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Thoughts on Digital Tools and Collaborative Design (W10)

This week, I took the opportunity to revisit some social media tools I didn’t get a chance to fully explore earlier in the semester. As has become a bit of a theme for me the past few weeks, I followed my curiosity, and it led me to three different tools: Diigo, Cluster, and Sutori. First up was Diigo , and I was pleasantly surprised. Because it’s a browser-based tool and not tied to a stand-alone app, the links people share function seamlessly. There’s also something charmingly “old-school” about the layout. It reminded me of early forum threads, in the best way. I could see it being useful in academic spaces where the focus is on deep discussion and resource sharing. Next was Cluster , which immediately gave off Instagram vibes with its visual-first photo feed. But Cluster feels more purposeful, especially in educational contexts. The gallery function stood out to me the most. I could totally see this working well in something like a class scavenger hunt, where students document fin...
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How Youth Engage Digitally (W10)

I thought the article "Can Media Literacy Education Increase Digital Engagement in Politics?" by Kahne and Bowyer was a good read, especially in light of everything we've been learning in class. One of the biggest takeaways for me is how far digital media literacy has evolved. It’s no longer just about identifying fake news or understanding how algorithms work. Now, media literacy also includes equipping young people to navigate online platforms as creators, collaborators, and responsible consumers. The authors focus on two forms of online political engagement: Online Participatory Politics (OPP) and Targeted Political Pressure (TPP) . OPP refers to actions like creating and sharing political content, posting opinions on social media, or joining online conversations around public issues. TPP goes a step further. It's when youth directly try to influence institutions online, such as signing petitions, tweeting at corporations, or messaging government officials. Both ...
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Reflecting on Collaborative Learning (Williams, 2017) (W10)

Following my curiosity, I read the article "Assessing collaborative learning: big data, analytics, and university features." It was a tough read for me, specifically the epistemic issues section. In the end, though, I think I was able to make sense of it all. At its core, Williams grapples with a key point: higher education has historically assessed individual performance through "tidy," controlled exercises, but the needs of the 21st-century workplace are anything but tidy. Employers increasingly seek graduates with soft skills, not just discipline-specific knowledge. So then, should universities change their focus? The challenge is this: how do you assess learning in messy, authentic, collaborative spaces? The answer Williams expands upon is big data and learning analytics. He sees promise in social learning analytics, tools that can track and interpret students’ group interactions, contributions, and development over time. This opens the door to formative, ongoin...
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Online Class Discussion Design and Instructor Facilitation (W9)

For my last blog post of the week, I once again followed my curiosity and selected to read the article, "The influences of an experienced instructor's discussion design and facilitation on an online learning community development: A social network analysis study." It was an interesting read, but left me somewhat unsatisfied. The authors did an excellent job explaining Social Network Analysis (SNA), the method they used in the study. Their rationale for using it to explore how an online instructor shapes the development of a learning community made a lot of sense. I appreciated the emphasis on using SNA as a process-oriented tool rather than just a summative one, and their effort to capture interaction patterns across different time frames and discussion types. Where I felt let down, though, was in the actual unpacking of "instructor strategies ." The article gives a detailed breakdown of the types of discussion groups the instructor created: “base groups” based ...
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Thoughts on Slack (W9)

I followed my curiosity a bit further this week and decided to finally try out Slack . It’s a platform I’ve heard about for years, especially as an alternative to Microsoft Teams, and I know it’s widely used in the corporate world. Until now, though, I hadn’t spent any real time with it. From the little I’ve poked around, I’m impressed. Slack feels like a blend of platforms I already know, especially  Discord,  but with a more polished, professional twist. The interface is sleek and intuitive, and it feels more user-friendly than Teams, at least from my first impressions. What stood out most is the way Slack organizes communication . Channels, threads, reactions, and integrations all seem designed with collaboration and workflow in mind. There's also more tools you can use like templates, automations, canvases, lists, etc. It feels less like an email replacement (which Teams can sometimes try to be) and more like a space built for real-time, focused conversations. I can see w...
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Return to Blogs and Miro! (W9)

Hi all! How was your detox week? Mine was very successful - I went on vacation for the 4th of July to the beach! While I didn't fully detox from technology, I was able to separate myself from my phone for periods of time. More importantly, I was able to feel comfortable with muting notifications from Outlook and Teams, the two apps that connect me the most to work. That small act helped me feel more present during the break. Coming back this past Wednesday, I felt a bit of resistance toward jumping back into things, especially writing this first post. It brought up some anxiety, honestly. But here I am, easing back in. It’s funny how long ago my last blog post feels now (only two weeks ago). This week, I followed my curiosity and explored Miro. I had actually stumbled upon it back in April while looking for a new way to organize my thoughts at work. I even used it to walk myself through the ADDIE model while redesigning a work process. Although that project got pushed aside, I retu...
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Reflections on Week 7

This week, I took a different approach to participating in our class. Rather than reading all the assigned articles, I focused on exploring the tools highlighted for the week and familiarizing myself with how they work. In doing so, I ended up reading a similar article to the one by Dennen and He (2024) that was assigned last week. This article, by Dennen et al. (2023), focuses on college students’ digital competencies and how their everyday social media habits translate (or don't translate) to academic and professional settings. This context helped frame my experiences trying out Discord and Parlay , two tools that offer very different ways of encouraging participation. Discord, which I’ve used for years in gaming contexts, revealed a lot when used in more educational or community-centered ways. As part of my observation assignment, I joined the Discord servers for two esports teams: Fnatic and G2. In Fnatic, I was active; in G2, I mostly observed. The difference was stark. Fna...
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