This exercise required a lot of trial and error and redoing steps (and my daughter’s help). I downloaded audacity to my iPhone and recorded some sounds in my factory. There’s a lot of machinery and lift trucks moving around, so it’s a noisy place. I also downloaded a Back-up_beeper sound from Wikipedia since that was once sound effect I didn’t record myself. I had to experiment and get my daughter’s help to figure out how to edit each track and then place them so they played at the same time. The end result is “Work Sounds,” a mixture of sounds I’ve been hearing now for 40 years at my work!
Tracking the Trackers
I hadn’t ever heard of trackers so this exercise was informative. I liked the visual graph that Lightbeam provides. I thought that only the website I visited kept data, not that third party websites also collected data! Overall, I visited 14 websites on my work computer since September 19, but in reality was tracked by 143 other websites! The website with the most trackers was PrintAction.com, a graphic arts industry website. After reading about trackers, this made sense given that the PrintAction website has a lot of advertising, which would be tracking what I do. I use Google Chrome and it is set to keep cookies from third parties for one week.
Recording and Sharing Audio
I downloaded the Anchor.fm app onto my iPhone and opened an account. Recording a podcast was very simple and was very similar to a taking a video on my iPhone. Embedding the Anchor.fm link on my blog was surprisingly straightforward. All I did was copy and paste the Share link and it embedded automatically. I recorded my podcast in Anchor.fm and had a lot of difficulty downloading the actual audio file. Once I found how to download it, I then had a hard time uploading it to SoundCloud.
https://anchor.fm/norm9/episodes/Episode-1-e29pit/a-a5go2s
1000 Words
I spent some time looking at blogs for photography tips. A few focused on using film cameras or digital cameras. I planned to use my iPhone so I found a blog on taking good pictures on a phone.
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/good-pictures-phone-tips
I chose two tips from the blog.
Find Different Perspectives – The author suggest that “taking photos from a unique, unexpected angle can make them more memorable.” For this tip, I kneeled down underneath the framed picture, shot the framed picture from an angle, instead of straight on.
Embrace Negative Space – I’ve always heard that you shouldn’t centre an object when taking a picture. The object should always be off to one corner. I liked the idea of using lots of space around the clock and tried both portrait and landscape orientations.
The Art of Crap Detection
The challenge I chose from Mike’s blog was about a claim that Pepsi and other food companies used aborted fetal tissue in their products. I’ve included a screenshot of the claim below. Mike’s 4 Moves and a Habit quickly debunked this claim.
Snopes.com settled the issue at Step 1 of Mike’s 4 Moves for fact checking. Snopes.com is a very useful website for fact checking. The website includes any viral claim, chain email, Facebook hoax, etc. and then provides information and links to assess whether it is True, Partially True or False.
I proceeded to Step 2 to find the original source of the hoax. I clicked on a CBS news article from 2011 (the year of the original post). This website had a link to the original article. Bingo!
For Step 3, I looked for lateral sources, most of which were newspaper articles and fact checking websites. The most useful site was Snopes.com
For Step 4, I actually didn’t get lost! I found what I needed in step 1.
As an older online user, I know I am not always savvy at discerning something that has been manipulated (picture) or is completely false. I have definitely forwarded emails that I found later to be hoaxes – definitely embarrassing. What I gained the most from Mike’s 4 Moves is to search for what other people have found and to look for the original source. I think if I do those two steps, I can weed out most incorrect or false information.
Googly Moogly
When I searched for “academic articles from Canadian universities on the topic of leadership” in Google, most of the results were from newspaper articles on leaders, university databases, leadership scholarship. Few results were actual academic articles. In contrast, searching for “scholarly articles leadership site:CA” within Google Articles resulted in multiple pages of journal articles published by Canadian universities on leadership. Simply adding the country code for Canada narrowed the results tremendously. I also learned about Google Scholar. This service only lists academic articles and weeds out media, personal websites, etc.
Searching for “articles business owners” resulted in finding no PDF links. I added “PDF” to the search and got several PDF articles! I have often repeatedly entered different variations of a search but have never thought of entering something like PDF in the search. I know this tip will help me in future coursework.
I searched for “podcast Markham” in Google and got a lot of results, mainly from churches and medical professionals. I had no idea that so many people and organization from Markham had podcasts. In Player.fm, a podcast host, I found a few churches with podcasts.
https://player.fm/podcasts/markham
Finding U
My Biography
Norman Beange was born on April 22, 1947 and lives in Markham, Ontario. He went to Leaside High School and graduated from Norwich University. He is the President and Owner of Specialties Graphic Finishers and Anstey Book Binding Inc. He was inducted into the Binding Industries Association Hall of Fame for Industry Experts. He authors weekly blog posts on new industry products and processes. He also posts videos demonstrating products. He authors articles for Graphic Arts Magazine and Print Action Magazine. Norman’s adult son, Charles, died on April 6, 2004. He is married to Pauline Beange. He owns property in Spring Bay, Ontario.
What I Found Out About Myself
I have a small digital footprint in terms of social media. I’m not a technology expert and mainly use the Internet for research purposes. There was nothing embarrassing, except maybe a picture of me from my much younger days. Most of what I found related to my professional life. I don’t really self-censor online because I only ever share information about my industry, never opinions.
Bonnie Stewart
When considering Bonnie Stewart’s Six Key Selves, I recognize a few of the ‘selves’ in my online presence. My Quantified/Articulated Self has a very low status and scale on social networks. I have a Facebook profile but never post anything. In fact, I think my daughter set it up for me a few years ago! As for the Participatory Self, I’m primarily a consumer of what other people produce and share little personal content. I am, however, a large producer of content in terms of promoting by company’s services. I have a large professional participatory self but a very small personal participatory self. As for Asynchronous Self, I actually like the “interruptive, immediate” telephone because I can tell a person’s tone, emotion, etc. unlike in a text, email, etc. As for the PolySocial Self, I would say my “brand” is that I’m a technical expert within my industry.
Kris Shafer
Kris Shafer’s posts on digital minimalism and online decluttering are very relevant for people who have been active on social media platforms for some time. While I’m not active, I did find the idea of deleting old Tweets and information from a long time ago very important. Our opinions, positions and ideas on things change over time. To have someone dig up a post or Tweet or Comment from a decade ago could have devastating results. What we said then might not be an accurate portrayal of who we are and what we think today. This is especially important for young people who share a lot online.
Introduction
Hi everyone, my name is Norm Beange. You might be wondering how to pronounce my last name – pretend there’s no ‘e’ at the end and pronounce it like “Benj” in “Benjamin.” I’m 71 (I think that’s the definition of “mature student”) and my wife and I have 3 adult children (our eldest son was killed in an automobile accident in 2004) and 6 grandchildren!
I own and manage a Toronto-based manufacturing company that produces highly customized marketing and consumer that has about 65 employees. It fits that my Myers-Briggs personality type is “Entrepreneur.” My spiritual gift is exhortation and my love language is affirmation so my goal in taking this program is to gain more knowledge to write a book about leadership development in the local church and to have the academic credibility to do so.
My main hobby is reading; I read mostly non-fiction on sociology, human behavior and leadership. I look forward to journeying with all of you in this online world of education … it’s certainly going to be a learning experience for me.