PowToon is a website that offers different plans, useful for creating animated videos and presentations with excellent effects. 

PROS

• Share your PowerPoint or presentation. Once our project is finished, we will have direct access to share it on our Facebook account or directly on YouTube.

• Quick presentations. The tool itself favors the creation of videos and presentations in order to perform them quickly.
• Transitions and effects. The variety of effects available in this tool is sufficient to create our presentation, with variations of transitions, effects of texts, images, among other aspects.
• Their characters and creative design. The characters, objects, shapes, come predefined and adapt to your presentation without any complications.
• Add your AUDIO. A good feature on the part of PowToon is the import of your own audio to the tool servers.

CONS

• There is no collaborative work available. The tool is not prepared to make a team presentation. We just have to create them ourselves. It is thanks to our edition that we will fulfill the presentation.
• Edit Online. It doesn't have a downloadable program so that we can avoid a project from our PC, we have to do it online and from your servers.

If you want to impress your audience with funny characters and effects, PowToon can be your best option. ​

​This picture summarizes the benefits of using ReadyRosie apps in the school. It embraces students, teachers, and families. In early childhood education the participation of parents is crucial for the students' learning experiences.
​This app can be played in different devices, so you can use it with your computer or laptop, tablet or smartphone. Being displayed in different digital devices offers families the possibilities to use it wherever and whenever they like.

We know that parents are so busy, and they can feel they do not have enough time for their children. ReadyRosie thought about them, that is why many activities are supposed to be short and entertaining. And even they offer activities and videos in English and Spanish.

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Some problems facing the use of this app is that many parents need to be helped with the setting of this app. Many schools only offer them a flyer that tells them how to install the app, but they need an extra hand to set it up. Besides, not all the families have the same time to do it, so educators may consider help parents create a schedule to work with this at home with their children.

One app can offer amazing services and educational tools, but if we -educators and school administrators- do not interact emphatically with our families hardly we'll be able to offer our students better learning experiences. I could see this challenge in many schools, my solution was to share the links of the activities on our social media groups where all of "my families" were participating. The benefit of doing this is that I could track the completion of activities through the social media app, and by doing so most of my students could learn at home with their families too.

Karen, Niha, Rosa, Araceli, and I were in charge of the design and implementation of this module: Social Media in Education.
Our professor Dr. Sara McNeil gave us the opportunity to choose a role in the group and work in teams according to our designated goals.

To start with our contributions to the team we created several channels of communication.
- WhatsApp was meant to interact and communicate with everyone in the team quickly.
- Google Drive with common folders to share all the resources, materials, and other information and knowledge.
We used a "google doc" to create an outline of our modules that include objectives and goals, the presentation with their parts and who contributed, the instructions for the hands-on project and artifact sections, the articles to read, the infographics section, the instruction section with the discussion questions, and other ideas, resources or links to include.
For each section a common folder was created and shared with all the members of the team.

Each member has their sections to work on. When a file was added, everyone got a notification of the new file. Despite the assignation of the roles, each member of the team helped other members who needed an extra hand.
Our team was very helpful, supportive to each other, and we really enjoyed working together on this assignment.

Our team accepted the challenge to develop and implement our module within a social media app: Microsoft Teams.
After having all the materials and resources created for our module on Google Drive, we shared it all on Teams folders. Our classmates could read the articles we chose for the module and accessed the content of the module. 

After the video presentation of our module the students started with their activities and discussion questions.

Previously all the students were invited by Dr. Sara McNeil, so they could see this video and content. Most of us were new to Teams, so there was the best opportunity to learn about social media and education "in situ".
During this week the students were posting their comments and posts. Many of them were sharing the struggles and challenges they were facing with this app as they were first-time users. After practicing for a while, all of us started to be more confident and our interactions and participation increased.
Eventually everyone did a great job!
I really enjoyed this experience! ;) 

Social Learning in Communities
The Social Learning Theory of Bandura argues that "people learn from each other through observation, imitation, and modeling." Of course, the type of socialization that happens through "social" digital tools is definitely different from face-to-face interaction, but it also provides social learning opportunities.

Before, During, and After the class
Social media learning resources often place teachers to deliver material outside the classroom, and then "flip" the classroom – often focusing on what would have been homework during class. After the class it gives the opportunity to students and teachers to reflect upon the learning experience, by sharing opinions and ideas teachers and students can improve the learning process.

Assessment
Teachers may opt to include writing content grading as part of the rubrics they are creating to assess social media-based assignments and class work. Even students can participate during this process and help their classmates improve their learning experiences and outcomes.

Engagement and commitment
The use of social media and networking platforms clearly has a social dimension of it and helps students develop socialization skills that provide opportunities for emotional engagement, as well.

Communication
Students need to be social and sometimes in urban settings this is difficult. Social media app is a great tool to socialize through the Internet. This way of communication can be less intimidating and can allow shy students to socialize with others more comfortably.

Making connections
The use of social media and learning community tools provide interactive learning activities in the classroom. In addition, its use offers opportunities to engage other students and provide access to other instructors and experts (depending on the methods used). Due to these Internet-based applications, establishing links and connecting with these new colleagues has never been easier.

Future professional career opportunities
Developing technology skills is part of the present and future professional development. Social media is becoming more important to business currently. Many institutions and companies have moved from just discussing social media awareness and marketing to including actually social media business planning as part of their strategic planning efforts. An increasing number of professional positions desire or require social media awareness, and it seems likely that more positions will call for this skill in the future.

Autonomous (and interconnected) learning
Learning can be an internal process, but we know that some authors like Bruner or Vygotsky highlighted the social component of the learning process.
"Bruner, like Vygotsky, emphasized the social nature of learning, citing that other people should help a child develop skills through the process of scaffolding." (retrieved from https://www.simplypsychology.org/bruner.html)
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Last week my team and I had to design and implement a module about social media in education. We really enjoyed working and learning together. There was something news about this module, we were working on Microsoft Teams as a learning community.

Before starting with the design and the description of the implementation I'd like to talk more about social media, its pros and cons in education.

The Internet has so greatly changed our lives we can't look the other way.  Yet social networks have come to linger, on everybody's faces. Therefore, it is important that schools are known and used so that students can take advantage from them for their personal and educational development.​

We´ll detail some benefits of social media in education today:

• Improve communication inside and outside the classroom.

Social networks are the perfect tools to flow communication between students and teachers. Young people, being so familiar with them, will feel more comfortable and less forced to have a closer relationship with their teachers and also, everything will flow more naturally. However, they are not only useful for the teacher-student relationship in the same center, but are basic to communicate with experts in specific subjects or students from other centers. They enable students to develop skills and abilities such as socialization, teamwork, or the importance of sharing.
Currently, one of the biggest educational problems is the lack of relationship that exists between students and teachers, so that social networks in the classroom will increase the feeling of an educational community due to the proximity produced by channels such as Facebook.

• Search for information, resources, and inspiration.

Social media is an unlimited source of information! Each class or task to be carried out can be unique. Homework will not be boring because students will be able to research on social media and find the necessary resources to complete daily tasks in a more efficient way. Therefore, they are learning more without almost realizing it.
Despite being a great source of information, social media can be  very distracting as well. Our students need to have the necessary tools not to be very distracted, so they´ll not be so productive.

• Groups to carry out work and solve doubts

The good thing about social networks as developed as Facebook is that they allow you to create private or closed groups for each class or each subject, which makes it easier for students to solve their doubts through the networks. 
Social networks are the perfect tools to help students with homework and they can also communicate more quickly and personally with teachers, and thus solve their questions without spending so much time. Even to solve the questions teachers or students can use other resources like videos or infographics embedded in the class discussion chat. 
It allows to centralize in a single virtual place all the teaching activities, teachers and students of an educational center.

• Establish personal relationships between students

Social networks are based on personal relationships and are the current way of connecting people. Something that acquires special relevance among students of all ages. For this reason, networks are very important for teachers to know a little more about the concerns of their students and to know how to act in the event of any problem or need. Of course, social networks, to be an effective tool in classrooms, have to have a certain degree of control and responsibility on the part of both students and teachers.
Without a doubt, social networks are a great opportunity for learning student, education and professional development, as well as a place for exchanging experiences.