Ravi's Reflections!

     This week is moving week! I am so excited to be moving out of my current apartment into my new one this weekend. It has been a lot of preparation but boy is it needed, and I am anticipating this next apartment to be my last one in Tallahassee. Moving is such an interesting time because it allows us to determine what to keep and what to let go of. It reminds me of Marie Kondo’s famous, If it doesn’t bring you joy, let it go. But what about technology? Is technology harder to part ways with for you? I know for me it certainly is. I have grown up with a lot of the technical tools and equipment, like my Wii, and though I barely touch it anymore, I simply refuse to throw it away. There are memories attached to it just as their are memories attached to a painting. Technology holds emotion just as an artifact does for me and I wonder if that is shared among my peers.            Not only have I been reflecting on what technology to pack and...

     In Young and Rossmann's article, Montana State’s social media guidelines promote the daily usage of Twitter to connect to the Montana State community and emphasize the importance of intentional engagement by any library, and institution, to their users through advancing social media usage (2015).  Libraries are an accessible and important part of our society as it provides space for individuals to utilize print and digital technology every day. Breaking the fourth wall, but it is through the FSU Library that I can access the Young & Rossmann article itself! That in and of itself recognizes the vast usage of institutional library systems. Montana State’s integrated use of Twitter to promote its own library, through tweets including one that implores students to tweet at them with questions,  is an incredible way to recognize this resource and ensure its usage (Young & Rossmann, 2015).       Libraries and technology are not mutuall...

“ When I was little, I could never keep my shoes tied, and people loved to make fun of that. But then I got Velcro shoes, and they made fun of that, too. But here's what I learned about failure... It sucks and I don't want my kids to feel it. Time to get them some Velcro shoes. ” - Janine Teagues (Brunson et al., 2021)      Janine Teagues is one of my favorite characters in any television series I have ever seen, and I have seen my fair share of them. People often ask what someone’s “comfort show is” and honestly Abbott Elementary continues to be mine. Through its resilience and kindness, it takes viewers on a journey that makes them feel like they are just as much a part of the school as any of them. So why am I rambling on about Abbott Elementary while quoting Janine in this course? Blogging, engaging with each other, and participating in several different digital locations has made this course feel as comfortable as this show. Digital courses are tough especially if ...

  Ok as many of you know, I enjoy media such as podcasts and tv-shows and the most recent one I have been binging is Brooklyn Nine-Nine. I have seen it many times but it is just fun to rewatch the series at times. I found a scene from a recent episode I watched particularly interesting: https://youtu.be/A2KISBzRj-I “...the decision is political and social media is part of politics now,” says Sergeant Terry Jeffords when speaking about Captain Holt’s run for Commissioner in Brooklyn Nine-Nine (2020). Social media is part of politics, indeed, but it is part of so much more. It is part of an engrained nature of pedagogy to the point that classes, including this brilliant one, are dedicated to understanding this culture of social media. Not only does social media have an impact on students, but, it has an impact on everything around us as so many of our challenges have proven. We can learn from it and in ignoring it we perform a disservice to ourselves. As we prepare for this respite, ...

       Ok I have to admit, BeReal was one of my favorite apps for a bit there. For anyone unfamiliar, BeReal is an app that provides one random time throughout a 24-hour period wherein everyone has to post what they are doing. BeReal’s intentions were to explore the realities of our worlds while encouraging authenticity effectively dismantling a narrated world that social media often perpetuates. While this is a fantastic goal, there were often times when each BeReal of mine just looked the same because I was in class, or work, or at home, and then repeated until the weekend. That repetition totally makes sense in the fact that that is truly my world at that exact moment and was the goal of BeReal, to show everyone just lives. It was such a joy though to include friends and family in my BeReals. I have recently deleted my BeReal and have had some time to reflect.      The idea that I can show authentically what I am doing is exciting but sometimes I fe...

“...interactions through Facebook and Twitter promoted teacher inquiry, and challenged teachers to develop their existing use of an innovation further, and encouraged them to work together and develop shared practices (2014, p.940) says Goodyear et al. in their piece on utilizing social media within the classroom. Not only it is incredibly imperative that educators use their preferred methodology to connect with students, but it is also just as important that educators remain aware and knowledgeable about the other spaces students are frequenting and utilizing within their own education. While this has led to a healthy and necessary educational atmosphere spreading across multiple social spaces, it begs the question of where the boundary is within education.      We know that an instructor is a human just as a student, and will likely have many of the same social media sites as their students. With this, there is incredible power in utilizing those spaces for academic goo...

 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...

One thing I LOVE to do is listen to podcasts. Often when I am traveling, or just to get my day started, I listen to the latest true crime podcast about a scammer or bank robber (I stray away from murdery ones because those scary me). Anyways, one that I started this week is called Scamanda and it speaks of the story of Amanda C. Reilly who is a blogger and was found to be faking cancer (sorry for the spoiler). This podcast is so interesting because it covers not only the ways in which Amanda uses her church to fundraise for her cancer treatment, but also, her utilization of her blog to update her supporters along her journey (Webster, 2023). “How despicable” one might think as they reflect on the lie of cancer as being the pathway into deceiving people out of money. Not only was this despicable, it is also , unfortunately, duplicable.  As we participate in writing our own blogs, we have the opportunity to teach and learn and participate in an incredibly educational process for thi...

  “Digital Natives are used to receiving information really fast”, says Prensky when discussing the phenomenon of the digital native (2001, p.2). This quote stuck out to me as I reflect on being a digital native and this past week. To fill you in, this past week two distinct things happened, I lost my wallet and my laptop’s motherboard crashed. While I found my wallet, after two hours of intense searching, I did not anticipate my laptop shutting off in the middle of an episode of “Rupaul’s Drag Race”. With a deep breath, I made the dreaded phone call to Apple and prepared myself for the “Command, 4” or “Control, Shift, Alt, +” instructions I was bound to receive as they helped me reboot my computer. Unfortunately, this led to no avail, and even further led to me having to take my computer in for repair.  That Wednesday felt challenging, not only because of the pricetag of my laptop’s motherboard, but because I was not able to access what I needed as quickly as I needed to. In ...