Exploring Digital Media (260) Reflection

     All in all, I am very glad that I took this course. Coming in, I was pretty confident on my grasp of social media and my skills with a computer. However, I learned so much over the four months I was enrolled in the class. Before this, I never viewed Twitter as a professional platform that could benefit an elementary education major. I had no idea how to build a website, and I thought that blogging was something that was fading into the past. I didn't know that young, aspiring students could benefit from joining LinkedIn, and I had no interest in posting a YouTube video, or in sending out surveys to gather information. Looking back at my naive self, I am so glad that I enrolled in this course, and I feel more prepared for my future as an elementary education teacher because of it.
     With social media and technology becoming such a large part of our society, everyone needs to have these skills if they want to be successful in their future careers. The world is shifting to a digital one, and I am so glad that I took the time to attend this course. I know that I still have a lot to learn when it comes to the interent, but I feel that this has been a great starting point.

Farewell!

     Well, everyone, our journey around the world wide web is complete! It's funny how in the process of exploring areas around the internet, I also managed to actually become more connected with people around the globe. This is the end of my blog, and I thank everyone for sticking with me until the end. It's been a great journey, and I have learned a lot along the way. Blogging has been quite the experience for me, and I am sure that I will find this skill useful in the future.
     When I get my own classroom, I am hoping to start a blog to keep both parents, students, and future self updated on what is going on. I know that parents love to see pictures of their kids at school, so hopefully that blog will be mostly photograph-based. Thanks everyone for sticking with me, and I hope you all learned as much as I did along the way!

I'm All LinkedIn!

     With the requirements of my LinkedIn project getting checked off, I realized that this will be a project that I am hopefully never done with. As my professional life takes off, my profile will be constantly changing and edited to reflect all that I have done in my career, and the steps it took for me to get there. The great thing about becoming familiar with LinkedIn at this stage of my life is that it will be a tool that I can and will use in the future.
     I am excited to see where my LinkedIn will take me, and how it will impact my future professional life. I have already told my friends about the benefits of the site, and they have began crafting their profiles as well. I will post my profile link at the bottom of this post, and please contact me if you have any questions!
Kelli's LinkedIn Profile

Get LinkedIn to Employment Opportunities!

    As the semester comes to a close, our journey around the world wide web is also coming to an end. However, we have one last stop to make before wrapping everything up. LinkedIn is a professional site that allows potential employers to create and appropriate online presence and make connections to hopefully get hired. Employers and companies can also create profiles to recruit future employees.
    I do not have any previous experience with LinkedIn, but I have heard many great things about how useful it can be. I have done a bit of research on what is appropriate to include in my profile, and I am gearing up to accomplish this task and begin creating my professional online persona. The one thing that I must keep in mind is that it is a professional form of social media, not a personal form like Twitter and Facebook. I will work to put only professional content on my profile, and I will continue to keep you updated as I go! Thank you for sticking with me on our last adventure, and it is sure to be a great one.

Teacher Resources is Up and Running!

Hello again everyone! After a few weeks of hard work, my exploration of creating my own website is complete! As mentioned earlier, a group made up of me and three of my classmates settled on creating a website focused on young, aspiring elementary school teachers by providing them with various activities and resources in a fun, light atmosphere. I was in charge of the home page, my about me page, and the classroom layouts page.

 Since this was my first time creating a website, I learned a lot from the project. I now fell a lot more confident creating my own web page, and I feel that I have the necessary skills to be successful. I know that this attribute will come in handy as I begin teaching, so I can keep parents and students up to date with everything going on in my classroom easily and effectively. If you would like to view our web page, click the link below! If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, or concerns, please email us at teacherresources@hotmail.com!

http://tamipage02.wix.com/teacher-resources

Next Stop: Websites

   With the conclusion of the YouTube project, we are ready to take our journey to the next place on our itinerary, websites. For this project, I will be working in a group with three other girls to complete a professional, functional, and easy-to-use website. We have settled on using wix.com for creating our site, after seeing the vast number of layouts and easily adaptable interfaces that it provides for free. One downside is that this site only allows for one collaborator, so multiple group members cannot work on the project simultaneously. This will require a little out of class work, but hopefully we will be able to finish in time.
   The theme and purpose of our website will be educational resources and activities targeted to teachers, both primary and secondary. Three of the four group members are education majors, so we hope that we can learn a little more about our future professions throughout the course of this project. I can't wait to post the final project! Stay tuned...

...And That's a Wrap!

   Hello everyone! With the conclusion of my YouTube project, I am checking back in to report on my progress. Overall, the project was a success, and I learned some important things in the process. My video, "Maintaining a Healthy Lifestyle in College," was fairly easy to put together, and my prior knowledge of video editing really came in handy. I had some trouble figuring out how to incorporate adequate closed captioning on my video, but with a little help from the Internet, all crises were averted.
     As an elementary education major, being able to make videos will come in handy, whether it be putting up lessons online for my students or being able to document fun activities in the classroom. I am positive that the set of skills that came along with creating this video will be very useful in the future, and I am excited to see what else lies ahead.

To watch my finished video, click the link below! Enjoy :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUjJ1VLYIHE