THING NO. 18 Thoughts on Social Networking

I created a Twitter account for this class earlier in the semester and placed a link on my blog for others to follow me on Twitter. Clearly, we are a very social culture and facebook has taken social networking to a level that no other social platform has been able to. I attended the Digital Media Music Summit last week at TPAC in Nashville, TN. I was able to gain insight about social media and found it absolutely remarkable how much of our lives are embedded into its existence.  It has become a science...or mathematical concept that business almost completely relies on...or at least the music business. Basically, learning the "system" of how facebook and other social medias work is and should be the goal of each and every artist and company representing an artist today.

If, and it is a huge "IF" I used a social media in the classroom it would be a blog or Twitter. I find that the limited accessible interaction that is capable of becoming more personal than educational is risky for a teacher. I am following Stanford University on Twitter with my account for this class. It is absolutely saturated in valuable information within Tweets. In addition, its current ongoing information that I, as the reader can now be exposed to that would not happen without social media.

In a classroom, ongoing communication is valuable for students, teachers, and parents. The best way is through a social network like facebook. The safest way seems like a blog. There are many ways that these medias are made private and limited for uses by teachers. If anything, It is great for a community of teachers to have and engage in.

Other social networks to be familiar and engage within include tumblr, google+ and foursquare to name a few!

THING NO. 17 Thoughts on Delicious

Bookmarking and tagging becomes organized with Delicious. I can think of so many things that make this site useful to my life. By habit, I will focus on research and gather sources for a paper or project with no intention of doing more than gathering it.  I may not come back to it for a week or longer. Bookmarking sites and filing those into a stack that is accessible when I come back to it seems so much easier.  In addition, If working on a group project, it would be easy to access each others sources. In business, I can take a project I am working on and gather all the best information I can find and file it so that I can come back to it at any date.

I began a stack named "Songplugger". I am in the process of hiring a songplugger for my publishing company. This is the hardest and most important task as my role as a publisher. I was able to view sites and then files those together by clicking on Delicious that I added to my tool bar. Delicious' resourceful bookmarking strategy goes steps beyond a simple journal and makes tagging another luxury of this tool. Tags are the best way to find material that is available on a certain subjects or in relation to key words that become tags by the author or user. For instance, when we searched educational technology many useful links were displayed. Clicking on a tag would serve the same way on this site. Comments were displayed to add further ratings on the bookmark or tag.

I see many uses for this in the classroom. As I mentioned, how useful it would be for me as a student above on research projects. It would be the same for any student. A teacher could make a stack for her classes with valuable resources that could be accessed from anywhere by any number of students.

THING NO. 16 Thoughts on Getting Organized with 2.0 Tools

Me? Organized? Ha! I am not sure there is a tool out there capable. I would love to see that day come before my days are over...Who knows maybe technology is the answer. I admit my iPhone in collaboration with my fiance' keeping me working towards the organization goal has helped over the last couple of years. I felt like this discovery was a repeat in some ways. I had already created a home page on iGoogle when we did Thing 10. It is my homepage that I keep and use.  iGoogle homepage really is such an asset for my business and personal life. I play around with gadgets often. I will add and take away. Usually, after realizing they are just taking up space I will remove as needed.  I keep what I find useful and that usually is calendars.It is for that reason I checked out 30 Boxes. I thought is was a pretty cute little tool. I have is displayed on my blog. When I forget things, it makes for a bad day. So, having checklist and calendars is a must. I use the one on my phone most often. I read on someones blog that the MSN calendar linked to their phone and you could view it from your device. That is what I need in a calendar. The one on iGoogle sends me an email reminder. All in all there are so many helpful tools for organization. It is just finding what works for the individual.

THING NO 15. Thoughts on Wiki

The concept of having a website where people can collaboratively author material of significance is a debatable measure concerning popularity. When I took part in the Discovery exercise I realized that I would need a lot of experience with this type of community in order to find it beneficial. Personally, I am lost in what makes the information in these communities accurate and reliable sources. If anyone can place information and edit the pages without regard to truth, I am not going to trust it. As I say this, all I can think is how often wikipedia comes up as the first source in a search for any given concept. I downloaded a dictionary application to my iPad months ago to use in the classroom because of that factor. As much as I may not mind to use wikipedia for something simple or personal. I would not rely on such a resource in a classroom or as any type of professional for that matter.

Furthermore, the Discovery exercise did not leave me with a clear mental picture of my role as the author or the reader. I have zero desire to get involved in a community of possible good information, yet clearly non administrative support by a source that makes the works within it reliable. Am I wrong? Maybe I am missing it!

THING NO. 14 Thoughts on Flow Charts and Mind Maps

Flowcharts and Mind maps are tools that makes concepts easily to understand or solutions easy to find. I think for people who utilize flowcharts in business or the classroom will find these web-based tools to bea  great asset to their career. As far as me personally, I lack that drive to find value in flow charts. So, I am left not having enough passion for this exercise to give an unbiased opinion. Basically, I am very impressed at how simple the tools are to use. The sites offer such easy ways to organize information that would be invaluable without the tactic of what a flowchart offers.

I played around with bubbl.com a little bit. I chose the chart for business goals. It is a great asset for the tools to be geared towards the need or subject matter. I found it very easy to manipulate the bubbles to create a colorful display of the topic I was covering, which was "Songplugging". Yes, it was organized. No, I probably will not use the tool own my own. Yet, knowing it is available for a project or presentation I may need to complete is a good thing. The sites offer a very easy way to make any topic look and appear as professional, detailed, and organized as possible.

THING NO. 13 Thoughts on the Benefits of Web-based Applications

First, simply being web-based is a benefit of these types of application period. I have struggled in the past trying to figure out how to share works with others. It is a complicated process that basically ends up with me emailing the documents to individuals. At best through a mass email.  Web-based applications  offer a form of freedom in my opinion from larger market products from companies like Microsoft and Mac. I worked on a PowerPoint presentation, simply playing around with the features on Zoho writer. It seemed very comparable to the software/desktop version. I mean, there were signs of limited tools and layouts but, for the most part it was comparable to what we are use to.

Working on the poster below was fairly simple. I created it in Google docs.  It seems like the tools are very limited on this application as well as my ability to enhance it through my own means. I would have loved to have included by logo but, was unable to figure out how to edit the white background of  the logo, which was white...ugh...So it stuck out like a sore thumb. My poster does not look professional. It turned out very cute though and I can see how much fun and useful this application would be in the classroom.

By the way, this is a real event. I would love to see some of my colleges attend our event at Bluebird Cafe'. :)

Join us for this event!

THING NO.4 Thoughts on Commenting

Commenting is important to build conversation. A conversationalist is an asset to a discussion and when it comes to blogging the life of the blog depends on it. Within our class we are able to get to know each other a little better. Find out how our way of thinking compares to our colleagues as a tool to gage our weak and strong points in our program. I find my weak area these days being time to devote to things I really do enjoy like blogging and facebook. I try to stay active in the lives of the people I know and care about. It is really hard balancing this class within that. Back on subject, I have noticed that I need to invite conversation. Come across in facebook statuses or blog post as a real person and not a text book or emotionless being. Discussing things that everyone can relate to and focusing on the readers possible reactions to my post are in the forefront of my mind when blogging. I do not want to sound like a text book. I want to sound like a person who you could enjoy conversation at lunch with...no one wants to have lunch with their professor that is way to intimidating ;)

I chose to follow blogs of peers I have seen in class or who had a catchy title. That insinuated creativity to me and I love creative minds and learning from their way of thinking.

http://according-to-mo.blogspot.com
http://misskeems23.blogspot.com/
http://nedsedweb.blogspot.com/
http://mistys23things.blogspot.com/
http://swatson23things.blogspot.com/