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Blogs changed me

 I wasn't interested in a social blog with comments prior to this class. I couldn't imagine having the time. My weekly required blogs trained me to manage my time in a way that made blogging possible. My plans are to connect this blog to other social media. I look forward to seeing you out there. Thanks for your support!
Recent posts

Diigo

 I created a presentation about Web 2.0 tagging with Diigo. If you haven't used it I highly recommend it for both academic, business or personal. Lists, bookmarks and Microsoft folders will eventually get in your way when it's time to find content. Try Diigo tags and you'll create flexible digital assets to repurpose.

Blogs on Vacation

 A variation on theme with the last post -- have you ever put your blog on vacation for several weeks cor months? Are followers okay with this? I may need to cut back on a few entries as I transition from one class to another. Any suggestions?

Blogs and Vacation

Taking a vacation while maintaining a blog is a challenge. Time changes, air transport and heavy bags are enough. To add to this I visited family who has lie bandwidth Internet. I used my small, 4-year old Android to create blog entries, final papers for a graduate course, and blog entries. There were snags but the challenge was invaluable. Do you have similar stories to share?

Social Media use worldwide

  This week my graduate school instructor invited us in the Discussion Board to research and post findings about social media use worldwide. We're fortunate as an online program to have classmates from around the world with the majority of our international students residing in Asia. We have students from Europe, and military members stationed worldwide, as well. I love this about our program and it speaks to its reputation. The more I write this blog and will continue to grow it by linking it to my LinkedIn account, the more I will stay connected to my classmates in this program. I think there's a benefit of having these alumni relationships in addition to sharing our career development. Even though I only used LinkedIn as my sole social media account prior to this summer's graduate class in Web 2.0 learning, I'm already planning on being an active LinkedIn user and will share content and articles. I'm otherwise private about sharing on social media.  I visited Bei

Wrike for Project Management

  Wrike.com Wrike is another project management tool designed for collaboration. It offers templates and workflows for many categories of teams such as software developers, creative developers, marketing, etc. I selected the free trial with the Creative Design Team workflow. I selected the KanBan board so that I could compare it with Trello. I created a quick sample of my informal online learning modules for my coaching clients. I have a class of four clients - parents with young kids - who are stressed and arguing about shared chores and how to split parenting tasks. I'm in the very early stages of creating this course so the sample below represents a sliver of what I'll use Wrike for to manage this project. What I appreciate about Wrike, Smartsheet and Trello is the free trial they offer. Additionally, I like that they have free products if you're working solo. This is a distinct possibility for me after I graduate. As much as I'd love to land the perfect Instructiona

Smartsheet: an alternative to Microsoft Project

For years Microsoft Project dominated the market for project management software. It has a steep learning curve and is an expensive per seat cost. I was a technical writer for a small software company that used MS Project for the three project managers and myself. While I enjoyed learning about the science of project management from them in our meetings, I discovered that using the software was not that intuitive. I plugged in the tasks and timelines for several projects only to discover how challenging it was to have to refactor dates. It seemed to mess up the entire project such that I just stopped using it. It was more time consuming setting it up and refactoring it than just inputting status to show our progress. It looks like a better option is SmartSheet which is used by many major companies. You can sign up for a free trial to get familiar with it. The more you can learn about tools to manage instructional design projects, the more likely you are to be considered for the team. T