JB3 Class Blog Journal (EME6414 )

Just a little promotion of my latest blog post for my Knowledge Sharing assignment. If you feel inclined, please hop over to  Triplicity  and visit my latest post "If I had a Dollar.."  This will probably be the last post I am able to do before I have to grab all my analytics and put the entire presentation together.  It's been fun starting my old blog back up but it's also been a lot of work. I hope some people have enjoyed reading it and that someone, somewhere has gained something from sharing in my experiences. It's been nice to just write again.  Thanks for the support #eme6414 even if I'm just another mom blogging about her kids :)

I have been optimistic yet skeptical about how to use many of these tools in/for the classroom, especially Twitter & Instagram. While I can find myself being able to integrate many of these, the major 'social' media ones seemed to make me very nervous when it comes to teenagers. Every time I get excited, a negative thought and implication comes creeping in. However, just the other day I was messing around on Instagram and came across some accounts for some of my friends who teach at other schools. They were not their personal IG accounts but their 'teacher' accounts. I spent some time looking through their teacher accounts, and some were club or coach accounts, and looked at how they were handling them and what it was they were posting.  The ability to do this gave me more comfort and some ideas. I had no idea any of my friends were using these platforms for their classes. I think I will reach out to more teachers and coaches and see if they are using the platforms

Just wanted to pop my head in to those of you not on the social media threads and share that I have a New Blog post up for my Networked Knowledge Activities project and well also just for me in general since I am writing about my family: https:// burningon3.blogspot.com/2020/06/blessi ngs-reflections.html … #Triplets #pregnancy #NICU #blessed #IVF Come check it out. Leave me some feedback if you feel inclined. Some classmates mentioned in the community assignment that they thought it would be interesting to hear about raising multiples. So I have decided to start up my old blog again and open up my world of parenting triplets to the world once again. 

This week I was really excited to see Google Classroom on the list of tools. As I have already mentioned, I have been using Google Classroom since it's launch in 2014. Our school is G Suite based. We are a 1:1 iPad school but we use the G Suite. This was great for me as I was already familiar with G Suite as I have a Chromebook at home.  When I first started teaching years ago, I slowly started integrating technology into my lessons and I was never afraid to do so. I played around with whatever I could get my hands on. Once I moved into a private school (not the one I am at now) and had a bit more leeway, I really started to look at purpose and benefit a bit more. That's the thing. When you can have what you want, then you need to decide what is useful and what is not. After many years there, I made the decision to move schools and found myself where I am now. Again, with wonderful access to technology, but a different population of students. The technology was different than w

I guess this is what part of this class was about right? Learning to embrace and establish (to 'brand') our online presence both professionally and personally. That is what social media is essentially about after all in the end isn't it? Isn't that the end game of these tools?  After a lot of thought and struggle with the NKA assignment, I came to the decision to revisit something I started a long time ago. Blogging for this class has had me thinking about the blog I started when my children were just about a year old. I've been a writer as long as I can remember; poetry, stories, lyrics, whatever. I have always found it healing for my soul and mind. I think a lot and about everything, I tend to over think and over analyze and I tend to have racing thoughts at times. Writing has always calmed my mind. In the past, the writing has been mine and no one ever had to see it. I would write, let go and move on. But the idea of blogging and letting the world in on my world

While reading Dr. Dennen's  Excerpt from  Social Media for Active Learning on Knowledge Activities (an amazing read BTW), I started thinking about all the ways in which I already do so much of what she was describing. I didn't really realize this until she broke it all down. I also read discussion board posts from classmates and blog postings and I found myself agreeing and saying "I do that too". While we may all do many of these things in a different way or for different reasons, we are all often part of this.  Many of my classmates have talked about Networked Knowledge activities through things like Pinterest, Teachers Pay Teachers, and YouTube. I participate in networked knowledge activities in all of these too. I also saw someone mention Amazon. I hadn't thought of it, but I also create, curate, share, broker, and so much more through Amazon lists.  When I tried to think of somethings recent that I had been working on that may be different than my classmates,

I was reading through blog posts for the class and I stumbled upon Bayrider's post about Ancestry.com I found his post so interesting as he discussed the connection between the Ancestry website and Network Knowledge activities. I started thinking about the connections that my family made through the website.  A few years ago, my parents decided to get each other the DNA test through Ancestry.com for Christmas gifts. We never thought anything of it as we assumed the results would come back with a lot of Irish and Scottish. We had always believed that was what both sides mostly were.  Months later, the results came back. While we did indeed see a lot of Irish and Scottish on both mom and dad's side, we found a few surprises.  Mom found a bit of french creole and was able to trace exactly when her mother's side had migrated/immigrated. There weren't a whole lot of surprises though or much we could find on her side thus far.  On dad's side though, we have found a lot...

I have been trying to work on my assignments all day. I have had all intentions of getting work done. I set aside time this morning to work. Nope. Kids. Set aside time this afternoon. Nope. Phone call. Drama. Brought my computer to the skating rink while my daughter skated and made the other two kids bring their iPads to play video games. Bingo. Nope. Emails. Phones call. Drama. I'm home. Kids in bed. Now I can work? Nope. Emails again. Drama.  I am so done. Mental Fatigue is real people.  I have spent the whole day dealing with something that could have been avoided if I just didn't say one thing via email. Someone took something I said that happened to be in the same email as another topic and put the two topics together and combined them. All hell broke loose. I have spent the whole day back tracking and explaining and defending my character. I should let it go, but I can't. This person is too important in my network and my community.  There's too much going on in th

Man am I glad that is over!  I ended up in two Facebook groups about DIY nails at home. One group was for the Dip nail system and one group was a hodge podge of all nail systems. I quickly realized that one group had a great admin that was on top of trying to fuel conversation while the other had a MIA admin. However, the name of one group was very misleading and I found myself questioning the true purpose of the group and why many members were there.  Overall, I picked up a few tips and tricks and learned why I always seemed to get sick the day after I did my dip nails at home (apparently there is something called the 'dip flu'....not an actual flu...it's an allergic reaction). I'm getting better at dong my own nails and will probably continue to do them at home. However, I won't be staying in at least one of these groups. If I stay in the other one, I will remain as a lurker. I think for me, I can find what I need via YouTube and Google for the most part. I don

I want to take this week's lessons and activities and bundle them up and send them to all my student's that I have ever taught. See the 3rd and 4th day of school each year, I go over the Freshman Plagiarism packet with my English 1 students. We go over all the different types of plagiarism, we go over copyright, public domain, citations, etc. I then spend half the school year working on how not to plagiarize with them. The majority of freshman tend to over quote. Realistically speaking, most students do not want to cheat and do not try to intentionally copy. I tell them though, that ignorance is not an excuse. There are plenty of references and places to seek guidance and help. We use citation tools such as databases, Noodle Tools, and other extensions to Chrome also and I have pointed them in the direction of things like Creative Commons for their projects. We also use turnitin.com and I work with them to show them how the numbers and ratios work on there to understand what th

So those who know me well, know that I have always hated Twitter. This was before I ever had a Twitter account and was ever asked to use it. So yes, an unjust assumption of it. I always believed that Twitter was for celebrity stalking and politics. While I do still believe that this is mostly what goes on there, I am starting to find more on Twitter. It is a jumbled mess of a social media platform but if I can just learn to navigate it, it might be useful.  When I joined, I decided to take the full plunge.  I not only started trying to follow class hashtags and classmates, I tried to follow interest and topics. This being said, I follow some music and bands that I love. While I love a lot of music, I decided to only follow my very favorite bands. Anyway, I happen to have concert tickets to one of these said bands. The concert was supposed to be May 3rd. Now this band was huge in the 90s. I happen to be a big grunge baby from the 90s and love this band- The Smashing Pumpkins. I never sa

**DISCLAIMER** As a mom, it is my duty to make sure my children understand what is going on. I wanted to highlight and reflect on some key words and phrases from my 9 year olds over the last weeks... When asked about what happened (and has been happening), I explained as best as I could what was going on without getting too complicated. Some key things my children have said were this (and remember there is no context behind these; if you would like the context, I can explain further): 1. "but mommy not all cops are bad. A bunch of our friend's daddy's are cops and our neighbors are too. We know them and their families. They are good people" 2. "why are they protesting about race again? I thought we handled this already with Martin Luther King Jr.?" 3. "Why is it okay for all these people to be out in groups in the streets but we couldn't go on vacation and the big kids at the school couldn't graduate? I thought there was a virus" 4. "W

So today I did a thing... Today I had a virtual meeting with a GLOBAL community. So we are talking about communities and networks lately and I just thought about this this morning and realized I am part of one that I didn't even think of. Let me explain.... About 2 years ago, I started working on my National Geographic Educators Certification. Through that program, I found an online platform called Pen Pal Schools. I enrolled in the platform to utilize for an activity to complete my certification with Nat Geo. My Geo students at that time loved the program so much that they raved about it. They were so excited about communicating and learning about cultures and students from all around the world. The following school year I decided to use the program from the beginning of the school year and work through the entire curriculum and match it up with my curriculum. This gave my students an opportunity to connect and bring their learning to the real-world. It was great.  Fast forward to

So about right now I am thinking this was the worst time to take this class. I know it sounds selfish but I have a strong desire to disconnect and shut the world out. Between the last few months of Covid, all the protest, riots, and race comments to mandated curfews that have now locked us all at home again, to the fact that this is an election year also...I just can't take social media right now.  I enjoy the social aspects of it that connect me to family and friends and allow me to share pictures and accomplishments and such with those people though. Sometimes we share recommendations and such too. But news, politics, and other things frustrate me when they come across my feed. I guess I like to keep a happy little bubble on my feed. Right now though, there isn't much happiness coming across.  Don't get me wrong, I have opinions and I have thoughts that could be shared with others (and trust me I think of things I could say each time I read or see something posted), but I