Week 12: Professional Web Presence

A Web Professional Presence can be extremely helpful for students entering the workforce. It helps students display information about them, accomplishments, interests and more. Websites like Google Site is a great resource to do so. Different pages can be created with different links. It also has the ability to post documents, PowerPoint presentations and pictures. It’s a great way to connect with employers and display more information about you than a resume can.

            Learning this is extremely helpful as a student entering the workforce soon. Although not just for accounting, but also for any students, it’s a great way to display a profile that is not “Facebook” and fun things. Its much more professional and helpful. Although I do not necessarily have things to create a “portfolio” for accounting, it’s a great way to display my resume.

            Here is a site geared more towards companies who need a professional presence, both online and in print. Although this is different from what we learned  as students, it still incorporates the same concepts and principles of positively displaying information to sell ourselves. 

http://professionalpresencedesigns.com/main/

Week 11: Open Source Software

Open Source Software is opening up many opportunities to people who otherwise may not have access to such resources. Open source software is basically programs like Microsoft Word, Photoshop etc. that are available for free to download on the Internet. It provides access to programs that are normally extremely expensive. They are different versions of the main programs, and have a few differences, but are essentially the same thing (or sufficient enough) for free! This is especially helpful for students who may need certain programs for majors or jobs but cannot afford them.

Open source software would be helpful for any major, not just accounting. It provides the opportunity to use programs that may be too expensive to obtain by ourselves. It is especially helpful for school systems, but would be great for anyone to get these programs at no cost.

Here is a website that contains open source software for Macs. I thought this was especially appropriate for myself since I have a Mac and for this class. There are sometimes programs that only work on Macs or Pcs and it may be difficult to find certain programs, so this could be a helpful tool!

http://www.opensourcemac.org/

Week 10: Tech Tools for Critical Thinking

This week we discussed how technology can help develop the learning process. Learning theory attempts to explain how people and animals learn. It is based on different frameworks like behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism.  There are also many different learning styles for different types of people and ages. Technology can help to develop this learning. Now there are sites that help to facilitate learning. Geotagging, concept maps and folksonomies are examples of these developments.

            In accounting, we can use these concepts to share information and help learn new techniques. Some things like the concept maps aren’t necessarily as easily used for accounting, and may be more helpful in other fields. Some of the networking sites however are very helpful. It is great to be able to connect with other professionals and make new contacts. Sharing information is vital to success in the accounting world because there are many beginnings to a transition to an international set of standards.

            Here is a video of a professor explaining folksonomies, flickr and tagging. It is a very creative way of explanation but provides a different perspective. 

Week 9: Social Bookmarking and Cloud Computing

Social Tools and Cloud Computing are topics very new to me, but seem to be extremely helpful. It helps with communication between people, groups and teams. Things like Google Docs make working on group projects much easier because people can be invited to view the document and even make changes to it. This helps avoid multiple copies of the same document float around and miss someone’s input. Social Bookmarking is another interesting topic that was introduced to me this week. It is a way to share sites with others as well as save your own without relying on one computer. You can search through different topics to see other sites that people have tagged about it. Social Bookmarking is a great way to communicate with others because it makes so many resources available on the Internet for everyone.

These resources can be extremely helpful in my field of accounting. It gives me the ability to connect with my peers on projects and share information and papers in group projects and presentations. In addition sharing resources through sites like Delicious can be helpful to learn new findings and developments in the international accounting world.

Here is an interesting site for social bookmarking. It is called eZdia. It is a site where people can share information, get expert advice, become an expert to give advise and go through the “knowledge bucket” where they can search tags.