Anthony's Digital Portfolio Blog

     In addition to the importance of building a PLN, the chapters' emphasis on designing a community, and shared leadership has similarities to the collaborative nature of structural engineering projects. Due to the complexity of large scale construction projects, they require the coordination of multiple stakeholders including architects, engineers, contractors, and drafters. Many companies use collaborative BIM environments that are facilitated by organizations such as Autodesk to create shared models and workflow processes. Similar to the concept of a community providing depth, through co-creation, and mutual accountability, I would be able to provide value back to my profession, by contributing to the community through sharing my own drafting efficiencies, assisting others with modeling problems, or mentoring newer team members.     Chapter Six of "The Connected Educator" emphasizes the creation of a personal learning network (PLN), and the creation of a co...

 "Concepts" App Smackdown Summary:      For my App Smackdown project, I chose "Concepts" due to its simplicity, versatility, and functionality. "Concepts" operates similar to many free drawing apps; providing standard tools such as brushes, markers, highlighters, a selector tool, and an eraser. Users may also adjust brush thickness, transparency and color which will allow users to easily personalize their drawings. One of the most effective features I used was the ability to curve and straighten lines. This provides a clean and professional appearance to the user's drawings. In addition to this, "Concepts" uses layers, making the process of organizing drawings much simpler. Using layers, I am able to lock certain elements so they cannot be altered accidentally, hide or isolate specific areas of a drawing, and remove an entire layer if I decide to. One final advantage of "Concepts" is the infinite canvas, which enables users to fit a...

https://youtu.be/7Rti3eHlBS8

      The chapter,  Developing a Connected Learning Model  explores various strategies that our educators implement/can implement to help improve today's learners engagement in the classroom as well as their overall performance, attitude, academic, and social skills. According to the reading, I found that the most prominent way educators achieve this is by creating or getting involved in connected learning communities. These communities allow educators, or really anyone to interact with other people that share similar interests/goals in order to develop or share strategies that people can use to reach that common goal. Some skills that this can build overtime include critical thinking, active learning, problem solving, and collaborative action research.     Within my potential career choice (engineering), developing a connected learning model can be crucial to becoming successful in the field. In the few years I spent working in a firm it became appare...