Course Reflection

Throughout this past semester I have learned a great deal of information on how to use technology in a professional way. From assignments such as twitter, disconnecting from technology, websites, and LinkedIn, I have learned many ways to use technology to network and build a professional presence online.  I really enjoyed this course, because it allowed me to curve each project to my future career field. I was able to see how I can use each of these items in my future. Twitter will be useful to me to interact with students and other teachers. The research and survey assignment allowed me to learn more about my field as well as implement technology into my assignment.

LinkedIn will be great to connect with other professionals in my field, as well as employers in my future. Building a website in my future will be very useful to connect with students, parents, and fellow teachers to let them know what is going on in my classroom. Our biggest resource in this world is our peers or colleagues. Teachers especially need to utilize connections to become innovative and effective in teaching our students. Even the disconnecting from technology assignment taught me a lot about my technology habits which will be useful to me in my future. I think others should take this course, because regardless of what career field you are entering there are items you can take away from this course that will be useful to you in the future, especially the resume building. What is great about this course was that it wasn’t generalized, you could individualize it to your future career, which I think is pretty unique. Overall I really learned a lot and enjoyed this course.

Twitter Reflection

Throughout the semester I have been working on completing my twitter project. What I did for this project was follow professionals in the field of teaching and professional organizations in that field as well. I also went onto tweet more than 40 professional tweets regarding education. I was already very familiar with twitter, which made this project fairly easy for me to do. The most difficult part about this project was coming up with professional tweets, due to the fact that I am just stepping into the world of education and I am not as knowledgeable on the subject as others yet. However I did learn a lot from those that I followed and I learn a lot about how Twitter can be a great way to have professional connections in the world of teaching. It is a great way to connect with other teachers as well as students.

LinkedIn Project

My final project for my information media class was to create a resume and Linkedin profile. I started this project by learning about the do’s and don’ts of writing my resume. I then built my resume. I created a LinkedIn account and began by adding my past work and volunteer experiences. I wrote a short summary about myself and slowly added important professional details about me. After that I began by connecting with people I knew and then I began searching for groups and professionals in the education world to connect with as well.

The part I enjoyed the most was putting all of my information into my profile. The most difficult part was finding others to connect with in my field. I don’t see that a lot of education professionals use LinkedIn, or at least not as much as other career fields. It was also difficult, because not everyone accepted my connection request and it was difficult to reach the number of professional connections that was required. Next time I would try and connect with more people, which would increase the number of acceptances I received. Overall I think this project taught me a really great way to connect with other professionals, and gain potential job opportunities.

If you want to connect with me on LinkedIn, here is my profile:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/emily-mccarthy-4120a412a

Digital Media & Society

For my next assignment I was to answer the question how digital media has changed the way businesses and individuals market themselves. I believe that due to the growing technology that people have access to, business and individuals use that to their benefit. They not only can distribute themselves through the internet and reach a much larger audience, they also can be allowed to be much more creative and unique.

The next part of the assignment was to view and critique an interactive resume. I will post the link below so that you can view it as well. At first the interactive resume was loud and a lot to look at. However I would say that it is a very creative and fun way to display your achievements. I believe that for that person, it was a way to make them stand out. There were some design choices that I didn’t perceive greatly. For instance the levels of efficiency, such as master, expert, beginner, etc., that got to be a lot to look at and a tad confusing. I think there would have been a better way to display that information. However overall I liked the layout and the creativity. Once you adjusted yourself to what you were viewing it was a fun way to learn about people's qualifications.  

http://rleonardi.com/interactive-resume/

Website Project Reflection

This week I completed my website project. What I did to complete this project was begin by reading and understanding the basics to creating a website through the material on my classes website. I then created a wire frame. A wire frame is essentially a plan or visual layout of how you want your website to look like and operate. This was very helpful in putting together my website, because I already had ideas for how I wanted it to look like. I then began writing the content I wanted to share on my site and typing it into a separate word document. I also found the images I was planning on using as well. From there I created a Weebly.com account. It is a very user friendly website creator. I was easily able to copy and paste my materials, and change the layouts and background for my website. Weebly had some fun additives I ended up incorporating into my website that weren’t on my initial plan.

The part about this project I enjoyed the most was using the Weebly site to finally put my website together. The most difficult part of the project was planning what content I wanted to use and how to word things nicely on my website. I think Weebly worked really well in allowing me to put my website together very easily. Next time I were to make a website, I would investigate the website creator prior to making my wire frame. This would be helpful so that I could plan to that website creators capabilities.  Overall I think this website project will be a very useful tool for me in my future as a teacher. Many educators have website to connect with students, parents, and colleagues.

Here is a link to my website if you want to check it out:

http://techintheclassrooms.weebly.com/

Technology Disconnect Reflection

As some of you may know my first project for this course was to disconnect from technology for 24 hours. You really don’t realize how reliant upon technology we are in every minute of our day until you remove it. Overall my 24 hours of disconnecting went fairly well, it did have some struggles and temptations however. My day began with a different alarm sounding, because I usually use my cell phone as my alarm clock. I had borrowed a standard alarm clock from my parents to use during the disconnect. As the day passed I realized how bored I quickly had become without checking social media after classes and in my free time. I think two of the toughest things for me to give up we're listening to music while I was exercising and not being able to just turn on the tv or music while I was doing homework or a variety of things.

Oddly enough one of the easiest things was giving up my cell phone. I had left my cell phone in my roommate's room so I wouldn’t be tempted or accidentally use it. Without my cell phone I got a lot of things done and I was much less distracted throughout the day. However I will not say just because it was easier to give up than others, doesn’t mean it was actually easy to go without. I think what surprised me the most throughout my day was how much I seen others obsessively looking at their phones throughout the day. Also how many times I encounter technology through my day. When I was in my friends car driving I couldn’t listen to the radio, or when my roommates were in the living room watching the tv, I couldn’t join them. Even the slightest things when my roommate would say “hey, look at this on my phone” or “hey did you see that person's post on Instagram”, I almost slipped up not realizing what I would be doing. It was frustrating sitting in a room with my roommates when they would all be listening to music or Netflix through their headphones or scrolling through social media on their phone. It was very quiet at times and all I wanted to do was talk to pass the time.

I think my disconnect was tough on my mom. She was not happy when I told her she wouldn’t be able to get ahold of me for 24 hours. Also my roommates had a tough time, because they would forget that I couldn’t check my phone or join them during a movie and a variety of things. Overall I wouldn’t say that I overly enjoyed this assignment, but it did give me some perspective on how much technology exists in my life. I wouldn’t attempt a disconnect again however, because it takes a lot of planning and willpower to succeed. In the end I realized how much I appreciate the technology in our lives.

Website Project

The next project we are working on is creating a website, which will display our findings from our research paper as well as our survey project. I plan to first make a plan of what exactly to display on my website and from there I will complete the tasks within this project and finally then create and design my website.

My initial ideas of this project is that I am excited for it. I created a website in a class in high school and I think that will be helpful with this project. I am excited to do this, because many teachers have website to help connect with their students, colleagues, and their students parents. It will be a very useful tool for me to know how to use in the future. I feel ready and excited to complete this project!