I have never been one to get into listening to podcasts or watching vlogs. However, my dad listens to podcast after podcast, specifically on sports or politics. He also listens to the old radio show "Gun Smoke." Currently he is renovating our bathroom and our days are filled with the sound of his podcasts and "Gun Smoke" until he goes to bed around 8:30pm. I don't mind listening to "Gun Smoke." I much prefer it over politics and sports. That's just my persona preference. I also went to high school with two girls who tried to start a vlog. It wasn't exactly successful because their lives were not terribly interesting to others. Most of their videos consisted of goofing off with friends and not presenting any interesting information to the viewers. As opposed to unsuccessful vlogs, I have watched some vlogs, not knowing that that's what they were. Specifically, I used to enjoy watching youtubers Liza Koshy and David Dobrik's (First photo) vlogs when they were still together. I was actually even a little sad when they split up. I still occasionally watch both of their videos when I feel like laughing (Middle Photo). Another less-famous but very hilarious vlogger that I was obsessed with was Mike "Camike" Fox (Bottom Photo). I watched his videos when I was thirteen or fourteen. The British vlogger had lots to say about what happened to him, as well as doing hilarious commentaries on other people's videos. I always considered him to be a comedic vlogger. My sister and I spent hours binging his archived videos when we were younger. Many of our inside jokes came from his videos. Other vloggers that I have watched or at least heard of include Jenna Marbles, Shane, and Markiplier. While I've been more inclined to watch vlogs as opposed to listening to podcasts, if I had to make one or the other, I would choose to make a podcast. I hate the idea of my voice being recorded, but even more so the idea of adding my face to the mess. If I could choose among blogs, vlogs, or podcasts, I would choose blogging every time. I am also someone who enjoys reading, so lengthy texts don't bother me as much as they do others. As mentioned above, I have heard of some podcasters from my dad as well as from my friends. Some of these include Joe Rogan, Ben Shapiro, Eddie Murphy, Rush Limbaugh, Old Time Radio, and Sean Hannity.
After reading some articles and looking at more vlogs and podcasts this week, I feel like I understand the differences among them more deeply. Blogs are mainly visual and they include text and pictures, vlogs are visual and auditory, and podcasts are auditory.
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Before my phone decided to die on me, I was going to post several saved pictures in my phone to the new travel Instagram account. I have them all ready to post, but unfortunately I did not beat the clock when I was trying to get them uploaded. The pictures I plan on putting on the account include past trips. I will most-likely organize the Instagram account so that I post about the smaller trips that I make frequently like trips to the sandhills, camping trips, and significant trips from home back to college. Then, I will post about trips that I take less frequently, but that are still smaller trips in the state or just outside of the state like weekend vacations with friends. Finally, I will post about trips that were fairly large in my books. These posts will include the Florida and Chicago band trips that I went on in high school. Finally, once I get to go on the study abroad trip to London and Dublin, I will make posts concerning the trip and the sights, as well as what I work on in class and how the trip is going to be enhancing my education. In between these posts, I will make supplemental posts about my packing process, planning, airport tasks and other outside details. I can't wait to be able to share these pictures with everyone and the stories that go along with them. I will be updating this post with better, more extensive backstories than what the Instagram account with have. If you are interested in any of the stories and would like to know more, let me know and I'd be happy to talk to you about it. UPDATE 3/24/2020 I just finished uploading my previous travels posts on Instagram, please go check them out if you are interested at all. The most recent post is about Jenny's Gulch in South Dakota, the next is about Chicago, then one is about Florida. Then I described some traditions in my family such as my cousins' and sister's my trips, family reunions, and trips to college every fall with my dad. Finally, the very first post I made to the account is about the love of my life: the Nebraska Sandhills. That is the longest post because I have been there so often and have made more memories than I can count there. If you like stories, DM me or comment on my post and ask about a trip! I'd be happy to tell the entire story. The captions on each Instagram post are brief summaries of each corresponding trip. Below is a screenshot of my Instagram travel account. Go add me! @daria.dartboard_traveledition Tonight I read some articles on digital storytelling and even watched a few examples of digital stories, but if I am completely honest, prior to reading the articles and watching the videos, I assumed digital storytelling was something we had already been doing through our blogs for this class all semester. Boy was I wrong. I really thought that digital storytelling was nothing but writing about your life online in some form. I am sure you can see why I thought we were doing this by blogging. Now that I have been informed; however, I know that there is a lot more to digital storytelling than meets the eye. In a sense It could be similar to blogging, but through a video blog or a "vlog" as many call it. I do feel that it is about more important things than every-day experiences though. Even after I read the articles I could not quite grasp exactly what it was. That is when the examples really came into play. Seeing a visual example of digital storytelling really cleared it up for me. From what I understand now, digital storytelling is a short video made up of images with a voiceover in the background describing how the images tell a true, personal story about the person narrating. It is an interaction between a voice and images. I found that it is important for the voice to contain inflection and enthusiasm in order to keep the viewer interested. Otherwise, it was difficult for me to stay interested in a video with a mundane voiceover. The artist in me also noticed that one digital story in particular contained older music and special effects to make the voice and music sound like an old TV show. A retro soundtrack if you will. Then, the creator used old imagery and put special effects in the video to make it look retro. These types of effects draw the viewer/listener in. Some digital stories were very obviously directed at a certain audience while others were meant for everyone to see and hear them. Now I know that Dr. Cox invited us to make our own, but I was not terribly comfortable yet with sharing my own voice with the world. I do love telling stories specifically about things I am passionate about. Many of my blogs on this site are even extensive with stories about personal feelings. There will be many more stories to come especially when we travel abroad. I may even play around with digital storytelling while I am on the trip if I feel like exploring the digital world outside of my comfort zone. It could be an interesting addition to my Instagram account and my blog. I could tell of my travels while also providing the pictures I take from my travels with my own voice in the background. There is also a possibility that I will wait until we finish traveling and then I will just make one video that covers the entire trip along with photos. Who knows what I will do? Stay tuned for updates on my playing around with this idea! To those of you who are waiting for me to finally post my Instagram handle...the time is finally here! it is @daria.dartboard_traveledition. Now, I have not posted anything yet, but I have a profile picture, a bio, and a link to my website (here) on it. I am slowly but steadily making progress. I appreciate everyone's patience with me as I continue to work on this Independent learning project. I have also finally purchased a travel journal. I bought a plain journal that allows for me to write, draw, and tape things into it. I decorated the cover with some stickers, and I have decorative tape so I can tape down the corners of the pictures I plan to put in it. I have an old scrapbook that I might dig out and look through for ideas on making my journal visually interesting. I made this scrapbook when I was in fourth grade so quite a while ago, but I am confident that my ten-year-old self had at least some idea of what she was doing and how to do it. This coming week (spring break) I plan to do a little more with the journal, maybe write some stuff in it and get some feeling for the voice I want to project in it. I will also begin posting pictures to the travel Instagram account of my past trips, even the small camping trips. I already have several ideas on stories I might tell in the travel journal so make sure to stay updated. I plan on posting the photos from last week's blog to the travel Instagram account as well, so you all will get to see them again and get a better backstory on what all went down on those trips. I may copy all of the writing I do in the travel journal to this blog so that you are all able to read my stories more easily if you are interested in my travels. Right now I am blogging away from home, but as soon as I get home, I will post pictures of my journal and a screenshot of my Instagram account after I post to it a little. Soon, I will be asking for suggestions on what to put on my packing list, I might even write your name beside your ideas if you would all like that. I know it does not seem like it yet, but each one of my classmates including you all especially, are influencing my life and my decisions for this trip. Because this is my first time going out of the country, I am very open to suggestions and recommendations. If anyone has ever been to London or Dublin before and wants to let me know of some sights to see in either place definitely let me know! I will welcome all suggestions and recommendations. Please comment on this post and any of the following posts with suggestions and recommendations. It will be greatly appreciated. I hope you guys feel that you can live vicariously through me on this trip and feel the experiences I am feeling. Pictures coming soon!
I explored the free ds106 course and looked through several of the daily create assignments this week. The Daily Create is a way for people to freely express themselves through new and semi-spontaneous creations. They are available through ds106 which is a free, open, online course for anyone to take to hone their skills in different areas and to try new things. The Daily Creates are designed for people to just taste-test an activity rather than diving deep into a topic right away. The assignments are very short and can each be completed in just a few minutes. It is amazing that the course is online and accessible to all people for free. It advocates and supports the idea of really living and learning rather than wasting your time and life on pointless activities. It encourages people to get up for the day and learn at least one new thing every day. It opens up possibilities and opportunities for people to discover new hobbies and even career paths. It facilitates creative thinking and problem-solving. Trying to explore and read through the ds106 course itself was a little confusing at first. I did not understand the setup very well and the instructions were a little difficult to follow. It was a little difficult to figure out how to get to the daily creates. It was also hard for me to choose just four to do for the week. Many of them looked really fun and creative and I am excited to do more in the next few weeks. There were so many interesting options available. No one assignment is the same as the others. I was a little bit anxious to try out the daily creates before I really read the descriptions and found out that they are easy for the most part. Before I read the descriptions of the assignments and looked at the examples, I expected them to take much more time and go more into depth. I was pleasantly surprised to find that they are brief. I was also surprised at how many of the assignments were photography assignments. When I challenged myself to do two of the photography creates I expected them to be much more difficult than they really were. My biggest takeaway from the ds106 course is that it is life-changing to try something new every day. It can totally change a person's perspective on how much opportunity is available in life. There is so much more to do than sitting at home and watching the TV. Above you will see the four daily creates I did this week. It was difficult to choose only four, but I know I will have many more opportunities to do more in the weeks that lay ahead. I am excited to see what other challenges I will face with this. I did a "Serious Face" assignment, an "Abstract" assignment, a "poem" assignment, and an "abbreviation w/ initials" assignment.
This week I found myself struggling to keep up on homework. Unfortunately, the time spent on my ILP suffered a little bit until today. I wanted to do a lot more with it than I actually got done, but sometimes that's how life goes. This week I focused on catching up on the pre-departure meetings. Because I am an online student, I am not required to go to the meetings in-person, but I still have to watch them via a recording to stay up-to-date on our tasks leading up to leaving. I have been slacking on this task a little until this week. I watched the first two meetings today. They provided a lot of useful info. I took some notes for each meeting which will be included in my journal. I am making an Instagram account which I will begin posting to as soon as I actually start writing in my journal. I may even start my journal this coming week just to get the ball rolling. Be prepared for lots of stories about camping trips, family reunions, and church youth-group trips. I have already started picking out pictures from past trips to include in my journal. I plan to set up my journal so that my past trips will be like a quick precursor or "hook" that will show my readers what to expect from me when I write during my trip to London and Dublin. After I provide information and photos from past trips, I will write the notes I have been taking in the pre-departure meetings in the journal as well as my packing list, websites I use to help me prepare, and photos of the progress of my journal. Finally, I will continue writing in my journal during the trip to London and Dublin. I will be sketching, taking pictures, and of course, writing. I can't wait to delve into the world of story-telling. Below is a picture of the notes I have taken so far. I have included travel into my topics for my Personal Learning Network as well. I follow some travel blogs that give me tips on what to pack and how to pack it, as well as sights to see. While many people despise packing, I tend to get excited about packing. I am a sucker for organizing. Some might even say I show tendencies of someone with OCD though I have never gone and gotten diagnosed. Because of this, I am great at packing a lot of stuff into a small space. I am excited to plan outfits for the trip to London and Dublin. I have been known to get so excited to leave that I packed two weeks in advance! While airport/airplane regulations might make it difficult to pack everything I might want to, i will still find a way to sort out the necessities and just things I would like to take. One thing I may struggle with regarding packing is shampoo and conditioner. If you have ever seen me in person, you know I have a massive amount of hair and little travel bottles of shampoo and conditioner are certainly not going to suffice. I may just have to buy some shampoo and conditioner when I get there. When I do start packing, feel free to make recommendations as to what I should take and what i should leave. I would absolutely appreciate your thoughts and reccomendations. These are just the things I have thought of so far. I am counting down the weeks and days until we get to go! I really can't wait. I hope everyone stays up to date and hangs in there with me while I sort my life out! Thanks for reading!
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! 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. |
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