Careful What You Post

Social Media Etiquette

This week I did a presentation on Karen Fitzgibbons. She was a Texas Elementary School Teacher who posted racist remarks on Facebook. Her exact quote was: ““This officer should not have to resign. I’m going to just go ahead and say it...the blacks are the ones causing the problems and this ‘racial tension.’ I guess that’s what happens when you flunk out of school and have no education. I’m sure their parents are just as guilty for not knowing what their kids were doing; or knew it and didn’t care. I’m almost to the point of wanting them all segregated on one side of town so they can hurt each other and leave the innocent people alone. Maybe the 50s and 60s were really on to something.” This quote was made right after the controversial McKinney pool party incident in June 2015 where a cop was aggressively holding down young, black children and waving his firearm about. This caused for her immediate dismissal and a request for an apology. I find stories like this very hard to read about as an education major. It is hard to imagine that a person who has dedicated their whole life to teach everyone is so racially biased.

               Chapter 5- The Connected Educator

Chapter 5 of "The Connected Educator" is about connecting through social bookmarking, networking, and blogging. Tags are used to create keywords to describe the information you are trying to organize and make easier to find at a later date. These chapters describe popular bookmarking websites like Delicious and Diigo. Blogs use tags so that way people searching for keywords can easily navigate through large amounts of text. Blogs are used with a variety of social networking to help connect with other professionals. Connecting with other professionals can help build your Personal Learning Network or “PLN.” Social networking sites can help build relationships within your professional industry.

3D Printing on Twitter

This week on Twitter I shared a video link about a great new portable 3D printer. “Olo” can print any 3D object from a set of preset creations, or custom creations using 3D creation software. Olo uses the light from the screen to 3D print anywhere. I was researching 3D printing since someone tagged me in a post about 3D printing he thought I would enjoy. This specific printer is merely for entertainment and is not meant to compete with industrial/professional 3D printers. This specific model is only $99.00. The Olo also allows you to create different shapes with different resins and colors. Overall, I found this product to be a potential tool for me in the classroom and a definite purchase in the future.