Hello everyone, my Instructional Technologies class is coming to a close. This is bittersweet because I have really enjoyed it. That being said, I plan on continuing my blog and I hope that some of you do as well. With that being said, I am going to talk about Word Clouds. This is a really fun tool. If you want a unique way to present material, then this is the software for you. The first thing you want to do is go to the following link: https://worditout.com/
Once you are at the website, you have options to either create your own word cloud or use examples. There is even an option for if you want to make the word clouds you create into a print on a t-shirt or a mug. I have brainstormed with the team at my current employer about how we can utilize this in the future. We came up with some fun ideas. After you generate your word cloud, you can then change the font and color if you would like to. You can even change the background color. The following examples is made from the words of this blog. I hope you check it out!

Hello everyone! Today I am going to talk about a new technology tool that I have learned about this week called Survey Monkey. This tech tool is free. All you have to do is sign up. Once you create an account, you will be asked several questions about your uses for Survey Monkey. When you are done with the questions, then you can get started making surveys. There are many different options for types of surveys you can create. After you decide on the type of survey, you will then be asked to put in your questions. Once you put in your questions, you can then figure out the best way to send your survey. There is more than one option for this, and you just need to choose what is right for you. When I made a survey, I chose to email a link to my co-workers. I work in higher education, and we have a lot of employees. I work in recruitment and we decided to order all full time faculty and staff t-shirts with our new logo. Survey Monkey made this so easy compared to other alternatives to gathering this data. I have taken a snapshot of my survey and will include it in this post along with the link to the website and to my survey. You can take it for fun if you wish to.

Link to the Survey Monkey website.       https://bit.ly/2vDyEZL
Link to my survey for t-shirts.       https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/NCNTZ69

Hello all! I have been taking my Instructional Technologies class since the beginning of January. There has been so much new and valuable information learned throughout this whole process. I can't even express how grateful I am that I got to take this class. At the beginning, I was somewhat worried when I saw the content because at that time, I didn't see how it could all relate to learning. I have learned so much about the importance of networking. There is a new software that we are incorporating into our learning this week called LinkedIn. LinkedIn is yet another great way to network. You can make connections and have professional conversations. You start by filling out your profile so others can see what your interest and career is. There is even a section where you can enter your contacts into an address book so you can see if anyone you know has a LinkedIn account. I think that is a great way to start. There are so many different ways to use LinkedIn. If you are a student and will be looking for a job, then it will be a great way to network for finding the perfect job for you. It is also a great way to showcase, in a professional way, who you are. This way, when professionals look at your LinkedIn profile, they can make certain judgments, so it is best to keep it professional. On a professional level, you can network with other professionals. There are new sections where you can discover new groups and make new connections. This is a great way to share information and new ideas. I really hope you check this out if you have not already. I have put the link for their website to make it easier for you.   https://www.linkedin.com/

Hi everyone! Today I get to talk about my up and coming new favorite topic: Educational Technology. With technological advances like the internet, the possibilities are really endless. I don't know about you guys, but when something interests me, I love to learn more about it, like where it comes from for instance and how much it has grown. I was looking through videos and came across one in that really stuck out to me. It is amazing how much has changed over the past 100 years. It seems that the more time goes by, the quicker technology is advancing. This video is a depiction of just that. I hope you enjoy and please let me know what you think.

Hello everyone. I hope that all of you are enjoying this nice Spring weather that we have been having here in Idaho. I don't know about you, but I love it when the sun shines. This week I have been learning about infographics. Infographics is a creative way to portray information for flyers, presentations, and other things. One of my instructors introduced me to a website called Piktochart. This website has many free templates and tools that you can use. You can go to the following link to check it out:   https://piktochart.com/  I work at a college here in Idaho Falls in the recruitment department. We are always looking for new, creative ways to portray information about our campus to our students and potential students. I showed my supervisor Piktochart today and she was thrilled. We have already started brainstorming ideas for using Piktochart, and I have starting making a few flyers to put up around campus. I am not including the flyers that I started for work because they are not finished. I did play around with Piktochart yesterday, and I will post it shortly. On top of the free version of Piktochart, there is also a version that you can pay for. With the paid version, there are 3 different prices that you can choose from. If you choose to stick with the free version, then you cannot download pictures as a PDF. You can only download them as a PNG. I would definitely suggest looking into Piktochart and trying it for yourself.

Screencast-O-Matic

Hello everyone, this week I have been playing around with some free software called Screencast-O-Matic. It allows you to record video on your computer while you narrate. I find it to be fun. This is also a useful tool to use for explaining how to do things. I have recorded a small video talking about editing images with Word. I will post the video below. I welcome any and all feedback. Please let know what you think.

Podcasts

Hello everyone, for my Instructional Technologies class this week we listened to podcasts. I don't know about you, but I have heard the term before, but never knew exactly what they are. Turns out there are podcast for almost any topic I could think of. I googled podcast for educational technologies, and I was surprised at how many results popped up. The main podcasts that I decided to focus on was titled "#Ed. Tech Chat". I will embed the link:                    https://player.fm/series/edtech-chat-radio/a-quick-look-at-how-digital-learning-has-evolved

If you have the time, there are numerous resources in these podcasts. There was one that stood out to me titled " A Quick Look at How Digital Learning Has Evolved". They talk a lot about the excitement of learning. He also talks about how pedagogy and digital learning go extremely well together.

There is one more that I would like to add, which is about andragogy. He explains what andragogy is in a way that I have not heard before. He makes it easier to understand the term, and talks about the principles and myths of this topic.
https://barry.instructure.com/courses/1574438/modules/items/16473154
This goes along with what we learned in Instructional Tech a couple of weeks ago.