In a nutshell, cultivating a personal learning network entails weeding out useless or irrelevant resources and replacing them with potentially more beneficial resources. After reading "How to Cultivate a Personal Learning Network," I gained a better understanding of how in-depth one can go into their own personal learning network. In addition to weeding out old resources and bringing in the new, a person must interact, engage, and inquire with the people they follow and the people that follow them. I have learned that some people I have followed, followed me back. These are total strangers to me, yet they saw potential in my interests. In addition to these people, I also interact with you guys, my classmates. I have noticed it is easier to interact with all of you than it is to engage with the experts I am following. Nonetheless, I have been trying. I even had a few experts that followed me first! It felt good to be recognized. The first step I took toward cultivating my PLN was to get rid of a lot of the people I followed who do not post anymore or who were posting irrelevant information. I found that what a bio says versus what they actually post definitely differs. I unfollowed several pages on twitter and am in the process of cultivating my Feedly site. I unfollowed a total of twelve pages on twitter. Most of these were pages that haven't posted since 2019 or even 2018. I found them to be dead-ends regarding seeking for sources that are beneficial to my learning. However, I have especially noticed one page that I am following. They post the exact kind of material I am looking for in my PLN. A screenshot of their twitter page is posted below. After I weeded out the irrelevant pages, I went back and followed new ones. This time, I looked more closely at how often they post and the most recent content that they have posted. I followed twelve new twitter accounts and three new travel blogs. I forgot to mention that I also followed a study abroad account on twitter. I believe it will be especially useful to me while I do my Independent Learning Project.
I searched endlessly for a twitter chat to participate in and could not find one for the life of me. I did eventually find one that i can participate in in the future called @gtchat. They post about and discuss teaching gifted and talented students. They do discuss other topics pertaining to education, but their main focus is gifted and talented students. I would like to give a shoutout to our classmate/colleage Haylie Wendland for sharing a source on twitter about finding twitter chats. I am definitely going to use it. It has twitter chats for teachers specifically. I can't wait to check it out. The link is: https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/blog-posts/meghan-everette/twitter-teachers-201-chatting-and-best-practices/ Thanks Everyone for visiting my blog once again and I hope y'all have a blessed week. Good luck on midterms!
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Previous Travels One of the resources I posted last week gave me some important insight on what to put in my journal. It reminded me that I should put all of my travels in my journal, near and far. While the trip to London and Dublin will be the farthest trip I will have gone on, I still would like to call attention to the smaller, yet still important, trips that I have gone on already. One would not normally consider a trip to the Sandhills in Nebraska a vacation, but I always have. I have family on a ranch in the middle of nowhere. Just an hour down the road from their ranch is the homestead of my late great-great-great grandmother Dillie. It has stayed in our family for generations. The homestead, named "The Dillie," has become an escape from the rest of the world for my whole family. The Dillie has no wifi or cell service, and it is in the beautiful Sandhills of Nebraska with no neighbors to be seen. My family travels to the sandhills multiple times each year. We also stay there for a week every summer. You will see me relaxing in a hammock, reading a book in the first picture below. This was taken two summers ago. During the summer after my freshman year of high school, I got on a plane for the first time. I got the opportunity to go to Florida with the rest of my high school band and we marched and played in a parade in Disney World. We also went to Cocoa Beach and did some sightseeing outside of Disney World. Because my sister and I are only two years apart in age, she went on the same trip. We got to spend a lot of quality time together. While high schoolers always call for drama, I enjoyed the trip and tried my best to stay out of the drama. the second picture is of a couple of friends and I at Cocoa Beach. During the summer after my junior year of high school, I got to go on another trip with my High School band to Chicago. This trip was more enjoyable for me because I had better friends and was less involved in drama. We marched the streets of Chicago, went on a cruise, visited Six Flags amusement park, and ate some of the best pizza I've ever had. My best friends and I spent our nights in the hotel having movie nights, spa nights, and pizza parties, and we also went to the pool. I made some amazing memories. The third photo is of my view from the top of the Willis Tower. Packing Up and Prep
If you know me, you know I make lists upon lists. Every Sunday night I prepare for my week by writing down all of my homework in my planner and the dates I plan to do it. I make lists before I go shopping, I make to-do lists outside of my planner, and I make packing lists every time I travel, no matter where I go. This keeps me organized and it helps me stress less. I have already started brainstorming what I will be packing for the upcoming trip to London and Dublin. I also have an itinerary of places my group and I will be going. I have started the process of getting a passport as this will be my first time going out of the United States. I can't wait to see where this trip takes me. I have not yet made my Instagram account ready to be viewed, but I will be doing that here shortly! Watch for updates! I will also be starting the prep section of my journal this week. I am so excited to share my experience with all of you. Thanks for reading! That title is just an example of me trying to be creative and make someone laugh (I probably failed). ANYWAY... I started my research on Personal Learning Networks after the fact that I followed new blogs and twitter accounts. Lucky for me, I did what I was supposed to do! So, I started working on my research by googling "What is a Personal Learning Network?" Creative right? Yeah... I came up with a couple of really interesting articles that solidified the work I had already put into following people and pages. There were also some tips that I found on building my Personal Learning Network throughout my life. The first two articles I read gave me a pretty good idea on what exactly a personal learning network is. The first, titled "What is a Personal Learning Network?" by Matthew Lynch, gave me a basic definition that helped me to understand that this is not something I have just started today, but it is something I have been building since I got an e-mail, I just did not know it. The second article, also titled "What is a Personal Learning Network?" (I guess that's what I get for searching those exact words, but seriously these people need to get more creative) by TeachThought Staff, expanded on where a personal learning network can come from and the two different types of learning networks- personal and professional- which can sometimes work hand-in-hand. This is my case. Now, these articles helped to build my understanding of the origination of my own Personal and Professional Learning Network. The second article mentioned that a Personal Learning Network does not have to be fully digital or online. In this case, I consider my Personal/Professional Learning Network to have started with my family, after all, they are the ones who first knew me and they started my education by teaching us pre-school material at home. They are also the ones who set up my first phone, and later, my first email and Facebook accounts. As a result, they were my first "Friends" on Facebook, and my first contacts in my phone and e-mail. Next, I began to build my Personal/Professional Learning network by getting a school e-mail and by making more social media accounts. With the school e-mail, I was able to communicate with my teachers. I discovered Quizlet in seventh grade and still use it to this day. I still follow my High School Spanish teacher on Quizlet. I formed relationships with my teachers so that I could benefit as much as possible from their classes. It was not until I got to college that I began really researching and following experts in my field. In fact, this class sparked my interest in following experts even further than when I first got here. Now, I follow many artists and even a few travelers on my twitter account and my blog. While I mentioned that PLNs are not always digital, digital technology can be a vital tool in building a PLN. An article on "Leveraging Social Media to Build a Digital PLN" specifies more on this. And, since we are blogging, I stumbled upon an interesting article on Starting a Teaching Blog that I thought I would share with those of you going into education. This article relates directly to building a PLN through a blog. I EVEN watched a Ted Talk on how PLNs enhance Education. The site that each of these are from is www.edutopia.org if anyone was wondering, or if anyone wanted to research some sources.
I am excited to announce that I will be starting a travel journal...of sorts. I have been struggling with trying to come up with something that I could be excited to learn about and write about that still pertains to travel. You see, I am in this class and I have this blog for the sole purpose of getting credit to go on the study abroad trip to London, England and Dublin, Ireland this summer. I have been in a class with Dr. Cox before where we were required to keep a twitter account, a website, and an Instagram. In fact, the twitter that you all follow me on now is the same twitter account I used for that class: Rhetoric and Writing. This website is also the one I used in that class but it has been revamped to fit the demands of this class. Once I was reminded about the many projects we did in that class, I got to thinking about using some of the skills I've learned so far to create my Independent Learning Project. Since it needs to be about travel, I have decided to keep a physical travel journal. Then I also ran into the problem that It needs to be related to digital literacy. So, I decided I would take an idea from Rhetoric and Writing and put my own twist on it.
I will not only be keeping a physical travel journal, but I will also rejuvenate my Instagram account from the previous class, but rather than posting every-day life occurrences, I will be posting pictures of my travels and captions describing backstories behind the pictures. I combined the use of social media and a photo essay style into one project. On this Instagram account, I will also be posting pictures of my travel journal to make sure my viewers can keep up will all aspects of my travels. After I read some articles on how to keep a travel journal, I came up with some creative ideas of my own and I found some ideas from the articles that I can use. I even took notes on my phone. One idea that I came up with is to take my polaroid camera so I can make my travel journal similar to a scrapbook. This way I will also be able to put small souveniers and any tickets to events in the journal alongside my writings and sketches. I will be illustrating some of the things I describe in my journal. Another idea that was mentioned in an article is to document my preparation for the trip. While I will be required to write about the pre-departure meetings, I will also be able to make lists (if you know me, you know I love making lists) for packing, to-dos, and don't forgets. Another article also mentioned writing about all of my senses, not just visual. This was a good reminder. I have decided that I will not stop writing in this journal after the big trip, but rather I am inspired to continue the journal even for something as small as a camping trip with my family. It will be a book full of happy memories that I can cherish for the remainder of my life. I am extremely excited to start this project and learn more about keeping a journal along the way. The first article I read on this topic made it very hard to agree with the change. It felt as if the article was trying to convey that passion-based learning should take over education and leave no room for critical thinking in education. Students still need to learn about math, science, English, history, etc. I am a future art teacher and I am advocating for the continuation of a solid education in these areas. Now, this article implied that students should have free-reign over their education. While they should pursue their passion, they should also be getting a "typical" education to enhance and facilitate their success in their chosen fields of passion. I disagreed with the article in that students should always have access to social media in school. I have seen the negative effects of having free access to social media in schools more often than I would like to admit. Many students abuse their privilege of using social media in schools. I also felt that this article made passion-based learning out to be a utopian-style of education. The reality is that education is never going to be butterflies and rainbows like this article makes it seem. Students are still going to mess up and fail and their teachers are going to need to be there to help them up and sometimes use discipline to teach a lesson. This article implies to me that passion-based learning would make students spoiled and over-entitled. It makes education chaotic.
https://online.csc.edu/access/lessonbuilder/item/1740737/ Now, don't go running off yet- I know I sound like a negative nancy. I still agree with the idea of implementing passion-based learning into our current educational setting. Once I moved on from the first article I read, the others were much more clear and agreeable on what passion-based learning really is. They addressed exactly what I was thinking: the fear of chaos. They made it clear that passion-based learning would just become a part of education, not take over education. For instance, one teacher shared her experience with using passion-based projects once a year. This allowed her students to stick with their education and still pursue and learn about their passions. It helps them to progress toward their future life goals. I understand now that passion-based learning is not about taking over education and setting students wild, but rather facilitating more creativity among students which I am all for! I would absolutely use these ideas in my own classroom in the future. Art class is one of the only places students are allowed to let their imaginations run free (to an appropriate extent), and anything that points my students toward understanding who they are and who they want to become, I will put my whole heart into it. https://online.csc.edu/access/lessonbuilder/item/1740738/ https://online.csc.edu/portal/site/6b32e397-14fc-4c26-901f-3974def81056/tool/38f933bf-128c-46cd-b6a2-3b4e7e464a02/ShowItem?returnView=&studentItemId=0&backPath=&bltiAppStores=false&errorMessage=&clearAttr=&messageId=&source=&title=&sendingPage=135104&newTopLevel=false&postedComment=false&addBefore=&itemId=1740740&path=&topicId=&addTool=-1&recheck=&id=&forumId= Personally I think the first article I read was either not clear enough in discussing how to implement passion-based learning, or it was simply not well-written in that the introduction did not align with the ideas they were conveying. The other articles thankfully cleared it up for me. Thanks for coming to my blog! After watching several TED talks this week, I can say I understand more about how to reach audiences of different ages. I especially enjoy TED Talks that use humor to keep their audience truly involved in what they have to say. There are many ways to appeal to different audiences. For example, many speakers use emotional appeal, humor, or express contagious passion about a topic. Though they were more serious, I did enjoy the TED talks that pertain to educational circumstances. I chose two TED talks to tweet about. They were purely based on experiences that the speakers had in schools and how they got to where they are today. One speaker spoke of the need for education to be more available and less intimidating so that students do not have to fear for their lives and can make something out of their futures. This talk went deep into the needs of students to be able to plan for their futures. One thing resonated with me in particular during this talk. The speaker mentioned that she asked a student where they would see themselves in 20 years. The student replied that they weren't so sure that they would live that long. That's deep. It's concerning. Students should not be afraid or discouraged from planning for a good future for themselves. Education can change their views. This is what the speaker's goal was for students in New York City. She succeeded and then some. She now has lead several classes to graduation and a bright future. A Link is provided below. https://t.co/vQpFwN265k?amp=1 Another TED Talk I watched reminded me more of making, hacking, and playing which I was taught earlier in this unit. This talk was about making mistakes. Students aren't able to learn if they are expected to only know facts and not make mistakes. Experiences require mistakes very often and mistakes build a student's learning experiences. This talk also covered the lack of creativity that teachers use when making assessments. Rather than making tests multiple-choice, make them so that the student truly has to think creatively. This reminded me of the talks we watched in this class about education killing creativity. Students often aren't allowed enough freedom and say in their own education to continue being creative. They are often not allowed to choose what they want to learn. This is a problem for many students. Education often does not allow time for students to take classes that facilitate creative-thinking. Some schools even try to eliminate these classes on the basis that they think they are a waste of time or money. This is absolutely wrong. Students need the ability to be creative. A link to this talk is also provided. If you scroll down, you will also see the video is available to you. https://t.co/OWvDLZIF2i?amp=1 Hacking education to fit students' needs is crucial to students' futures. Students should be learning about what makes them happy and keeps them healthy. They should be learning how to form questions, how to think critically, and how to think creatively. All of these are crucial to education. Making things often encourages the creativity that so many curriculums lack. Play should be incorporated so that students further their skills while still loving what they're doing. TED talks can facilitate making, hacking, and playing by explaining to us how to transform curriculum and by further educating teachers on more ideas to make students love learning. These talks will certainly help me in my career as a future Art teacher. My class will demonstrate first-hand knowledge of facilitating creative-thinking, making things, and playing. It is easy to do these things in an art classroom and I look forward to it. Below is a picture of me and a few classmates in elementary school thinking creatively in music class. Aside from taking this class to fulfill the study abroad requirement, I am beginning to also understand how much our every day lives are affected by digital literacy. People have many different definitions to describe digital literacy. When I was doing my research, I came across one definition provided in an article titled "What is digital literacy and why does it matter?." This definition comes from The American Library Association and states that digital literacy is "the ability to use information and communication technologies to find, evaluate, create, and communicate information, requiring both cognitive and technical skills." The term "Digital Literacy" covers more than just articles found on the web. This article can be found at https://www.renaissance.com/2019/02/08/blog-digital-literacy-why-does-it-matter/.
Digital Literacy has it's own twist on using language. One who wants to create digital literacy must be fluent and skilled in the use of language online as opposed to spoken language. A Digital Literacy author also must consider the rules of netiquette and must be careful with the words they use. According to a blog post I read, Digital Literacy has eight essential elements. To be digitally literate, one must include cultural, cognitive, constructive, communicative, confident, creative, critical, and civic aspects to their work. The author of the blog goes on to describe the meanings of all of these. One must know how to behave, how to do, how to use, how to communicate, how to belong, how to make, how to evaluate, and how to participate (Sally, 2015). When considering my own digital fluency, I feel as if I am pretty good at displaying proper behavior, communication, confidence, evaluation, creativity and participation. I could work on my cognitive and constructive elements regarding digital literacy. I would like to learn more about how to follow all of the "rules" of appropriate digital literacy. I could stand to be more fluent in digital literacy. As a young adult, I am quite confident in my own abilities to effectively communicate to specific audiences. I know how to talk to young people which is a great characteristic to have as I am going to be an art teacher. It will be helpful to know how to talk to my students as well as use the resources available to the maximum extent possible. I will need to stay updated on changes in technology to retain this characteristic, but I believe it will be worth it. I want to learn more about different audiences. I know how to talk to adolescents, but I don't know much about talking to younger kids or middle-aged and older adults. It would help me to better understand my students' ways of life. I expect to learn more about audience, keeping up with technology advances, and becoming more fluent in digital literacy. I also expect to learn more about guidelines for creating digital literature. To be a better digital learner, I will have to continuously practice the skills I already have and I will have to research more about the skills I lack. Below are a few articles I found interesting: Sally. (2015, June 11). Digital Literacy Has 8 Essential Elements. FINDING HEROES. https://findingheroes.co.nz/2015/06/11/digital-literacy-has-8-essential-elements/ Learning the Landscape of Digital Literacy. (2017, November 6). Teaching Tolerance. https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/publications/learning-the-landscape-of-digital-literacy What is digital literacy and why does it matter? | Renaissance. (n.d.). Retrieved February 2, 2020, from https://www.renaissance.com/2019/02/08/blog-digital-literacy-why-does-it-matter/ What is digital literacy? (n.d.). Retrieved February 2, 2020, from https://www.commonsensemedia.org/news-and-media-literacy/what-is-digital-literacy |
AuthorDaria Dart Archives |