Kevin Morrissey

                                                                          Chapter 7                                           Two of the main things I wanted that caught my attention and wanted to talk about in Chapter 7 were the ideas and models of appreciative inquiry and action research. I find these both to be very useful when trying to build a connected learning community and helping you sustain a good community for a long amount of time. First, I'll talk about appreciative inquiry. As we read in the chapter, appreciative inquiry is a great model for success i...

Chapter 4           Chapter 4 was a very resourceful one in my opinion. It talks a lot about how building online relationships matter. While we do this, we must build trust with the people we decide to connect with on these platforms and continue to evolve our relationships with them. We need to be transparent learners and control our actions while we're online as well. The section I wanted to discuss with all of you today is the "Creating A Shared Vision" section on page 65 of our textbooks. "The practice of shared vision involves the skills of unearthing shared 'pictures of the future' that foster genuine commitment and enrollment rather than compliance" (65). A shared vision in your learning communities is extremely important for those who hope to achieve similar goals in similar fields of study. For me, I want to have a shared vision with a group of people who reports or writes about professional sports. These visions help us find hope to move forwar...

Chapter 5 Blog     In Chapter 5, we learned about a variety of tools that can be used to help support our connected learning as we move forward. While I found the chapter very interesting and useful, the section I wanted to touch face on with the class today is the "Tools For Social Networking" section of the chapter. I think they did a great job listing options for social networking, however I think they could've added a few more. Social networking is all about connecting and interacting with other users online, over many different phone and computer applications. The chapter mentions a website called Ning.com. I had never heard of it before, but it sounds extremely helpful to those looking for specific social networks especially. "Ning is a powerful tool that allows anyone to create a specialized online social network..." (86). I think this is very helpful, but some of the more popular apps with more users on them could be even better in my opinion.      As so...

Chapter 6 Blog   For my blog this week, I am going to talk about Twitter and how developing personal networks as someone who wants to be a sports journalist/reporter on Twitter can be extremely beneficial. The entire world of sports is on Twitter. Soccer, hockey, football, baseball, basketball, there's fans and reporters of all these sports on Twitter. The way I've seen the communities across all of these sports connect over the app has been awesome to watch. In Chapter 6, it's all about building a connected learning communities and online personal networks. As I said before, I think Twitter is great for that when it comes to what I want to do. "Growing and nurturing a network means engaging in conversations in safe, ethical ways. Through ongoing and reciprocal sharing, you develop relationships, and the possibilities for learning expand." (94-95). This statement from the text perfectly summarizes the chapter in my opinion. The more you grow a network safely, the ...

 TECH BLOG #1     In my first technology blog, I am going to be talking about the best practices of technology for professionals in multiple different fields. One of my favorite things that I read in Chapter 2 is the "Communities of Practice" section. In this section they talk about how working as a community, not on your own, is one of the most powerful ways of getting stuff done. They state "None of us is as good as all of us" which is a very good quote. It tells you the meaning behind teamwork and how powerful one group can be if they all work together. It's arguably the best mentality to have when working with people you share the same interests with. Communities of Practice can be used in multiple different fields, whether it's a group of people running a website together, or a bunch of office workers looking to work towards the same goal, and there's almost endless examples of it when it comes to working in communities.     Another point I really t...