Week 12- The end was near, and now it’s here!

For the past couple of weeks I have mentioned how this semester seemed to be coming to an end quite quickly… and now this actually is the end! Yesterday I had my last lecture of my undergraduate career, which was quite a strange feeling. I could go on about that for a while, so for right now I will simply wrap up my blogging for the semester!

I have discovered an awful lot about new tools and becoming a digital citizen this semester. Most of the tools we looked at, I never knew existed and never would have known existed if it weren’t for this course. You have seen the updates to my PLE along the way, so it is safe to say that knowledge of some of these tools is a good asset to have! 

I have learned that building a positive digital footprint is so crucial in our increasingly digital world. I took a second to Google my own name at the beginning of this course to compare with what the results would look like at the end. Of course, one new thing that shows up is my blog! To me, it has always been very important to maintain professional and respectful posts when blogging throughout this semester because of how easy it is for absolutely anyone to find all of these posts on the internet.

There are definitely connections between having a positive digital footprint and living and learning online as a digital citizen. One big connection is the one that has been repeated over and over again as a very important digital right and responsibility: the right to cite. Having a positive digital footprint and being a good digital citizen always includes giving credit where it is due. Another connection between a positive digital footprint and a good digital citizen is also continuing to make sure the internet is a safe, fun and informative space for everyone – cyber bullying should never been an issue anyone has to worry about!

As being a good digital citizen will become increasingly important as time goes on, I think it is especially important that we teach the importance of digital citizenship to those around us who have not taken the time to really reflect on what it means like ADED 1P32 has allowed me to do and also, to teach the importance of digital citizenship to younger generations.

Thank you to my readers who have kept up with my progression through ADED 1P32 this semester and commented on my posts!

https://pixabay.com/en/graduate-graduation-school-student-150374/

Final Interesting Feedly Find…

Sticking to my graduation theme of this post, although I was unable to attend this week’s Grad Send-Off event, I would just like to wish everyone graduating from Brock in 2016 the best of luck! It’s been great to be a Badger and as one student mentions in this article, it has also been great to be a Goodman School of Business student. Check out the article about upcoming Brock grads looking towards the future here!

Week 11- Testing 1,2,3

Wow, week 11 already!? Only one more week of school to go – I actually cannot believe how quickly this semester has flown by.

This week’s task was to explore creative tools and to create a podcast (you can find my podcast, which is a quick little clip on my thoughts on being a digital citizen, located at the top of my blog – also check out this introductory CNN video on podcasting). In order to create my podcast the tools I looked into were RecordMP3, SoundCloud and Garageband. The tool I settled on using for my podcast was SoundCloud because although RecordMP3 and Garageband were quite straightforward to use, I could not seem to figure out how to get a link from RecordMP3 to embed into my blog (the recording would only download to your computer) and the Garageband file was too large to upload and go through SoundCloud.

I also ran into an issue with SoundCloud itself. As a Mac user I of course tried this tool out using my Safari browser. I could record my video, but SoundCloud would keep telling me that my podcast was “processing.” Once I switched to using Google Chrome, everything worked perfectly!

I think being able to produce audio sound clips through things such as podcasts is a very powerful thing. Sometimes it's a much more effective way to get something across – to allow others to hear the sound of an actual voice rather than read written words. This is the beauty of digital literacy. Of course, as always, digital responsibility is an important factor when it comes to podcasts. We must always remember to be responsible digital citizens when creating content for the digital world.

SoundCloud was pretty straightforward and easy to use, but quite honestly, I don’t really see this being something I will use on a regular basis, so I’m not going to add it to my PLE. With that being said, I did really enjoy the opportunity to understand what SoundCloud is all about – I’ve heard about it from others but did not realize it allowed you to upload or create your own recordings.

This week I also created a Creative Commons license for my blog! I think this is a really cool feature to add to my blog given that throughout this semester, I have been using photos I have either taken or created myself (ironically up until this very blog post). By creating my Creative Commons license I was able to choose if and how I would like my photos to be used by others and things like whether or not my photos can be used for commercial use (I chose no for this option).

https://www.flickr.com/photos/dediquetic/16156539025

This week’s interesting Feedly find…

This week I found a fun little post since it is finally spring!! One of my favourite spring time flowers are cherry blossoms and apparently the cherry blossoms in Washington, D.C. have bloomed a week early making all of Washington's monuments look extra pretty. There’s nothing I love more than when the ones infront of the tower at Brock finally come into season! Check out this short little article with some awesome pictures from Washington to get a little taste of warmer weather!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/wonderlane/3264276465

Week 10- Amazing Animoto slide shows

This week I spent time exploring slide show tools, specifically Animoto (click on the “Animoto” page tab at the top of my blog to watch my video!). I really like that this is another tool I can add to the ‘create’ section of my PLE! The tool itself is very user friendly – it did not take long to get the hang of it at all. One downside is that I do believe after a certain number of slideshow creations, you have to pay for the tool. Your first video is a free trial that allows you to get a feel for the tool and its capabilities.

Animoto displays both images and short text statements. The slideshow I put together using Animoto was on Copyright and Creative Commons. I learned that Copyright is having the exclusive rights to copy on everything except ideas, concepts, styles and techniques. A good place to share your creative work or look for the work of others that is available for use is Creative Commons. Creative Commons is a place where you can search for images that are available for public use, or request a license for your own images and then limit how little or how much the public may alter or use your specific image. This article answers nine basic questions about Copyright that was really helpful to my understanding.

Even if this tool were free, I’m not sure exactly how much I could use Animoto. Unlike Microsoft PowerPoint, Google Slides or Prezi, the one downside of Animoto is the word limit. You can only add very short sentences to each slide, which really limits the ways I can use Animoto, especially where more wording and information is needed. However, it is really great for picture slideshows that may only need limited wording, so I would definitely consider using the tool for this purpose.

One of the most important things about being a good digital citizen is remembering to always give credit where it is deserved and always cite your work! This concept applies to pictures just as much as words. I think this is something that is really easy to forget – we know when we use other’s words we must attribute where they came from. I think with pictures we forget that those come from someone or somewhere as well and deserve just as much credit as written words do. I think this knowledge is critical to becoming a good digital citizen – although we have the right to access information (as learned in previous weeks) we also must not pass work of any type off as our own.

Merdzan, C. (CC) 2016.

This week’s interesting Feedly find…

Happy International Day of Happiness!! March 20^th marks the day the United Nations proclaimed just four years ago. I totally understand why happiness should have its own holiday. Those who are happy are generally healthier, live longer, make more money, are more productive at work… the list goes on and on. This article shares five (scientifically proven) strategies that can help us to (easily) lead a happier and more fulfilling life, such as acknowledging the good and finding meaning and purpose. Read the full article here !