared to Feedly, because it allows you to follow certain pages that consistently provide updates and current stories. The use of hashtags or the pound symbol (#) can also be helpful when searching for a particular topic. By putting (#) in front of a particular topic such as #ADED1P32 it allows you to connect with anyone else who might be talking about the same thing. The ability to connect first hand with people on Twitter can be done through direct messaging or responding directly to ones tweet.

(Twitter, 2015)

Over the years of using Twitter, I have come to the realization that information can be spread so quickly. For example, if you are watching a taped show, you better stay off a social media site like Twitter. If you don’t, you will find “spoiler alerts” that will leave you frustrated and disappointed. If you want to find out what’s trending worldwide, Twitter has that covered. On the home page, you can find a “trending now section” that will allow you the ability to stay connected with the move up to date worldwide news.

Twitter will be a good learning tool to add to my personal learning environment (PLE) diagram. Although it is already there under my collaboration section, I feel that it can also be useful under the educational sector. Twitter has millions of pages that can help me learn and develop my educational background. Having an educational account allows me to be more professional and eliminate irrelevant useless tweets. This helps me to keep my digital footprint more positive.