Blended Learning Year 2

 We are now on the second week of classes for this school year. Yasmin is in Grade 10 while Yohan is already in Grade 5. 

Honestly, we experienced a lot of challenges last year. The kids have a hard time adjusting to blended learning. And so am I -as their home learning partner most of the time. We even hired a tutor for Yohan as my alternate during the times that I have to report at the office. Yasmin’s grades dropped because she was overwhelmed with the activities required in most of the subjects. Nevertheless, we survived and  completed the new normal schooling amidst this on-going pandemic. 

This year, we are anticipating some adjustments that I believe will make learning from home much easier. Thanks for the applications made accessible for the kids, such as Facebook Messenger. Google Workspace (Gmail, Google Meet, Google Classroom, and Google Forms. They are also learning to use Canva for designing their outputs.

They will still use the Self-Learning Modules developed by DepEd as reference for their lesson and activities. 

Good luck to us and hoping for another meaningful and productive school year. 

Google+ vs. Facebook

A couple of days ago, two of my circle of friends have been asking who wants Google+ invites. One circle are my fellow bloggers and the other, my fellow IT enthusiasts. I guess you noticed that I keep mentioning the word CIRCLES. By the way, Circles is one of the interesting features of the recently launched Google+ project. 

The Circles feature in Google’s new social network lets you neatly organize your friends in specific buckets. Too bad people don’t really want to do that in a social network. (pcmag.com)


Now, what do Facebook and Google have in common or how do they differ from each other. Digital Trends released an article comparing the features of the two social networks. Here is an excerpt. If you wish to learn more about them, just read the aforementioned article. 
Video Chat: 

Facebook unveiled its Skype-powered one-on-one video chat where users can utilize its video call function. Google, on the other hand, integrated a Hang-outs feature which is different from FB’s video chat due to its group chat functionality. Let’s see who will become more popular and useful in the long run. 
Adding Friends:

Adding contacts or friends to Facebook is a two-way street. Anyone you want to be friends with must also accept you as a friend. In Google+, its more like Twitter and Plurk, wherein you can follow anyone and anyone can follow you. Google+ also introduced the use of Circles which I have mentioned above. 
Privacy:

I think most of you are aware of the several privacy issues of Facebook. In the Philippines alone, there is an increasing number of crimes that rooted from the evil deeds of Facebook users. Google seems to have placed privacy as the priority of Plus (+). 
Since I am a newbie to Google+ and so are you, let us explore and learn together and see what this new social network can do for us…
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