madismithblog-blog

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Final Thoughts

Here’s to my last blog post!  It’s been a fun ride IM260.  I thoroughly enjoyed this course and the skills that I learned from it.  I had some prior experience with some of the projects that we did, but I did learn more about each media outlet.  

I think my least favourite project was the survey because it gave me the most trouble.  I couldn’t quite get the graphic to work out how I wanted it to look.  But I did enjoy working on the survey.  I didn’t know how you could make one in the first place and it was very interesting looking at the data that I received.  

I think the project that I liked the most was the Technology Disconnect.  I’ve done it before and it was a nice refresher.  I would definitely recommend for everyone to try it at least once.  

I would recommend that everyone take this course or a similar course.  You get alot of useful information out of it and it is a fairly straight forward course!

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Twitter

I enjoyed this assignment more than I thought I would.  I don’t always have time to go on Twitter, or any social media for that matter, because of work.  I found alot of great information via twitter.  Some information on my majour - Special Education and other great information about the National Guard, and the military in general.  I found a few helpful links that were related to different benefits the military offers for schooling.  I think next time I could do a better job of posting more frequently.  I usually only posted when I had free time or down time at work.

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LinkedIn

I definitely had fun with this project and creating a LinkedIn profile.  I think I either created or just started to make a LinkedIn profile, but I didn’t really know what I was supposed to do with it.  Since I’ve made one, I’ve connected with a few coworkers and friends and family.  What I found the hardest thing to do was finding the right associations of where I work.  There were so many different options and I couldn’t always find the right one right away.  Overall I think that it’s important to create a LinkedIn profile because future employers can look at that and see where you’ve worked, what your accomplishments are, and some of your strengths and/or skills.  You can also connect with others and find out information that you may need.

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Initial Website Thoughts

 I’m a little excited to do a website for my class.  I’ve done a few websites for past classes and I enjoyed working on them.  The program that I used was fairly easy to use.  However, I haven’t used it in a while so I’m expecting alot of it be different than what I used before.  

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Website

I just finished my website for IM 260.  I’ve done websites before, but this one was more challenging for me for some reason.  I think I had the most difficulty with the formatting and the layout of the website.  I think that it turned out okay.  It wasn’t what I was expecting, but it was close to what I had visioned it to be.  I definitely learned alot while doing this website project.

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(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_k3PneUY9Y)

Here’s a video that I found that helps to create a Google survey

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Survey/Infographic

I haven’t really started this assignment yet... oops. From what I’ve looked at so far, it doesn’t look too challenging.  I plan on making a very rough draft to start off with so that I know what I need to improve on and then go from there.  I’m hoping to do a survey on the effects of technology.  I haven’t quite figured out what I want the second part to be yet.  I’m feeling pretty confident about this project even though I haven’t started it yet.  If I have any questions I will definitely ask them right away!

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Mind Tools and Intellectual Thinking

The standards for intellectual thinking are: clarity, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, logic, significance, and fairness.  These are used whenever someone is interested in evaluating the quality of reasoning behind a certain situation.  I think that these can be taught at an early age.  The sooner we know about them, the sooner we can learn from them.  There are so many possibilities out there and so many things that we can explore.  College gives us that freedom to explore these standards

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Research Paper Article

http://www.readingrockets.org/article/assistive-technology-kids-learning-disabilities-overview

I found this link to be extremely helpful when researching my topic

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Research Project Progress Report

Since I started babysitting for a few kids with ASD, I have always been interested in special education.  It was always rewarding to see how much they improved from the last time I saw them.  I was also curious as to what some of the devices they were using.  So, I decided to write a research paper on some of the devices that they used and how technology effects how students with a disability learn.  

So far my paper isn’t going as well as I had hoped.  I find myself getting stuck on what to write.  I know what I need/want to say, but I can’t seem to put it into words on the page.  I have found alot of great resources though! Technology seems to have a pretty positive impact on students with learning disabilities.  There aren’t very many negative aspects to it.  

I definitely could have started my research paper a little sooner, but hopefully I can get it done in time.

Here is one of the sources that I found to be extremely helpful

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Listening to this song while I write my research paper - It helps me to stay concentrated while I type

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Research Topic

I am working on an outline for my research paper on the effects technology has on students with learning disabilities.  I am hoping to finish my outline so that I can get a good idea of what I will be writing about.  My first thoughts were to just do the effects technology has on students  But then I narrowed down my topic to students and students with learning disabilities.  

I’m feeling a bit nervous about my research paper because I have a tendency to wait until the last minute to finish it.  Usually it turns out okay, but there’s always a chance I won’t get it done and it doesn’t turn out the way I want it to.  I have a good introduction so far so let’s hope for the best!

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Twitter - Professional Organizations

Some of the professional organizations that I joined are: Military Times, Autism Speaks, Army ROTC, and MN National Guard.  For the Army National Guard organizations, I’m hoping to learn more information about how to further my career in the Guard and see when informational sessions are being held.  As for the educational organizations, I’m hoping to learn information about the different learning disabilities and what other parents/teachers/students have to say about teaching students with learning disabilities and what other parents and students have to say.  My current plan is to majour in Special Education and minour in Military Science.

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Wisdom, Google, and Technology

Google is a majour search engine that many of us use today on a daily basis.  We use it to look up information for a research project, to look up how to spell words we don’t know, translate dialogue/text, communicate, look up photographs, and many other things.  It has become a life necessity.  

Over the past 20 years, technology has improved drastically.  We literally and figuratively have the world at our fingertips.  Most of us have a phone on us all the time.  When we don’t know the answer to something, or need to figure out a problem, we just reach for our phones and look up the answer. For school projects, it’s easy to look up the information on the internet.  Books and libraries are becoming obsolete. 

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Twitter

I just started my professional twitter account!  I’m a little excited about this because I’ve never used twitter before.  However, I’m nervous because I don’t use social media that often, which is why I haven’t already made a twitter account for myself. I think that this assignment should be interesting and a small challenge for myself.  I will hopefully set up my twitter account and go from there.  As time goes by, hopefully I will better understand how twitter works and broaden my social networking/technology skills.  

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About Me

My name is Madeleine Smith, but I prefer to go by Madi.  I am currently living in Wisconsin and I attend St. Cloud State University.  I am also in the Minnesota National Guard and my MOS (job) is a culinary specialist.  

This will be my second year at SCSU.  I am hoping to majour in Special Education.  By the time I graduate I hope to become a commissioned officer as well.  I’ve always been interested in Special Education and teaching.  For the past several years I have been babysitting a few kids with autism and I have loved every minute of it. 

I have a black poodle named Robby.  I always enjoy taking him to the park and going on bike rides with him.  

I also have an interest in photography.  I enjoy going outside and just enjoying what I see.  

This is my first time using a blog, so here goes!

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Post Technology Disconnect

After successfully completing my 24 hours of disconnecting from technology, I thought that it was fairly easy.  Giving up my laptop was probably the most challenging because I had a very uneventful day to begin with.  I didn’t have very many homework assignments or projects to do at the time, but it was hard to not work on them in my free time.  I also wanted to check my email to see if I had gotten a response back from my boss at work and a few other people.  I don’t think this was different from my expectations, but it was definitely a litter harder than I anticipated.  

I think the most challenging aspect of disconnecting from technology would have to be fighting the urge to check my phone or pull my laptop out and watch an episode of a show or throw on a movie before I went to bed.  While I was at work I wished I could have used my phone since I didn’t really have anything to do for 3 hours.  Disconnecting from technology was fairly easy for me since I’ve done it in the past.  I’m also not a huge technology user.  The main devices I use are my laptop and my phone.  I don’t think this differed in my original expectations.

I think disconnecting from technology was the hardest on my dad because I usually text him when I’m done with work.  I had to tell him in advance when I would approximately be done with work and hope that it was when I would get off.  As for my coworkers, I don’t think it affected them very much.  My boss didn’t need anything else done for the week so I didn’t need to be able to check my email for updates from her.  

Overall I think that everyone should do something like this at least once in their life.  I was surprised by how easy disconnecting was for me.  I thought that I would have more issues come up, but it was relatively easy for me.  I would definitely do it again if I have the time.