Social Media

Social media is a main component of our everyday lives today. As Jerry Kane said in his TEDx Talk, "Social media, I think is here to stay and I don't think we've seen anything yet". We live in a different world when it comes to connecting with others. This new age of social media has been very difficult for me to engage in. I have always been a very private person and have only a few really close friends that I share things with. As Facebook has become more and more popular and my family and friends have used it to connect with me, I have had to reluctantly engage in Facebook. At first and still for the most part, I am just a Facebook observer. I will get on Facebook and see what everyone is doing and what is going on in their lives. Every once and awhile, I will post something, but very rarely. I have shied away from it. I really don't want all of my acquaintances and family for that matter, to know what is going on with me every moment of my life. I completely relate with Alison Graham in her TEDx Talk about how your family and friends think that you know what has been going on with them because they have posted it on Facebook. They think that everyone should know without having a conversation with them.

I can see both the good and bad effects of social media in the lives of my family and in my personal life. I have just begun to learn about Twitter and I have found it fascinating. I love reading the Tweets of the very interesting and educated people I am following. I have noticed that I can get on Facebook and get bored after just a few minutes. A lot of the people on my Facebook share too much of their personal information that just doesn't need to be shared. I enjoy less and less of Facebook. My new favorite is Twitter. I have noticed that I can get on Twitter and be enlightened and motivated by the groups and individuals I am following. I can, however, spend too much time on Twitter. I can see how it can almost take over my life. I am sometimes on my social media as much as my kids and just as Alison Graham has noticed, families can be sitting together and be more interested in the people on social media then on the person in front of them.

I know that social media is a very powerful tool to help change the world as Jan Rezab discussed in his TEDx Talk. He really opened my eyes to how powerful people can be and how one tweet can influence others. It also can be very damaging to companies if tweets go out from someone about complaints they have had. I, however, was very impressed at how much influence social media has on the government. Who knew?

How social media makes us unsocial | Allison Graham | TEDxSMU

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is going to be very useful to my PLN. I really had no idea what it was all about. I have only heard of it through invitations to connect with people on LinkedIn through emails. I would usually ignore them because I didn't really know anything about it and for the most part I have shied away from social media. So I have learned so much about LinkedIn this week. The first thing I learned is that it will be a great place to find a job. I didn't know that it was a place to connect with companies and people that are looking for employees. This is great news!
I have learned how to do a career search, and I can look for recruiter that are are working with LinkedIn and I can specify the locations so I can narrow it down to certain areas. I am going to work with LinkedIn more and try to connect with people I think will be important for my PLN.

Feedly

I love the functions of Feedly. Having one place to see all of the blogs that I am following in one place is wonderful. I am learning so much! I am still working on trying to figure everything out. I have been searching blogs that interest me and adding them to Feedly. I have not been using Blogger or Twitter at all and I am happy that I get to learn about how they can be a great PLN. I still feel like I am being forced out of my comfort zone by having to blog and Tweet, but I hope that this will help me gain skills and knowledge that will help me in my professional life.

Twitter

I am enjoying learning about Twitter! My kids can't believe that my homework is learning about how to tweet and how to follow people on Twitter. I signed up for a Twitter several years ago, but I never used it or even really wanted to. I felt like it was like Facebook which I really have a hard time with. Sometimes I take weeks off from Facebook because I feel like it is a waste of time.
I was really excited to hear from Julie Smith about Twitter. She made me look at it from a different perspective. I love how she said "lurk," which is something I am very good at doing. I have a really hard time posting to Facebook and Instagram, but I like to look or "lurk." Most of the time, like I said, it feels like such a waste of time. I really like that Julie said that "if Twitter is boring, you are following the wrong people." This got me really interested in finding people that I would like to follow and getting in on conversations that are important to me. I still feel a bit intimidated by Twitter but I can say that I am excited about what I have learned so far.

In reading Web 2.0 Applications and Practices for Learning Through Collaboration, I became very interested in learning more about how to use these applications. I have blogged before in one other class at ISU. This will be my second time using a blog. I am particularly interested in the potential of collaborative learning. As mentioned in the article, a blog can become a place where groups can "build on each other's work and progress." I know that a blog has the potential to be a great place where I can increase my learning and in turn, help others learn and progress. I think that may have been the intent of my professor in a previous class I had. However, at the time, I did not find it very rewarding to me. I think there was the same type of issues as mentioned in the article, where my classmates and I found it hard to give feedback. We were asked to post our papers to our blogs and give feedback to each other. Each students paper was about a different subject they had researched. I don't think we were familiar with the subjects of each other's papers and did not feel like we should be editing it. I did enjoy the experience working with blogger but didn't feel that I was learning through collaboration. Most of us in the class worked very independently. It will be very important to have a common goals and issues to discuss in order for the web applications to be effective in the classroom.
I am hoping that this class will give me the opportunity to learn more about web 2.0 applications. I am very interested in learning about those that I have never heard of before until I read the article. I have never heard of Pixorial, Stroome, and Kaltura. I have also never used Twitter but am really excited about learning how to use it.

I had no idea what a PLN was before this assignment. I am glad I had this opportunity to learn about them. The first thing that struck me when learning about PLNs was "expanding horizons". I would like to gain knowledge and insight from others. I can be a bit sheltered when it comes to networking. I am sometimes hesitant to join in, but I am very interested in learning more and I think that getting other perspectives is important. Fear has always been something I struggled with when it comes to sharing ideas and my perspective. I learned from the reading that it is not a bad thing if I don't have a complete idea or thought.  I haven't used Twitter before and I am interested in learning more about it. I like the idea of joining communities that I am interested in. On the the other hand, I learned from the reading that it is important to join groups that may not share the same views so it will help open my mind. I am excited to learn how to navigate and filter my own PLN. It is going to take some work!