Reflection (Week 6, Blog 3)

 This week, I couldn't spend much time online as I had some personal duties to finish. However, this week's topic interested me, and as next week's topic continues with the same content, I would like to explore the networked knowledge activities more.

For the next assignment, I plan to choose a concept version instead of a full version this time. I am considering choosing Instagram and Threads as Threads is advertised as Instagram's new text-version app, and I wonder what similarities and differences lie between these two platforms. I am an active user on Instagram but not on Threads, so exploring how people engage in knowledge sharing and tracking will be meaningful. I can't wait to hear what platforms others decide to choose for this assignment! 

Networked Knowledge Activities Using Miro (Week 6, Blog 2)

According to Dennen's (forthcoming) definition of six networked knowledge activities, learners engage in the activities of collecting, curating, sharing, brokering, negotiating, and constructing to manage, communicate, and create knowledge. One of the tools that make these activities possible is Miro.

Last semester, I started using Miro very actively across the classes I took and the class I taught. Before, I used Padlet quite often as my teaching tool, but after finding out about Miro and how interactive it can be, I dug deeper into it. The screenshots below show how I used Miro as a teaching material. I provided question or topic prompts and created the background and overall space where students could put sticky notes under similar categories and simultaneously see what others have shared. Students collected and curated knowledge by searching web engines or drawing from their own opinions. They shared and negotiated while discussing with each other to figure out the questions, and they constructed knowledge by coming up with agreed answers or creative thoughts.

Example 1

Example 2

Miro has more interactive features, and I believe I only used it for limited usage. I remember one student saying that all the cursors hovering over the screen simultaneously made her nervous. This could be the downside of Miro, as it can be a barrier to forming networked knowledge activities. What was your experience using Miro as a teaching or learning material?

References

Dennen, V. P. (forthcoming). Networked Knowledge Activities Excerpt from Social Media for Active Learning.

Blog Makeover Challenge (Week 6, Blog 1)

 This week, I chose to participate in the Blog Makeover Challenge. I wanted to change my blog a little bit to make it easier for myself and the readers to navigate. And to be more visually pleasing!

Below is what my blog looked like before and after:

Before

After

Some of the changes I made are:

1. Gadgets: On the top gadget space, I added the most popular blogs and limited the number to three. It is nice to see which ones got the most views. On the right sidebar, I included a list of all blog posts written so far. This will give a general overview of what I wrote; readers can easily move to it just by clicking the title.

2. Fonts: I didn't like the font of the title and the gadgets, so I changed to a slightly more neat one.

3. Background: I uploaded my favorite picture as a background image, which I took at the Parrish Art Museum in NY when I visited there back in 2020. 

I hope this makeover feels as I intended it to!

Reflection (Week 5, Blog 3)

 I was a little bit behind this week due to a family trip to Jeju Island. I finished the community assignment before I went on a trip, and now I am catching up on some challenges and writing blog posts. With the assignment, It was a great opportunity to analyze two communities using a theory from previous articles and my point of view. I am excited about the upcoming assignments and what I can learn from them. I also noticed my peers' comments on my latest posts - I appreciate them and plan to leave comments soon. I also plan to be more active in checking others' posts and some of the course accounts on social media platforms this week. At the same time, I try to stay not too overwhelmed by the number of tools introduced in this course as how Dr. Dennen described as a "social media buffet." I should focus on one or two tools each week and explore the ones that I can learn best. 

Flickr Challenge (Week 5, Blog 2)

I explored Flickr this week more closely. Flickr provides high-quality images and allows users to share and use others' work, automatically crediting the authors. Although some pictures seem to be outdated and the website is full of ads, just like many other tools these days, the gallery seemed to be a great space for teaching and learning resources. 

Below is the gallery I created for the Flickr Challenge. 

 Flickr Challenge

I chose "famous architecture" as a lesson topic. As students learn about different types of architecture and the history related to it in geography or social studies class, this gallery can help them see the actual pictures of these works. One thing we should be cautious about is unintentionally creating bias when introducing examples of images related to the topic. To prevent this, teachers can encourage students to create their own galleries by exploring on their own and presenting them to peers. 

Intellectual Property Online (Week 5, Blog 1)

The topic of intellectual property, copyright, and privacy always seems to be a very tricky matter to me. Even though we all know the importance of giving attribution and being given attribution by others when they are using or sharing my work, is it possible to check whenever you come across any resources online? What if the work you want to use has no CC license tagged? Can you make a presumption that this is a fair trade or public domain work and reuse it as you wish? 

When I was discussing this topic with the undergrads I was teaching last semester, these questions popped up to me. So, if only the judge decided whether the work falls into the category of fair trade, what could individuals do? Also, even if you shared some work under a specific license you approved, how can you check if somebody gave you the attribution as they were supposed to? Is there a way to track them?

As technologies evolve beyond our imagination, the issue of giving credit to one's ownership seems to get into even more blurry areas. Let's say you used some information you acquired from interacting with ChatGPT. Is it enough to give credit to just ChatGPT? Do you know where the information was coming from? Because this is such a tricky matter and will become trickier, it is essential to guide students in thinking about this issue—where we can make the blurry line clearer and what we can do at the very least. It will be good practice to start giving credit from a young age and to begin thinking about the importance of protecting copyrights and ownership.

"This image is copyrighted" by liako is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Reflection (Week 3, Blog 3)

 This week, I started joining many online communities. I joined the class LinkedIn and Reddit, started following more of my classmates on Instagram, and enjoyed reading their posts! I haven't had time to interact with my peers on the blog, which I will catch up on soon.

 Some of the participation I did this week: I wrote a post on class Reddit on which subreddits I follow. I also uploaded a long hot weekend challenge on Instagram, showing what I did during weekends. Here is a more detailed version of the challenge.

1. Sports: I went on a walk to the park right across from where I live. 

2. Nature: I visited my parents' house, which is located in Cheonan, a rural area in Korea. It is literally in the middle of the mountains, so I loved the scenery and how quiet it was.

3. The arts: Some watercolor painting pieces are at my parents' house, so I can call them arts?

6. Fine dining: My family cooked every meal with what we had at a farm so I can call it fine "nature" dining!

7. A barbecue & 8. Relaxing: Enjoyed the rural area experience to its fullest, doing a barbecue outside and relaxing on a hammock. My niece was obsessed with playing with bubble toys I spent hours making bubbles with her!

10. Big night out: I wouldn't necessarily call it a big night out but we did celebrate my parents' 60th birthday. We threw a small party at home and took thousands of pictures. 

So this was my weekend. I plan to take a week off next week on writing blogs as I will be away from the town the whole week. I will be working on reading materials and catching up on my peers' posts as best as I can.