Week 4

Week 4
Week 4 we learned about social bookmarking, which is the use of bookmarks to organise, share, manage and search for resources/ information online. Shane introduced us to social bookmarking sites such as pinterest, diigo, dig and reddit. We were also introduced to the wisdom of crowds theory which is where a group of people collectively make a correct decision, we carried out an experiment in-class to test the theory. Lastly, we discussed the tag cloud which is a stylized way of visually representing occurrences of words used to describe tags.

The lab session required us to set up a Pinterest and diigo account and to experiment with social bookmarking. I had never used either of these sites before so I was interested in trying them out, I particularly liked pinterest how it allows me to explore my interests and share these with my social group. Below is a screenshot of my pinterest board.

Week 5

Week 5
Week 5 we were introduced to the processes of designing and presenting content effectively via social media. Shane presented a number of ways of presenting information for example, Plotagon is a means of presenting using virtual video, mind meister is a mind mapping tool which can be used to document and formulate ideas., Prezi is an online presentation app which uses a zooming user interface (ZUI) in order to present information, Powtoon is a user centered design for using animation for presenting information and infographics sites which use information graphics to virtually represent information, examples of these sites are easeal.ly, tag galaxy, gliffy and hashtagify.

The lab for this week required us to set up a prezi account and present a short presention (see below, hopefully I embedded it properly). I have used this application before so I was quite used to it, besides it is quite simple to understand and apply.

Week 3

Week 3

Week 3 dealt with the topic of collaborative information generation. The objectives of this topic were to explore means of developing content collaboratively and to examine the advanages and disadvantages of user generated content. In preparation for class I read through the links provided which gave me a good background to the topic. I thought the article by Val Swisher was particularly beneficial and I also like how there was quite a good discussion in the comments section underneath. She explored the pros and cons of internal user generated content (IUSC) which is content generated within a company or organisation foe example. Val felt that conent would be more technically accurate, I can see what she means as it is written by those in-the -know rather than a specialised writer. Also, Val explored the theory that this leads to interesting conversations about each others content, providing more 'ways of thinking'.

I also completed the lab session for this week when we had to create a 'magic 8 ball' app, this allowed me to build on what I had learned in the previous week by adding an accelerometer and a random item list to the app.

Heres a screen grab of the app from my phone:

Here's a screen grab of my blocks for the magic8ball app:

Week 2

Week 2

Week 2 we were introduced to the concept of social computing. Firstly we were presented with different forms of communication, traditional (face to face, telephone, letter), semi-traditional (email, online chat, mobile phone) and social media (integrated online means, web conferencing). We also learned about power when it comes to computing, communication power (who has the power online) is provided by influence meaning that those with the largest influence automatically have the most power. Also, gatekeepers are those who have direct power to influence society (journalists, teachers).

Source credability is how we precieve where certain information comes from and what value we put on the information as a result, this is provided to us by the expertise of the author, the trustwillingness of the author and the goodwill of the author. However we also put value on how others precieve the information (i.e. how many likes it has on facebook.)

We were given an exercise to challenge ourselves to go without social media for a day and see how we coped. Now my hand was forced slightly given the fact that the wifi at home was out of action so I had no real choice but nevertheless it provided me a real oppertunity to carry out the exercise. During the day I felt almost remote, cut off from the world slightly, I found myself urging to take out my phone and click on the twitter or facebook app to see what was going on in the world only to realise that I shouldnt (or couldnt!). It was a saturday too when I would usually click into twitter at least every 15 mins to check the latest premier league scores and to recieve instant updates of the action that was unfolding. This is where I felt I missed social media most, the practical nature of being able to locate information instantly, more so than the communication nature, I'm very must a reciver more so than a provider when it comes to social media, my last facebook update  was in december 2014 and my last tweet was "Happy new year everyone #2015",  but I still check both every day to see what everyone else has been up to. I was surprised how I found it hard not to think about social media throughout the day, It surprised me how much it was engrained in my daily routine and how reliant I was on it.

I also completed the lab tutorial for week 2 where we were tasked with developing a simple app design 'Hellopur'. I found the task quite enjoyable and felt i picked up the methods and material pretty quickly. I downloaded the app onto my phone and tested it, it worked perfectly. Here is a screen grab of my design screen:

Week 1

Week 1

Week 1 I missed the first lecture as a result of not being registered to the module in time. I was recommended the module by a friend who had completed it last year who said it was really interesting and worthwhile. I have completed modules in previous semesters such as 'IT and E-Business' that have thaught me about social computing and social media so I felt that this module would be really beneficial in backing up what I have previously learnt. I also worked for a company where I was in charge of updating the firms social media pages daily, its website and also posing articles on the firms app. This module should equip me with skills needed to carry out this work more effectively.

Having missed the first lecture I did go back and read the background material on blackboard, mainly around the topics of web 1.0, web 2.0 and web 3.0. I particularly liked the article 'How web 3.0 will work' by Jonathan Strickland. I have previously learned about web 1.0 and web 2.0 in another module so I had a good understanding of those, web 1.0 was described to me as being like a plain text page with no interaction between the user and the site or between the user and other users of the site, likewise the definition I learned for web 2.0 was: 'web 2.0 applications are designed around sharing content among communities of users' i.e social media sites. I also learned about the 'net generation' and their carachertistics, we watched a facinating clip created by some students in America about social media
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o

I found it interesting that while web 2.0 was designed to connect people to other people, web 3.0 will move a step further and connect people to information, making it easier and faster for people to find out the information they want to know. I also watched the youtube clip provided documenting the evolution of the web.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsNcjya56v8

I also completed the online tutorials about how to collaborate effectively and how to create wikis on blackboard.