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Web 2.0 Reflection

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Now that I had a chance to check out different Web 2.0 tools for teaching and learning, I realize how those tools can make my job so much easier as an educator. I can use ChatGPT to help create worksheets, assessments, or even leveled reading passages. It can help design lesson plans and write emails to parents. There are endless uses for AI. But Web 2.0 isn't just AI. It's also all the other online platforms and software that are available both on and off the internet. Some are backed by research, while others are not. It's important to choose tools that not only meet your needs, but also meet other criterion. This is why a Web 2.0 evaluation rubric is so handy. It helps use objectively decide if a tool is worth using and implementing in the classroom for teaching and learning.  Here is the rubric my group created: Educators have a limited amount of time in a classroom with their students. We must teach state standards (i.e. a specific set of predetermined knowledge and sk...
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Artificial Intelligence: Creative or Cringe?

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 When we think of something being created, it is either by willful purpose, requiring conscious effort, or by nature, like how a seedling "knowing" how to sprout.  So what category would AI fall in? Does AI create with willful purpose? Does it use conscious effort? Of course! It's a software program. It really just creates based on preprogramed responses and algorithms. The information that AI uses comes from a database. And the database from which all that data comes from? Anything on the internet in digital form. Better yet, though, it comes from humans. Humans created the writing, the art, the music--all of it. So anything AI can "think up" really is just a collage of tiny pieces of data pulled from the buffet of digital media.  Last week, I was so excited to play around with image-creating AI. But after playing around with it, I lost my enthusiasm. AI simply cannot replace humans when it comes to writing beautiful stories or poetry, drawing or painting optic...
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Generative Artificial Intelligence: Black, White, or Gray?

 I've had an interesting week playing and experimenting with generative AI. I'm not talking about those weird filters on social media. Oh no, I am talking about ChatGPT. I have previously been hesitant to just go to the internet and type in ChatGPT because I was hypervigilant about avoiding viruses or downloading anything. I wasn't sure what I was looking for online and, therefore, I didn't trust just any website who claimed to be ChatGPT or AI. Going out into the internet and roaming around can be similar to going into cities and getting lost in neighborhoods. Some of those neighborhoods just aren't safe.  I was lucky enough to finally get a reliable web address to access ChatGPT. It was from my college professor, so I knew it was legit. Here's the link to the website in case you were also wondering: https://chat.openai.com/. I didn't realize it was just like other websites where you create an account and then sign in. I was able to quickly just create one ...
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My Adventures in Social Bookmarking

 My title is misleading. Let me tell you why. I didn't really explore more than one social bookmarking site. Technically, according to Wikipedia, sites like Facebook and Twitter are not social bookmarking sites. I thought they were, but they're not. One of the most famous ones that I am aware of is Reddit. Yet, I never was a user of Reddit, so I can't comment much about it.  Wikipedia's page for "social bookmarking" says the first one was itList in 1996 and that the term "social bookmarking" wasn't coined until 2013 by a social bookmarking site owned by Delicious. Before reading Wikipedia's page, I was thinking Facebook was like social bookmarking because we are able to share websites and videos just like a social bookmarking site. We all know Facebook is so much more than that, but in a generalistic view of social bookmarking, it would make sense that it would fall into that category. Am I wrong? Anyways, to get back to the social bookmarkin...
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Hyperdocs: What's the Hype?

       The very name of hyperdocs, with its word root hyper, implies they are "more than" a doc and that's exactly what many educators would argue: that hyperdocs are not just documents created through the process of word processing. Instead, hyperdocs are embedded with hyperlinks. But that's not all. Oh no! Hyperdocs are designed purposefully to carry out an interactive instructional multimodal lesson that incorporates interactivity, collaboration, discovery, sharing, and creativity. The users (i.e. students) of hyperdocs work their way through opportunities for engagement, exploration, explanation, application, sharing, reflection, and extension activities.      Long story short: I am a graduate student completing a graduate assignment. My professor has asked my classmates and I go explore hyperdocs. He provided one link for us to explore:  https://wakelet.com/wake/tzJYE-N631-GtuJrais57. From there, I was able to find some really great examples ...
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YouTube For Education?

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 To YouTube or not to YouTube? That could be the question for many educators who are trying to determine if the benefits of the website outweigh the distractions that come along with it. Parents and teachers alike are already aware of the pop culture obsession with YouTube. The students are all about YouTube Shorts these days and spend many hours of the month adding views and likes to video content. Being a "YouTuber" is many kids' dream, so when it comes to whether we should use YouTube for educational purposes, I believe the answer is clear: yes! Why not help the kids out and show them how to create content that is educational and more likely to get views? Why not teach students how to create with an intended audience in mind? Why not help students use their critical thinking and higher order thinking skills without them realizing it? Making YouTube content will require planning, coordination, synthesis of information, reading, writing, and collaboration.  When consider...
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Week 1 Adventure: My Very Own Internet Vanity Search

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     Is it so vane to want to see what type of digital footprint one has made thus far in one's life? Or would it be vigilant, if not also eye-opening, to see just how much of one's personal information is available to the public and, thus, the world?  Like it or not, our personal and professional information finds its way to the World Wide Web. This blog post is about what I can find about me on the internet and the kind of digital footprint I have made.        The typical first search for oneself on the internet would begin with the opening of a Google search engine. I typed my name in quotation marks and found a few of the obvious accounts I created that were for the purpose of presenting my professional self. This includes a LinkedIn profile and blog. I can also immediately find my accounts for Pinterest, Twitter, and YouTube. I created a book on StoryJumper that pops up as well. There is a profile of me on the Phi Sigma Pi CORE website that i...
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