ADED 1P32 - Learning in Digital Contexts: April 2014

Weekly Reflection & Report #12: Good Bye to All.

Now that we are wrapping up the course, I have learnt so much in regards to building a positive digital footprint. By ethically learning and living online, I have grown my digital footprint. After exploring several digital tools, I have become a more positive and educated digital citizen.

The following list is a summary of most of the digital tools I used:

- Blogger

- Feedly

- Diigo

- Scoop.it

- Twitter

- Google Docs

- Voice Thread

- Popplet

- Prezi

- Jing

- Animoto

- Slideshare

While creating a positive digital footprint, I always consider the internet as a public place where anyone can see what I am doing. Therefore, while participating in this online course I always thought before I published. Considering this was an educational activity, I consistently remained professional and ethical as well. Learning in a digital environment has shown me there are so many ways people can create both good and bad reputations of themselves online. But throughout the course, I always took into consideration that I want to keep my digital footprint as clean and positive as possible. Who knows who is watching you.

After learning about digital citizenship, specifically the nine elements, I have grown into a much wiser digital citizen. I am more aware of my rights/responsibilities and safety/security after using the forms to discuss these topics as well as creating a group/collaborative presentation.

In order to promote quality online interactions, I have explored several tools to assist with this. They include Google Hangouts, blogs, VoiceThread, discussion forums, and more. Promoting quality online interactions is not hard if you are familiar with your digital responsibilities and netiquette. Considering I took part in a large amount of discussion through commenting on peer’s blogs and on their discussion forums, I know that in order to create quality interactions I need to critically think and ask questions in order to stimulate the conversation and keep it going.

There are several ways to promote appropriate behaviours in the digital world. By spreading awareness of the digital responsibilities that digital citizens should hold, others will understand why it is so important to be respectful and act online as if they were in the real world. Also, by sharing the basic rules of netiquette, people have an opportunity to learn the most important rules when participating in the online world. Promoting appropriate behaviour is the next step to creating a positive digital world.

After completion of this course, I will have a lot of knowledge of how to work and live in a digital society. Although I was already a digital native prior to this course, I have gained so much valuable information about the digital society. Who knew it was so big!?!? By sharing my knowledge with friends, family, and peers, I hope to spread information based on the digital society we live in.

…Considering this is the final blog post of ADED 1P32, I would just to like to express my appreciation for all of my online peers who helped make this course a very valuable and memorable one. The information I have been given in this course is something with no set value as I will continue to use all my knowledge gained here and run with it as far as possible. After all, the world is becoming so technologically advanced that the only way to keep up with the game is to stay ahead of it!!!

Weekly Report & Reflection #11: Webcasting

First, I would like to note that the end is near fellow class/online mates…We have all survived learning and exploring a massive amount of digital tools to enhance our learning in the academic setting as well as in our personal lives. Congratulations guys! We finally made it. Which tools will you continue to use after concluding the class of ADED 1P32 and what tools will be disregarded right away?

Throughout the 11^th session of ADED 1P32, we discovered how to create our own pod cast and/or screen cast.

I like to think of pod casts as talk shows that mimic official radio shows (CNN). Podcasts can be downloaded as audio files that are playable on most media devices as they seem to be a growing trend considering there are more than 3000 pod castings online since last year (CNN). It’s an ideal idea because virtually anyone can be a podcaster that contributes to the online content of the World Wide Web!

Screen casts are another similar growing trend in the Digital Age. Screen casts are digital recordings of a computer screen usually containing audio narration (Good, 2007). Have you ever tried to search YouTube for a solution on how to install/uninstall software from your personal computer? Remember when the tutorial would be a video of what your screen should look like and where your mouse should move and click on in order to solve your problem? Those were screen casts…Although you may not have known the term for this type of video, now you do!

After exploring the various options for creating either a podcast or a screen cast, I decided to create a screen cast. I chose this type of cast primarily because I feel more engaged in visuals than audio, it is just my personal preference. So after debating for a couple minutes on which service to use, either Screenr or Jing, I chose Jing because Screenr required a Java update that was giving me too many problems to correctly update it. At the end of the day, Jing ended up being just as great of a screen casting tool as Screenr!

Jing had a very simple, user-friendly layout that was ideal for new screen casters. The only time I needed to find a tutorial (and yes it was indeed a screencast) was when I had trouble finding the embedded coding.

But other than that, Jing was incredibly easy to use!

Considering the requirements of that learning activity were very broad, I wasn’t sure what I should create as my screen cast. I finally decided on briefly summarizing what Feedly was and how to use it. After only one try, the final screencast I posted to my blog (see prior post) was awesome! I was so happy with the outcome… regardless of how nervous my voice sounded.

After using and creating a screencast, I realized that these can be used in so many ways to enhance one’s digital learning.

First, these are a great tool to use for MOOCs. MOOC can be defined as Massive Open Online Courses (Angel, 2012). Screen casts provide digital citizens with a way to visually learn or engage in something. For online courses, professors can share screen casts in order for their students to understand (more thoroughly) how to do something. It saves time for the student as they eliminate the process of looking up YouTube tutorials on how to do a specific task on a computer.

Another great way to use screencasts in an academic setting is with your peers. For example, say your group member did not know how to create a Prezi and could not find any great tutorials to help him/her… Well considering you were an expert at creating Prezis, you could easily create a 1-2 minute screen casts to show your partner how to do a specific task on Prezi. By using visuals and audio in your screencast, this gives your partner a much better understanding of the idea that you are presenting to them.

After wrapping up session 11 of ADED 1P32, I was very pleased with the exploration of screencasts. They have definitely become one of my favourite digital tools we have explored since the beginning of this course.

Item of Interest via Feedly: HAPPY APRIL FOOLS !!! These are fantastic.

http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/01/best-of-april-fools-2014-roundup-list/

References

Angel, E. (2012). Massive list of MOOC resources. Retrieved from http://www.worldofwebcast.com/post/massive-list-of-mooc-resources-lit-and-literati

CNN Video: What is Podcasting? If you cannot view the video, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fM5lXOFD4Zg

Good, R. (2007) What is a Screencast? If you cannot view the video, go tohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5e5oO1zAPw&list=PL28F3C621E2AFF39F