EME6414 Blog

This week, I had the opportunity to use Miro for the first time. It is a tool that reminded me a lot of Padlet, but I think I might like Miro even more. I like how easy it is to personalize your contributions in Miro. There are so many options in how you can engage with the board, not just sticky notes and written contributions. Allowing GIFs, emojis, videos, and links are great ways to ensure engagement: learners love choice in their interactions. I also enjoyed how aesthetically pleasing the interface is overall. The boards are nice to look at and that encourages more interaction.  Obviously, I can see how this would be a great collaborative tool in the corporate world, but I think it could be great in the world of secondary education as well.  Examples: Brainstorming and Sessions: this tool provides a great collaborative online space to brainstorm on projects and academic work. I could see it working extremely well for history fair, science fair, and presentations across su...

 Being a middle school librarian myself, this article immediately caught my eye. I have always thought of the library as the "heart" of the school. It is a place where students and staff alike come together to collaborate and learn. Something you do not often see, however, is the use of social media in secondary-level academic libraries. There has been a huge shift in reading habits amongst the youth recently, being that they do not read and engage with storytelling like they used to. I think this shift started when I was in school, as YouTube and social media came into the limelight. We could suddenly stream anything we wanted from wherever we wanted. Books simply lost their flair for the younger generation, and with shortened attention spans, I find it to be a constant battle to get kiddos engaged with reading, especially reading for pleasure. I am hoping that the following takeaways from this article can help boost our overall reading engagement in the coming school year. ...

 This week really established the differences of secondary and higher education in terms of classroom social media use. I think social media is an excellent tool to use in higher education as these learners are more equipped to use it and can motivate themselves to learn from it rather than getting distracted. Middle and high schoolers, on the other hand, run a much higher risk of distractibility when using social media and there is a lot more room for legal trouble when using social media in a secondary classroom.  I have worked at a couple of middle schools and a high school in the last decade. Every single school had "tea" pages where the students went to spread rumors and say nasty things about other students and staff. Every school also usually has multiple fight pages as well where students go to post their "world star" style fight videos, often the ones that have taken place on campus.  This is a mess every. single. time. Especially when parents stumble on th...

I found this article from the readings to be very interesting. I love to examine all the ways professional learning communities can form, especially via social media platforms. Having the ability to learn from and engage with educators across the world, rather than just the bubble of your in-person community, is a huge game changer. I have examined the major takeaways of this study below. 1. Prior Engagement Leverage: using platforms like Twitter and Facebook served as a catalyst for teacher engagement. These are platforms that many already used and had an interest in, and it is easier to engage with a platform you already know how to use or use on a daily basis. This kept interest levels high.  2. Facilitator Role: facilitators were vital to ensuring discussion was based in pedagogy and that discussion was effective and meaningful. Good facilitators ensured that social media did not become a burden to the process of the CoP.  3. Development of CoP: Social media served as a ...

 I. Love. Padlet.  I've used Padlet before as both a learner and instructor, mostly as a way of collaborating and communicating in the midst of a lesson. It is a great way to stop and allow everyone to share their ideas and thoughts in a course without the discussion going off the rails. Sometimes, it is so easy for class discussions, especially those held amongst the middle school population. I have found that Padlet is a great way to ensure the conversation stays focused. I wanted to explore some of the ways Padlet can be used in the classroom and I found this great blog with a ton of ideas! 30+ Creative Ways to Use Padlet   Below, I have listed the top 5 I found in this list that I would like to implement in the coming school year.  1. Live Question Bank:   This could be a great way to implement a web-based "parking lot." Many teachers have large anchor charts in their classrooms where students can leave questions they did not get to ask during class, usually...

 I enjoyed this week for a number of reasons. Last weekend I went through a rather arduous ordeal, so this week it was very fun to simply be in my house and dive into my novel for the Goodreads challenge and learn about network knowledge activities.  I particularly enjoyed Salomon's article It's Not Just the Tool but the Educational Rationale That Counts. This article really resonated with me because I have seen first-hand what happens when tools are chosen because they are sparkly and new, but educators don't know how or simply cannot effectively integrate them into their classrooms. This can happen for a number of reasons. Instructors all have their own style of teaching, and it is important to allow them the autonomy and support to find what works best for them and their students. Give them the space and ability to choose what will work best for them based on their desires as well as their knowledge of their students, but also give them the resources they need to effecti...

 For the Goodreads challenge, I decided to read the novel Normal People  by Salley Rooney. I had seen the show and remembered social media being a relatively prevalent catalyst in it, and after some research found it was the same in the novel. The novel specifically utilizes Skype (though not really social media, still a form of technological communication) and Facebook. The novel takes place in Ireland from about 2011-2015, so I was surprised that only Facebook was used, but concluded it was a specific choice made by the author. I believe that only using Facebook ensures that the intimacy between the characters is felt deeply by the reader- it is not lost to the noise of Instagram and Twitter.  There are a few instances throughout the course of the novel where Facebook is utilized. One of the most powerful instances is during the death of Marianne's (one of the two protagonists) friend Rob. Marianne finds it absolutely disturbing how people use his personal Facebook page...