Journal 7: Professional Learning Network

For the PLN assignment, I’ve been utilized twitter, as well as RSS feeds from professional organizations for student affairs professionals in higher education.  To name a few, NASPA, ACPA, and CaCCCHE provide information on upcoming regional, national, and international conferences, topical research, and publications, calls for papers and readers.  They announce webinars, and provide links to videos, workshops, and opportunities to connect with other members, and provide comments.  There are questions and comments posted in forums, regarding best practices, and one in particular that I engaged in regarding freedom of speech on campus.  

The type, and tone, of information I received changed immediately following the presidential election.  In fact, the quantity of posts increased substantially.  Statements of support to students and professionals were received from these professional organizations, as well as universities around the nation and the world, addressing fears and uncertainty.  There remains a great deal of need for discussion, and one-hour virtual dialogue groups have been created where the student affairs community can come together to intentionally address feelings, experiences, and reactions to the election. I also participated in a webinar, where a panel of faculty, staff, and administrators, representing six universities, from various regions in the country, addressed actions being taken to mitigate possible impact on college campuses.  I really appreciate that these organizations understood the immediate need for student affairs professionals, people really, to come together this way, and created a means for us to do so.  It helps me cling to #whateverhopeisleft.  

I believe that the tools I’ve used in my Professional Learning Network, have been quite helpful and valuable to me, personally, as well as the work that I do in student affairs, and my ability to be a resource to students in general, and women in particular.

Journal 6: Self Reflection on HTML and CSS

My thoughts around HTML are as complicated as HTML.  I find it interesting, confusing, frustrating, and exciting. To be clear, HTML is not a programming language, but rather a markup for the content of a webpage or site. Okay, i get it, but that somehow doesn’t lessen my frustration over the need for exactness within a sequence of strange characters.

HTML is not intuitive, for me at least.  But, I find that eventually the sequence and structure of characters become a bit more familiar. I find it peculiar that its sequence of letters and symbols actually have meaning, but i suppose the same can be said of any language. 

What I find exciting is that at the completion of a series of seemingly unrelated characters and symbols, there is meaning, and something that makes little sense, results in something that does.  Go figure!

The most challenging and rewarding assignment, for me, was the Contest book assignment.  I used TextEdit, as instructed, but I found that although I followed instruction to the last character, when looking in the browser, strange characters appeared.  I tried multiple times to eliminate the cause of these erronious characters, but to no avail.  I was concerned about including the additional segments of the assignment, so I saved each segment separately. Some of the segments were fine, but a couple of them were not.  Finally, I had to copy and paste them together, and it worked…almost entirely. I spent far too much time on this assignment.

http://www.cpp.edu/~arroberts/512/book/Chapter9/contest%209_1.html

http://www.cpp.edu/~arroberts/512/book/Chapter9/9_4.html

Overall, I have a basic understanding of HTML, its purpose, function, structure, and capabilities.  I haven’t memorized codes, but i know how they’re used, and more importantly, I can identify resources.  

CSS is about the style, or look, of a webpage’s content.  I find this to be more complicated than HTML.  I understand the usefulness and effectiveness of a separate style sheet, but the simple fact that it is not embedded in the HTML content, requires understanding of the symbiotic relationship between HTML and CSS.

So much is happening in CSS, that I find that it can be overwhelming.  The page formatting, color, font, images, are all contained here, so the coding can get complicated. 

CSS is not without its challenges.  Like HTML, it is not intuitive, and requires familiarity with its sequencing and structure.  It is further complicated by the need to determine formatting. How the page will appear, and for which type of device, is determined in CSS. I find that there’s a lot of trail and error involved, in order to achieve the right look, but after a while the element names, and the numbers you attach to them, become more familiar. 

What’s great about CSS, is the ability to apply it to a series of pages, as well as effect all pages by making changes to only the style sheet.  Brilliant!  

Journal 5: Try Twitter

I’m not much of a social media user, intentionally; however, Twitter happens to be the only form of social media for which I have an account, and more actively engage.  I like Twitter, because it allows me to follow news and information, local, national, and international, as well as personal and professional interests.  And, it doesn’t bombard my email. 

I have used Twitter to get information on traffic, flight delays, professional conference schedules and updates, make complaints and praise positive experiences, and learn about family members and what they’re engaged in and thinking about.  What I find amazing is the prompt response that I usually receive on Twitter.  It’s not like the delayed response inherent with email.

Although it is highly unlikely that I would use Twitter to identify my location, due to safety and security issues, I think it’s an innovative way to follow the progress of a group project that you have a particular or vested interest in.

Hashtags are useful, but include subjective interpretations of the meaning one attaches to it. Often, I have to wade through much puzzling and unfamiliar information, in order to find what I feel is relatable. But it is also interesting to learn what others, around the world, apply to hashtags. 

I do believe that Twitter can be a viable tool in the classroom.  It excites and engages students, which is conducive to learning, and it also allows teachers an opportunity to stretch beyond what is familiar, and create new ways of teaching and learning.  So, it would appear that there is potential for everyone in the classroom, or even outside of the classroom.

Journal 4 Blog Post: Project Proposal

Site title – Campus Scheduling

Developer – Anita Roberts

Rational or focus – 

Students involved in registered clubs and organizations, on campus, are eligible to reserve indoor and outdoor space on campus, post and stake marketing material, and prepare and sell food and merchandise.  The process for obtaining approval is covered during a registration process, however, problems persist, and can result in a club event being shut down, or otherwise failed.  

The purpose of my website is to provide student clubs and organizations with the required elements involved in the process of successful event planning.

Main features outline -  

An introduction with tabs

Instruction including text, images, and video

Links to forms 

Content –

The website will contain 9 pages: Front page, 6 categories, and 2 subcategories

Target audience -

Cal Poly Pomona student clubs and organizations

Design considerations -

The goal is to create an easy to follow, well constructed, functional, website for the enduser.

Limiting factors –

Restrictions governing campus website standards

Limited technical knowledge and skill

 

 

Journal 3 Blog Post: Benefits of Social Media

Kessler, S. (2010, September 29). The Case For Social Media In Schools. Retrieved

      October 14, 2016, from http://mashable.com/2010/09/29/social-media-in-school/#3iQzFa_LvGqw

The implementation of social media in curriculum has found that students are more engaged, interested, and excited about their learning experience (Kessler, 2010).

But, apparently the benefits outweigh risks, as students’ use tools that they know and understand.  In fact, a group surveyed found that students utilized social sites more than games and videos.

During the 1990s, the biggest concern for school administrators was pornography and predators.  A lack of control over content was a death knell for the internet in the K-12 classroom. 

Banning social media is not a viable response, because it doesn’t encourage students to take responsibilities for their behavior.  The time taken to enforce a ban, could be spent on learning.

The challenge, then, is thinking of ways to use social media tools for learning.

Certainly, when students are engaged, greater learning takes place.  The use of blogs in lesson plans has seen students excited around the reach of this application.  It’s not just a communication between student teacher, but also student peers.  The accountability involved, actually made students more conscientious and thoughtful.

Question #1:

What types of safety and security assurances exist today?

Answer #1:

Concerns shared by teachers and parents alike are not unfounded, but like any concern, children should be taught about safety and potential dangers.  There are also complementary sites available specifically for K-12 environment, such as Edmodo and Edublogs.

Question #2:

What are some surprising developments of social media use for K-12 learning?

Answer #2:

Assignments given to students, requiring work outside of the classroom, were met with excitement and not perceived as homework.  Although these assignments were not considered extra credit, or contributing to their grade in any way, still a large number of students participated.  

Journal 2 Blog Post: Affinity Groups and RSS

The Professional Learning Community is an opportunity for professionals to link with others on topics of common interest.  Certainly, the concept is a meaningful one, but the reality was one of frustration.  Most of the links that I found of interest, were no longer active, or had not been active for years, and others required a fee.  I appreciate that many of the communities were international, as I this offers an opportunity to see what’s happening in other cultural communities. 

 My Digg experience was more pleasant.  I was not familiar with Digg, so this was an absolutely new experience for me.  I love new experiences, and Digg did not disappoint…much!  I loved the presentation: visual, interesting, current, with an easy to follow front-page format. However, some of the other elements were not so easy to make sense of.  For example, once I marked the sites that I was interested in, I wasn’t sure what had happened or what to expect.  Only after clicking around the site, did I come across my site selection.  They were listed in a column, which I added to another column, and apparently something was supposed to happen.  I’ll see how this RSS feed all comes together.

Question 1: 

What are challenges identified with PLCs?

Answer 1:

Some challenges that have been encountered and identified in the utilization of PLCs are a lack of team development, building trust, conflict resolution, structured conversations, and focused action.

Question 2:

In addition to targeting information that you want to receive, what are other benefits to utilizing RSS feeds?

Answer 2:

RSS feeds don’t require you to provide an email address. This means that a publisher cannot sell, or give away your contact information. This also eliminates spam, viruses, phishing, or identity theft. If you no longer want to receive content, you just remove a particular source from your feed. There is no need to request to be removed.

Journal 1 Blog Post: Chapter 1-3

I really enjoyed the author of our text.