Major Project – Introduction

This post is coming a little later than I planned. Report cards (am I right?)… Anyways, as soon as I saw the options for our major project, I was immediately drawn towards option 2 : a personal journey into media. I very much enjoyed the social media based major project from my ECI831 class. It was work that didn’t feel like work. I think that this project option is a great way to continue that feeling, but to branch out to learn and experience even more!

Now, I am definitely not someone who struggles a lot with using social media and other educational media applications. Having grown up during the Rise of Web 2.0, many of these applications made their appearance during my late elementary-university times. I have used, and continue to use, many social media platforms as I find them to be an invaluable way to connect with others. I have been brainstorming all week how I could approach this project in a way that is showing that I am still gaining new knowledge, even though I am a already a little more “in tune” to the internet’s ways than others may be.

Project Proposal Outline

For my major project, I would like to dive deeper into two personal social media applications that I do use, however not to the full extent possible. I would also like to explore 1-2 education platforms (time permitting) with my students.

Instagram
I have used Instagram since it first came out. I was in highschool when the platform was release. I still recall the days of there being like 8 filter options with no way to change individual settings (brightness etc.) and the “likes” that use to show up on every picture. I used Instagram a lot when I was younger for following people and seeing their posts, but I didn’t post too frequently myself. Once I hit university, I made my Instagram account private since I was going into education and I figured that not everyone needed to see my personal life.

Now a days, my Instagram usage is usually a scroll through the same people’s posts once every few days. I don’t really use it that much compared to when I was young. Perhaps it is because I never updated my following in order to “grow” with the application, but it seems fairly useless to me now besides sharing the odd photo.

For this project, I think I will make a second Instagram account that will be public. I am interested to see the differences in how the platform can be interacted with depending the private vs. public settings. Now, I still don’t want my face everywhere etc. so I think I will make an account for my super cute dog Loki. The internet seems to love corgis so perhaps it is his time to try and become “instafamous“.

Am I biased? I think this cutie has a strong chance of becoming instafamous.

TikTok
Like many people, I signed up for TikTok during lockdown 2020. Since then, I spend probably about an hour (or more tbh) scrolling through TikTok daily. IT IS AN OBSESSION OK. With that being said, I have never posted content to the app for others to see. At the end of 2021, I did make one of those “year in review” type videos and I used TikTok just to add the sound to it, but then I posted the video on Facebeook. So, I guess I *technically* have one video posted on a private account.

TikTok is such an interesting app to me as there is a wide variety of content and the algorithm is insane. I need to figure out more how that works. I am going to try and open my account up to be public and see how that goes. Will I become TikTok famous? How many people will follow me? Will I make money ? (Jk probably not- I don’t think Canadians can make money from this? That’s what I’ve heard at least… something else to look into).

A fellow teacher that I follow on Twitter (@steve_boots) recently made a TikTok account and already has over 1000 followers. We shall see if it will go the same way for me. I am planning on making videos of baking (possibly cooking as well?). Just today, I filmed myself assembling my own birthday cake. Now I need to figure out how to edit multiple clips together, speed them up, and literally everything else that goes with posting a video on TikTok.

This was the cake I filmed the assembly of today. I’d say it’s probably one the prettiest ones I have done.

FlipGrid and/or Blooket
Educational applications that I am debating trying out are FlipGrid and Blooklet. I have little to no experience with either of these. I have heard people talk about FlipGrid for years, especially people in the Catholic system. I honestly know nothing about it aside from it has something to do with videos (I think?). Alec introduced our ECI831 class to Blooket which seems like a cooler version of Kahoot. I have not had the chance to try it out with my own class yet for reasons I will not get into, but it is something that has definitely peeked my interest.

January-March is a very busy time in my classroom every year as we are completely slammed for time with our novel study for ELA and writing concours for FLA. This doesn’t leave a ton of time for other things, unless they are integrated into Math, Science, or Social Studies. I am hoping to find the time to explore one of these, if not both. I am going to have to do a deep dive in before I can really decide what we will do with them. My first thoughts are perhaps some review type things with Blooket and something for the final project of our novel study with FlipGrid.

Now that I have blabbed on and on about my major project plans, I have some questions for you guys. Feel free to answer all of them, one of them, or none of them:

1. Should I stick to just baking videos on TikTok? Or should I also try and throw in some cooking ones?
2. If you have made videos on TikTok before – help. How do I do it? Any tips?
3. Any suggestions for video editing software that may be useful to use first and then possibly upload to TikTok after?
4. Have you used FlipGrid before? If so, How did you use it?
5. Is Blooket actually better than Kahoot?