EME6414 Web Log

After thinking more about identity management and context collapse in education, I felt the need to share a social networking platform (SNP) that I am highly interested in: Ning. The online SNP named ‘Ning’ is an effective piece of technology for incorporating Web 2.0 into an LMS. Ning is a scalable-hosted platform that has the tools and support to allow learners to publish and connect with any chosen community. Beach & Doerr-Stevens (2011) claimed that the Ning platform was particularly useful for online role-play and collaborative argumentative strategies – two learning strategies that facilitate effective learning. Conradie (2014) looked at the way learners viewed connectivism as a pedagogical approach within a learning environment. He defined connectivism as an amalgamation of constructivism and cognitivism. Conradie (2014) stated that connectivism could come about as a direct result of the ‘open’ learning era facilitated by Web 2.0. Conradie (2014) found that the reflecti

This six-week course has been intense, but exceptionally productive! I personally think that this extreme immersion has been a captivating experience. We have learned so much about so many tools and different strategies for becoming effective prosumers. There has not been a single class in this program that has added this much to our toolboxes. During the first week, I was extremely nervous about starting a personal blog and sharing it with the world – I am now writing my 21 st blog post! The idea of putting something out there for others to evaluate is daunting, but fortunately, we have a supportive group in this class. I have been pleased with the overall feedback and everyone has been quite positive. This has helped squelch a lot of my previous trepidation.  Over the last six weeks, my nerves have settled and I feel a lot more comfortable writing and sharing online. It is a great feeling to know that I can jump out of my comfort zone and I have learned that experience can mend

If you follow a ton of people or have a large following on Twitter, you are not necessarily learning anything or gaining any professional development experience. There has to be some sort of meaning and method to the madness, or else we are actually doing ourselves a disservice. One must have a solid plan, goals, and a purpose if they want to gain benefits from the Twitterverse and develop a PLN. In developing my PLN, I am striving to find specific subject matter experts, relevant and useful content, and working to make sure that the information is efficiently organized in a manner that is personally useful to me. I want the content to be accessible and meaningful and I want the wheat separated from the chaff. I came across a journal article written by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach that has some good tips for building up a PLN on Twitter. Sheryl states that is important to use one single username across different networks so that you can easily build up an online reputation and person

One researcher from NYU and another from Microsoft collaborated to write this journal article titled, ‘I tweet honestly, I tweet passionately: Twitter users, context collapse, and the imagined audience.’ I thought that they had some good ideas in it for managing different identities in different environments and regulating context collapse. The authors explain how many users in the social media world will create ‘imagined audiences’ as they produce content and navigate different networks. They explain that many users will conceal certain subjects and self-monitor by emphasizing certain things and de-emphasizing others. It reminded me of the dating scene in a way. The authors discuss personal branding and strategic self-commodification. I found these perspectives to be relevant and accurate based on my personal experiences. The authors of this journal brought up several theories that I wanted to share. The self-preservation theory touches on self-conscious identity performances – t