February 8: Starting My Journey
By now, I have had two introductory blogs. Since this whole thing is new to me, I have sort of been neglecting my blog. I am willing to be honest and admit it, although I would like to add that the shunning of my blog was entirely unintentional. To counter this mishap, I have left myself various post-it notes to remind myself to continually update my blog until it becomes a habit. When I was younger, I never really kept a diary; the reason being that I never remembered to write in it. So, facing basically the same issue here, I intend on defeating it this time and become a regular ‘blogger’!
That being said, there have been developments since my last post. I have joined wikispaces and have, with fellow classmates, created a group for my LLED 420 class. The things you are able to do on wiki are actually pretty cool. We have listed a bunch of questions pertaining to teaching English (for example, “How do you get your kids engaged and reading the book assigned in class?”) and we are able to search for possible answers online and attach links to our list so we all have access to the same information. (Apologies if that makes little sense. Considering I am new to all of this, I have yet to learn the proper lingo/ways of explaining the various websites I have joined in the past month.) Not only can we edit and add to our questions, but others can view them and access the same information. It is a neat and interesting way of being in contact with those with similar interests/occupations or learning about something new entirely. Check it out at: http://lled420readingquestions.wikispaces.com/Reading+Wiki or search the name of our group on wiki posted below.
| LLED420ReadingWiki-Amanda, Jesse, Meg, Nicole
Moving on from the electronic stuff, as fun as it is, I would like to turn to the real reason why I would like to become and English teacher: literature. For the same class I must build my PLN for (LLED 420), my classmates and I also had to read the novel Feed by M. T. Anderson. I finished the novel a couple of weeks ago, (it is a quick and easy read) and was actually impressed by it. I look forward to going through it with the rest of the class. The book reminded me of 1984 meets Fahrenheit 451. Most people in Feed have ‘feeds’ in their brains that bombard them constantly with information and, most importantly, advertisements. It was an interesting take on what our future might be like. Answers to any question people may have are already easily accessible via internet, which most people can access on their phones now, not to mention the constant flooding of images/advertisements people are met with every day. Ads are virtually impossible to escape. The part of the novel that really struck me was a promo for Coke. The kids, or anybody really, had to mention Coke to their friends a thousand times and then they received a complimentary six pack of Coke. You gotta love that refreshing, cool taste of Coke! Why waste money on advertising when you can get the general public to do it for you? If any of you watch the Biggest Loser, this type of mentality is pretty much in effect. Don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to bash the show, I actually like it and am glad people benefit from it, but this part of the show really annoys me. In every episode, at least one of the trainers comes on the show to promote some type of product, like Ziplock freezer bags (“They keep your food fresh for longer periods of time!”). It is so obvious the scenes are staged. I mean, who really talks about products that way? Yet I continue to watch the show despite the frustration I feel when the oh-so-obvious plugs occur. My roommates and I made a joke out of it one night and spent the rest of the evening “plugging” the brand names around our apartment. Though we laugh now, how far are we from the horrifying future depicted in Feed if advertisers already view the public as impressionable and mindless zombies? On a lighter note, I am excited to beginning talking about this book in class on Wednesday to see what everyone else thinks of this chilling and compelling novel. Don’t miss the masterpiece entitled FEED! |
January 26: Diving In
Over the past couple of weeks, I have been reconnecting with and signing up for various networks. Below, I will have little detailed blurbs about my experience so far with each one (they will be brief since I have not yet had in depth interaction with them), but I wanted to share my initial impressions of each. I have officially begun to compose my own PLN!!! While I am still not entirely confident in what I am doing, I do think that, even with this second posting, I am becoming more comfortable with ‘blogging’. So here are my updates…enjoy!
The most obvious network, and the most popular one currently, is Facebook. When I was a junior in high school (maybe a senior), my friends set up a Facebook page for me in the hopes that I would jump on the band wagon and become a Facebook junkie. At first, I was confused why they had even bothered. They had tried to do the same with MySpace, setting me up an account and everything. I never went on MySpace once to look at it, so I was unsure why they thought Facebook would be any different. As you can imagine, they were right and I was wrong in this particular instance; while I would not consider myself a Facebook junkie, I do participate and interact with others on this social network. I find it useful to organize events and keep in touch with friends and family that I do not get to speak with/see often. So, since I already had a Facebook account and use it frequently, I was ready to move on in the construction of my very own PLN.
Twitter is another network that I had already had an account with. Unlike Facebook, however, I just have not hit it off with Twitter. I was asked to get an account with Twitter, along with a handful of other members, by the leader of a Christian group I am part of here at school so that we could stay in touch over the summer. Needless to say, I complied but am far from an enthusiast. Twitter is like the horrible version of Facebook, and though I have tried, I continue to fail to see the point of Twitter. Getting Facebook status updates in my Newsfeed drives me crazy enough, I do not need a social network that seems to be dedicated solely to said status updates. I do not feel the need to be informed of what my friends and family are doing every couple of hours during the day. If there is a point to Twitter, perhaps some one will be able to enlighten me and fill me in on its purpose. Until then, I will just have to accept it as it is, and I suppose check in occasionally with the account that I have.
As I went to join this particular network, I was very surprised to find that when I put in my e-mail address to sign up for an account, my e-mail address was already registered. Confused, I typed in the oldest password I could remember using and, sure enough, it worked. I must have had this account for about two and a half years now and had forgotten about it. Like Twitter, it was just something I must have signed up for once for one reason or another without any real interest or understanding of the network. From my understanding, Linkedin is the business version of Facebook. And so, yet again, I will just have to keep an eye out for the accounts I have already created and take advantage of the connections or interactions I can have on them.
PICCLE
This is another network that I was, I suppose, required to sign up for as part of another block (LLED 411). I suspect, however, that this site can easily fall into my PLN and be, perhaps, the most helpful one for me at present. Already, I have had interaction with students who are part of PDS and currently in the midst of their year of student teaching. I have been able to read posts about difficulties some are having in the classroom, followed up by suggestions and helpful tips from fellow student teachers. Though I am not in the same boat right now, I will be student teaching next year, and I have already learned some neat ideas and beneficial tips for when I will be in the classroom teaching English. This network seems to be the most promising at this time.
Delicious
Moving away from sites in which I was previously affiliated with, we now arrive to Delicious. As I mentioned in my first post, it is for a class that I am constructing this blog and my own PLN (which I do plan on using after the class is over), and as a class, we decided that delicious would be the site we would all join together. It is a site in which you can bookmark other sites and share with others. So if someone in my class finds some useful information for Secondary English Education Majors, they are easily able to share it with the rest of us. At least, this is my understanding of this site. It is my hope that it will be very helpful in the future and I look forward to exploring it more.
Ning
Finally, we arrive at Ning. This is the most recent account I created. At this point, I realized that it may be a good idea to start writing down which websites I have signed up for, what my username and password is, and how to get to my own page on them. Documenting this information is still something I have to do, by the way. I am not the best at organization and tend to procrastinate. This is besides the point and off task though, so my apologies. After signing up for Ning, I verified my e-mail address and admittedly, that is the extent of my interaction with Ning up to this point. Along with delicious, this is one site that I am hoping will be extremely useful to me for this class and in the future.
After all this excitement, I finally decided to update my blog, and so now we are up to sped on the progression of my PLN. I had always considered myself technologically savvy until I had to switch from a PC to a Mac, and then got a second dose of reality when asked to create my own PLN and sign up for all these popular networks that I had never heard of. It should be an interesting journey, creating my own PLN, but I am prepared to figure it all out and have a confident grasp as to what each of these websites are about and how they can be helpful to me as resources for when I become a teacher. Well, that’s about all for now. More homework to do…fun, fun, fun! Until next time….cheers!!!
January 13: The Beginning
So, for my LLED 420 class, my professor wants us to set up a blog. In all, I think the whole concept is pretty cool and I like the idea, but to be honest, I haven’t a clue what I am doing. I am hoping, and expecting, that this will be easier as the semester continues and anticipate that this will be something I keep up with once the class is over. For now, I just wanted to write an introductory post to get started as I continue to learn about ‘blogging’. Right now, it feels like I am keeping a diary, except anyone on the web who can access my blog can access my ‘diary’, but I am hoping that this is something I will adapt to as well. Well, I suppose that is all for right now, so…cheers! : )
