Leah's Blog

After reading this week's article titled  Categorising teachers’ use of social media for their professional learning , I started to think about the ways I've used social media for professional learning. "Teachers are increasingly using online apps and educational resources to cultivate and extend their professional growth opportunities" (Prestridge, 2019). One of the main reasons teachers are getting involved in personal learning networks (PLNs) is to connect with like-minded peers. Teachers use these PLNs for informal learning, collaboration, and exchanging knowledge and ideas. "For many teachers, the use of social media for self-generating professional learning through their online PLNs becomes embedded in their daily routine, which improved their teaching practice and their own understanding of the relevant content or pedagogy" (Prestridge, 2019).  When I was a teacher, I used Facebook to share knowledge and connect with like-minded colleagues. Using Face...

I have decided to do the full version of our Knowledge Sharing & Tracking assignment and created a small collection of classroom learning-related resources that I am sharing via Pinterest. You can view my collection of classroom resources here . Please visit and take a look at what I've created! So far, I've assembled boards for substitute resources, bulletin board ideas, writing activities, social studies, math games, science experiments, and Google Classroom. Most of what I have curated has come from a collection of existing materials but I did experiment with creating my own pin. One of the substitute activities I loved to do with my students was an Instagram "Where is my teacher?" page. I gave students a blank Instagram sheet and had them illustrate where they thought I was when I was out that day. I created my own pin for this resource and so far it has the most interaction on my site. Here are some examples:  This student thought I was out fishing like a bos...

I've heard of Edmodo before and knew it was like an education-focused social media platform, but I've never put it to use. I decided to do some more research on the tool to determine how it could be used in the classroom. Here is what I found. Teachers Edmodo users can manage their classes and consolidate all their activities in one place. Teachers also have unlimited options in terms of sharing digital content. They can embed videos, create learning groups, and manage calendar events. Edmodo also offers numerous organizational features for teachers and they can even print out rosters for substitutes. Some other ways Edmodo can be used in the classroom are: 1. Assessments Utilize the Edmodo quiz builder or poll feature to assess students learning. 2. Peer Reviews and Critiques Place students in small groups and have them post their work to their group for peer review and feedback. 4. Writing Projects Students can share their writing projects with each other in Edmodo. 5. Langua...

I enjoyed reading Dr. Dennen's Instructional Design and Development for Social Media Lessons paper to start off the week. She describes in detail how she uses social media tools in her lessons and how she designs her process.  One of the sections I found most important was the information on providing tutorials. Dr. Dennen gives a couple examples of how students struggled with tools before being provided with a tutorial. While not all tools will require a tutorial, I think it's important to consider them for tools that might have a confusing interface. For each of the tools I've explored, I've looked up reference guides to determine how to best use the different features. While I didn't feel like I needed hand holding throughout my exploration of tools, the tutorials definitely helped me better understand how to effectively use the tools.  I've also experienced difficulties with certain tools in my classroom because I didn't provide tutorials at first. I...

This past weekend I participated in the Detox Challenge. The challenge was to stay off of social media for 24-48 hours. I finished all my classwork by Friday and took Saturday to attempt the challenge. I was successful and stayed off of all social media for about 36 hours. I didn't really find it difficult to remove myself, but I did find my thumb hovering over the Facebook app on my phone every time I unlocked it. I definitely had to actively think about not tapping that Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter button because it is habit for me to click and browse when I'm bored. The hardest part was missing out on what was going on that day. I actually missed one of my good friend's birthdays because I rely on Facebook to remind me and I wasn't on that day to see the notification. I felt horrible! This is similar to the way I felt when I took a month long hiatus from social media in the past. I missed out on important dates, dogs passing, baby announcements, and more. Most peo...

This week I tried out two writing and publishing tools, one group annotation tool, and one concept mapping tool. Stories for School, Framapad, Hypothesis, and Bubbl.us weren't all that self explanatory when I first joined them, so I had to do some additional research to determine how these tools are used. Here's what I found. Stories for School Stories for School allows students to read and write interactive fiction through branching stories or choose your own adventure texts. The app allows teachers to communicate with their students writing throughout the process. Interactive fiction requires writers to think about different scenarios, paths, and links between story chapters. The stories can also be illustrated with different images. I like the idea of this app but didn't really get a good idea of how it worked. The website says students can easily create accounts without email addresses so I think this is a benefit in the classroom. I'd be interested to see this tool...

This weekend I participated in the Goodreads challenge. I have never used Goodreads other than when I've come across a summary or review of a book I've looked up. I liked how easy it was to post to the discussion and it got me thinking about how you could use Goodreads in the classroom. 1. Invite students to keep track of their books Students can easily add books to their "read" bookshelf and add books they're interested in reading to their "to read" bookshelf. 2. Connect with authors Students can follow their favorite authors, track what they're reading, and get notifications when they post to blogs. 3. Find recommendations You can have your students request a recommendation for a certain genre or suggest books to other classmates. 4. Create private discussion groups You can extend book discussions outside of the classroom by posting to a private discussion group. Students can then respond to each other within the Goodreads platform. You can also po...

Joining two separate communities and being an active participant in one while lurking in the other was very interesting. I first joined two adoption related groups, one on Facebook and one on Reddit. I quickly became overwhelmed in both of these groups because of the controversial topics brought up. I actively participated in the Facebook group and shared my ideas and thoughts with total strangers. Still, there was a sense of community among that group. People mostly supported each other and had great advice to give. However, there were times when things got out of hand in that group. If anyone disagreed with someone else's opinion, things got pretty heated and admins had to disable comments. I didn't experience the same thing in the Reddit group. There was a lower sense of community in that group because people hid behind their handles and didn't really get to know one another. I found myself really wanting to comment on certain topics but I was just there to lurk. Eventua...

Diigo is an excellent social bookmarking tool that enables you to save, annotate, and share bookmarks. There is a special account for K-12 and higher-ed educators that give registered teachers a variety of tools and features. You can create a student Diigo group for your class without the use of student emails. You can also set privacy settings to the group so that only members can see content. Besides using Diigo groups to share with your students websites and content you find on the web, students can also use it for collaboration on research projects, group bookmarks, and annotation. Here are some ways you can use Diigo group to conduct research in and out of class: Students can search for online content relevant to a research project and bookmark the websites they find and add them to the class group. Students can organize bookmarks by tags and date to aggregate content around a particular topic and make it easier to search for later. Students can highlight specific parts on the boo...

I was thinking about a topic on the discussion board this week regarding ethics and using social media in the classroom. I wrote about how I think using social media in the classroom can be problematic, but I started to think about the ways social media can be useful in the classroom. Maybe not for elementary or middle school, but it might work for high schoolers. After all, when you think about the favorite activity of today's students you'll probably come up with the obvious answer: social media.  Students learn plenty of new things everyday but they rarely get precise instructions on how to use social media. Instead, they rely on what they see from other users and this doesn't always lead them in the right direction. However, the teacher can set an example and explain how social media can help them learn and establish a great online reputation. Here are some ways social media can be used in the classroom: 1. Connect the class in a Facebook group. Create a private group a...

Am I paranoid, or is my phone listening to me? I was talking to my friend about signing up for a half marathon when I'm done with physical therapy and ready to run again. We began talking about running shoes and what kind of shoes she has been using lately. I pulled out my phone and began typing "runn" and Google suggested "running shoes". Then we talked specifically about Running Warehouse and the good prices they have on shoes. I then pulled out my phone again to type "runn" into my phone but this time Google suggested "running warehouse" instead of running shoes. I was honestly a little freaked out so I didn't click on running warehouse or browse their website. Later on in the afternoon I realized I had ads on Facebook for Running Warehouse and different deals they had going on.  So is my phone listening to me? How do I make it stop? I'm not alone in my thinking. Our phones may actually be listening to us even when we're not us...

You've likely heard about people obsess about Pinterest so you're curious about what it is and how to use it. Pinterest is a visual virtual board site that lets you "pin" or collect images from the web. You can create boards to help you categorize your images and add descriptions for why you pinned them in the first place.  ("This raised garden bed would look great in the backyard," or "This is a fun Father's Day gift idea.") Most of these images link back to the original website where they appeared so you can easily access them later.  When most people hear "Pinterest" they probably think about recipes, weddings, and hairstyles. While it's true that many pinners use the site to gather inspiration in these areas, the site is also flooded with teachers, universities, designers, nonprofits, businesses, real estate brokers, news outlets, and more. I mainly use pinterest for recipes or design ideas for my house, but my husband is a de...

What is crowdsourcing? Crowdsourcing is the practice of utilizing the wisdom of a group of people for a common goal. Crowdsourcing can be extremely powerful when used in the right place at the right time. "Though crowdsourcing has been around for a long time, it became popular around the same time as the emergence of commerce, social media, and the smartphone culture" (White, J. 2019). Increased connectivity between people has been the biggest contributor to the growing interest. How does crowdsourcing work? "In order to crowdsource effectively, a business must break a larger project into individual micro-tasks. Workers then come together to tackle these micro-tasks in small pieces to expedite the process" (White, J. 2019). This collaborative brainstorming enables thousands of people to contribute their thoughts into a single task. Crowdsourcing uses the Internet task market to connect workers to a job. It enables those workers to take the kinds of jobs they like an...

This past weekend I participated in the Instagram Social Media Challenge and gained a lot of insight into how often social media is used in our everyday lives. I thought I was going to have some difficulty finding certain items from the list because I'm staying at home and trying to avoid venturing out around town. However, I was surprised at how many things I was able to find at home and online. I ended up being able to find all 11 scavenger hunt items as well as the two bonuses from the Social Media Challenge. No. 1: Business card with social media contact info. I went to Lucky Goat on Saturday and checked out the bulletin board they have for advertising in the back. There were quite a few business cards on the board but only two had social media contact info. Since social media is so widely used, I think more businesses would benefit from including social media contact info on their business cards. No. 2: Book with social media contact info for authors I never considered that au...