Leah's Blog

After reading through the full version and the concept version of the Community Assignment for EME6414, I've decided I'm going to go with the full version. On Monday, I searched for different groups to join on Facebook and different threads to follow on Reddit. At first I thought I would do something relating to dogs but I found a group for adoptees and decided to go that route instead. I joined a group for adult adoptees on Facebook and am following the r/Adoption community on Reddit. I've been really amazed by the interactions so far. Both groups have thousands of members so there is a lot of activity each day. I'm going to be an active member on the Facebook group and a lurker on the Reddit forum. I'm actually having a hard time just being a lurker because there are so many posts I want to respond to. Luckily, I've been able to relate to many of the posts on the Facebook group so I'm busy making comments and starting my own posts on there. I'm looking...

I just finished reading the article Teens and Social Media: A Case Study of High School Students’ Informal Learning Practices and Trajectories by Bagdy, L.M., Dennen, V. P., Rutledge, S. A., Rowlett, J. T., Burnick, S., & Joyce, S. and learned that high school students can participate in informal learning practices through social media. Many parents or adults in general look at teens using their phones and think they're just socializing with their friends or participating in something negative. However, this article informs us that teens can be using social media for career/future planning, entrepreneurship, and hobbies.  The paper focuses on five high school students who use social media for things such as learning about future universities they may attend, sports they've invested their time in, career paths they're interested in, and hobbies they enjoy. Two students even used social media in an entrepreneurial manner by reselling items or selling items they've cr...

In the Theories and Learning Cognition class I took last semester I learned about communities of practice. Communities of Practice (CoPs) are organized groups of people who have common interest. They collaborate regularly to share information and improve their skills. CoP members exhibit multiple levels of participation: Peripheral - An outsider who never leads to full membership but is significant in contributing to the community.  Inbound - Newcomers joining the community with the prospect of becoming full participants in its practice. Insider - The formation of a full participant in the community. Practice continues through new events and demands creating occasions for renegotiation of identity.  Boundary - Span boundaries and link CoPs, sustaining identities across practices. Outbound - The member begins to lead out of the community. One of the most recent communities of practice I have been involved in was a local running group. We all were pursuing our common interes...

I've been an avid user of Instagram in my personal life but never thought of using the app for a graduate level class. I signed up for a new account (you can follow me @leah_eme6414) and it got me thinking about how Instagram could be used in the classroom as a teacher. Instagram can be a fun and safe social media tool for students if used properly. You probably want to create a separate, private classroom, account and only post class-related things for your students and their parents to see. Once you have your classroom account set up, you can get busy searching related hashtags and posting images right away.  Showcase Student Work Instagram is the perfect way to show off student work to make your students feel proud. Just like teachers often hang up excellent work in the classroom, you can snap a picture and share it to Instagram for your students and parents to see. Find New Ideas Many other teachers have Instagram accounts that you can follow to find new fun ideas. You can find...

This is the first time I've blogged in a long time. I used to keep a blog as a teacher so that my students and parents could access it. My previous blogging experience has got me thinking about the difference between blogging for class, blogging personally, and blogging professionally. Has anyone blogged for professional uses before? I felt more structured as teacher blogger and felt the need to make my blogs perfect. I wanted to make sure I stayed professional and always had to watch what I said to avoid any blowback from parents. I was teaching elementary school when I was blogging so my students didn't use Blogger as much as their parents did. I felt like blogging benefitted my career because it allowed parents to connect with me on a more personal level, but I didn't really feel like myself. I always had to put on my professional face and put a lot more thought into what I said. Blogging for class has felt more free and I'm more interested in the variety of topics I...

Digital Natives are "native speakers of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet" (Prensky 2001). Those who did not grow up in the digital world but who adapt to new technology are known as Digital Immigrants . After browsing through this week's readings for class I understand that some people that think these terms are myths. However, I think growing up in the digital age definitely influences the thinking and learning of students. My parents are digital immigrants and they fit the definition of digital immigrants as presented in the Prensky article from this week. They prefer to talk in person, focus on one task at a time, print out things such as directions, etc. While I grew up as a digital native, I wouldn't say I'm particularly always attached to a device. I still prefer to print out chapters at work that I need to edit and I'm not very good at multitasking. Even though I do not fit in with other digital natives, growing up in th...

In the face of COVID-19, social media has been a great way for people and communities to stay connected even while physically separated. Just imagine if this pandemic happened 15 years ago. Where would we have been with remote working and schooling from home?  Social media plays a big role in keeping people updated on current events about the pandemic. We have realtime information right at our fingertips in the face of a worldwide event. This information can help keep us safe and provide us with a better understanding of what is happening and how it may impact us. Of course, we have to be careful of spreading false information or getting information from places other than trusted sources. Until a month ago, most of us haven't heard of the term "social distancing" but now it is becoming the main term used in posts across multiple social media platforms. It has influenced the way we respond to others and how we have prepared for the pandemic. Another term I have heard is ...

Twitter is a tool that I've never really been interested in nor knew how to use properly. I created an account years ago when it became popular but I saw it as just posting statuses that I could do on Facebook so I didn't really get the point. I tried following hashtags and accounts I thought I'd be interested in, but I became too overwhelmed with my crowded feed.  Learning that we'd be using Twitter for this class seemed like it would be frustrating for me but I decided to give it a go. I created a new Twitter account and did some research about how to use Twitter for professional development. When it comes to creating new professional opportunities, making connections is one of the most important steps to take. Social media is an excellent way to do this and I now understand how Twitter can play a role in professional development. Twitter allows you to connect with like-minded fellow professionals in your field and find solutions to problems. Often times, online conta...

I was researching Web 2.0 and what it really means when I came across this article:  https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-web-2-0-p2-3486624 . The article, What Does 'Web 2.0' Even Mean,  by Daniel Nations is a more recent article that described Web 2.0 in terms that I more easily understood. After reading the article, I discovered that Web 2.0 is just the evolvement of Web 1.0 that allowed for interaction on the web. Nations says, "Web 2.0 marked an era where we weren't just using the internet as a tool anymore —we  were becoming part of it. You could say that Web 2.0 involved the process of putting 'us' into the web." I also now understand that social media is an idea that came from Web 2.0. Now we are connected with other people and can share anything we want to via social media. It has been a while since the Web 2.0 era began and all of us are not used to a very interactive and social web.