Post 6: Evernote

Hello Everyone!

So I will start this post off with a lovely video I found on Youtube. As I navigate through this class I continue to learn about this digital world we live in, and the various ways in which it can benefit how we learn! This video highlights a school that has a focus on learning through digital means. It was so interesting to see the motivation that the students had to complete their work, and to achieve their goals, all through digital learning! Here is the video:

 

Hope you all enjoyed that, now, lets move on to this weeks session! 

I am very excited about this week, because the tool that we learned about, I actually think is very user friendly, and is something I will use that will keep me organized, and its free (which is always good for a broke university student!). The tool we learned about this week is called Evernote. This program is, essentially an online digital notebook. You can create different 'notebooks', and then fill them with pages of note, pictures, and various content. So, this week I began to do some research for a project for this class and well as a few others, and I was able to create different notebooks for each class, and assignment, and then fill them with notes, ideas, and information/research that I had come across! 

Taken From: https://evernote.com/media/img/getting_started/evernote/mac/hero_evernote.png

This is such a great organization tool for a few reasons. First; its fast. I can copy and paste links, and quickly type a note here or there about the important info found within that link, or simply use a snipping tool to directly add to my notebook. Secondly its so easy. I have found over the past couple of weeks, that many of the digital tools available are amazing, but only when you get to figuring them out, and that can take some time. This is not the case with Evernote! I had no trouble navigating or signing up for the program, and it was very straightforward! Finally, Evernote is available for a number of technological platforms. I can use it on my laptop, and access my notes on a school computer, my tablet, or even on my smartphone! The idea that I can have a bunch of notes and access them form almost anywhere is so nice, as I don't have to lug my laptop everywhere, or I don't have to worry if I forget my tablet at home, because I can get to them on my phone! 

In addition to personal use, your notebooks and pages can be shared with others. This will be very useful to me when I am doing group projects and want to share notes, ideas, and resources! 

Evernote will most definitely be making its way onto my PLE! This will definitely be going under my educational section as I think that it will prove to be very useful throughout my education. I will be heading off to teachers college next year and I think that Evernote could be a fantastic resource for assisting in the creation of lesson plans.

That is all for this week! I encourage everyone to give Evernote a whirl, and see what it can offer you, and maybe add it to your own PLE! 

Thanks for learning with me... digitally! 

~ Hannah

Hello Everyone!
Before I get into what I was learning about this week, I would like to start this post off with a video clip that can be found here. This is a video that poped up on my Feedly feed, and I just had to share. As a future educator, educational rights are very important to me, and I am always astounded by this young woman's courage, and the wisdom she has at such a young age!

Moving on to this weeks session....
So this week I did what I have vowed to never do. I joined Twitter.

Retrieved from: http://m.c.lnkd.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/p/6/005/073/357/2a1c1d8.jpg

 Here's the thing. I have always viewed twitter as a place where people post about what sandwich they ate for lunch, or how great their hot yoga class went, and I just did not see the value of knowing those things. Needless to say, I gave a good eye roll when I found out that I had to create a twitter account. BUT. As I began to look through the various accounts that I could 'follow', I began to see how there is potential for my digital learning.
This week we learned about creating, and building up a PLN. What is a PLN you may ask? Well, PLN stands for Personal Learning Network. Essentially a PLN is the people or groups that you exchange information with, and it is usually digital in format.
So after joining Twitter, and learning about PLN, the challenge then became filtering the ridiculous amounts of information from Twitter, and finding groups and people to follow that will create a useful PLN.  This was far more challenging than I initially thought, but I have a couple of tips if you are considering using Twitter as a PLN.

Tip 1: Start Small 
Don't expect to have it all figured out, and to have a perfect PLN after only one attempt. It will take time, so start by finding 3 to 5 people or groups to follow, that will really help with your area of interest, or study.
Tip 2: Don't Get Distracted!
As I previously mentioned, there is so much information, and so much going on within Twitter. Don't get distracted by posts or by following things that are not related to what you are learning.
Tip 3: Be A Copy Cat
One of the great ways I found to discover other people and groups to follow was by looking at who the people I follow are following. If the people you are following are interested in the same things, it is likely that they will follow at least 1 or 2 other people you may want to follow as well!

While I was hesitant at first, I think that I will indeed be adding Twitter to my PLE, as it has the potential to provide important connections, and resources when learning online, and learning in general. While I used to think that it would only go under my 'social' section if I ever got it, I now can see its benefits within my academic section. I encourage everyone to give Twitter a try, even if you are as skeptical is I was, and if you do follow me @hb11xz, and learn with me... digitally!
Have a good week!

~Hannah

Hey Guys!
So this week I learned all about bookmarking tools and curation tools! So, let's begin with bookmarking tools!
A bookmarking tool, at its simplest capacity, allows you to save content found online, for later use. The bookmarking tool I used this week is called diggo.This tool is great if you are researching and you have a lot of information and websites to look over, and read, but need to put them all in one place to use later. The other great thing about this tool is that it allows you to highlight online content, add stickynotes, use screen shots and add annotations as well! For me this is SO helpful, as most of my research and academic readings are done online! Diggo allows me to have all of the information I have collected for a particular research project, or paper, and then have all of my highlights, and notes in one area, instead of all over my computer in various folders!  Last week I told you all about feedly. Well, feedly and diigo work very well together. I like that I can see all of the new updates on blogs, and websites that I am 'following' on my feedly, and then when I see something that I truly like, or find useful, I can then add it to 'My Library' on diigo! In addition to your personal information and research, you can look at the online resources that others are bookmarking!
While I was looking through some of the other things users were bookmarking, I came across this great page. While its not the whole site I'm interested in, the article was very helpful, and informative. The article is about Google Alerts, which is the other tool I learned to use this week!

Retrieved from; http://blog.monitor.us/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/google-alerts.jpg

Google alerts is considered an online curation tool. This means that it can organize online information, and content based on specific themes, or topics. With Google alerts, I am able to receive alerts when there is new or updated online information, or content related to the specific themes I'm interested in! I am actually so excited about this tool! What this means for me personally, is that I am able to type in key words, or themes and then every time something new is published relating to those key words and themes, I will receive an email! This has huge potential for my research that I do for classes, and for personal knowledge!
It has been a great week learning all about diigo, and Google alerts, and I am so excited to add these to my PLE. Diigo will be a great addition to the educational, and personal sections of my PLE, as I think it will be useful not only for educational purposes, but also for not school related online use. I's VERY happy to be able to add Google alerts to the educational section of my PLE, and think I will get quite a bit of use from it!
Thats all for this week!
Thanks for learning with me... digitally!

~ Hannah