new expansions, new heights

i'm welcoming 2012 with open heart & an open mind.
o yea, and open hands, all the better to hoop with.
my hoop journey has become so much more wonderful than i ever dreamed.
my hoops is there in times of need, loneliness, happiness. any emotion can be paralelled with my hoop.
it's fantastic!
can't wait to see where i'm at for my 2 year hoopversary <3

hooked on the hoop

i'm in love.
not with a person, but with a hobby.
but it's more than a hobby to me.
it's a passion.
i'm addicted and don't care who knows it.
the hoop excites me, inspires me, challenges me, pushes me, frees me.
i feel alive when inside.
i get such an adreneline.

hooping has brought me to find many a new friends, wonderful happy people. i myself and more upbeat than ever. i love teaching interested souls how to become a child again!

Learning Module 3

IF or information fluency is the ability to gather, evaluate, and use information in ethical and legal ways. This includes three skills:  information literacy, technology literacy and critical thinking. All of which are very important to the job market these days. I learned there is a way to use technology appropriately, this is called having Digital Citizenship, which has 9 elements. Digital Access: full electronic participation in society, Digital Commerce: electronic buying and selling of goods, Digital Communication: electronic exchange of information, Digital Literacy: process of teaching and learning about technology and the use of technology, Digital Etiquette: electronic standards of conduct or procedure, Digital Law: electronic responsibility for actions and deeds, Digital Rights & Responsibilities: those freedoms extended to everyone in a digital world, Digital Health & Wellness: physical and psychological well-being in a digital technology world and  Digital Security (self-protection): electronic precautions to guarantee safety. Todays work environment requires more than just knowledge of the craft, there is much much more being looked at now a days. Some requirements are: flexibility, adaptability, initiative, self determination, social & cultural skills, productivity, accountability, leadership and of course responsibility. Basically you need to know how to be diverse in order to be successful. I also learned how search engines work, for the most part. I found out by just using the general search engine such as Google or Yahoo your not getting the results your looking for because you are only skimming the surface. There is what is called the deep web, which you cannot find by taking only a minute to hop on Google. There are millions of webpages, databases we don't know about because we never find them in a regular old search. Even though they are hidden, these websites probably have the better of the information. (8

Learning Module 2

In this learning module I learned the 5 basic things connecting to the internet depends on: Protocols (a set of rules which is used by computers to communicate with each other across a network), Hardware, Software, Connection and Internet Service Providers (alo known as ISP a company that offers its customers access to the Internet). I learned the proper difference between HTTP, HTML and URL; when I used to think they all just did the same things. For example, a URL is just a shortcut to the IP address. A HTTP is a protocol that transfers hypertext requests and information between servers and browsers. And HTML is a language, a set of tags and rules for using them in developing hypertext documents. Now im sounding smart. I very much enjoyed playing the games about internet safety, they were fun and I actually learned alot! The cool little quizes with fun animations made it alot more interseting to do as compaed to just reading.

Learning Module 1

I very much enjoyed reading the "20 Things I Learned About Browsers and the Web" online book (http://www.20thingsilearned.com/foreword/1), it was extremely helpful and useful, considering I knew nothing about the internet before I read it. For example I foudn out what a 'packet' is: data and information that is broken down into smaller pieces, sent sperately, then reassmbled on the other side. I also learned the meaning of the term 'bandwidth'; the amount of data that can be sent over your internet connection per second. the reading expanded my knowledge about apps, css (cascading style sheets), laware, html and the latest version html5, cookies, and javascript. Things I knew nothing about until reading this, everything was laid out and explained so well anyone could pick up on it. I now know the importance of updating, that it isn't just a scam. I learned what a 'plug-in' is: an additional piece of software that specializes in processing particular types of content, such as images, videos and certain texts. And lastly I learned about sync or synchronization, which lets you save your browser setting online, so if anything bad happened to your computer or laptop your files aren't actually lost, just in the 'cloud'. The book broke down the different parts of URL's, schemes, hosts and paths. All in all it was a very good use of my time to read this information and I will be going back from time to time to brush up my knowledge. I am certain this class will help me very much in my search to graduate with a Digital Media degree. I feel I put enough time and effort into this learning module, but I can and will do better next learning module. I started the course late so I did my catching up on a weekend which has me a bit distracted.