Weekly Report & Reflection #5

This week, we looked at the online social media networking system called Twitter (Click HERE for link). Twitter is a service that lets users write (“Tweet”) messages 140 characters long, and to read others’ Tweets. This form of social media is considered a “micro blog” because posts are a lot smaller in size, a style that suits the world of technology perfectly – short, sweet and to the point. Two particularly unique features of Twitter that may become handy while using the service include lists and hashtags. Lists are groups of Twitter users that are combined together based off a common theme in one convenient place. Users have the option of creating their own personal lists or subscribing to other users’ lists. The second feature is the use of hashtags, which allows users to easily find tweets about a specific topic of interest. The hashtag symbol (#) is put before a word in order to categorize that word or phrase, and make that tweet easier to find in a search.

https://twitter.com/

When creating my PLE back in week #2, I had already added Twitter to my collection of resources in the Connect category. When previously using Twitter, I only used it for personal social purposes but throughout this session, I learned that it can also be considered a learning tool for educational purposes. Through the use of Twitter, users are given the opportunity to interact with other people around the world, and learn from a wide range of educators who are also on the site. Before registering into this online course, I thought I would be an expert regarding computer usage and Internet related resources, especially those that I use so commonly. But to my surprise, I have already learned much more from the course than expected, and it’s only been half the semester. I have already learned and interacted with a large amount of different online resources that have contributed to developing my Personal Learning Environment.

Furthermore, I appreciated the experience we had this week to build our personal learning networks (PLN). A PLN is a network of connections used for sharing ideas and resources, collaboration, and learning (read more HERE). This week we were encouraged to interact with other classmates in order to expand our PLN. I learned in greater detail about the interests of my fellow classmates by exploring their Twitter and Sakai accounts. As directed in the learning activities, we were recommended to comment on students’ blog posts and create discussions based on topic interests. Collaborating with each other will make it a lot easier for us as a class to build connections and partnerships for our group projects and to create a positive learning environment.

http://www.cineplex.com

While going through my Feedly this week, I discovered an article which seemed interesting to me titled ‘Deadpool’ Has Biggest Opening on Record in North America for R-Rated Film, (Click HERE to read article). The article explains how the movie “Deadpool” had the biggest domestic opening on record for a rated R film. This article turned out to be convenient to me because I was planning on going to watch this movie this weekend. After reading this article, I realized that a large amount of people have seen and enjoyed this movie, giving me even more reasoning to get out of the house and go to the movie theatre to watch this film.

Cheers,

Robert DeMelo