Social Media Etiquette

For this weeks assignment, we were asked to talk about social media etiquette.  To me social media is your mark on the internet.  Before posting a status or picture from last Friday night think, would I want my Grandma or future employer to see this?  

Social Media Etiquette in my opinion is while it’s great to connect with friends and colleagues anywhere and at any time, this connectivity carries risks. A careless tweet or Facebook post can alienate your loved ones and jeopardize your job.  Ultimately present yourself online like you would present yourself in person.  

Our assignment then asked us to find someone who has posted something online and received a lot of back lash for it.  I decided to chose Kathy Griffin for when she posted the picture of herself holding a bloody Donald Trump head.  

Below is a video of my presentation talking about the situation and what I would have done if I was in Kathy Griffin's shoes.  

Digital Storytelling

1) Below is my Toondoo Comics that I have created. My first comic strip is a story about when I was little I had asked for a puppy for Christmas.  To my surprise, Santa Claus left a little puppy under neath my tree.  I have had my dog for four years now and his name is Ryder!

My next comic strip is when I went to the beach with my older cousin.  I asked her to come swimming with me, and she said she would much rather lay out in the sun than be eaten by sharks! How rude, little did I know laying out was the "cool" thing to do when you are a teenage girl!

My last comic strip starts off with me as a student realizing I want to become a teacher when I grow up.  The middle comic is me thinking about my future as I student teach. The last comic is me graduating in May and starting my journey as a teacher!

2) Here is an example of my three other storytelling web tools 2.0 using the site, storyjumper.com This story is about a mermaid who swims throughout the see and explains to the reader what she sees.  It is a easy book for beginning readers!  I enjoyed creating this story and the website was very user friendly! Click the link to see my book and follow along as I read!

https://screencast-o-matic.com/watch/cbXZfy2uq4

3) Here is another example of how I used a storytelling web tools 2.0. I decided to use the tool, storybird.com. This website was much like storyjumper.com which I really enjoyed! I had some difficulty understanding exactly how to create a full story with what the website had given me.  I played around with the website and still had some difficulties.  I would suggest watching some tutorials or maybe reading up on exactly how the tool works before creating a story!

https://storybird.com/books/pen-pal-2/?token=smhuvwv7gh

4) Here is my last example of my use of storytelling web tools 2.0.  I decided to use the tool, makebeliefscomix.com.  I did not like this web tool as much as ToonDoo, however it was easy to use.  The website had limited objects to create your comic.  The website is very self explanatory! I do not think I would use this web tool again after playing around with it.  The comic that is used below is that a girl is home alone when she hears a knock on the door.  Her friend Alan is at the door asking if she wants to watch some Tv.  The comic ends with the girl saying she is happy that Alan has come over! 

Storyjumper.com

Hello readers!  For this weeks smackdown assignment, I decided to show you all, storyjumper.com.  I am sure not many of you have heard of this website, unless you are in the education program! Storyjumper.com is a website where you can create your own books or stories. During my presentation, I first show you how to sign up for an account.  Signing up for an account is very easy and user friendly.  I will show you how to create your very own story and how easy this website is to really use.

I chose this tool to show to my readers and viewers because I find it very useful in many ways.  If you are a future educator this website can be very beneficial because you can create your own stories for your students based off of their reading level.  Also, you can have your students create their own stories and see their imaginations.  Any grade level can use this website and love it!  This tool can be used at Stockton in a few ways.  One way is that professors can create an assignment where you have to make your own mini book of what you have read from the following readings that they have assigned.  Another way this tool can be used by stockton is that students might be able to use this tool for presentations and show professors that you can think outside of the box!  Overall, I love this webtool and I hope you all do too!

Chapter 7 Review

After reading chapter 7 of, The Connected Educator, I feel that I have a better understanding of sustaining a momentum for my future communities.  One thing I have really taken away from this chapter is, learning communities, like gardens, flourish when they are cultivated, when they are nourished as they evolve and mature.  Neglected or taken for granted, they languish, losing their splendor and appeal.  It is hard to build a learning community, but it is very rewarding for every member in the end.  Their is always a leader in the group, but the leader needs to be receptive to new ideas and willing to do what is best for the group.  The book states this as, appreciative inquiry.  Appreciative inquiry is where it is a valuable approach to sustaining learning and change in communities and networks.  The book states, learners work from a "what if?" or strengths, perspective rather than a deficit perspective.  This idea starts with the idea of discovery.  Discovery is where people share their stories with one another that illustrate when they feel the group is at its best.  Next comes dream.  Dream is where the entire learning group envisions the future and the purpose they are trying to reach.  The third stage is design.  Design is where the community develops a design for its organization based on the dream stage.  The last stage is destiny.  Destiny is where the learning community implements the changes they have discussed.  Shared stories become the basis for envisioning the future.

For my readers, I am curious to know, would you share personal stories to your learning communities, or would you take the back seat and listen and learn from their stories?

The chapter went on to state how important it is to assess and evaluate your group.  How can groups assess their group? That is an easy answer! (Well after reading the chapter, it is an easy answer of course!) The Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM) is a basis for informal ways of assessing progress in both local and global communities.  It is always a good idea to make sure everyone in your group is on the same page or else that can lead to conflict.  One example of this is walkthroughs.  Walkthroughs provides teachers with feedback and they allow teachers to discuss opportunities for additional improvement.  It is important in communities to know their fellow members' concerns.  The book states a couple of different stages of concern that members can feel: awareness, personal, informational, management, consequence, collaboration, and refocusing.  After hearing how members are feeling, it is important to think of ways to move forward.  Sometimes, the group might not change anything due to the concerns, but other times the group has to come up with a whole new direction to move to.  The book states eight ways to help community members identify the level at which a new practice is being implemented.  The eight stages are: nonuse, orientation, preparation, mechanics, routine, refinement, integration, and renewal.  

All in all, it is hard to sustain a community, but it is very rewarding in the end.  To make a group work, you have to make sure that every member is on the same page and is expressing how they feel at all times.  Sustaining a learning community is very important in the field of education.  Educators have to work together with their co-teachers in their same grade level.  For people who are not education majors this means, that in one school all of the second grade teachers have to collaborate in many ways to make sure they are staying with the same curriculum.  This can be difficult because you did not have the ability to pick your group members.  This is where the assess and evaluate takes place, making sure that each members concerns and thoughts are being put out on the table.  In each grade level, their is a group leader, this leader needs to make sure that each teacher is feeling connected and is able to get their stories out there.  Sharing stories and experiences as a teacher is very important because it is important to always adapt new teaching ideas.  You can learn from one another in the group.  Make sure the whole group has one focus-being a better teacher to your students and how can you achieve that?  

Chapter Four Review

After reading chapter four of, "The Connected Educator", I have realized how important it is to build a collaboration with my future co-workers or even people in my field online.  Collaboration is sometimes a difficult thing to achieve in traditional environments.  While collaborating with others, it is important to focus on culture and the importance of shared ideals.  Culture has to deal with values, norms, and beliefs.  Sadly, most professional development opportunities fail to encourage collaborations.  Collaboration should be enforced in many career fields because of how easy it is to connect with others on the internet.  The book states, " Collaboration grows from relationships in which trust, collegiality, shared vision, and group development flourish."

The first way to create a positive collaboration is to put your relationships first.  Social interactions are key.  In social interactions you often begin with a greeting and some personal information about yourself.  These social interactions become the bases for getting to know each other and finding common perspectives and experiences.  Congeniality refers to the polite, friendly relationship we have with one another.  Being polite to people makes them feel comfortable around you.  They will want to talk to you more and collaborate on ideas.  Collegiality is a shared belief that none of us is as good as all of us, and we can all contribute to improved individual practice.  Be yourself and do not act like you are better than anyone else.  Every individual can learn more if they open up their mind.

The second way to create a positive collaboration is to establish trust.  Trust is where one individual is vulnerable to another because they have built the confidence that the other is reliable, honest, competent, and open.  Building trust does not have to only be defined as social interactions, you can also build trust with people online.  The willingness to be a transparent learner is also a trust-building factor.  If you say you are going to do something, stick with your word and complete it.  This will show your followers that you are a transparent leader and can be trusted.  It is easier to build trust in face to face interactions, but you can be transparent and sharing information about yourself allows people to trust you through a screen.

The third step to collaboration is very important in my eyes.  Once you have found trust with people, you need to create a shared vision.  The group as a whole needs to define what their vision is for their collaboration.  A shared vision that connects passion, day-to-day work, and school improvement is important in creating a collaboration.  The first step to create a shared vision is to ask your group simple questions: What are our guiding principles for how we should operate and work together? and What should school look like to support the needs of today's learners?

The final step is to know and understand the stages of collaboration.  The first stage is "forming".  Forming is where the individuals get to know one another and have meaningful interactions.  The second stage is "storming".  This is where collaboration can become tricky.  This is where the members of the group start to disagree and one individual needs to step up and guide their group in the right direction.  The third step is "norming".  This is where the members of the group will figure out who is to do what to meet deadlines.  The last stage is "performing".  This is where the group is achieving their goals.  This is when the collaboration takes place.

Collaboration is huge in the field of education.  Teachers have to work together in their grade level that they teach.  Usually their is one leader in the group and the others can chime in input when they feel it is needed.  Last year when I was completing my 90 hours, my co-teacher shared with me that their grade level leader was a new young teacher who was not eager to work and it created a bad dynamic for the group.  My co-teacher took it upon herself to start collaborating with other teachers in her grade level around the district to see what was or or was not working.  These collaborations are what she says leads to her success.  An educator is never done learning.  You have to keep up with the times and see what is fresh to benefit your student's needs.  Even as a student in the school of education, I have collaborated with many of my fellow students to see what lessons they are teaching, how are they disciplining their students, and other useful tips and tricks.  These collaborations can help me create new ideas and concepts for my students.  I never plan to stop collaborating with others, because I am never done learning.

Blog Q and A

Integrating Websites with Social Media

Pinterest

1. 5 Ways to Use Pinterest in Career Management:

- The user can create various "boards".  Boards are individual little binders where you can keep different information based on one given topic.  You can save these different ideas and go back and search them later.

-The user can upload their own picture or post for their fellow followers to pin.  The post uploaded can be about clothing, recipes, decor, or something to do within their career field.

-With Pinterest, you can follow people in your career field.  Follow others to where you can pin their post and that given information can help you in your career field.  You can bring back this information to your work place and share it with your coworkers.

-Use the search bar to narrow down your searches.  Search how others are thriving in their careers and that will give you ideas on how to push yourself further.  Remember you can always learn more to better yourself in your field.

-Find and pin different posts that will help you in your work place.  For example, my major is Education.  I can search flexible seating and see how other teachers are implementing flexible seating and how I can improve my classroom for my students.


2. 5 Ways to use Pinterest in your Job Search:

- Follow! Follow people in your future career field and learn from them!  These followers could be your future employer.  Remember your digital footprint- always be professional!

-Most career fields have users that use Pinterest.  You can search through various career choices and look at their boards and pins and see what is sticking out to you!  This might open up your eyes to where you would like to work in the future!

- Joining or starting a group.  Maybe you could start a group with your classmates and communicate about their future work place.  You can learn a lot from one another about posting pins to one location.  This might help you find out your interests and dislikes!

-Pin your resume to your personal account!  You never know who is searching your boards and page!   This is a perfect way for future employers to find you!

- Create a Pinterest Board to show off your skills!  You can post work you have done in the past, charity work your have participated in, and pictures of your colleges you have attended.  You can even attach your LinkedIn profile!! Employers will love to see your style on your personal page.

3. How I could use Pinterest for education in my field in education:

-Pinterest is my go to app when trying to think of new and exciting lessons for my students.  Pinterest has an endless amount of information that can be taken and applied to make me a better teacher.  I cannot connect with other educators and find new ideas, classroom set up ideas, and lesson plans to alter into my own.  I also can keep up with fresh new ideas and concepts so that my students are getting the best education at all times.  The information that I pin, I can bring back to my fellow coworkers and collaborate to make the ideas stronger and form them into our own.  While using Pinterest, I can post ideas and lessons that have worked well in my classroom.  Posting my own work, I can gain feedback from other educators.  Pinterest is all about networking with others and constantly learning and taking in new information.

Paper.li

1. What is the main purpose of Paper.li?

-Paper.li is an online tool that looks like a daily newspaper made by a mash up of links, photos, and and videos from all over Twitter.  The links, photos, and videos are broken up into groups based off of their hashtags.  This helps searching the information to become easier.  

2.Would I use Paper.li?

-Personally, I would not use Paper.li because I do not have a Twitter account.  However, if I have a coworker in my field of education who does have a Twitter account, I can have them create an account.  If their is valuable information that could benefit my coworkers and I, that coworker could email me the information.  This website could be very useful in my field, it just did not really grab my attention at first glance and I find that very important while trying to network yourself.  

Creating Websites

Future Website

1. Who will be my target audience?

-For my future website, I think I will be making be making a page where I can post ideas about how my first year of teaching will go and ideas I plan to implement into my future classroom, since I am graduating in the spring.  I would like my target audience to be fellow educators, classmates on mine in the education program, and school administrations.  Allowing to share my ideas will be like my mini preview to the teacher I want to be for my students.  This will show future employers my plans and how eager I am to get into a classroom.  I would also like various teachers to comment on my page and give me feedback, ideas, and criticisms.  I want to take in all ideas and criticisms in like a sponge and absorb it to make me a better teacher for my students.  

The Definitive Guide to About Me Pages

Questions:

1. Who am I?

- My name is Heather Harman!  I am a senior at Stockton University inspiring to be an elementary education teacher.

2. What can I do for you, the visitor?

- I will be posting my future ideas for my classroom that I hope to have next year.  This will allow people to provide thoughts, ideas, and concerns!

3. How can I be contacted?

Here are the various ways that you can contact me!

Phone Number: 231-867-5309

Email: hiremeplz@gmail.com

LinkedIn: Will post when it is fully completed

Chapter 5 Review

If you are someone like me, you can find the internet to be kind of intimidating because there are so many websites that could potentially benefit myself in the field of education.  What websites are better than others?  Will this website help me portray myself as a true professional?  Those are just some of the questions that pop into my mind.  Chapter five was very insightful because the author explains many different web tools that can develop you into a stronger connected learner.  Most of websites that the book explained seemed very user friendly where many people would have the ability to use them and succeed.  The chapter goes on to explain what each website is for, how exactly they are used, and how it can be beneficial for your social network.  The Connected Educator states that when going on each of the following websites that they have listed for the readers, it is important to create an account so that you can save and bookmark certain information so that you can go back and find it with ease.  The number one tip that the book has stated is to use the same username and password for each website so that it is easy to remember! (You know we all use that same middle school password that we created when we were 13 so that we do not forget it!)

Going through and reading Chapter five, I have realized how important is to save all the information that you find on the web that is useful for you.  Social Bookmarking is a way where you can organize and save websites that you have found while exploring the web and you can share them with friends and colleagues.  One of the websites that the chapter has listed was, www.delicious.com .  During my college career in the education department, a few of my past professors have shared this tool with us.  The website is very user friendly.  Say when I become a teacher and I want to look up new lesson plan ideas or ways to include flexible seating into my classroom, I would search in google first and find some interesting websites and blogs that I would like to save and later read again.  Each time i find an interesting webpage, I could include the web address on my delicious account and add tags so that I would be able to find that webpage again.  This will help save you tons of time searching for the same article.

Web tools can also be used to create and collaborate with other people in your career field. That is why people create blogs!  Blogs can be done daily and are very easy to write! You can write really whatever comes to mind.  I personally follow a few educators blogs that I have found through Instagram and I find them very useful.  I read the blogs in my free time to see what works for some teachers and what does not work for others.  Then I think of ways to adapt that idea into my own for my future students.  I have not yet gained the confidence to comment on someone's blog, but I will get there one day! Baby steps of networking.  The provided link is one the bloggers I follow today, he is a kindergarten teacher and has a lot of innovative ideas, https://thekindergartensmorgasboard.com/2016/04/my-favorite-classroom-management-tool.html.

There are many web tools out there where you can socially network yourself.  It is a trial and error system to see what web tool you like the most.  Every website that I have explored has been very user friendly where I feel like I have the confidence to try them out and begin networking more.  It is amazing how much is out there for you to succeed in your field.  But remember, it is the internet, people can see everything, so present yourself the way you want to be seen by future employers.  Always be your professional self!