Welcome to EC&I 831

*This post has been written as part of my journey as a Ph.D student through University of Regina.

As discussed previously, one of my professional development goals for the summer includes the completion of two classes as part of my Ph.D journey. While I purposefully choose to document all university courses through the blog this specific class, Social Media & Open Education: EC&I 831, actively calls for blog posts and online participation as one of the class requirements. As such, the vast majority of posts within the next few days/weeks will be tagged with #EC&I831 for easy curation. These posts will align with the course description shared below:

This course provides an immersive experience where students gain understanding of social media for teaching, learning, and professional development; examine the foundations of the open educational movement and connections to networked learning; and explore collaborative tools for resource sharing, communication, and development of a digital identity and personal learning network.

One element of this course that will be different for myself is that I am completing this course outside of it’s formal schedule as part of an independent study. As such, certain components such as Twitter chat participation and Discord conversations are challenging/impossible due to there not being other current participants for me to interact with. With this in mind, conversation topics/prompts will be included here on the blog so that the content can still be covered. Where possible, these tools will still be included and embedded into the blog post.

Twitter Chat

#eci831 independent study chat. A1. My name is Kirsten & I'm the Coordinator of ICT in @MVSD_Schools I am focusing my learning journey on software evaluation at the K-12 level. You can learn more by reviewing my preliminary research map at https://t.co/GMvYIeSqlA

— Kirsten Thompson (@MissLwbt) July 20, 2022

#eci831 independent study chat. A2. I believe one of the greatest opportunities afforded by the integration of social media in education is the fact that it can increase transparency and be a model of effective digital literacy. Read more here https://t.co/LycKUJEHpV

— Kirsten Thompson (@MissLwbt) July 20, 2022

#eci831 independent study chat. A3. The challenges & complexities of integrating social media in education can be numerous including lack of access, insufficient information for educators on appropriate use, fear of the unknown, etc. Read more: https://t.co/DDriO9Aquc

— Kirsten Thompson (@MissLwbt) July 20, 2022

#eci831 independent study chat. A4. Currently, my favourite websites/resources include @canva for content creation, @hourofcode for coding resources, and @mtholfsen for full tutorials on the Office 365 suite. I share more via my #TechTipTuesday series https://t.co/ZdMGPuMset

— Kirsten Thompson (@MissLwbt) July 20, 2022

#eci831 independent study chat. A5. I joined Twitter 10 years ago and while I participate in a vast suite of social media platforms, Twitter continues to be my go-to platform to connect with educators. My Twitter experiences have been summarized here: https://t.co/7cvL2Wjcq4

— Kirsten Thompson (@MissLwbt) July 20, 2022

Week 2 Blog Prompt

Write a blog post that addresses the following questions and/or statements: Describe your relationship with social media. How has social media affected your personal or professional life in positive and/or negative ways?

In the past six months I not only celebrated my 10th “Blogiversary” but also marked by 1,000th post. Both of these milestones were marked with posts that I feel represent the content of the prompt. As such, I will link them below:

• 10 Year Blogiversary!
• 1000th Blog Post!