Mackenzie Bishop

The first week of class you asked us to define in our own words what we thought “digital writing” was and I said: Digital writing is anything that is written on a computer to be published online. Now after going through the entire course I still stand behind what I defined as digital writing, however, I know am able to give examples other than Wikipedia, or social media. I am able to know that it can be anything from an infographic to a website that is informative. I know that digital writing doesn’t have to be words at all, it can simply be a powerful message given digitally.

I think this class was beneficial in many ways, being a future teacher I am always looking for new ideas that are creative and allow me to get my students interested and willing to do the work. I think everything that I have learned in one way or another can be related back to education. Our first project of the semester I focused solely on education and using social media in the classroom and how it would be beneficial not only for the teacher but the students and parents as well. Then in our second project, my group chose Wikiversity. We used this site to create a lesson plan for middle school students. I love this idea and I had never thought about doing it before, honestly I didn’t even know what Wikiversity was.

The most challenging part of this course for me was completing Codeacademy. I have never done anything with coding, ever! I think that when I was first presented the assignment I freaked out and was scared. It was overwhelming mostly because I was unfamiliar with it. Although when I got into the site and I chose to do go the route of designing a website. There was no reason why I chose this other than it sounded easy, and of course the fact that I couldn’t tell you what the other options were. It was very frustrating when going through and completing each section that if I ever got stuck there wasn’t a help button or anywhere that I could turn too to help me get over the rough spot I was in.

My favorite assignment was our first, the Infographic. I liked this the best because I was able to show my creativity. I was also able to connect it to something that I love and passionate about, teaching. I think being able to relate it back to my own life made the project more fun and easier to put forth the information. With this project I liked how we had a lot of freedom to choose and pick what we did even though we all had the same type of outcome, an infographic.

I decided to do the home page of the University of Mississippi’s website. I remember as an incoming student how difficult I thought the website was, it took me forever to get use to all the different tabs and then when I finally got use to it, they changed the home page. The new design of the website was even more complex and took longer for me to figure out how to work and navigate. This is why I thought it would be a prefect site to do my project on. My website has a lot of accessibility errors. The major things that I have seen is that information is repeated in multiple places throughout the entire page another thing that I have noticed is that it is hard to tell what is a hyperlink and what isn’t. Some of the tabs are highlighted and others don’t making the users unsure if they are able to click on them to take them to their destination.

-Getting to the page she was fast, looked like she knew what she was doing and went straight to the site and didn’t have nay problems getting to the site where to order the cookies. It looked like she had done it before

-It took her a while to pick out her cookies, she was trying to pick out her favorite ones and really taking her time looking into which ones to order.

-She was confused about where to insert her address and her name when it came time for her to enter her information.

-Through this it took her about three minuets to order the cookies and complete her order for her dozen cookies.

I remember going online when I was in elementary school around 3rd or 4th grade. I would use Google for all sorts of things and that still hold true today. I remember the internet was very slow moving and it would take forever to locate what you were looking for but at the time it was completely normal and I was use to it. I would use sites like Myspace and AIM. The biggest milestone since I have been around would have to be when the internet wen to wireless! That was the best thing ever, you didn’t have to have your computer stuck to something to make the internet work!

I use my laptop to access the internet daily, at lease five times through outt a day! The internet is like my best friend! I use it for everything!! However, I will say that my generation uses the internet as a crutch to lean on. If there is ever something that we dont know we go straight to the internet to help figure out how to solve the problem without thinking for ourselves; without the internet we would all be lost!

Wikiversity

Each semester I normally take one MOOC course. I love online courses. I am able to work at my own pace and get the work done how fast or how slow I need to. If I have a test I need to study for a paper I need to write I can put the class off until I have more time to excel in it. I find that when I take an MOOC I am more motivated to complete my work in a timely manner at the beginning of the week so I don’t have to mess with it as the week goes on. With that being said, I have never taken a math course online. Part of the reason is math is my worst subject, I am terrible at math. So when it comes to a classroom where there’s a teacher daily I can comprehend better than I could if I were simply looking at it on the computer. There are defiantly pros and cons for MOOC courses and they are not for everyone, heck they aren’t even fully for me (math) but yet they are still popular in today’s society.

I think technology affects the way that everyone reads. I think it can go one or two ways: good or bad obviously. I think that technology in today’s society will make you think more into something than what it actually is. I think it also takes the grammar that we have learned since we were in Kindergarten and throws it out the window. An example of this would be the way I text my friends verus the way I email my professors. Double checking my grammar and wording of my email that will be sent to my professor will have proper grammar and will be double checked for mistakes where as a text with my friends never get proof read or double checked for grammar. I think that technology affects not only our writing but our reading as well.

http://www.edudemic.com/how-to-use-social-media-as-a-learning-tool-in-the-classroom/

http://web.a.ebscohost.com.umiss.idm.oclc.org/ehost/detail/detail?vid=4&sid=217fa566-b83f-412d-9c8c-f7ac5d7ffaed%40sessionmgr4006&hid=4207&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#AN=EJ1083508&db=eric (Academic Journal)

http://mashable.com/2013/08/18/social-media-teachers/#MAyhUyWdsZqU

The first article gives examples of how using social media in the classroom can be an effective and fun, exciting tool. I plan on using this as a guide to help me create my infographic. The academic journal that I found explains why integrating social media within the classroom is vital for students. I plan to use this article to really support my theory of adding the social media in the classroom. The last website that I found will be used to help give examples of the types of information that teachers can put on social media for their students. It also shows how social media within the classroom is a good thing and explains how technology is changing and the way we teach our students need to change as well to keep up with the technologies.

Taking a photograph on a camera use to be one of the most magical thing that gave us memories that we could hold onto forever. The pictures that were taken, no matter the quality was never changed in anyway.As the years have gone by and technology has increased tremendously there has been new sites where photos could be added online such as MySpace and Facebook and today Instagram where the photographs are taken and made into extravagant pictures for millions to see. I think with Instagram you are able to see more photographs in all aspects and areas such as: pictures with friends, food, places, animals, etc. We are able to see more photographs in a day with an app than we were before Instagram was ever made. Instagram’s also takes pictures that you take and allows the picture to be altered. The color can change, you can cut something out, photo shop something into it. Instagram takes the simplicity of a photograph and makes it into a complex picture where hundreds and thousands of people are subjected to it. When you take a photograph it is more authentic and true to what the moment was. A photograph is able to show simplicity and a clam about the picture itself.

What is the role of collaboration in your day-to-day experience as a student?Which technologies do you rely upon for your school work? Which ones do you rely on for your personal life? Is there any overlap? What do you think a “vision of students” today will be in 8 more years?Your post should be around 250 words.

I think the message from the youtube video, A Vision of Students Today, absolutely remains true to this day. I think that students and even adults are using technology more in their daily lives. I think that the professors are using more articles, websites, apps online rather than the original textbooks. I think that students rely on technology for everything that they do, I know I do. With that being said, I rely on my computer 100 percent to complete all of my school work. If I did not have my computer, my work would never get completed. I also rely on my phone to complete some of my school work, such as emails that my professors send out or to get on blackboard. I also rely on my computer and my phone both for my personal life, without either device I would be disconnected from the world. My social media, texts messages, and emails are all apart of my daily life. There is an overlap with my devices that I rely on in my personal life as well as to complete my school work.  I use both my computer and my phone everyday to accomplish tasks for school and to get news about the world and my friends. In eight years I think that the world will be completely technological. Books will be gone, any information that will be needed will be online, in an app, or other creative ways. I think that the world will keep growing with technology and will come up with more advance materials as the years progress.