Reflection (Week 9)- Consolidating Social Media Sites

Do you find yourself jumping from one social media account to another just show the same picture to all of your followers?  Do you feel like you have too many social media accounts?  Do you find yourself scouring through all of your social media accounts for that one post you read a month ago?  There may actually be some help for you!  This week I learned about two different sites that help people consolidate their multiple social accounts.  These two sites are called Hootsuite and Storify and they can connect themselves to all of your social media accounts.

Hootsuite is a site that allows you to connect all of your social media accounts to a single site.  From this site you can post status updates, pictures, and videos without having to log in and log out of every single site.  Furthermore, you can also read all of the comments that you have received on each site while visiting just one place.  Furthermore, you can actually write something and schedule it to be posted in the future.  It sounds pretty convenient to have everything consolidated into one common site.  It can make a person feel like they are sitting in the cockpit of a gigantic ship!  However, the one thing downfall of this Hootsuite is that if someone were to hack into your account, they could do a lot of damage and have access to an incredible amount of information.  I have not taken a deep look into the security system of Hootsuite so I am still a bit insecure about using this service with so much at risk.  That being said, Chester (our Hootsuite host) seems to trust Hootsuite's security and uses it quite often.  Perhaps, in time I may soon find myself controlling all of my social media accounts from Hootsuite as well.

Storify is a site that allows you to connect all of your social media accounts to a single site, look for posts that interest you, and compile those posts into a presentation that tells a story.  It is amazing how simple this program is to use and how much information can be recovered from the newsfeeds of a single person's Facebook, Twitter, and other connecting sites.  I have never used Storify before but it can definitely be used as a fun tool to search for and compile information.  Wild Things, my project group, tweeted out our notes and reactions to some articles and videos that we read and were able to find similar tweets from people in other groups.  Combining and organizing those tweets allowed us to actually create a cohesive and informative story about the article and videos we learned from.  I am excited to use this tool again in the future, especially to record the reactions of people after poignant events.  Again though, I am worried about the fact that Storify has access to ever social media site because if my account ever gets hacked, the hacker would have a treasure chest of information on my contacts and I.

Hootsuite and Storify are definitely two interesting sites.  I am very interested in working more with them.  I would like to do some more research into their security system and find out how many times, if ever, they were hacked in the past.  However, I can foresee more and more people wanting to consolidate their social media sites which will eventually raise the demand for these sites but also enlarge the target on them for hackers.

Reflection (Week 8)- Collaboration Video And Spotify Project

On Tuesday, I was able to meet with my group members from Kansai to discuss our collaboration video.  We had a very productive meeting that included finishing our storyboard and coming up with a schedule to finish some filming.  It appears we are all getting more comfortable with each other because this meeting went much smoother with much less silent moments.

Unfortunately, two group members in Hawaii were missing in action during our meeting.  I must remember to contact them, find out where they were, and update them on the progress of this project.  Hopefully, we will all be able to attend the next online meeting.

Sohei had an idea for Shilpah to include information of how people in India use different technological tools to accomplish certain tasks.  This would be an interesting addition to our video and would go above and beyond what is required of us.  However, I question whether or not we will be able to accomplish this.  Unless Shilpa can help us plan this and we can find the correct location and props to simulate being in India, we may not be able to make this idea come true.

I was also surprised this week with another group project!  This group project requires us to use Spotify (a website I have never used before) to create a video that compiles Tweets about a certain article we had to read.  I was a feeling overwhelmed by the thought of having to do two projects for the same class at the same time as well as all of the other projects that I have going on in another class and at work.  I am hopeful that everything will work out but I am also saddened to realize that I will have a very work filled weekend ahead of me.

Reflection (Week 7)- Twitter

This week's assignments required me to spend a considerable amount of time on Twitter.  The first time I had ever heard of Twitter was during a series of Iranian protests in 2009.  At that time, Iran's presidential election had just ended with a result that looked very suspiciously rigged.  This led to the people in Iran gathering in the streets to protest the election's result.  As time went on, the government of Iran became increasingly violent to the protesters and eventually cut off a lot of communication with the outside world by blocking the major social media sites, but they forgot to block Twitter.  After this happened, the only way for protesters to release information and for outside news agencies to receive information was through Twitter.  Twitter's boost in notoriety led people around me to start opening Twitter accounts.  However, I did not open a Twitter account myself because I thought Twitter was going to be just a fad and that there was no point in joining a social media site that was so obscure that the Iranian government forgot to block it off in the first place.

Since that time, Twitter has begun to grow in popularity.  More and more businesses and public figures have begun to open Twitter accounts to promote themselves or share their thoughts on an issue.  However, I still didn't see the point in opening a Twitter account because everything I would want to do on Twitter could already be accomplished using Facebook.  The only time I'd even bother to look at Twitter was when news sources would cover a story and show some really offensive posts from some Twitter users.  It slightly amused me to see some say something really offensive and then get verbally ripped apart in their comment section.  It felt good to see people putting pressure on those who think it is entertaining to say hurtful things.  However, for this class, I have ended up opening up my own Twitter account and putting some work into it.

While using Twitter, I've come to realize that there are people on Twitter that are not on Facebook.  Therefore, using more than one form of social media is a good way to connect and network with most people.  However, Twitter definitely is not Facebook.  The host of a how-to video that I watched about Twitter recently said, "Facebook is for people you know and Twitter is for people you wish you knew."  It makes sense for both of them to exist because they each serve a different purpose.

Throughout this week, I have had to learn and get used to using some of the different functions on Twitter like hash tags, the "at symbol," lists, following, and messaging people.  So far, I don't have many people following me so I am not as motivated to post often on Twitter.  However, I do wonder how some people who aren't public figures acquire so many followers.  This week, one of the best ideas I came across from a fellow classmate was to use a Twitter account to keep the parents of my students updating, instead of writing a weekly bulletin.  I can see how it would be much simpler to take a picture of a project we're working on or write a quick 140 character blurb a few times a week than to put together a whole news letter at the end of that week.  I actually stopped writing newsletters a few years ago because I realized that parents weren't reading it but maybe if I use Twitter as a medium, the parents will be more likely to read about our activities.  I don't know when, but one day I may give this a shot in my classroom.

Reflection (Week 6)- Social Media In Education

This week our assignment was to write a review of a social media site that could be used to benefit distance learning education.  I chose to create a presentation about Google Drive because I have been integrating Google Drive and its products into my curriculum at work so that I can help my students on their projects even when they aren't in school.

One of the greatest challenges in teaching is that there never seems to be enough time to do everything that I want to do.  In the past, projects used to take a long time because I would have to find class time to devote, especially if the students were expected to work in groups.  However, for the last two years I have taught my students how to use Google Drive and how to share their document with their partners and myself.  The document sharing comes in handy when they go home and work on their project at home.  Students can log on to their project synchronously or asynchronously, edit their work, and communicate with one another through comments.  Furthermore, I can check on the students' work from home or on my phone and leave comments about what they are doing well and what they need to fix.  The fact that the projects are saved on Google insure that no one forgets their work at home.  Furthermore, I can also view the revision history and see if everyone is doing their fair share of a project.

Google Drive has become a very useful tool in my classroom.  I enjoy it for all of the above mentioned benefits but what slightly surprised me was how much my students enjoy it as well.  They think it is a wonderful tool and get very excited when I tell them we are going to use Google Drive.  This past week, we did a project about the Hawaiian Islands and instead of having each group make a poster of their Hawaiian Island, like every other year, I had each group make a simple presentation.  I created a simple template for each group, shared it with them, and told them that all I expected them to do was type in their information and add a few pictures because this was only the second time we used Google Presentation.  (The first time was a drag and drop activity.)  However, as the presentations took shape I was surprised that the groups figured out on their own how to change the background theme and some even include transitions!  Each group worked on some of their presentation in school and the rest at home.  I could see comments being left for each other as well.  (Although, some of the comments were a bit too playful in nature.)  I am excited about this new development and impressed by how quickly my students have picked up and adopted Google Drive.

In the future, I plan to use Google Drive a lot more in my teaching.  I hope as time goes on, that the rest of the teachers in my grade level and then in my school will come to adopt Google Drive in their curriculum as well.  I've told my students that the main reason why I am teaching them Google Drive is because I predict they will have to use Google Drive or some similar tool to communicate and collaborate with others when they are in college and in the work place.