Maryannes SSSC23 Journey

To understand the benefits of Linkedin I began by reading the article at  https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-linkedin-3486382 and then I signed up for my own account. My account can be found here at  https://www.linkedin.com/in/maryanne-neil-4412b319b/ I enjoy Facebook and Linkedin is explained as Facebook for professionals so I thought I would enjoy it. After easily setting up my account I asked my husband how to get in contact with people that I may work with so he showed me how to search for colleagues and I was surprised to see very little people in my work actually use this social platform. I looked at the 5 people that work or had previously worked at the centre to see what information they had added. All of the staff had actually only added places that they had worked and less than half of them had added a profile picture. I connected with two people at work and read a sample of random other Early Years Practitioners profiles to see what they had added. There reall...

An app is a term for a software application, and it is most often used in reference to a mobile app or a small piece of software that runs on a website. Having apps to support your practice are great but when using these tools they are only as good as the user. From the list I was to choose from I picked  https://www.talkingmats.com/product/talking-mats-taster/ . The only other relevant one to my practice was the  Medication Administration– SafeMed but when clicking on the URL the app was not there for me to look at. We use a range of devices and strategies to help the children communicate so this is an ideal choice for me to explore.  I have previously been giving a little training on talking mats where I work and the training was interesting and was easy to understand and follow instructions from. It was delivered in- house by our speech and language staff member who had undergone the training online. I have not used it for a while so I used this app for ...

To complete Thing 11 on using Twitter I chose to work my way through the Intermediate level as I have been accessing this platform using my personal account for a few years. I have had a twitter account for many years although I don't access it on a regular basis. I follow actors, music and local events on it. I didn't use it for any work related matters. I was however aware that it can be used for this and I knew that lots of schools and establishments have accounts to promote what they are about.  My workplace have their own account that can be found here : https://twitter.com/Craighalbert this is a relatively new account and it is being used to promote the fundraising for the centre and to let others see what happens within the centre. So as I have previously said I didn't use it for any work related matters however since exploring the features that twitter offer such as creating a list (something I didn't know about till starting this badge)I have explore...

I am aware of podcasts and how to access them from various sources such as on a mobile phone or computer. My favourite podcast is The DIS Unplugged podcast which is a weekly roundtable discussion that discuss all aspects of planning a Disney holiday. After music this is my second hobby visiting Disney all over the world. This site is very informative with crowd capacity, new ride openings and you actually feel like you are having a family discussion when you listen to them.  Now moving on to Podcasts that actually help me with my role as an Early Years Practitioner. As I have said in previous blogs one of the conditions that many of the children and young people that I work with have is Cerebral Palsy so one of the podcasts that I felt was very interesting was  https://soundcloud.com/bmjpodcasts/how-to-manage-cerebral-palsy Why I thought this was interesting was that although I have worked with these children and young people for 6 years I mentor students wh...

  What is the cloud ? Well the cloud is  a network of remote servers hosted on the Internet and used to store, manage, and process data in place of local servers or personal computers. To start understanding how to store and access data in the cloud I accessed and read the article at  https://mashable.com/2013/08/26/what-is-the-cloud/?europe=true.   I would have said that I don't use the cloud but after reading this article I realised that as I use Instagram that I am uploading pictures to the cloud just about everyday. At home I have used drop box to share files with my family and music with friends. It is a quick and easy way to share files. I accessed my phones Google drive which I previously had switched off .I put the settings to on and my plan offers 15 GB of storage. I uploaded 2 songs and an image to it which was really quick and easy to do.I then accessed this from a home computer and it was relatively easy to do. I don't mind my pi...

In the last two weeks I have completed the badges 5:Social Media #1 and 6:Digital Security and whilst completing these badges I had previously spent some time reviewing my Facebook settings. Most of my profile is locked down so that only friends can see what I post. The only thing that anyone can see when they log onto my page are my profile and cover photo. Each time when I renew a new cover or profile picture I always go into settings and then mark the previous picture as friends only. This way I can control exactly who sees my pictures and when. My blogs on these two badges can be found here: https://sssc23challenge.blogspot.com/2019/11/5social-media-1.html https://sssc23challenge.blogspot.com/2019/11/6digital-security.html As instructed I  downloaded the sample page for Sarah Smith at  http://23digital.sssc.uk.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Sarah-Smith-Social-Media-Profile.pdf and lets just say I am glad this person is fictional if she was working in so...

To cover all the criteria to achieve the SSSC 7:Finding resources badge I had to explore the online digital library provided for the social service workforce in Scotland by NHS Education for Scotland at http://www.ssks.org.uk/ . To gain full access to the site I had to register for my own account at https://www.athensregistration.scot.nhs.uk/ . I filled in all my details to open my  account on the 19th of November and the next day I was sent a verification code. However this code didn't work and I had to send an email to receive another verification code this time it worked and I got logged in easily. By the 21st of November I had full access. On this day I used SSKS to search for appropriate articles on cerebral palsy in children. SSKS library function allowed me to alter my search between eBooks and ejournals which made finding resources easier. I also used google to search for some articles, however on using this I found there were too many results. So I then used goo...