Reflection on Social Media & Collaboration Tools
As instructors we must inspire our students to collaborate with other students who bring different perspectives to the learning environment. Communication is vital and will help in creating new ideas. The basis for online collaborative learning involves working together in a group to achieve a common goal. Students take the responsibility for working together to share experiences and knowledge. Their interactions help develop critical thinking skills and construct their own knowledge.
In the teaching environment, I agree with the constructivist teaching method. The focus for instruction should be a learner-centered approach rather than teacher-centered approach. The learner is actively engaged in the learning process. The teacher becomes the guide or the facilitator who creates the positive learning environment.
Benefits of the constructivist approach are that it develops thought processes, communication and social skills. It promotes validating the student's point of view, rather than judging it to be right or wrong. The student reevaluates and readjusts his knowledge and understanding. This emphasis builds confidence and self-esteem, which will motivate the student to handle more complex problems in the future. Our PLN Mind Mapping exercise is an example of using the constructivist theory. It’s an interactive, creative approach to help us understand and clarify our goals to turn them into reality.
All the applications and tools we used in class I found to be useful and that will help me to grow professionally. These social media platforms allow me to contribute and collect resources for best practices in education and technology. I can connect with like-minded professionals by sharing my found resources and adding value to other’s contributions. It’s a give and take process where the entire community benefits.
I found using the RSS Feed to deliver information directly to my blog is a convenient way to stay up-to-date on the latest news. Using Diigo for social bookmarking allows me to manage the collection of bookmarks I find useful. Contributing resources to my community as well as gathering resources will help me stay on top of current trends in technology and education. Having the Diigo Tags on my blog is a creative way to highlight and access my categories.
One of my favorite platforms is Google plus where you have control over your connections. It is a great way to communicate and share resources to different circles in your network. Google Drive offers a great way to interact with your circles or an individual by having a hangout to video chat. Collaborating in real time using Google docs was an efficient way of doing collaborative work. A good example of our class doing a collaborative project was contributing resources to our class Wiki. The wiki will be a great resource for reference materials in the future.
The social media platforms of Twitter and TweekDeck were easy to use and both have a limit of 140 characters for your post. I preferred using TweekDeck because of its convenience. It allows you to view the hashtags you follow in a stream of resources flowing into organized columns. Students today are comfortable using this type of social media. Instructors who utilize Twitter appropriately can engage their students in the learning process.
Professionally speaking it’s important to keep your LinkedIn profile up-to-date and to highlight your skills and accomplishments. It’s an interactive resume available online for others to see. LinkedIn is not like Twitter in the way you share your opinions, infographics and interesting articles. It’s more about networking to find employment and to have a place where professional recruiters can find matches for positions they need to fill. We can also develop stronger connections by contributing resources.
I will use the projects and skills I’ve learned in this class in the future by including collaborative assignments in the classes I teach. Teamwork and students taking responsibility for their own learning is very important for the student’s future as they enter the job market. They need to be prepared to use technology and interacting positively with people that may think differently then they do.
I’ll continue to grow professionally by staying up-to-date with technology and connecting with my peers for the best practices in online education. Currently, I’m open to new employment opportunities so it’s important to keep my LinkedIn profile up-to-date to highlight my skills and accomplishments. I will continue to contribute resources and building relationships in the LinkedIn environment.
In the teaching environment, I agree with the constructivist teaching method. The focus for instruction should be a learner-centered approach rather than teacher-centered approach. The learner is actively engaged in the learning process. The teacher becomes the guide or the facilitator who creates the positive learning environment.
Benefits of the constructivist approach are that it develops thought processes, communication and social skills. It promotes validating the student's point of view, rather than judging it to be right or wrong. The student reevaluates and readjusts his knowledge and understanding. This emphasis builds confidence and self-esteem, which will motivate the student to handle more complex problems in the future. Our PLN Mind Mapping exercise is an example of using the constructivist theory. It’s an interactive, creative approach to help us understand and clarify our goals to turn them into reality.
All the applications and tools we used in class I found to be useful and that will help me to grow professionally. These social media platforms allow me to contribute and collect resources for best practices in education and technology. I can connect with like-minded professionals by sharing my found resources and adding value to other’s contributions. It’s a give and take process where the entire community benefits.
I found using the RSS Feed to deliver information directly to my blog is a convenient way to stay up-to-date on the latest news. Using Diigo for social bookmarking allows me to manage the collection of bookmarks I find useful. Contributing resources to my community as well as gathering resources will help me stay on top of current trends in technology and education. Having the Diigo Tags on my blog is a creative way to highlight and access my categories.
One of my favorite platforms is Google plus where you have control over your connections. It is a great way to communicate and share resources to different circles in your network. Google Drive offers a great way to interact with your circles or an individual by having a hangout to video chat. Collaborating in real time using Google docs was an efficient way of doing collaborative work. A good example of our class doing a collaborative project was contributing resources to our class Wiki. The wiki will be a great resource for reference materials in the future.
The social media platforms of Twitter and TweekDeck were easy to use and both have a limit of 140 characters for your post. I preferred using TweekDeck because of its convenience. It allows you to view the hashtags you follow in a stream of resources flowing into organized columns. Students today are comfortable using this type of social media. Instructors who utilize Twitter appropriately can engage their students in the learning process.
Professionally speaking it’s important to keep your LinkedIn profile up-to-date and to highlight your skills and accomplishments. It’s an interactive resume available online for others to see. LinkedIn is not like Twitter in the way you share your opinions, infographics and interesting articles. It’s more about networking to find employment and to have a place where professional recruiters can find matches for positions they need to fill. We can also develop stronger connections by contributing resources.
I will use the projects and skills I’ve learned in this class in the future by including collaborative assignments in the classes I teach. Teamwork and students taking responsibility for their own learning is very important for the student’s future as they enter the job market. They need to be prepared to use technology and interacting positively with people that may think differently then they do.
I’ll continue to grow professionally by staying up-to-date with technology and connecting with my peers for the best practices in online education. Currently, I’m open to new employment opportunities so it’s important to keep my LinkedIn profile up-to-date to highlight my skills and accomplishments. I will continue to contribute resources and building relationships in the LinkedIn environment.