Journal #7 - Professional Learning Network

I've joined or subscribed several professional learning network such as digg.com, My Big Campus, Edmodo and OTAN.

Edmodo and OTAN (Outreach and Technology Assistance Network) are my favorite ones.

Edmodo https://www.edmodo.com is easy to sign up and use.  Besides a lot of my co-workers are already using Edmodo so I can quickly add them to my group.  We exchanges teaching ideas and resources, it's kind like Facebook for teachers and students.  Here are 20 ways to use Edmodo as a teacher: https://support.edmodo.com/hc/en-us/articles/205007974-20-Ways-to-Use-Edmodo-Teacher-

OTAN (Outreach and Technology Assistance Network) http://www.otan.us/
is a non-profit organization which provides teaching and technology assistance for adult educators. They're offer free online or face-to-face training (http://www.caadultedtraining.org/) on varies technology topics.  I had taken OTAN's online training/classes in the past and had exchanged teaching strategies with other teachers.  Every March, they host a technology symposium to the adult educators to cover the latest technology trends.  I enjoy attending the symposium not only I get to learn new teaching technologies also I get to network with other teachers from other schools.

I started subscribing to digg.com a few months ago.  To be honest, I have never heard of digg.com (http://digg.com/)before and do not know the purpose of this website.  My current subscriptions are web design, typography, Adobe programs and TED.  I am not very impress with digg.com because there are too many posts/feeds that I have to filter in order to find a very useful post.  Maybe it's because I am new to this news feed website but it really doesn't do much for me.

I know the trend for educators today is to be connected with other educators through professional learning networks.  I do see the benefit of connecting with other educators from different part of world or in the U.S. but it is very time consuming.  If I can get answers or lesson plans ideas from my co-workers (teachers), I would preferred to that first.  Our school district is pushing us to use professional learning networks such as My Big Campus and Edmodo.  I will keep on using them and making it a habit of log on to these sites as part of my daily routines...............

Journal # 6-Reflection

I have no knowledge about html and css prior taking this class.  This is a new experience for me. I remembered the first few weeks of school; I spent  a lot of  time reading the textbook and doing the book exercises.  Sometimes, I got stuck at some html coding issues and couldn’t figure it out what went wrong.  When that happened, I just walked away from my computer and recheck the codes later.  

As I learning more about html and css, I realized it is all about logical thinking which is something that I really like. It’s very hard to learn everything about html and css in 10 short weeks but I have learned the foundation of creating a website.

I liked how Dr. McGarvey did different types of html and css coding exercises  with us in the class.  This way, I had a hand on experience and also listening to the explanation at the same time.  I just wish we can have more time in the class to do more exercises.

Journal#5 Twitter

I like Twitter more than Facebook but I hardly ever tweet.  I am following some people or groups that are interested to me on Twitter and I checked them periodically.   

I don't against any social media; I just find it very time consuming.  With Twitter where it limits the users to tweet 140 characters or less, I can read the tweets fairly quickly and check out the links that are helpful to me.  For example, I follow several authors on Twitter, one of them is Sir Kenneth Robinson, the famous English author, speaker and international adviser on education in the arts to government, non-profits, and education and arts bodies.  He tweets about what he thinks about education and what he recommended the follower to read.  Here's an example of his tweet: 

I know my school district sent out tweets to announce district events.  I found it helpful for me to know what's going on with my school district.  I also follow local news stations and they tweet when there's a breaking news happening.  I think in a way, Twitter serves as a notification tool (app) for me.  

Q1. What are the benefits of using Twitter? 

There are many benefits of using Twitter and I have narrowed it to three: 

1.                Twitter gets people informed and connected with what's going on with our world 

2.                It promotes business and products -free internet marketing 

3.                keep people on top of hot topics 

Q2.  Can Twitter to be used in the educational setting? 

Yes.  In fact there are many school district, educational organizations and scholars are using Twitters.  Here are some of very examples of educational hasgtags: