Ravi's Reflections!

 Hello!  If you are new here, welcome! If you are returning, welcome back! My name is Ravi and I am SO excited to introduce you to my newly updated Profile as part of the Blog Makeover Challenge.  This was what my old blog looked like: While I standby the theme, this challenge gave me an opportunity to spruce it up a bit. My first change, of three, was adding a bio. I also noticed you could add interests so I added in a few of my interests as my second change! The last change I knew I needed to make was a brand new background, so I went through several different themes before finalizing this beautiful water theme! I think I will leave this as is for a few weeks and then change it!

  Ok everyone has to have heard this before, stay away from the comments! It is said to celebrities all the time, essentially becoming a tool of the trade. Comments are consistently filled with folks’ opinions and sometimes they can be extremely rude or vile and offensive. This summer, I found myself applying this “stay away from the comments” adage in my own utilization of social media. I found that as Pride celebrations continue around the world, comments varied in the celebration of them. While several folks expressed the incredible joy and happiness that comes with such a celebration, several more expressed hate and vulgarity towards to celebrated communities. Discouraged, I made a conscious decision to take a step back from looking at comments. I find it easier this way to celebrate and express my own thoughts without the negative and toxic thoughts of folks in comment sections.  Comment sections are akin to cyberbullying at times, but are not often a space that is monito...

Time is a really interesting experience in that with it comes influence and education by everyone around you. When social media first took off, there was such an intense emphasis on our utilization of it. A mixture of capitalism and consumerism drove (and drives) companies to encourage people to buy their digital products and the associated technologies needed to utilize them. While this remains true to this day, well past the early days of smartphone sales, there has been a considerable shift in the thoughts toward phone consumerism and mental health resulting from research and experience. One such result from this shift is the integration of such tracking measures as “Screen Time” in iPhones that indicate phone usage for the user. While I personally have fallen victim to using my phone far longer than I should have, I really appreciated the challenge of the digital detox.  I have been really intentional this summer with keeping work at work and school at school. This results in...

  This past week, I have been packing my apartment up, and as I continue to do so my Amazon Echo proudly plays “Scamanda”. If you recall from a previous post, Amanda and Her Blog , I was listening to a story about someone pretending to have cancer. Well, the podcast has gotten really really interesting because it is telling me about how much of the case that the Police Department and the investigator have against Amanda is coming from HER VERY OWN BLOG (Webster, 2023). She is literally writing down everything that is happening to her day in and day out.  Amanda’s own words will lead to her downfall and it makes me think about this topic of online appearance and digital footprint.  We all hear about the digital footprint in different capacities, especially when it comes to social media spaces. There’s an adage that says, what is out there will always stay out there , referring to social media. We see that as celebrities are constantly put under the microscope and we see th...

OpenCourseWare should be implemented within educational pedagogies to empower students to reach resources while ensuring these resources are accessible to all learners (Caswell et al., 2008). OCWs sound like a promising way to engage learners in a productive way in the 21st Century. While this remains true, I do not forget the number of times I was in class in elementary, middle, and highschool, and our teachers told us never to use anything form of information unless gathered from a scholarly source. ESPECIALLY NOT WIKIPEDIA. So, what balance exists, or not, in utilizing online sources? Using resources such as Wikipedia is not a bad thing, in my own opinion, as a quick educational opportunity on a topic I may be curious about. For example, if I am trying to understand how lava lamps are invited, I am going to hop onto Wikipedia or Youtube for a quick explanation. However, if I am writing a paper on lava lamps and labor laws, I will likely not be going anywhere near Wikipedia. Why? Bec...

  #SumItUpSunday This week was the only time in my entire life I have logged into Twitter every single day consecutively. I started this class out being anxious about Twitter, not knowing how to navigate it, and not seeing the full purpose of it, but wow this week's engagingly forced me to get involved in my own and other folk’s Twitter posts. It was interesting to participate in this challenge as I was able to connect my life with my online life in a meaningful and intentional way. Truly, isn’t that what the digital social media space is all about? I hope to continue getting more comfortable with Twitter and am excited to grow and expand my network of higher education scholars, friends, and peers! Check out my posts for the Twitter Days of the Week below: #MemeMonday you say? Below is me in this exact moment because I am truly out of coffee today 😭 #eme6414 pic.twitter.com/1Lz0SwJXmc — Ravi Bhatt (@RaviBhatt_) June 12, 2023 Happy Tuesday, #eme6414 ! My favorite online t...

       “Fifty-seven respondents [of 70] said badges could be helpful in the hiring process by allowing employers to see a candidate’s competencies, skills set, or other strengths and qualifications” says Randall and West in their study on badges within the hiring process of teachers (2020, p.75). 57 respondents represent over 80% of the respondents indicating the apparent and important reliance on badges when recruiting certified and reliable teachers. This is certainly representative of the increase in digital recognition of testing and certification. At FSU, PIE training, trainings prior to attending as an undergraduate and graduate student, standardized testing, and other various certifications exist to ensure folks continue to maintain their expected certifications to gain access to the education and accreditation.  It is interesting to see how this reliance on digital certification almost juxtaposes the antiquated trope of, “everyone gets a trophy”, as...

     This morning, I knew I needed to check in on the recent air-quality situation impacting the Northeast United States as my parents live in Maryland. Doing this got me thinking, though, about how I even found out about the air-quality issue. I did not find out from watching ABC 27, which is our local Tallahassee News station as I just learned, or Good Morning America, or a news article; I found out about the air-quality issue from TikTok.  TikTok! The newest and quickest way to acquire quick tips on how to hang your paper towels, watch hilarious videos, and see point- of- views of incidents and lived experience like never before (besides videos on Twitter and Facebook). Of course that is not exactly how TikTok is branded, but it is not far from the truth. Quite frankly, TikTok is a space where I get a lot of initial news, which is usually followed up by a news article or additional source if I am interested. I found out about this incredibly severe air quality i...

Konsti-Laakso speaks about the importance of providing an access point and joint location for safety authorities to conglomerate with residents to bring awareness to concerning activity and potential problems (2017). This article was particularly interesting to me as it was not only a space for interaction between residents and the authorities, it highlighted how the private sector was often consulted to participate as a liaison between government and the citizens (Kontsti - Laakso, 2017). Private citizens, government, and companies all in one space is not an unknown phenomenon, even if in this case it was focused on the ability for safety and crime alleviation. The three together often end up in a whirlwind of chaos as every individual fights for what they believe in. This makes me think of a phenomenal work of art, a historic piece of audible and visible poetry, the feature film, Angry Birds . Regardless of the irreflective and, quite frankly, inappropriate low rating of The Angry Bi...

  “Don’t forget to add me on LinkedIn” is a statement I have said so many times in my life. I have said it at the end of every conference presentation, any professional networking opportunity, and for sure have said it to mentors and supervisors to keep track of where I am in life. LinkedIn was not a phenomenon I was remotely interested in a few years ago. Today, I check LinkedIn almost daily, and definitely pay more attention there than I do Facebook. This is because I feel a responsibility towards it. I hope that sits with you for a second just as it did with me, a responsibility towards a social media site… There was a correlation between the alleviation of fear and rejection and LinkedIn found by Ma and Leung (2019) and I certainly can relate to that when I think about my LinkedIn. It has become a story of mine and a part of my story. It has, truly, opened up opportunities for me to meet people I never thought I would be able to. I feel almost like I owe it appreciation, and do...

In a piece surrounding the usage of @replies and hashtags during a conference, Dennen says, “conference hashtags are active enough to attract several tweets per hour during a conference” (2011, p.81).” I found this incredibly interesting given my own experience with conferences. Before I dive into hashtags and conferences, I will speak briefly about my own experiences with conferences.  As I have mentioned a few times throughout this course, Higher Education has a HUGE conference culture wherein students and professionals all over the United States often are encouraged to attend national conferences. This expectation goes so deep that attending a conference is even put into several graduate student requirements as professional development, as is the case with FSU’s Higher Education program. That being said, I have had the incredible opportunity to attend several conferences across the United States on behalf of FSU. My peers and I constantly have the thoughts of attending, presenti...

 Heyo!  This week, we had the opportunity to engage with peers we had not done so yet through the Social Butterfly Challenge. In accepting this challenge, I started with a response to The Blogger Dude’s post titled “ Reflecting on Week 3 ”. In their post and my response, there was dialogue about Reddit being a knowledge base and online forum that provides information, which led to my curiosity of information gathered from CHAT GPT’s impact on information-based communities. Next, I responded to Johnnie Allen Jr.’s incredible post about the power within a name! He spoke about the connection to his brand from his name and I reflected on the pathway your name takes along with you when you navigate life. His post, “ It’s More Than Just a Name It is My Identity ”, truly engages the reader in a reflection regarding all your name and journey have been through together.  Lastly, I had the opportunity to reflect to “ First Time Poster ” by Megan W., where she talks about being a Lu...