Week 7: Google Docs and Collaborative Work

Hello Bloggers!

            Everyone do not worry I am back from reading week and ready to share my experience with you this week. First, I hope that every experienced a nice relaxing week off, and not too much stress. If you are feeling stressed I hope this link I am going to share will help.  This week I would like to share something a little bit different from my Feedly account. I will be sharing one of my favorite recipes from Emily Skye’s Blog. The recipe is for flourless banana pancakes, which are so tasty. These are a very yummy treat for yourself, but still healthy and we all know that can be hard to find. I bet we all can treat ourselves after the stress of midterms and papers being due this week. 

            This week I will be discussing my journey of using the online tool of Google Docs through Google. I am using this tool to work on my collaborative project with my fellow classmates on digital communication. I have to mention that collaborative work is a very helpful tool, as it aids many students with writing publicly (Institute for Writing& Rhetoric, 2013). Also, gives the students the chance to work with each other and learn off of one another, since two minds are better than one! Collaborative work is also beneficial for students as it allows the work to be peer reviewed by others to ensure the writing is readable to the general public (Institute for Writing & Rhetoric, 2013). So, if you are thinking about doing collaborative working Google Docs is the best tool to use.

            Google Docs is a tool that aids in collaboration with other people through creating and synthesizing documents.  The features of Google Docs is the ability to create documents, PowerPoint, or spreadsheet, thus it has multiple functions. The analogy I will compare Google Docs to is the idea of having Pages, Numbers, and Keynote all on website. I will be using Google Docs for many of different tasks throughout my education career and professional career of being a teacher. Here is a few example of what I will be using Google Docs for:

Young Up Stars (2012) [Online Photo]
 Retrieved from 
http://www.youngupstarts.com/2012/04/12/52-great-google-docs-secrets-for-students/

• Group Projects 

• Group Papers 

• Assignments 

• Notes 

• Sharing knowledge 

• Connect with Peers 

• PowerPoints   

      Therefore, this tool is a very useful for both the student and professor because you are able to share work and collaborate together. This tool will be very useful if you and your group member live far away or a group member is sick, they are still able communicate with each other via the web, rather than in person. Therefore, this tool does not just help you with creating the product, but it helps you to connect to build the product.

I love Google Docs it is a live saver! It is a great tool that I will be adding to my Personal Learning Environment. I will be adding this tool under organizational, collaboration and productivity, since it is a very multipurpose tool. WOW does my PLE just keeps growing each and every week!

Thank you for reading my blog this week! 

Week 6 -- Evernote

Hello Everyone,

            Before I get started with my blog post I felt the need to share this link with everyone this week. The link is entitled 10 Simple Hacks to Land Better Grades, this link gives you tips on how to do better in college or university. I felt this tips would be helpful for all of us being midterm time. I hope this tip will help in some sort of way for midterms. If anyone has any other tips to do better in school, please leave some comments.  I hope everyone enjoyed their break and study hard for their midterms.

https://dev.evernote.com/accelerator/

This week topic is on Evernote the digital workspace and the entire great feature it has to offer. For my fellow bloggers who have never heard of Evernote, I believe that it is a great online tool to use for students. Personally, I have used Evernote many of time previously to this week, as this tools allows you collect all of your ideas in one place. Evernote allows you to put many different forms of information in one space (Hamilton, 2010). With Evernote you are able to create your own notes, add photos, web clippings, or full websites. After you add the information you want you are able to create different notebooks for different ideas or projects.  This tool allows you to hold as much information as you want, organizes the way you want, and you can even share your notebooks with others (Hamilton, 2010). One of my favorite features with this tool is the ability to tag key words in your notes, thus making it easier to search the note later on.

            I will be adding this tool to my Personal Learning Environment and Personal Learning Network because I will be using it very often.  I feel that the tool has many purposes, which means I can use for many different tasks. I will be adding this Personal Learning Environment under organizational, socialization, productivity and collaborate. The reason this tool fits into so many different categories is because it is multipurpose. It fits under the organizational category is because you are able to place all your information into different notebooks and tabs. You are able to choose if the note are order by the date or the name, being organized is very important when doing assignments. The reason it could be under socialization and collaborate is because you can share your notebook with other people, like classmates. This tool can also be under productivity because you can create projects, just like I am doing for my ADED 1P32 research project. Man is my PLE every building these past for weeks, I love it !

I love this tool because you are able to organize and I enjoy being organized, since it is so important to be organized as a university student. I will be using this tool in my university career and also future professional career as an educator. I will be using this tool for:

•      Note taking
•       Projects
•       To do list
•       Schedules
•       Lesson plans
•      Activity idea

What will everyone else being using Evernote for ? 

Thank you for reading!

Week 5: Twitter and PLN's

So this week I am posting about something a little different from previous week, it is link that caught my eye on my Feedly feed since it is getting close to midterm season. I know we are probably just wishing for a miracle to happen to be able to remember everything in time for those stressful exams. Well this post entitled The Tasty Drink That Could Help Boost Memory andThinking Skills talks about one Canadian favorite winter drink as being a miracle drink. This link is an interesting read, but now the question is do you believe it, and will you try this tasty drink when studying these upcoming weeks for midterms. I think I will, as there is no harm in trying (plus, you get great drink out of the deal!)

Twitter 

The new tool on the Internet of the week is caller Twitter, we all know this is not a new tool, but are we all using this tool to its full potential. This week I have learned that Twitter can be used to share an idea or ask your followers questions. Many young user use Twitter to tweet what they are doing or eating, but Twitter can be used as self-promoting tool. I realize this week you are able to discuss information with your followers in a professional manner. Hashtags are an interesting feature on Twitter, which allows you search a keyword on certain idea or topic and it will locate other posts on that topic that used those same keywords or hashtags. Another feature that Twitter has which allows you to collaborate in more directly is direct messaging; you can also collaborate with others by responding to their tweets and engaging in conversation. All you students and teachers out their need to understand how useful twitter can be for educational activities, you are able to communicate with millions of people.  Twitter also fits into anyone Personal Learning Network (PLN), which is connected with the RSS Feed, which includes many of articles, websites, and blogs that are a part of ones PLN. It is known that everyone and anyone who you interact with is apart of your PLN. Many educators use PLN to collaborate with other educators on how to structure their classroom, lesson plans or activities (Klingensmith, 2009). An example of another tool that may be apart of ones PLN is Pinterest.

Twitter and a Personal Learning Network both contribute to become a digital citizen and knowledge because I am able to connect with others in the technology world. Being able to connects allows me learn how be social and cooperative with other in a different type of setting.  With this two tools I am able to adapt and expand my ideas my making them better, with the ability to share my opinion and read others. Therefore, I will be adding Twitter to my PLE diagram under socialization and collaboration, since that is the whole purpose of Twitter.

Hope you enjoy the read, have a happy time blogging J