6
Mart Laanpere
Photo by Jason Howie (2013)
- utilise various social media tools in a responsible manner while searching for and sharing information online
- document the things you see and experience by exploring the environment of the city
- mark the significant spots, items or events with tags and geotags
- share through social media your thoughts, stories and discoveries about the urban nature
- reflect in the blog about what you have learned today about the nature and people in your city
- Group communication platforms: Facebook (facebook.com) and GooglePlus (plus.google.com)
- Blogging/diary tools: WordPress (wordpress.com), Tumblr (tumblr.com) or BlogSpot (blogger.com)
- Microblogging tools for posting short messages: Twitter (twitter.com),
- Photo sharing tools: Flickr (flickr.com), Instagram (instagram.com), Picasa (picasa.google.com)
- Video sharing tools: Youtube (youtube.com) or Vimeo (vimeo.com)
- Video chat tools: Skype (skype.com), Google Hangouts (google.com/hangouts)
- File sharing tools: Google Drive (drive.google.com), DropBox (dropbox.com)
- Web content curation tools: Scoop.it (scoop.it), Pinterest (pinterest.com)
Most of these tools can be accessed from your computer’s Web browser, but there are also mobile apps available so you can use the tools also outdoors from your smart phone while exploring the urban nature. Next, you are going to familiarise yourself
The first step: learn to listen what others say
- Searching the Web. Use Google or Bing to search some online resources relevant to environmental education. Try searching with the following keywords “biodiversity”, “biodiversity school project”, “biodiversity senegal”. Try also to ask questions from Google or Bing: “What is biodiversity?” and to find a definition of a concept: “define: biodiversity”. Now replace “biodiversity” in the previous search with key terms from your own environmental project and collect the following information resources: definition of this concept, example of a similar project, recent news item related to this concept, and an environmental activist (a person) dealing with that topic. Discuss and compare your Web search strategies with ones used by your classmates.
- Filtering the Twitter posts with hashtags. Search Twitter.com with the hashtags #SaveWater #CleanWater to find how people around the world try to reduce wasting the clean water. Use Google to find out, what is a “hashtag” and identify the most popular hashtags related with environmental issues. Explain, what does it mean if a hashtag is trending according to the Web site hashtags.org?
The second step: learn to collect, organise and re-use the online resources relevant to your project
When you have come up with an idea for a new environmental action or project, something similar has been most likely carried out by someone else before and it might have been published in a blog. A blog (or Web log) is an online diary where a person or a group posts messages that are longer than in Twit