This week I discovered I’m clearly not as
‘internet-savvy’ as I thought I was. Until this week’s lesson I had never heard
of bookmarking tools and the only curating tool I had heard of (but never used)
was Google Alerts!
The thing I like most about Diigo, the bookmarking tool I decided
to try out, is that I can bookmark URLs from sites I had found at home for various
school assignments and projects, and then access them anytime from any device by
simply logging into my Diigo account. As a student, this is a really useful
online tool to have. Especially if you’re like me and have accidentally lost or
deleted various bookmarked pages that I keep saved in my own web browser.
This week I also set up two web curating
tools: Storify and Google Alerts. Curating tools gather
and organize online content about a certain topic. The reason I set up both of
these is because when I was playing around with Storify and getting used to the
layout, I realized that I didn’t really like it when being used in a more
academic sense. I found Storify to be really fun to put together some
magazine-looking information on a few of my general interests or hobbies, but
setting up a Google Alert so that information on a certain topic comes straight
to my e-mail inbox seems like the much more efficient way to do school-related
research, at least from my perspective!
Both bookmarking and curating tools help me
to further my journey in becoming a responsible digital citizen and gaining
digital literacy because they help me with online organization as well as
finding the most relevant, accurate information. An added bonus is that Diigo
(the bookmarking tool I used) even lets you highlight and add sticky notes to
your bookmarked pages! I found the sticky note tool really helpful because when
I’m reading something, I almost always have ideas about where I can put the
information to use, and then forget where I meant to use it. With the sticky
notes, I can mark the information and never forget!
This week, I also learned about the TRASH
test, which I found really useful to refresh my memory on how to spot the
most accurate web results possible – something really important to a university
student and a responsible digital citizen!
I've added a few more new tools to
my PLE! Diigo is definitely an organizational tool, which was one of the areas I
really wanted to find new resources in when I first created my PLE two weeks
ago! Storify and Google alerts both fall under the research category in my PLE.
Merdzan, C. (CC) 2016. |
This
week’s interesting Feedly find…
This week when I opened up my Feedly
reader, I saw a post that featured a fellow Goodman School of Business student.
It speaks about how he is the first Brock University student to obtain a spot
in Canada’s The Next 36 – a prestigious
program that aims to support young entrepreneurs in all aspects from mentoring
to raising capital. Reading this article made me super proud to be a part of
the Goodman School, as it clearly demonstrates the great talent we have and the
great name we are building for ourselves both province and nationwide. Give the article
a quick read to learn a bit more!
Merdzan, C. (CC) 2013. |
Hi Carolyne,
ReplyDeleteI also saw the article about our fellow Goodman student doing exceptionally well and being named one of Canada's Next 36! I was very proud to share this with my friends & family to show them what an amazing school we come from! I actually got to see Johnathan Holland when he originally pitched Curexe at Monster Pitch and it was so fascinating to see how the judges responded to, and questioned, his business.
I had a similar experience with using Storify and Google Alerts. After playing around with both for some time, I also realized that Storify seemed a bit to fun for educational purposes. Not that I don't think education can be fun, but I tend to get more distracted with a magazine-like format.
Although I ultimately went with Google Alerts for the purpose of this course, I could definitely see myself using Storify (and other tools not selected, but brought up in this course) in other aspects of my life. Do you think apps, for educational purposes, should be less flashy/colourful and more black and white? That doesn't seem like the way things are headed but I'd love to hear your opinion.
Stephen