Journal #7 - Professional Learning Networks

Upon reflection of my use of Twitter as a Professional Learning Network (PLN), I do not see this platform as a viable resource going forward. Honestly, I think I'm just stuck in my ways.  I gave Twitter a try, as well as Digg, but I had a hard time working them into my normal routine.  I enjoy reading articles online about interesting topics, or in magazines, and I frequently review news topics in LinkedIn as well.  I think part of me has a mental hurdle with separating Twitter from being a social medium, to using it as a professional collaboration tool.

Unlike many of my classmates, I am not a teacher.  My interests typically align with topics in Business & Finance, and Technology.  I find Twitter to only provide snippets of what I'm actually interested in learning, and I would prefer to read the whole drawn out article about a particular topic.  Thus leading me back to the online articles and magazines.

In addition, with Twitter not all of the information can be taken as fact.  You must invoke a thought of caution when reading Twitter feeds.  With published articles there is, or should be, some basic fact-checking before the article is published.  Professionally published articles cannot be written and posted on a whim, there is a process of fact-checking and editing involved before the article is published. With Twitter everyone, everything, every thought, every action, every mistake is published.

With so much noise being received we must solicit caution with the information absorbed, and thus it is better to err on the side of professionally published articles.

Journal #6 - Self Reflection

I've been meddling with web design since 2005. I originally learned to develop websites with Microsoft FrontPage and found it easy to use and develop websites. Yet, it was also around this time that search engine optimization (SEO) began to boom and MS FrontPage was known to bloat the code.  This meant that it would take the site crawlers more time to sort and index the FrontPage pages, resulting in a lower ranking in the Google search results.  Thus, I switched over to Macromedia Dreamweaver and taught myself how to code and develop websites in this program. I started a business working from home and making websites for other small businesses.  I was comfortable building websites in the old table format, and many of my clients were thrilled with the concepts and designs I produced, which on the backend were basic columns and rows.

A short while later the majority of website development began to shift to overseas development where labor was much cheaper, and as a developer I could no longer compete in the global marketplace.  In the meantime life happened, we moved to Alaska, and I put my websites on the back burner. The town in Alaska was small, and when I mentioned that I had website development knowledge they were thrilled.  In my spare time I would develop websites for the local Alaskan community.

In 2012 we moved back to California, and I started developing websites full time.  I took an HTML5 and CSS3 class at a local community college.  It was eye-opening to learn that Adobe bought the Macromedia products, and floating divs were now being used instead of tables.  I enjoyed the concepts of CSS3 and the increased flexibility with HTML5. I partnered with a company in the Philippines and with their help I was able to stay competitively priced. Together we developed WordPress sites, as these were easiest to complete and transfer off to the client for continued maintenance.  To this day I prefer developing websites utilizing the WordPress interface.

Today, here we are yet again...due to full time employment, grad school and 2 busy children, websites are once again taking a backseat.  I enjoyed this class, as it renews my excitement for web development.  I learned some new tricks with regards to the background image in the first page project; and coding a nav without actual jpeg buttons or rollover images, such as that in the 1col.html page. With the book.html pages, I felt that the submission technique in which we were to turn in the assignments via a web page, was rather clever.

I must say though, as an old school developer with SEO knowledge, it irks me to have styles coded in with <head> tag on the index page.  I'm honestly hoping we'll be taught how to create and link a css style sheet to the page, rather than coding the styles within the page itself.  I wish this class would incorporate best-practices for SEO into the fundamentals as well.  Also, if the class is being redesigned for semester-conversion, I'd consider incorporating a newer book.  So much has changed since 2012 when the current book was published.  Web design has shifted to the mobile sites and responsive designs, and I feel this type of coding should have a larger emphasis in the class.

Overall I feel this class has been manageable for me, as I've been dabbling with web design for the past 11 years.  I hope to always keep this knowledge in my tool belt, as I have a goal of someday teaching a college class similar to this one. This particular class has not only helped to fill in some of my learning gaps, but it has also helped to renew my spirit in this craft.

Journal #5 - Try Twitter

For me, Twitter is losing its luster.  Today’s young people are more interested in Snapchat and Instagram.  I have maintained a Twitter account off-and-on for years, but mostly using it as a marketing tool to support my social media marketing optimization efforts, and never actually checked it for myself on a regular basis.

With the current political climate I am disappointed in my Twitter feed.  I chose to follow people based on influence and technology; people such as Bill Gates, and organizations such as Google Developers.  Yet, there is so much controversy over the current political debate that the newsfeed is bombarded with Trump/Clinton bashing.

At the current moment I would likely discourage my students (if I had any) from using social media, especially Twitter.  Rather, I’d encourage them to use other social media platforms that are not so inundated with political drama.  In the current Twitter climate I’d worry that my students would become angry and jaded by the loudest and most dramatic protester.

I’d like to see what happens to Twitter once the political race comes to an end.  Until then, I do not consider Twitter to be a good resource for impressionable students. 

Q & A

Q1: Do you encourage students to engage in political commentary via Twitter?
A1: This, of course, is a personal decision and may not be the same for everyone.  For me, I'd shy away from using Twitter.

Q2: Considering the recent layoffs will Twitter be an informational resource in the near future?
A1: I feel Twitter has a lot of competition in the marketplace and society is moving on to the next big thing, whatever that might be. Twitter stocks have consistently decreased since the company went public in 2013, and with the recent layoffs I would fear that Twitter may become the next MySpace...outdated.

Resources

Duggan, M., & Smith, A. (2016, October 25). The Political Environment on Social Media. Retrieved October 30, 2016, from http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/10/25/the-political-environment-on-social-media/

Fiegerman, S. (2016, October 27). Twitter cuts 9% of staff and kills off Vine app. Retrieved October 30, 2016, from http://money.cnn.com/2016/10/27/technology/twitter-layoffs-earnings/

Journal #4 - Project Proposal

Site title

San Dimas High School ASB

Developer 

Tracy Moore

Rational or focus

For years I have offered to help my sister, ASB Director at San Dimas High School, with her class website.  Sadly, the years have gone by and we have never gotten around to developing the site.  I have reviewed her current site content and, although it uses Google Pages, I feel that the presentation is confusing and unattractive.

The purpose of this site will be a redesign using WordPress.  I have chosen WordPress because this site will need to be maintained by a non-novice web user, and WordPress has a user-friendly admin page that is easily updated and managed.  With the redesign I will give structure to the current content and help to make the site a useable resource for the SDHS community.

Main features outline

The main features of the site will include:

• Google iframe calendar, 
• iframe photos via Flicker or Google Photos, 
• ASB Forms, 
• a listing of school clubs and organizations, 
• information on how to get involved, 
• ASB Director and other important contact information

Content

I am planning to give this site 7 pages.  I have researched similar ASB websites and the outline noted above will cover the majority of topics and subtopics needed.

Target audience

Typical audience for this site will be SDHS students, staff/teachers, and the San Dimas community.

Design considerations

Overall goals for the site are to produce something that is well organized and easy to maintain.

Limiting factors:

• Not sure at this point if the SDHS webservers can host a WordPress site.
• Not confident that SDHS will allow this application to be hosted on their webservers. 
• Updates will need to be facilitated by the ASB Director and an instructional overview of the new site will need to be scheduled to teach the Director about the new site
• Design will need to be responsive, and we haven’t touched much on that in class
• Would like scrolling image on homepage, but haven’t discussed this in class
• It’s been many years since I started a WordPress site from scratch and I will need to dust off the old brain cells to see if I can still remember how to do it.

Site Map

Site Wireframe

Journal #3 - Educational Evolution in Technology

Klopfer, E. (2009). The Instructional Power of Digital Games, Social Networking, Simulations and how Teachers Can Leverage Them. Retrieved October 17, 2016, from http://education.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/GamesSimsSocNets_EdArcade.pdf

Summary:  I think we have come a long way since the above mentioned Klopfer article was written in 2009.  Pedagogy, or the method of teaching, has evolved over hundreds of years,.  With the incorporation of technology into the classroom a teacher can continue this evolution.  By incorporating technology, be it games or social networking, a teacher can nurture the learning process.  Students today can learn how to maximize their technological devices and use them for more than just posting pictures of cute kitties, for example.  Yes, you can post cute kitties to a social network, but you can also meet with a study group online or collaborate on a group project in real time using the same medium as you would for the kitties.  The incorporation of technology into the classroom brings value and reinforcement to the overall education.

Q1. Klopfer references MySpace and SimCity within his passage, and although these were excellent references when the passage was written in 2009, this technology is no longer widely used by today’s students.  What would comparable platforms in the lives of today’s students?

A1.  GroupMe, Instagram, Snapchat, Minecraft

Q2: Give three examples, and provide url’s, of software programs or applications that are embraced by k-12 public and/or private schools:

A2:

1. Khan Academy

2. Spelling City

3. Reflex Math

Journal #2: Affinity Groups

Within Digg I joined a few new/different Affinity Groups, including:

• College Admissions
• Google Analytics
• Educational Technology
• Microsoft HoloLens

I actually joined multiple feeds consisting of each of the above mentioned topics, but what is noted above are the main links within the RSS feeds saved.

I think I'd like to spend a little more time with the Digg feeds to see how this technology might be beneficial.  I do not find this application to be a "be all" for information.  On a personal level I subscribe to Facebook groups consisting of Girl Scout leader boards, yet Digg does not have something similar to this, which means that I'll need to maintain that FB group feed.  I also subscribe to professional groups on LinkedIn, yet those feeds to no appear on Digg either.  It appears to be yet another network to filter information.  I recently downloaded the app, and although the app has terrible ratings, I'm interested to see if the app will help to bring new information into my day-to-day life.

Ideally it'd be nice to have all of these information feeds on one platform; yet currently the only "platform" being used to funnel all of this information is my iPhone.

Q1)  What is the best platform to maintain observed affinity groups?

A1)   At this point in time, there is not one combined platform to observe affinity groups.

Q2)  What affinity group is worth following?

A1)  The internet is loaded with both useful and useless information.  As a subscriber it is best to make your own individual judgement to decide which group is best to follow.

Journal #1: Chapters 1-3

Robbins, J. N. (2012). Learning web design: A beginner's guide to HTML, CSS, Javascript, and web graphics. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly.

Summary:  Chapters 1-3 provided basic resources and information to the world of web design.  In Chapter 1 there was a lot of underlining discussion about the many different job positions within the development of a website.  In my own personal experience I find these particular job descriptions to be unnecessary.  As a web designer you must be familiar with all facets of the site design, and to depend on a “UX Designer” or another niche specialization will limit your offerings to the client, as well as eat into your profit margins unnecessarily.  The global field of web design is very competitive, and a savvy business mind is far more necessary than a design niche job classification.

As we entered into Chapter 3 I found the content to be much more relevant.  Users accessing the web utilizing a mobile device is drastically increasing, and in some cases surpassing the usage of the users who access the web utilizing a desktop device.  Responsive web design using HTML5 is far more relevant than identification of niche job descriptions. 

Q1. What is responsive web design? 

A1. “Responsive web design is a strategy for providing custom layouts to devices based on the size of the viewpoint (browser window).”  (Robbins, pp. 38)

Q2. What is the difference between a responsive web design strategy and a dedicated mobile site?

A2. Responsive web design is a strategy that adjusts the site layout based on the size of the browser window.  The dedicated mobile site is a second/separate website that is targeted for viewing on mobile devices only.