An EMErging Blogger

Have you ever wanted to survey a group of people and just ended up asking for "a show of hands?" How effective was it? Did you count them all and then write down the numbers? What about if you ask a question to the group. Do you go down the rows, writing down each person's response? You might do the first, but it's probably unlikely that you'd do the second. But what happens when you really need that data? Do you send out a survey and hope to get responses? This is exactly why I love to use PollEverywhere . You can poll a group in real time quickly and easily....and anonymously. This means nobody has to feel embarrassed about their answer or worried that the others will judge them. All you need is an internet connection, which means it can be done on a computer or mobile device. Instructors create the questions beforehand and then share the unique code with the group. The group goes in and submits their answers and a few seconds later they pop up on the instruct

We've talked about context collapse before in EME6414, but after reading this week's articles, I thought I'd share my own thoughts about using Facebook for class. Dr. Dennen's article " Identity, context collapse, and Facebook use in higher education: Putting presence and privacy at odds " included some results that surprised me. I did not expect so many students to be comfortable with using Facebook for school purposes. We are not using Facebook in EME6414 and I appreciate that, because I know how tempting it can be to "Facebook stalk" classmates, professors, and professional colleagues. I have no problem becoming Facebook friends with classmates that I actually do become friends with, and even have a couple former professors on mine, but not until after I had taken their courses and/or graduated. A lot of respondents on the survey said that they have used Facebook to vent about courses, post about procrastination, and share what they're c

Have you ever received an email that went to hundreds of people and suddenly people are replying all over the place and it just.... won't.....stop???? That happened to me today. In fact, it may have happened to you too! It appears I am part of some giant listserv for the FSU career center. Someone emailed the listserv asking for resume help, and suddenly there were 72 emails in my inbox within 10 minutes.  Holy Cow Sure enough, about half of them were "Stop hitting reply all!" A couple people didn't realize it was a listserv and were genuinely trying to be helpful, and the rest..... they just had fun with it. Suddenly people were joking about dropping a new hit album, sharing their Instagram, talking about hitting up the Tallahassee clubs, and making plans for breakfast.  And then.... someone decided to "take it offline" and create a GroupMe. I've actually never heard of this before... is this what all the cool kids are using these day

This week I have been back in the Blogesphere after a break last week while traveling (thanks to Token #1!).  You may have gathered from my 2nd post this week that last week was absolutely crazy. This week was a LOT better in terms of classes, but the wedding planning was kicked up a notch. We have been speaking with 5 different vendors this week trying to make decisions and sign contracts. Now I know why everyone says "I wish I hired a wedding planner." Maybe we should have.... In my very first blog post I wrote about my concern for finding interesting topics to write about and how I was worried that I wouldn't be entertaining. This week I've realized that I don't care so much about that anymore- hah! I'm not having too much trouble coming up with topics anymore, and it's no big deal when nobody reads or comments. After all, this is a learning experience for me, and my posts will only improve with practice!  I've had fun playing with the week 5 t

Since I've been on the topic of West Coast Swing this week, I thought I'd share the popular points-tracking app that we use in the community. It's called SwingPoints , and it lets you keep an eye on your points and your friends' points. Let me share a quick rundown of how the points system in West Coast Swing works.        Points are only awarded through the Jack & Jill division. In this division, each dancer registers separately. I have now moved up to Advanced, so I would register myself in the Advanced Jack & Jill division. The leaders and followers are lined up on the floor for the preliminary round and a random number generator (or a dice) determines how many dancers to rotate. The person you stop in front of is your partner for that song. The music begins (it's random) and you dance for approximately 1 minute and 30 seconds with this random partner. Then, you rotate a 2nd time, dance, and rotate a 3rd time. The judges are judging each dancer indi

I'm sure many of you in EME6414 have traveled while completing your online studies. Usually it's not too difficult to find some time here and there to log in and complete coursework..... when you're still in your home country. The moment you travel into another country where cell service isn't an option and your days are packed with family gatherings and appointments.... well, things get a million times more complex. That's what happened to me last week in Canada. You may have noticed my absence from blogging last week. Yup. That happened. My internet access was inconsistent, and when I did manage to snag it for a bit, it wasn't long enough to accomplish any real work. We had to meet family, drive from Oakville to Scarborough, and then to Mississauga and back to Toronto. Seriously, if I had a constant internet connection during all of the hours we spent in traffic, I'd have been able to get all of my homework done for all three classes.... twice ! And