Ted Talk About Ted Talks!

 My final blog post is going to be about a Ted Talk.  I started writing this for my previous post, but Ted Talk got me thinking about Ted from How I Met Your Mother and I ended up writing about that instead. But, this Ted Talk is probably better for a final post anyway.  I have mentioned it before in this class that I like Ted Talks.  To connect that interest to this class I went in search of talks about whatever topic we were learning about that week. There are definitely plenty of talks on the topics we have covered in our Web 2.0 class.

 

 

 Until today, I just thought of Ted Talks as a way to learn something new and maybe find a little inspiration to learn more about a topic I didn't much about. Or maybe, I found a talk that caused me to think about something differently than I normally would have. Thats' what happened today when I listened to this talk by Scott Galloway. Warning: There is some crude language and non PG topics in this talk. The talk itself is not terribly long, but there is a conversation after the talk that is equally interesting to hear. For the record, I am not saying I agree with everything he says, I'm just stating that he made me think about some things in ways I had not thought about them before.

 I listened to this talk while watching my son play in a golf tournament. I was laughing at loud, tssking, and shaking my head at times so I ended up walking ahead of the group because apparently golfers don't enjoy listening to a person's reactions to a podcast while they are playing a huge tournament, especially if they can't hear the podcast also!

I won't get into the meat of the talk in this post, there are some rather controversial statements, but I will write about how relates to Web 2.0. The speaker does mention social media a few times.  He is adamant that nobody under 16 should be on social media. The speaker and the host do also address the positive side of social media for kids, but you will have to listen for yourself to hear what they say! I think their sentiments echo what many of us have blogged about in this class, but he has some fascinating statistics to back up his claims.

Until today I never really thought of Ted Talks as a Web 2.0 tool.  They are generally something I only take away from, not interact with. However, the interviewer kept mentioning comments that were coming as they were talking.  The host, Chris Anderson -  head of TED - says, "Comment away, ask questions, talk with each other, disagree, amplify, whatever strikes you as the right thing to do."  When I got home I checked it out on YouTube and sure enough there were over 100 comments.  So, in this case maybe YouTube would be the tool.  Although, reading the comments there I'm not seeing the same comments that were mentioned in the interview so maybe TED has their own platform that I'm not aware of...yet.  One thing that I thought was interesting was when Chris Anderson was ranking social media platforms by their commenters.  Certain platforms were more suited for ranting and some were better for civil, thoughtful discussions.  

The purpose of my TED talk today was to get you to think about TED talks as another possible Web 2.0 tool. Be sure to check out TED on all of your favorite social media platforms! 

Follow TED! X:   / tedtalks   Instagram:   / ted   Facebook:   / ted   LinkedIn:   / ted-conferences   TikTok:   / tedtoks  

Ted Talk #1

 

Am I showing my age too much by writing about this? Oh well.  I saw a reel today that showed a teacher talking to her elementary students and she was teaching them manners. If there is something about a person that they have no control over or they can't change within 30 seconds, just don't mention it. So, my age is something I can't change in 30 seconds, let's not talk about that! 

My son is binge watching "How I Met Your Mother" this summer.  I watched it off and on when it was on "normal" tv from 2005 - 2014.  There was no "on demand" watching in those early years and I did not have a DVR. I never did figure out how to set the VCR to record if I wasn't home and frankly I just didn't care that much! I had a brand new baby and I was probably asleep by the time it came on, if I even happened to remember what night it was on.  

Now I'm watching it with my youngest son and I'm watching it through a different lens.  It's actually quite timeless in many ways, but also stirs up some nostalgic feelings.  If you are not familiar with the show, here's how Wikipedia sums it up: 

The series follows the adventures of Ted Mosby and his love life as a single man. His stories are narrated by Bob Saget as Ted Mosby 25 years later as he tells them to his adolescent children - Luke and Penny.  

The story goes into a flashback and starts in 2005 with 27-year-old Ted Mosby living in New York City and working as an architect. The narrative deals primarily with his best friends. These include the long-lasting couple Marshall Eriksen, a law student and Lily Aldrin, a kindergarten teacher, who have been dating for almost nine years when Marshall proposes, as well as womanizing playboy Barney Stinson, and Canadian news reporter Robin Scherbatsky. All of the characters' lives are entwined. 

At the time I thought it was just a fun show about friends. Now I watch it and think about the literary tools the scriptwriters used and how clever they were to combine foreshadowing and flashbacks along with the jokes, most of which would probably not pass the editor's desk today. I realize that makes me sound like the most boring person on the planet, but that's why I keep those thoughts just between me and my blog ;-). If you happen to be reading this, don't mention this if we ever meet in real life. 

I also watch it and think, "Wow! This show is almost 20 years old and the main character is writing a blog and that blog is actually a pretty major part of the show. How forward thinking was that?" Barney is the character who writes a blog and he has the same struggles we have today, getting people to read his blog. I just learned that there is an actual Barney Stinson blog. I am definitely going to find that when I finish this post. 

I'm also struck by the fact that, although smartphones were part of our lives, especially for the last 5 or 6 seasons of the show, the characters did not rely on their phones the way we do now.  Texting was used as part of storylines, but social media was not yet really a thing.  This should not really surprise me, but everything else in the show makes it feel like it could happen today except for the way they use their smartphones.  

I wonder how would the show be different today? Would Ted have met his wife on a dating app? Would they have MeetUp groups to arrange activities instead of just heading down to the bar to see who is there? Would they turn to Ask Reddit to solve some of their friendly squabbles? Hmmmm....I'm sensing a sequel is necessary! The social connection options are are almost endless. 

Week 10: A Blog Post About Blog Posts

 Yang, C. and Chang, Y.-.-S. (2012), Assessing the effects of interactive blogging on student attitudes towards peer interaction, learning motivation, and academic achievements. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 28: 126-135. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2729.2011.00423.x

It's kind of ironic that I'm writing a blog post about using interactive blogs with college students.   In the article I read this week researchers conducted a study comparing the effects of interactive blogging and solitary blogging.  The students in the interactive blog group were required to comment on their peers' blog posts while the students in the solitary group were not required to do so, but they could if they wanted to.  The main conclusion was that engaging in dialogues in the form of blog comments is associated with positive attitudes towards online peer interaction and academic achievements.  Both groups of bloggers had positive attitudes toward learning from peers.  

Blogging for a class was a new experience for me.  I tried to be more on the interactive side and less on the isolated side.  E-learning can feel very lonely sometimes, but I found a few classmates who would dialogue with me.  These exchanges certainly were more meaningful than just reading a post and moving on, although I did plenty of that also and I did learn things from doing that. To be fair, a few times I would read about a tool or a tip on a classmate's blog and I would dash off to investigate further and I would forget to leave a comment on the original blog post! If I did that to you, I'm so sorry! Just know that you inspired me. ✨ (See right there...I just applied the shortcut trick that Wile E. Coyote posted on our course blog. That's supposed to be a spark, like you sparked new ideas in me!) 

I think the blog was one of my favorite parts of this class. That's probably why I am still blogging this week, even though I don't technically have to.  I love the idea of using blogs to engage learners who might not otherwise share their thoughts because they are too shy or they need more time to think. That's me.  I'm that student! If there was a way to track how much time I spend writing/thinking about my blog entries, one might question my cognitive abilities and how I actually ended up in a graduate level class! However, usually it is just that I have so much to say and most of it needs to be filtered out because I'm off on the 99th rabbit trail of the day (and right here I just learned the difference between rabbit trail and rabbit hole). So, the point was, allowing the extra to write the blog entry has me more engaged in the class because there's about 1% chance I'd share any of these thoughts in a classroom! 

Week 9:Tools of the Week

 This week we focused on GroupMe, Slack, and What's App.  They happened to be tools that I am already fairly familiar with as they are tools used to bring groups together.  My son's swim team uses Slack, his ROTC class uses GroupMe, and my family uses What's App.  Although I'm sure there is always something new to learn on those apps, my mind was focused on Linkedin.  So, I spent time exploring Linkedin, again. I'm about 100% certain I'm not using that as well as I could be.  I learned quite a bit about Linkedin from Danica's Knowledge Sharing and Tracking VoiceThread which inspired me to go out on my own and learn more. I still have a lot to learn!

Miro was something new for me and playing with this sent me in 100 different directions...in a good way. It actually had me wishing my students were not on summer break because I want to play with Miro with my students.  It's described as a communication and project management tool.  So, of course I could use it for concept maps and timeline activities.  There is a place for users to share what they have made and I hit the jackpot! As a teacher in a virtual classroom, classroom management looks quite different than it does in a brick and mortar classroom.  This was definitely something I struggled with when I started teaching online.  I tried to find ways to engage my students while competing with activities in the classroom.  The users on this site have some fantastic ideas! Seeing their ideas has inspired me to create some of my own activities, which I have time to do now since my students are on vacation! Before school ended, my students were all abuzz about the Inside Out 2 movie.  While it would be fun to create something around this theme, I know that could run into some copyright issues. I think it would be ok if I wasn't selling it or sharing it with other Miro users, but I would definitely need to look into that before I created something to use with students.

This activity with the Mario theme could have some copyright issues also, but it looks like so much fun. This is my favorite video game ever!!!!!

The emoji scavenger hunt is so easy and kids LOVE emojis! This one is definitely going into my bag of tricks. I pick an emoji and the kids have to find it. The first one to find it makes up a story using that emoji.  Depending on the ability of my students I might just have them create a sentence rather than a whole story. Now, I immediately thought of the student who would just opt to not find the emoji so they didn't have to make a story or sentence.  An easy solve for this problem is to award badges or points and suddenly it becomes more about getting the most points and less about having to come up with a story.

I also had a great conversation with a friend who is an elementary school principal.  I asked her how they are using tools like Miro in her school.  They do lots of work with thinking maps, but not as digital tools.  A few years ago there was a huge push to have every kid with a device in the classroom. Now, a local district is moving away from that and not allowing devices at all during the school day.  I can see both sides of this coin, but I think there has to be a compromise. Devices in students' hands all day is probably not best for learning. Devices for specific learning activities like creating a digital timeline of a story's events can be powerful.  In my opinion, the all or nothing approach is generally not a great philosophy when it comes to most ideas in education.

Sharing the Knowledge Sharing

Show and Tell

I took the opportunity to watch all of the VoiceThreads that were submitted for the Knowledge Sharing/Tracking assignment. It was so interesting to see the different approaches to the assignment.  Previously, I wrote a blog post about not having work samples provided in this class.   To me, the variety of approaches demonstrated for this assignments is the benefit of not sharing samples before students turn in an assignment.  To be honest, this assignment did provide two samples. I was only able to open one of them and I didn't even notice it until I was up to my eyeballs in my own assignment and didn't want to change my work at that point! 

Pink shared her experience with Linkedin.  This is still a very new platform for me and although it was one of our tools I still have a lot to learn about Linkedin.  

Sarah Michael Trupiano shared a Padlet about College Life.  I was unable to leave comments on this VT, but I thought it was very nicely done.  Sarah mentioned possibly sharing it on Linkedin in the future, which maybe because of inexperience with the platform, is not a place I would have thought to share something like this.

Kenia shared her project on Health and Wellness using TikTok.  I was interested in hearing how she played with different posts to see what would attract the most viewers. The screenshot with the blurry picture has a significantly lower number of views, which does make sense.  Unless you are like me and are curious about WHY it's blurry so you have to check it out! Ha! The analytics slide really makes it clear why people use TikTok to advertise. I was unable to comment on this VT also, but I'm wondering if the content was all posted on one day or was it spread out over two weeks? Interesting that they took a post down for not having proper citation.

Bridgette did a thorough job of explaining curation, collection, and sharing.  The facts and analytics were all clear and easy to understand.  I was hoping for a screenshot of the Padlet, but I'm going to track down in her blog!

I like the way Sihan Jian used a variety of the Padlet tools on her padlet. The topic...such a hot button issue right now. There's so much content to sift through, a one stop shop is a great idea! There was good information about intellectual property here.

Danica's project was very relevant to my own interests. It was a good reminder for me that I NEED to get more connected on there. I'm curious though...how was the phone screening interview?  

Sharla presented a neat presentation about Pinterest. Curious what you thought about the business account? I did convert my account to a business account for this project, but I'm going to switch it back. By the way, I did the same thing to get some engagement with my board! Teenagers will do almost anything for homemade cookies!

Denise created a well-organized presentation showing how she shared knowledge about trail shoes and zero-drop shoes and then tracked what was shared.  She shared a different artifact to three different platforms and compared results. I'm curious to know how the three artifacts would compare if they were all shared to all three platforms.  I know this is not possible because you can only share videos on YouTube, but how would that same video do Pinterest or Instagram?

Lauren shared TeachersPayTeachers. I used this site as a homeschool mom and she's right, it is a life safer! I was impressed with the analytics available for sellers.  There are several homeschool moms who use TPT for income, but they do keep a blog and update it frequently.  Lauren, have you thought about tapping into the homeschool market? I'm not sure if your webquests are written for groups or individuals, but if an individual student can complete the activity, tag it with homeschool (if that's still an option, it's been a while since I've been on TPT). So many TPT activities are not good for an individual student so as a homeschool mom I specifically searched for homeschool friendly activities.  Just an idea.

I am so impressed with the projects from my classmates and I loved being able to share about knowledge sharing!

Class Tools IRL

 Ahhhh, the digital detox week was amazing! I made a conscious effort to not pick up my phone and scroll.  I have to say that I did ok with reducing my social media use for 48 hours, although I was unable to  chose not to avoid it completely.  I will say I was very productive with that extra time which was really nice! 

    One of the things I did with that extra time was look for a job! I still have a year to go until I finish my coursework at FSU, but I thought I'd see what's happening in the job market. I used Linkedin for a jump start.  I ended up reading an article about resumes and then I promptly decided my resume needed a whole new look.  I last revised my resume about a year ago, but I haven't done much to add to it since then so I didn't really mess with it.  Now with a shiny new resume in hand I decided to look at a few jobs that were posted.  I saw two that were interesting and I applied.  The next day I had emails from both inviting me to go to the next step in the hiring process.  The first company was a quick video interview so I did that and the next day was invited to schedule an in-person interview. That has been scheduled, so now I wait. This is for an online tutoring company and I'm already doing this type of work, I'd just like to add more hours, so it shouldn't be too difficult.

    The second company actually had two positions that were intriguing to me.  I applied for both and went to the next step for both.  The first position required a cognitive skills test, a technology test, and one other scenario-based assessment.  It took about 2 hours to complete those and they were all timed, which was a little nerve-wracking.  Something started feeling not right about the whole situation so I went back to the tools from this class.  I read reviews about the company on various job sites and there were not many positive comments.  I also turned to my new friend, Reddit.  A quick search there found hundreds of posts from people who went through the process, but did not make it to the final stage of interviews. There was only one comment from a person who actually works for the company and that person said last spring they had 40,000 applicants! This was so discouraging. I decided to continue with the process just to practice my interview skills, but I'm not optimistic.  

    So, anyone have suggestions for getting my first job in the ID world? I'm ready to put all the tools we've been learning about to good use and make as many connections as I can! 

This week, I spent a lot of time playing with edublogger.  There are tons of resources for teachers on the site.  Literacy is my passion and blogging has many links to literacy skills beyond just basic writing.  

I've always felt that every student has the potential to be a writer, it just takes a patient and possibly very creative, or at least resourceful at finding creative ideas, teacher helping to tap into that skill.  My son is one of the most creative people I know, but getting him to put his thoughts on paper was absolute torture for both of us when he was learning to write.  This was 15 years ago so not as many technical tools were available, especially to ordinary consumers. We were homeschooling and most of the ed tech options were only available to schools.  After a lot of trial and error I figured out that his biggest obstacles to getting words on the paper were that he didn't like the sound of the pencil scratching his paper and if there was a mistake that needed to be erased...there would be tears for sure! Blogging would have been perfect for him. I think writing is such a personal thing and when that writing gets covered with the teacher's red ink, it hurts! The blog allows the teacher to comment, off to the side in a much less intrusive way.  

One of the resources talked about how to incorporate video into a blog.

3 Ways You Can Use Video In Your Blog Posts

Since I love TEDTalks, I thought I'd try that out here.

This is a TED Talk I watched about blogging with students. It's short and the speaker has a lovely British accent, check it out.

 

Here is one about networking from TedEd.  

If you have not explored the teacher resources on edublogger I would encourage you to put that in your planner for the week.  The writing prompts, picture prompts, and ideas for blog entries will keep students engaged for a whole year.  Edublogger Ideas