Weekly Report & Reflection #8

This week we expanded our knowledge of how the digital world operates by learning about wiki tools. The short clip shown on k12 learning about the camping group was an easy visual way to learn how wiki works. Wiki is a great tool to stay organized with a group of people, and all the information there can be edited by all and not just sent by 1 in an email which can get confusing at points. The only issue with wiki tools for research is that anyone can edit this meaning the information may not be accurate. Although one must be careful when using wiki for research it is definitely a great tool to stay organized and access information fast.

I can see myself using wiki just like a google docs page. The only difference is that wiki can be edited by my friends, whereas i have to pay google docs for it to be edited. Wiki can be accessed by all at once which is a cool feature. If i have another online group assignment i think it can stay organized through wiki and will be easy for all group members to include input.

My Feedly reader this week brought to my attention a very interesting issue. A court battle between a news outlet and the RCMP. The news outlet interviewed a suspected terrorist that made threats against Canada. When the RCMP went to that news media for information about how they got in touch with the individual the media refused to provide this information. A court later sided with the RCMP which made the news outlet mad it had to give up information. The news media argued it cannot get stories without offering confidentiality to its interviewed people, and should be allowed to offer confidentiality just as the RCMP does for people it investigates.

A news media in my opinion should not be allowed to withhold information on suspects wanted for terrorist activities. The argument of confidentiality is ridiculous seeing as how it is a major charge against the accused who the media is withholding information from the police on. This whole article just was very interesting as it relates to the American case similar. Apple is in litigations with the FBI currently about handing over passwords to phones. I believe that privacy information with companies should only be backed if there is no major criminal charge against the accused.

this is my digital rights and responsibilities chart that sakai would not allow me to upload. 

Weekly Report & Reflection #7

Throughout this course i am learning alt about becoming a digital citizen. Before this course started i had no idea what a digital citizen was, i simply went online, used social media and browsed websites then didn't think anything more of it. After completing half of this course, being exposed to all the great PLE tools and signing up for something new every week that is helpful in the educational process, i am gaining knowledge on what exactly it is to be a digital citizen. My digital footprint expanded a lot after joining this class. I never really thought much of being online and what tracks i leave behind until this class. My digital footprint is expanding everyday and my PLE is expanding with it in a positive way. Without this course i wouldn't be as knowledgeable about the internet for educational purposes as i am today!

My Feedly reader this week introduced me to a practice that is happening in India still today that is extremely ridiculous. Witch hunting to be specific. The US has had its share of witch accusationsin the past, however associate grew, this stopped. India has killed over 2000 people in the past 15 years who were accused of being a witch. I find this extremely pathetic in todays time that countries still believe in out-dated and ridiculous accusations. It just goes to show how much more advanced Developed countries are than the developing or poor countries. Hopefully these countries can realize there are bigger issues to worry about for the betterment of the people than killing 'witches'. The sad part is, this just goes to show how equality is still an issue for women. The majority of those killed or accused of being witches are poor women. If these countries don't stop i feel that developed countries should step in and stop the madness for them all while educating them to improve the overall country. 

Weekly Report & Reflection #6

This week we were introduced to an amazing tool called Evernote. Evernote is an online notebook organizer with many functions. While exploring the internet for useful websites, videos, and articles it is easy to get flustered with the amount of open links you have on your computer at once. Evernote saves the entire webpage for you and puts it in a notebook so you can easily click it and view the webpage all through one program. Evernote also allows the user to easily take screenshots of important text, and highlight, add notes, and even organize these screenshots into categories by tagging their relevance. Evernote will be useful in my educational activities because everything i need for papers is all there for me to easily access. I wish i had heard about Evernote in first year because every paper i wrote i would absolutely be using this tool. The great part about Evernote is that once my paper is done, Evernote still stores all the webpages and things i saved in a notebook for me to go back on in case i have a similar assignment. This is truly an amazing research buddy that i will be telling all my friends who are still in school about.

Switching from Evernote, my Feedly reader is still a very active part of my every day life. This week i found a somewhat political article very interesting, mainly because it involves hockey. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau supported his country and "chipped" back at United States President Obama over a comment he made this week at the white house. The Chicago Blackhawks were honoured at the White House for their Stanley Cup win  last year and President Obama made fun at the fact that it is again an American Team winning the trophy. Obama said that he would bring the cup to Canada next week when he shares a Dinner with Trudeau. Well Trudeau was quick to support his country by Tweeting, yes tweeting to Obama and reminding him that although American teams win the Stanley cup, Canada's Olympic teams have dominated the American teams in the past, most recently 2010. I enjoyed this support from Trudeau on many level. Yes the Stanley cup is a hard troops to win but it is not a representation of the country as players who win it for the team are from all over the world. The olympics on the other hand, are competed and won as a country. I guess the americans can have their Stanley cup bragging rights, I'd much rather have olympic gold anyways. I am glad our Prime Minister can have fun while showing support for his country all at the same time, especially when it comes at the expense of the US hockey program.

Weekly Report & Reflection # 5

Although I told myself since it came out that I would never sign up for the Twitter world this session has given me a new perspective on twitter. I once thought that twitter was only used by people as a way to tell others whats going on in their daily lives, mainly celebrities. I had absolutely no interest in this as I could care less what other people that I don't even know are up to. This week signing up for twitter for educational purposes has helped me understand a different side of twitter. It is a shame that the majority of people use it to follow people they don't know and live for their updates. Twitter has a unique way of connecting people and educators from all over the world. You can connect very easily using hashtags that can narrow your search results, for example the course code can be searched by entering #ADED1P32. By exploring what others publish using this hashtag we can easily follow others in this course.

My Feedly reader this week had a lot of great articles attached to it. Being the monday after Super Bowl sunday it it only fitting that this article is about Super Bowl 50 that just passed. NFL.com  paid tribute to the Super Bowl Champion Denver Broncos in a great post-superbowl article filled with the usual controversy and major storylines of any championship game. The major take from his article would be the QB Manning. Manning won his 200th game yesterday, an NFL record. The Previous record was 199, so it is fitting that the NFL record comes off a Super Bowl win. Manning was supposed to retire after this game, it was supposed to be his final GoodBye to football game, however he put that decision up in the air when he didn't comment on it. This leads to undoubtedly a lot of future articles to be published by the NFL on this issue in the coming weeks and up until he makes his decision.

The game itself was a low scoring game offensively, and like all other superbowls, the major talk was the National anthem, the commercials and the halftime show. At the end of the day, i watched the game for the game itself and I with more Hype was made about the game itself than the above mentioned.

Weekly Report & Reflection #4

This week we were introduced to cloud and online curation tools. During this session a lot of useful information was brought up in the Internet Detective webpage that I wish was available to me during first year. This webpage was an advisory webpage that helps students in higher education learn more than just the basics about gathering information off the internet the proper way. Although this information was helpful, it was not the only thing introduced this session.

Diigo is a cloud tool used for storing bookmarks on multiple devices. Diigo will be used by myself in the future to save a lot of time when switching from computer to computer finding sources I had saved on another computer. Signing into Diigo allows me to simply access all the bookmarks i saved on other devices, but more importantly I can highlight useful sections and add notes to articles, making it easier for me to come back to later. This cloud tool will save myself a lot of time in the future when I am doing a paper.

Although Diigo is a great tool, I still enjoy my Feedly reader, as all the top stories from websites I added are in one place. Whatever interests me goes onto my Feedly page. This week, my favourite article from Feedly comes from NESN a Boston Based Sports Broadcasting Channel.

I love watching hockey, and with the NHL All Star game on, watching hockey just seems more interesting. I'm a huge Bruins fan and my favourite Feedly article this week was one that praised one of my favourite hockey players. Patrice Bergeron is, as described in the article, one of the closest things to a perfect hockey player. This short article was highlighted around comments made by top NHL players this week at the All Star game when asked about Patrice Bergeron. This high praise doesn't come to any player, and because it came from more than one player I feel the praise is deserved.

Although Feedly displayed many articles this week revolving around world issues and major entertainment news, I had to pick this article because it just seemed fitting with the All Star break to talk about hockey.