First Blog Post !! :-)

 Hi everyone and welcome to my blog! As my first post, let me introduce myself so you can get to know me. :)

To start off, let's get to know me on a personal level. My name is Angie and I am currently towards the end of my second year here at Florida State. When I started university, my major was Biological Sciences with a minor in Education, but within the past year, I changed my mind into wanting to solely major in Elementary Education. My entire life I have always dreamed of becoming a teacher and so I have always been on the fence about wanting to be a science teacher or just an elementary teacher. Moving past education info into more personal info about me, my entire family is Puerto Rican and while the majority of my family is from the island, I am not; I have lived in Florida my entire life, born and raised in Tampa, to be specific. I am nineteen years old and my astrology sign is Cancer. I am also a very creative person; I love to paint and sketch drawings in my free time and right now, I'm trying to accumulate the products I need to learn how to crochet. I also really love to play video games in my free time. My top two most favorite games are The Sims and Minecraft; these two games really allow me to express my creativity in different manners as I mostly use them to build houses and other cool builds rather than actually playing the game (lol). 

While I am using Blogger now specifically for this class, EME 2040, I have used technology in an educational setting many times before. I used to think that technology was only a specific number of resources and tools but really, practically my entire life, I have used technology in numerous different ways. In College alone, I have used many different resources. My first semester here at FSU, Summer-C 2019, I also used Blogger for ENC 2135. We utilized this to post responses to particular prompts and replied to our peers with our own feedback. Generally, the most common form of utilizing technology throughout my university experience thus far has been using discussion boards on Canvas. Almost every single semester so far I have had to do discussion boards in at least one class to connect with my peers and answer specific questions. In high school, while I used discussion boards on Canvas frequently throughout my Junior and Senior years in my English classes, another form of educational technology that was used during my high school years was Twitter. My AP United States History teacher used Twitter often to keep in touch with his students outside of the classroom and give updates on assignments or lectures, or just send out reminders about homework, quizzes, or tests coming up. Prior to my Junior year of high school, technology was not used all that much but from that point on to today, I have noticed that each of my teachers and professors has been making an effort to incorporate technology into our learning curriculum, given our rapidly developing digital era.

With this present digital era, having access to the vast internet has given me the opportunity to learn new things whenever I want, no matter how big or small the subject matter is. Sometimes, I even fall into a rabbit hole of endless learning if something grabs my immediate interest and then it becomes my new obsession. I have come to realize that even with social media, you can learn a great deal of new information, thus becoming your Personal Learning Network! Twitter, originally intended to be used to just tweet about your thoughts or what's going on in your life, has brought attention to and taught me about many different subjects, such as learning more about social injustices, new political occurrences, and even helpful things to know to improve my life as a new adult. Twitter has proven to be incredibly useful to learn about many topics that the media may not be covering that still need immediate attention to and to just simply catch up on what's popular. Another resource that I have loved learning through is TikTok. When TikTok first gained popularity back in 2019, it was mostly used for memes, jokes, and fun trends and challenges. Now, many of the TikToks on my For You Page provide a minute-long learning experience. It's even something as simple as a recipe or even some tips and tricks to pass a certain level in a game or some hidden secret you didn't even know about the game. Since this app is incredibly popular among other people in my generation, Gen Z, we have also been utilizing TikTok to spread awareness about pressing issues in current events, similar to how Twitter is often used. Overall, these two apps are great for entertainment purposes but also prove to be great in duality by providing an educational experience as well. As my two main Personal Learning Networks, I can get further education, whether school-related or life-related, while also having fun!

I hope you enjoyed learning more about me and I hope you enjoy reading my future blogs! :D