Reflection on Week 3: A Rambling

I am not sure what it was about this week, but it has been a hard one. I have been having a rough time focusing and have had to pull out all of my strategies to make it through the week (brain breaks, chunking, etc.). As students and professionals, I am sure I am not the only one who finds some weeks more difficult than others. But enough about that, what have I learned/thought about this week in EME6416.

PLN:

I did a little digging with these to find some more resources, though, the spark page provided to our class was very descriptive. One thing that I noticed is that almost all of the videos are OLD! Here is a screenshot.

*notice how many years ago these were posted*

I wonder if this is because PLNs seem to organically grow now. I have never thought about PLNs, but after learning about them, I realize that I have one. I follow a couple of teaching pages/groups on FB, have connections with many of my high school teachers, and teachers I have taught alongside. I also frequent TPT, and some of those educators have some of the best ideas; I love supporting their work. If you were to watch a video or two, I would recommend these below.

*A little dry, but useful information*

*Short*

*Emphasis on social media*

Community Norms Project

This week I also decided on using two Magic the Gathering (MTG) communities, one is a FB group, and the other is a group WhatsApp chat with local players. I reached out to a friend to find an active community on FB, as most of the ones I found were more places to ask a question and receive an answer, so not really a community. For the two weeks of observation, I will be lurking in the FB group and participating in the WhatsApp chat; however, I plan to become active in the FB group when the assignment is over.

I know we had a couple choices on reading this week, but, if you have not read Prof. Dennen's Constructing academic alter-egos: identity

issues in a blog-based community, I recommend doing so before getting too deep into the assignment. Are there any others that you recommend? Please leave a comment if you do!

Well, that is about all I have in me this week... besides reading and commenting on the EME6414 blogs, because they are amazing! And, of course, participating and observing my chosen communities.

P.S. ONE MORE thing I learned this week "TL;DR" means, "Too long; didn't read." Ha! I feel like replying that to plenty of things I DO read ;)