The Social Media Question

Social Media is a very debated topic, with most people being extremists to one side or the other. Social Media can be considered any form of social communication on the internet between large amounts of people. The most common platforms of Social Media are Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. In truth, their are advantages and disadvantages to Social Media despite where you stand on the topic. 

Ever since Alexander Bell invented and popularized the cell phone in the 1870's, mass communication has become an idea widely accepted into everyday life. The ability to communicate instantly with anyone around the world is very beneficial and increases the awareness of those who take advantage of Social Media. It broadens our worldview and keeps us informed with major events occurring around the world. 

However, this is the danger of bullying using this new system of communication. Using Social Media, bullies can hide behind hidden names and post hurtful material without any repercussions. It is hard to walk the fine line between being active on Social MEdia to enjot its benefits while still protecting yourself from other users. 

I will let my readers decide whether they believe if Social Media is more beneficial or destructive.

Meet Mr. Brian

In the past few days, I have really stepped up my work ethic on my Passion Project. I have been actively attacking my deliverables for first quarter, especially my website. Thanks to the guidance from my teacher, I decided to use Weebly for my website. I will post the videos and troubleshooting walkthroughs there instead of trying to jump on my school's webpage or onto the 2016 group on Schoology. This way, I can create my own interactive space that I can reuse over and over again, make changes to at any time, and furthermore, show to future employers to prove my skill with computer coding and computer design.  

In the next week, I plan on creating a list of all the problems that occur regularly to students that I could show how to fix. Some of the problems are: pairing your keyboard with your iPad, connecting to the internet/home wifi, reseting an iPad, creating an Adobe cloud account, backing up files to iCloud, backing up files to Schoology, protecting passwords using the Keychain app, setting up extra email accounts on the iPad, and many others. 

I have already discussed my project with my mentor, we will call him Mr. Chester Brian (my two favorite first names...). Mr. Brian is in full support of my project and enthusiastically agreed to be my mentor. He is the technology director at my school and believes that my passion project will actually make is job easier, since his fellow teachers will be able to use my site to solve their problems rather than calling Mr. Brian down to fix them. Overall, I like the direction my passion project is going and I cannot wait for my Weebly site to be up and running. 

Professional Turmoil

This previous Friday, my Digital Multimedia and Global Citizenship class ran the Professional Development at my school, where the teachers are shown tools they can use in their class to make it more interactive with students. It was ironic that my class was presenting, because essentially, the students taught the teachers how to teach! Overall, it was a great experience and I learned a lot of skills in presenting. Furthermore, my class got very positive feedback from the teachers that we presented too. 

For my part of the presentation, I taught my teachers how to use a website called Stoodle. Stoodle is an interactive whiteboard that can be accessed and changed from any device that has access to internet connection. It has tools like drawing, erasing, using different colors, basic shapes, a "moving an object" tool, and many of the functions that would be needed in presenting. The teachers enjoyed my website a little too much, as they goofed off, much like I would in their class, and just drew whatever they wanted rather than the material that I, the teacher, suggested they draw. It was interesting to see a classroom from the side of the teacher, where I am cramming knowledge and notes into the heads of students who don't want to be there and don't care to learn.

From this experience, I believed I learned more than the teachers did. Although they gave great feedback after our presentations, the teachers interaction with the apps and websites presented to them was minimal, as they showed little interest in using their new tools in their classroom. I, on the other hand, developed an appreciation for the student who sits quietly, takes notes, and completes the assignments given. In the future, I will strive to be more like this student, and less like the teachers that I taught. Its a hard job, being a teacher, and I don't want to be any more of the problem they have to deal with between 7:45am and 2:45pm. 

Introspection

Within the last week, my family and I hired an expert writer to help me write my college essays. As a senior who is looking at some top level schools (Georgia Tech, NC State, USC), my college essays need to be precise, purposeful, and very effective at selling me as a student. To be completely honest, many of the applications I need to fill out scare me and the idea of completing four early action applications, 3 essay required scholarships, and juggling varsity soccer and homework makes my palms sweaty. I knew that if I did not get on top of the workload early and have help, I would not meet my many early deadlines. 

As my personal essay consultant picked my brain about my leadership, service, and passion, I really opened up to her, allowing her to see deep emotions within me that most people never get to see, emotions that I don't really understand why I have or what causes them. The essay help doubled as a counseling session for me, where I learned more about myself and my actual motivations towards sports or academics. 

When I spoke about my hard work in school, I realized that I work so hard in order to make sure I achieve more than my brother and to make my parents proud of me. Personally, I though I always spent extra time studying so that I can be prepared for college, when actually, I just want to overwork my brother. Simple questions brought about the most profound of responses and really exposed an emotional side of me that I had never explored before. 

I find it very interesting how God works through other people in our life to help us stay on track and reveal things about ourselves he had no idea of before. I cannot wait to get the report back from my essay helper and to start those college applications!!! 

The possibilities of Twitter Chats

If I could be a moderator of any twitter chat, I would definitely choose a chat in which participants tweeted about new technology inventions. I would expect them to post links to probably CNN pages or other news stations where people in the chat could go and look at the inventions, then come back to the chat and comment on them. I think the chat would have exploded this week due to all the new apple product releases. I believe that the chat would be both educational and very funny! 

This twitter chat would give me advise on how to formulate my web page for my passion project. Seeing as the majority of people in this chat will have probably worked closely with software at some point in their life or at least be interested in it like I am, they would be a great resource base for me to pose questions too. 

I think twitter is a very effective form of communication because of the multidimensional forms of conversation that can occur and the number of people that can be reached, as well as influenced, by what is said. Since you can be present in twitter chats without actually participating, there is no way of knowing how many people are reading the tweets that go out on the hashtag. This reminds us that we need to be diligent with what we do and what we say online, because you never know who is listening.   

Decisions

After the Shark Tank presentations, I learned that my passion project is somewhat unique compared to other passion projects of my peers. While I focus on an idea that would teach me about my future career (computer science), my peers have selected more service based projects that involve direct contact with people less fortunate (the homeless or kids in third world countries) or people who are under-respected (feminism, gay marriage). I am starting to worry that I have come up with a passion project that is not congruent to the aim of the course I am taking. 

As I have talked about in previous posts, my passion project is to create a web page that will walk my fellow students through how to troubleshoot problems on their school-issued iPads. I believe that my webpage will help students get the most out of their education as well as teach them basic technology skills that will be needed in college. However, most of the students who attend my school are well privileged and do not necessarily need service to better their lives. 

I do think that my passion project will be a benefit to the school, but should I focus my efforts in a different direction in an attempt to help those who may be in more need of my help? 

I am very passionate about my original idea, but I also want to help others as much as possible. Do you, the readers of my blog, think I should stick to my original passion project or create a new, more helpful one that may impact more needy people? 

  

My Passion

For my Passion Project, I have decided to partner with my school in order to create a webpage that student can go to at any time of the day that will show them how to fix iPad issues themselves. The webpage will either go up on my school's website, or I will create a group on Schoology, our schools communication system. I will post instructions to this page that will guide students through troubleshooting problems on the iPad. If all goes well with the coding of the webpage, I will attempt to embed videos to the page as well to give students a visual on the troubleshooting. 

Today, I presented my idea to my peers in my Dig Cit class, and they gave me great feedback. They told me to create a flowchart to help diagnose the iPad problems, which will help guide students to the right video or correct instructions that will solve their problem. I am excited to work with the amazing staff at my school to develop my passion project.