Finnberry does Ed-Tech

I was going to talk about discussion forums today, as they are my other chosen technology for this all important EMA. However, when I started studying this morning, I realised that there is something very simple that my studying could not survive without. Fellow students on Facebook groups often ask whether we prefer to read course materials on paper or on the screen and how we take notes. So that's where I'm going with this one. Let's start at the very beginning... (cue for a song). When I search for resources online, I'm really hoping to find PDFs. Fortunately, most articles are available in PDF (Portable Document Format) and can be downloaded and saved as such. So I save it to my One Drive, using an easy to find file name: the author's surname, the year of publication and the first few words of the title. This not only makes it easy to locate, but it gives me a head start when writing my reference list too. I prefer to read on-screen, with SS over...

I'll start with Twitter, as it's one of my two chosen technologies to write about in my End of Module Assignment (EMA). There are many ways that Twitter can be used for learning but I'm going to focus on two that particularly work for me. Professional Development I follow quite a range of other teachers, e-learning specialists, FE organisations, MAODE students, etc. They post, with varying frequency, links to blogs, articles, interesting diagrams and infographics, some of which I find really useful. Of course, I also follow family members, a few friends (though not many) and other things that interest me, such as church stuff, disability stuff and exercise stuff. So, to help me to just see what's relevant, when I want to catch up on Ed-tech, I have a list of 56 people and organisations that I have grouped into a Twitter list . When I find something that is useful, I ' like ' it, so that the original poster knows it's been well-received and, if I think ...

I wouldn't describe myself as an avid blogger but I do like to pour out my thoughts and share them with the entire world from time to time. I started blogging in 2008, just before we moved to Finland. It was a good way of recording an exciting time of our lives but it also provided a reflective tool and I think that's what got me into blogging as a long-term thing. Since then, I've blogged as part of my course work and I still have my main personal blog about wheelchair use and disability. Now, I'm starting this one and it's more about putting myself out there as an e-learning professional, building my network and having the potential to create a portfolio of my work. Reflection is my starting point. Way back in 2015, when I started studying a module called The Networked Practitioner , I had a bit of a think about reflective writing and I came up with this little picture to remind me what it's all about. I have it on the wall just above my monitor and I look a...