Educational blogs.

I follow educational blogs as I believe they inspire and can help me in my own work, one educational blog I love to follow is SchBlogs.com. SchBlogs is a safe and secure blogging site designed for education, to ensure this security there are specific guidelines for the website, such as no advertisements are allowed on the blogging site, they also do not allow any adult content, the blogger allows you to manage your own privacy although it provides full control over any students blogs. SchBlogs sees benefits of blogging within education as it is becoming ever more popular within education settings, such as the students and teachers are both using it.

I believe this blog is valuable enough to be on my blog as it is very safe and for all users, this could be used instead of social networking sites such as twitter or Facebook. Blogging can also improve the child literacy skills while making new posts, communication skills while commenting on other students blog posts from other community schools as well as improving their computing skills. The only downfall is the price of the blog, although the school will pay for this service, depending the size of the school and how many blogs will be used in this.

January snow!

So, we thought we'd get no snow: Oh how we were wrong! I had to come home Thursday morning because there was a large amount of snow due to arrive during the night, if I didn't come home I would have to stay in Swansea all through my reading week!

The excitement never wears off from snow, that feeling you get when you're a child never disappears: its also perfect weather to help revise in, the snow falling outside and the warmth inside makes me happy!

Although its not the perfect time for snow, it's not Christmas after all but at least we had some! I've watched the children build snow men, have snow ball fights and also been sledging with my family! :)

 

 

The use of Web 2 apps in education

While researching Web 2 apps I come across Wordnik.com: I found through research that wordnik is an online language resource providing an online dictionary and also a thesaurus. The web 2 app has collected billions of words and uses them to display example sentences, much larger and detailed than any other typical dictionary. The interface of the web page is very easy to use, it's very much like google in the way you type the word into the search box and click search- it instantly gives the results you asked for.

Wordnik can be used in an educational context as learners would not only learn how to use the internet while searching for certain things, but they can also learn how to use an online dictionary and learn a new array of words. On the home page there are also other buttons you can chose from such as, ‘Word of the day’ or ‘Random word’ which can help learners learn new words, not only what they were searching for.

 

The good and the bad of twitter..

I believe social networking sites are a good way of keeping in touch with friends and relatives, there are many advantages of using sites such as Facebook or twitter, but there are also disadvantages and the cons of social networking and I intend to weigh the good and bad of a famous networking site of twitter..
Twitter although was introduced years ago is only now growing to popularity, there are no such things as friends only followers and unlike Facebook a status, is called a tweet! Twitter has many pro's, for example:

• The privacy- you can set your personal page to private and only allow people you know to follow you!;
• A tweet is only 140 characters long so there are no long statuses as you would find on Facebook;
• You can follow celebrities and keep up to date with the latest gossip;
• It is easily accessible as an app on android and the iPhone- it is also on any laptop, computer, iPad, etc.;
• You can only direct mail someone if you follow them and they follow you back, otherwise you cannot do so.

The con's of twitter can be:

• Online cyber bullying, many people tweet each other online abuse;
• Many fake profile accounts are made up of celebrities, etc. and cause a lot of trouble on the internet;
• Viruses can be sent during direct messages or tweeting and could harm your hard ware;
• Nude/ Provocative images can be sent through tweets, etc.

Back to Swansea!

So I've just moved back into halls from being home for the past three and a half weeks- I'd forgotten how much more independent I am here! I arrived back on Sunday afternoon and it was so nice to see everyone again after we'd all had a break and been refreshed, it was especially nice to see my best friends Rach, Kyle and Emma and also the rest of K floor. :) This week a group of us girls have also been to the cinema, this was nice because we could catch up on each others Christmases and spend time together like before. Me, Rachel and Kyle also went to Wind Street on Wednesday night and met some friends out, Rachel also met some of the people on her floor and now she has P floor friends! Woo! :)

 

After seeing everyone and spending time with them and also settling back in to my home in Swansea, I realised how much I missed my friends at home and also my home comforts: especially with deadlines creeping up, exam dates and the stress building, it would be nice to be closer to home at times like this but again I'm gaining independence and learning how to deal with being alone and far from home some times! But I guess Home is where the heart is <3

What fear can teach us.

My biggest fear when I was young? The bwki-bo's under my bed and the little devils under the stairs.
My biggest fear as a 19 year old adult? Growing up.
After listening to this inspiring talk; fear can teach us many things, we must overcome the obstacle of fear in order to move on; although a part of it will constantly be there in life. My question is, where does a fear come from? Do other people’s stories and fears influence our own or have they always been present in the back of our mind. I think of my fears and as a child, I was scared of little devils under my stairs running after me when the lights were turned off, this was just imagery in my head and the thought of devils living beneath us. As I’ve grown up a part of me still believes in the devils although I know they were my imagination, but imagine if someone never grew out of a fear and it stayed with them throughout life.
Many translate fear as a weakness; a fear of heights may make someone unable to fly in an aeroplane or to go on a roller coaster. Therefore this fear could be linked to weakness something that can change your life, stop you from doing the things you once dreamed of, such as a sky dive, in our minds we imagine not all the things that could go right- but all the possible failures of a sky dive and this may stop you from doing something.
My advice- find your fear and find a way to conquer it.

Goodbye 2012!

Today is January 1st 2013.. Seriously, where has 2012 gone?!

I think I can remember a moment from each month last year in detail. 2012 brought a lot of happiness and also pain to my life, but it made me into the person I am- I've learnt from the bad and thrived in the good. I've learnt many things, mainly, you learn who you're friends are the hard ways, but they will always be there for you no matter what! Last summer was of the best of my life, our girl holiday to Magaluf, going to Wireless festival, Royal Welsh, just being with all my friends and enjoying life! I then got accepted to university and moved to Swansea in September, this whole experience changed my life- I've met some amazing people, had loads of new experiences and learnt a lot of new things!

 

2012 was one of the best years for me and I'm hoping 2013 will be the same!