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Good/Bad Website Smackdown

Good -   https://www.indeed.com Bad -  https://southjersey.craigslist.org The two websites I chose for my good vs bad website smackdown are Indeed.com and Craigslist.org. I chose Indeed.com as my good website because it is easy to navigate, has a clear purpose, and is safe. Indeed.com is a great way to find a job. It has thousands of job opportunities and most are easily to apply. As someone with little knowledge in technology, it can be easy to navigate and find job opportunities. Indeed also provides a review and rating aspect that a lot of other job websites do not include. You can read and leave reviews for different companies based on employment. This can help determining if a job is good for you. Indeed also includes resources for those looking for employment. They have resume tips, interview advice, and career development articles.  The bad website I chose was Craigslist.org. I chose this as an example of a bad website mainly because of its format. As soon as I open the website
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Psychology Today

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Psychology Today is an online website and magazine that can be used to find therapists, read articles, and learn about mental health. This website is great for those looking for help with their mental health. There are endless articles and information by experts that help explain mental illnesses and how to manage them.  The website is divided into parts. There is a section for finding a doctor. This can mean a therapist, a treatment center, a psychiatrist, a support group, and teletherapy. Psychology Today unfortunately does not cover New Jersey yet, but they are covering big cities such as New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington DC, San Diego, and San Francisco.  The next section is the learning section of the website. Under the "Get Help" tab there are subsections to help you find what you need. They have sections under mental health where you can click and explore about that disorder. They break down the disorder by explaining what it is, symptoms, causes, treatme
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Web Tool 2.0 - Calm App

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      The Calm app is an app used for sleep and meditation. It is promoted as a way to achieve a happier and healthier lifestyle through meditation. The app has sleep stories, music, and meditation that help calm your brain.      This app is huge on promoting positive mental health. What else can a social worker ask for? This app can be used for social workers themselves to help prevent a burnout. Stress comes with the career of social work. But it doesn't have to be so bad if we have proper tools to help us deal with it. The Calm app is one of the best tools to help deal with stress. Being able to turn off our minds and just breathe is so important and this app helps us do just that. Not only is this app great for social workers, it is great to be able to recommend to our clients. Everybody can use a helpful tool to help us relax and the Calm app is it.  https://youtu.be/nbW2LNU7nH8
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Chapter 7 - Sustaining the Momentum

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     In appreciative inquiry, participants work from a "what if?" perspective, or a strengths perspective. The authors state, "In this approach, inquiry is appreciative, applicable, provocative, and collaborative," (Nussbaum-Beach & Hall 2012). The authors give us a list of assumptions and principles that based on appreciative inquiry. The assumptions are in every group or community, something is working, what people focus on becomes their reality, asking good, generative questions influences people, groups and communities are more comfortable with change when some things that work don't change, language creates reality, and recognizing differences is of value. The principles of appreciative inquiry are what we concentrate on develops into our reality, appreciative inquiry is positive and supportive, change and inquiry are simultaneous, embracing the power of stories changes members' thoughts, and how we behave and think is affected by how we anticipate
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Chapter 4 - Building a Collaborative Culture

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                         In chapter 5 of  The Connected Educator,  Nussbaum-Beach and Hall teach us how to build our collaborative culture and lifestyle. They highlight ideas such as putting relationships first, establishing trust, fostering collegiality, creating shared visions, collaboration, and putting other's needs at the forefront. The authors emphasize the fostering, nurturing, and maintaining of positive relationships in our lives. We need to be able to connect with others to learn and grow. You need to be able to put your trust in others in order to build connections. As stated on page 60, "Trust is formed when people do what they say they will do. It is no different in connected online communities," (Hall & Nussbaum-Beach, 2012). Online communities do not vary much from real-life connections. In order to build connection you need to be able to trust one another. Collegiality can be difficult to achieve but communication is key. Being able to communicate open
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Chapter 5 - Using Tools to Support Connected Learning

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     In chapter 5 of The Connected Educator, Nussbaum-Beach and Hall discuss what tools and how we can use tools to support connected learning. The first tool they introduce is for documenting and archiving learning by social bookmarking or tagging. This is known as a way to organize internet content using keywords or tags. The authors list Delicious and Diggo  as websites that are created specifically just for social bookmarking and keeping your tags organized. The next tools they discuss is for connecting and collaborating. The first tool they introduce is blogs. Blogs are a great way of connecting with others. As stated by the authors, Nussbaum-Beach and Hall, on page 77, "Blogs are great sources of ideas, information, and experiences about learning, leading, and teaching". The authors point out some great blogging platforms that are used worldwide such as Blogger, WordPress, Tumbler. They even point out Edublogs as a blogging platform that is great for educators and stud
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Chapter 6 - Building Your Connected Learning Community

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     In the book The Connected Educator, the authors, Nussbaum-Beach and Hall, write chapter 6 about building your connected learning community. They discuss the positives of personal learning networks and tips/advice on how to build your own. They tell readers to watch who they allow to follow them and who they follow themselves, they warn readers not to allow just anybody to follow them on social media as this is a direct reflection on themselves. The authors highlight the idea of being well informed on social media and following reliable and diverse sources along. They also discuss the idea of getting a mentor or taking ideas from others. The authors also remind readers of the three different levels of personal learning networks, "As a reminder, connected learning communities are a three-pronged approach to effective professional development using the local, contextual, and global environments" (Nussbaum-Beach & Hall, 2012).                                       When i
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