Wiki's & Non-Vetted Sites

I view Wikipedia as a resource for my students because of the scope of content they are to seek. If I ask a student to look up student financial aid, then they are bombarded with definitions, origins, reports and references. I believe it serves as a resource for general information as well as content organizing. It is the great start of gathering information without going in depth. I do allow my students to utilize Wikipedia although its not a site that serves my population or subject area often.

Youtube is indeed an incredible resource for my students. Although anyone can contribute, upload and comment, I believe in the realm of College and Career Readiness, this serves as an advantage. My work involves connecting and collaborating for preparation. I like that many companies, organizations and businesses are utilizing Youtube for their videos. Teachers are utilizing Youtube for lessons and activities and students are utilizing it to create portfolios, resumes and admissions videos. I use Youtube frequently and find it as a benefit. Since some of my schools band it, I do have to download the videos and put them into my instruction but I take pride in assigning students videos to watch for homework or during down time.
Heres an example of a video my students utilize:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbJ55UWMEFE

Rebuilding and Defining your PLN

Blogs
The three blogs I have selected to follow are College and Career Readiness & Success Center, Go Financial Aid, and First Generation Students. These three blogs appeal to the type of work I do with my students and the type of resources I seek out for them.

The College & Career Readiness & Success Center @ American Institutes for Research contains so much great information about current trends in Career Readiness. I chose to follow this blog because it talked a lot about technical careers and bridging the gap in education to better equip our students. This is something of great concern to me as a I prepare high school students with a post-secondary plan after graduation. I am also interested in the data that is represented in the blog posts about technical skills needed for jobs in demand. I look forward to utilizing this blog to help students map out a efficient plan.

The Go Financial Aid Blog sparked my interests because of the topics that are somewhat outside of the scope of traditional Aid topics. This blog included topics such as: Dealing with Natural Disasters and Financial Aid, Financial Aid for an Online Education and Private Colleges Willingness to Give. These topics are great for my students because they tackle real life issues and concerns about funding their education. I look forward to reading more about other financial aid ins and outs.

The First Generation Students Blog is awesome because it indeed is a major part of the population I serve. I chose to follow this blog because the posts are from real students who are currently faced with various challenges as First Generation Students. I especially gravitated toward the "Handling Pressure of Others Expectations" and "Advice for Rural Students Adjusting to Urban College" posts. This blog will allow me to share real stories with my students to help them understand the adjustment period and challenges and concerns that may arise.



Twitter
Here are the five people/organizations I chose to follow on Twitter: @KevinPowell, @BKNation, @DiscoveryEd, @Marclamonthill, @KPEdConsultant

I had an amazing opportunity to hear Kevin Powell give a very inspiring speech at a Wayne State event. His drive and passion for social justice and education was astounding. I chose to follow him to continue to be inspired as well as to eventually have him back at Wayne to speak to my High School students.

I chose to follow BK Nation because its Kevin Powell's organization that helps create leaders. Since leadership is one of my objectives for my students. I am interested to follow this as a resource and reference but also as a potential collaboration.

I chose to follow DiscoveryEd because their goal is to connect teachers to each other. They also share great programming ideas that others are implementing.

I chose to follow Katherine Price (KPEdConsultant) because she was a former Admissions Counselor, Advisor, etc and she brings a wealth of knowledge about the college going process. I think her insight is extremely valuable.

I chose to follow Marc Hill because he's a college professor, writer, activist, etc who empowers young men in life and in the college going process. His wisdom will help me guide my population of young men in the right direction.

Reflection
This semester I have utilized the various blogs, youtube channels and twitter accounts as resources. I am a resource provider and I help my students carve a path to their success. Since creating a PLN and adding these sites and/or people to my social media and RSS feeds, I have in fact been bombarded with more college planning information than in the past. I have taken things from these resources and helped students answer questions as well as parents. I have gravitated toward showing my students the Youtube videos that I have discovered about college prep. These videos are activities that the students have utilized to understand more about college. Something I'd like to do to improve my information gathering skills is definitely to be more organized such as the Diigo Bookmarking activity. This will help me filter through what types of information I am seeking. Overall, understanding the functionality of a PLN has become clearer. It's definitely an exercise that I want to continue so that I can build a huge resource library to better assist myself, my students and their parents.

Web 2.0 Tools and the SAMR Model

Week 4 Prompt: SAMR MODEL

I'm a university counselor for high school students. My current cohort of students are in the 10th grade and I will follow this particular class of 2017 until they complete their first year of college. I provide college preparatory services that include learning about admissions requirements, financial aid, career exploration and campus visits amongst a host of other topics. For my SAMR model examples all of the activities I chose are related to college prep and activities that I currently implement or plan to implement in the future.

Substitution: new tech to replace old tech 

To implement the Substitution phase of the SAMR model, students have shifted away from using powerpoint presentations within the school to using Prezi. Students are still able to create slide presentations but with Prezi they are able to access their presentations via any internet connection. This takes away from saving to a jump drive and worrying about format changes on other computers as they travel with their work. 

Augmentation: increase in functionality 

To implement the Augmentation phase of the SAMR model, my students recently stopped creating the program newsletter using Microsoft Word and Publisher but now use Mailchimp. Mailchimp allows them to create newsletter templates, import email lists and send mass emails to our following. This allowed an increase in functionality where we stopped mailing, then stopped attaching a saved Word file to an email but now create and send out of one platform. 

Modification: significant task redesign

To implement the Modification phase of the SAMR model, I plan to have my students use a Google Doc to share their college research. Students are to research and gather as much information as they can about the school of their choice as their classmates comment about comparisons from their findings and their initial feedback. Students will now use Google Docs to do this so that they can comment and share and sync all in one document. 

Redefinition: the use of technology to complete new tasks

To implement the Redefinition phase of the SAMR model, students are now able to take virtual tours of college campuses. This is a technology that wasn't always available but now has made it possible for students to have a wider range and scope when choosing a college to attend. My students are required to answer questions about the physicality of a college campus based upon our visits and now I am able to have them do the same assignment by completing virtual tours to schools that offer them.