Sunday, June 26, 2016

Content Curation Checklist

Content curation is the process of collecting, sorting, arranging, and presenting information in a way that is meaningful and focused on a specific topic or theme.  Curators must carefully and intentionally sort through the plethora of available web resources and select the best and most relevant content.  Those resources must then be put into an organized context with annotation to publish and share.  This week I worked with my class PLN to create a checklist of criteria to assess the quality and value of a curated topic.  There are four members of my class PLN and we decided to use a Google Doc to collaborate on our project.  This is my preferred method of collaboration because of the ease of use and the commenting feature for discussion and communication. My group started off with a conversation on Facebook and then the rest of the project just fell into place.  One member was going out of town, so got a head start and created an outline of criteria questions sorted by resource.  I, too, will be leaving on vacation, so I took it from there and fleshed out some of the criteria by providing explanations and citing sources, then set up the reference list.  The other two team members jumped in and finished the explanations for the remaining criteria, and worked on APA formatting.  This was a pretty seamless example of collaboration. I feel like each of us contributed significantly to the project and the overall product is better for it.  Using a Google Doc made it easy for each member to work when it's convenient for him/her and we all contributed to the final product.  I feel like we've created a very thorough checklist that will be useful to anyone for evaluating a curated collection.

Here is the link to our collaborative checklist or you see the final product below.


Saturday, June 18, 2016

Managing Your Digital Footprint

Building your professional web presence is crucial for educators in today’s world.  It’s important not only to develop a positive digital footprint but also to maintain and manage your online reputation. There are many things you can do to help with this; here are ten tips:


Search Yourself
Periodically conduct internet searches using a variety of search engines (Google, Yahoo!, Bing, etc.) to see what results you find.  It’s important to monitor your digital presence regularly.


Google Alerts
Set up a Google alert on your name to keep track of any new content. You can choose to be notified at a certain time of day, or to receive alerts in digest format on a daily or weekly basis. There are also other similar programs available to monitor what’s being put out on the internet about you (Adams, 2013).


Manage Security Settings
Decide which of your social media accounts you’ll use for personal and which you’ll use for professional (read: public) sharing.  Then make sure your privacy settings for each account are in line with your intended use. For example, if you use Facebook for personal use to share pics of your family, your vacations, time you spend hanging out with friends, etc. - not necessarily things you’d want just anyone to access, make sure your privacy settings are high so that only friends can see your posts.  Accordingly, if you use other social media purely for professional use, make sure your privacy settings are open to allow people to see your profile. (Posner, 2011)


Update Your Profiles
You need to do more than just create accounts for social media and other professional sites and services, you need to create profiles. Examples of these include Google +, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Academia, YouTube, SlideShare, and many others. Carefully create your profiles to include information that reflects the image that you want to portray. You may also link sites, publications, or blogs that align with your ideas. (Dunlap & Lowenthal, 2013)


Interact & Engage
Building a positive digital footprint requires that you do more than just put information onto the internet; it requires you to interact with others and engage in conversation about topics related to your profession.  Remember that there are actual human beings out there with whom you are interacting, something that can get lost in the anonymity of the internet. (Price, 2015).


Buy Your Domain Name
For relatively little money, you can buy your own domain name.  Acquiring your own domain name looks professional and can guide searches for your name and help control what people see when they search for you. There are a variety of websites you can use (godaddy.com, FullName.com, etc.) to do this. (Taub, 2012).


Put all Your Content in One Place
There are a number of sites (WordPress, About.Me, Google Sites, etc.) that allow you to easily create a professional looking website.  Having a website of your own helps you look professional and gives you a place to share information about yourself, links to your blog, work you’ve published, resources you’re willing to share, etc.  Also, if you’ve purchased your domain name (see above), you can apply it to these sites for extra personalization and professional appearance (Adams, 2011, and Lowenthal, 2012).


Model Appropriate Behavior
As educators, we have a responsibility to our students not only to teach them how to create and maintain a positive digital footprint, but we need to model that ourselves and be transparent about doing so.  We need to explicitly teach and show the steps we are taking in the process. Kuehn says, “Our professional responsibility is not only to own our professional online identity and reputation, but to understand enough that we can provide advice and be an online model for our students” (2010).


Build Your Brand
Teachers don’t often think of themselves as having a “brand,” but we most definitely do!  It’s important to identify your strengths and share those strengths with others.  In fact, according to Gallagher (2015), “educators who build their brands tend to reflect on their practice and work hard to constantly improve.”


Be a Good Digital Citizen
No matter what the platform (Facebook, Twitter, blog, website), remember to always practice good Netiquette skills and digital citizenship.  Use proper spelling and grammar to help maintain a professional appearance, always cite sources when using photos or other information, and follow the rule, ‘If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.’ (Price, 2015)


Resources
Adams, S. (2013). 6 steps to managing your online reputation. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2013/03/14/6-steps-to-managing-your-online-reputation/#31a69c4c1acf


Gallagher, K. (2015).  How to build your teacher brand.  EdSurge News.  Retrieved from https://www.edsurge.com/news/2015-12-23-how-to-build-your-teacher-brand

Kuehn, L. (2010). Manage your digital footprint. Teacher news magazine, 23(3). Retrieved from https://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/National%20Office/2012/02/osos106_Digital_Footprint.pdf


Lowenthal, P., & Dunlap, J. (2012). Intentional web presence: 10 SEO strategies every academic needs to know. EDUCAUSE.edu. Retrieved from http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/intentional-web-presence-10-seo-strategies-every-academic-needs-know


Posner, M.  (2011). Creating your web presence: A primer for academics. Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/creating-your-web-presence-a-primer-for-academics/30458


Price, C. (2015). Netiquette: Pointers for social media users and bloggers. The Huffington Post.  Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/courtney-price/netiquette-pointers-for-social-media-users-and-bloggers_b_7786356.html


Taub, A. (2012). 5 key things needed to improve your digital identity. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/alextaub/2012/06/07/5-key-things-needed-to-improve-your-digital-identity/#4fc09d2414ef

Friday, June 17, 2016

Digital Footprint

I use the term digital footprint with my students all the time.  I teach sixth grade and by this age it's crucial that they begin to understand the long-term effects of what they post on social media.  I have always been careful about what I post online to make sure that my own digital footprint is positive.  For a long time, I didn't want to have a digital footprint at all; I felt like the fewer search results came back identifying me, the better.  However, my thinking about that has changed. Living in today's world, it's nearly impossible not to have some sort of digital footprint and rather than try to avoid it, it's important that we take charge of what the internet will say about us, cultivate our own digital footprint, and create the most positive one possible.
When I searched for myself on the internet, I found just a few results and there was nothing surprising.  My Facebook, Twitter, Google +, Boise State Wordpress Site, and a few other things came up.  The majority of these I use only professionally, so I have no concerns about the content.  My Facebook account has extremely high security settings (mainly because to keep information and images of my children as private as possible), and that's really the only personal social media I use.  I also discovered that there are a lot of Amanda Hensleys in the world and unfortunately, not all of them are making the smartest life choices.  The third search result was entitled "Pregnant and Addicted" - an article about an Amanda Hensley, but certainly not me!   This makes me hope that people who might be looking me up take the time to actually read the results to determine if this is actually the person they're looking for before making assumptions!  I guess that part can't be controlled, but we can try to generate a great deal of positive internet presence to help make it clear in these sort of situations which person is which.  If someone searched me and found a ton of professional, education-related results and one article like I mentioned above, that would definitely help them know that these are not the same person.
As a result of this assignment, I plan to create additional profiles on sites like LinkedIn and make sure that I am putting out as much positive, professional information about myself as possible.

Thursday, June 16, 2016

My Twitter PLN


Twitter has been a major part of my professional learning network (PLN) for several years. I use Twitter only for professional development; I save my personal social media posts for Facebook and Instagram.  Over time, I've cultivated a very rich resource where I know that I can almost instantly find information I'm looking for about lessons, tools, or projects.  Additionally, I know I can reach out on Twitter to get answers to my questions or issues as well as find support and encouragement.  I have made connections with educators from around the world, many of whom I have been able to meet in real life.  It's such an exciting thing to meet someone in real life that I've known only on Twitter and make that connection!
I use Tweetdeck to organize my Twitter topics and the first five columns and things I learn from them are: 
  • #gafesummit - This is the official hashtag of the Google Apps for Education Summits.  These are held throughout the world almost every weekend, so it's a very active hashtag where people are tweeting out what they're learning and sharing links to session resources.  I do a lot of side work as a part of these teams and it's inspiring to see what people are learning.  Recently, I was able to learn some great tips about using Google Calendar when a presenter at a session shared his resources.
  • #smartee - I am a SMART Exemplary Educator and this group uses the hashtag to communicate about how we are using SMART products in our classroom, to share lessons and ideas, and to support each other.  I love this hashtag because it's such a global group and I always love to learn how education works in other parts of the world.  People often post links to lessons they created and shared so that others can use them in their own classrooms.
  • #geniushour - This past year I started implementing Genius Hour in my classroom and checked this hashtag regularly to see how other teachers are running their classroom projects.  Many teachers share their students' GH projects on this hashtag and I often share those with my students so they can see what other kids are doing.
  • #GoogleClassroom - I use Google Classroom daily and since it's a realtively new product, ther are often updates and new features. I follow the conversation on this hashtag to learn about what I can do with Google Classroom.  Just this morning I saw that someone shared a link to her blog where she has created an excellent resource for those just getting started with GAFE and Classroom which I plan to share with the my staff.
  • #onenewthing - At GAFE Summits,  teachers are challenged to choose just one new thing they learned to try in their classrooms, and then tweet it out using this hashtag. I love this hashtag because people tweet out short, specific tools or ideas they are implementing.  It's inspiring because I often learn about tools I didn't know about and can then look for ways to use them myself.  I recently saw several people post about using Seesaw with primary kids and was interested to check it out for myself as I wasn't familiar with it.


Wednesday, June 8, 2016

PLNs, CoPs, and Connectivism

Here is my nonlinguistic representation of the concepts of personal learning networks (PLNs), communities of practice (CoPs), and connectivism.


3 Related Concepts... - Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires

The concepts of personal learning networks (PLNs), communities of practice (CoPs), and connectivism are three very similar concepts, yet they are not exactly the same.  The haiku deck I created (above) displays a series of images and symbols that represent each of these related concepts.

PLNs - Rajagopal et. al (2011) define a personal learning network as “an egocentric, personally and intentionally created network of people set up by an individual specifically in the context of her professional activities.". People establish their PLNs in various ways - with people they regularly interact with in person, through online communities/email/networks, and with people they primarily communicate with via social media. PLNs are ways for people manage information, create content, and connect with others (Mott, 2010). Perez (2012) lists five main reasons educators need PLNs: access to the thinking of colleagues, access to timely information, ability to post questions and get responses, ability to collaborate with colleagues, and to be able to communicate about events. The images I used to represent this are a list of my Twitter connections (my primary PLN), an image of hands grasping wrists that shows support and networking, and images that show connected educators in various ways.

CoPs - Communities of practice differ from PLNs in that they are larger and are comprised of many individuals and the PLNs they bring with them to the community. CoPs are generally focused around a occupation, trade, or hobby and the merit of them, according to Wenger & Snyder (2000), is that people share their experiences and knowledge in  free-flowing, creative ways that foster new approaches to solving problems. The images I chose to symbolize CoPs are groups of people who clearly have similar jobs and are working together, sharing ideas, creating, and solving problems. The image with the colorful wooden people represents the interconnectedness of PLNs and CoPs.

Connectivism - The newest proposed learning theory in the education world is connectivism which asserts that “knowledge and cognition are distributed across networks of people and technology, and learning is the process of connecting, growing, and navigating those networks” (Siemens and Tittenberger, 2009). This new idea has come about because today’s learners are different from learners of the past because they require a social aspect to successfully acquire knowledge (Tinmaz, 2012). Both PLNs and CoPs are integral parts of the idea of connectivism because they focus on personal connections that support learning, which is essentially the basis for the theory. The images I chose for connectivism are a drawing of a person plugged in because connectivism is newly created for the current generation of kids like this, groups of students learning together digitally, a diagram of the various digital media that support learning in this age, and a guidepost of social media platforms.

The concluding image is a hand holding the world which is made up of a puzzle. PLNs, CoPs, and connectivism are all parts of a puzzle that create the educational world that we are all currently working, and learning and working in.


References:

Mott, J. (2010). Envisioning the post-LMS era: The open learning network. Educause Quarterly, 33(1), 1-9.

Perez, L. (2012). Innovative Professional Development. Knowledge Quest,40(3), 20.

Rajagopal, K., Joosten-ten Brinke, D., Van Bruggen, J., & Sloep, P. (2011). Understanding personal learning networks: Their structure, content and the networking skills needed to optimally use them. First Monday, 17(1). doi:10.5210/fm.v17i1.3559

Siemens, G., & Tittenberger, P. (2009). Handbook of emerging technologies for learning. Manitoba, Canada: University of Manitoba.

Tinmaz, H. (2012). Social networking websites as an innovative framework for connectivism. Contemporary Educational Technology, 3(3), 234-245.

Wenger, E. C., & Snyder, W. M. (2000). Communities of practice: The organizational frontier. Harvard business review, 78(1), 139-146.