Week 9: Digital Shadow

 When conducting the activity Google “ego search” I found a facebook profile (not mine), a Flickr profile (also not mine but a professional photography business “Erin Butler Photography” who interestingly enough shares a birthday in the same month as mine), my twitter profile, a LinkedIn profile (not mine but the Manager of Operations of NAB – impressive), many images of Erin Butler (but none of me), and the official Erin Butler Photography website. I decided to narrow my search by including my middle name and nothing interesting came up so I tried my maiden name which resulted in 6 different LinkedIn profiles for different Erin Gilchrists, a facebook page (not mine), a blogger profile (not mine) and some images (not of me). I narrowed it down again to include my middle name and nada – this ego search was not very successful in bumping up my ego that's for sure. Having said that I was happy with the results, I was a little nervous about what I might find. I am pleased to see that there are no inappropriate images or websites containing information about me – this gives me comfort. Completing this activity left me comfortable with the idea that a future employer (or my Mum or Grandmother)  could attempt to find incriminating information about me without success (because there is none). I found it very interesting that no links for the “web prescence” I have created for myself came up.

Week 8: Internet Footprints

Before taking this unit I did not put to much thought into what I posted online. I never considered my internet footprint , although I had considered the digital footprint left by others. I never asked myself questions such as “Would I want my mum of future employers to see this post?” before making a facebook status update about being hung-over after a night out with friends BUT I had been using facebook from a young age and to be honest, did not consider the consequences of an internet footprint. In the past few years I have been more careful about what I posted, but this was due to my grandparents adding me as a friend so I was conscious of what they thought of me. I often wondered if my children or grandchildren in future generations would look back on my facebook account when looking into family history and this left me anxious about what they would think of me. These thoughts took over and I became very conscious of not only my own posts and internet footprint but also of the posts made by others (digital shadow). I remember a friend posted some pictures of a night out at the pub in which I appeared to be (and probably was) a little worse for wear. I was horrified and asked them to take the photo down immediately, they did not comply and I still cringe every time I think about that photo. It is defiantly not something that I want my children or grandchildren to see, and yet they possibly will. This is something I cannot control and it worries me.

Twitter Discovery

I just realised that twitter does in fact have the funcionality to send private messages, it just keeps getting better and better and I do believe it will be bigger then facebook. It is my new addiction!!!

Week 7: Social Networking

I am a certified facebook junkie – I swear I check it at least every hour and I have the facebook app downloaded to my iphone which makes it really convenient to do so, therefore the concept of Social Networking (SN) and Social Networking Sites (SNS) was not entirely new to me. Having said that I did enjoy the YouTube video “Social Networking in Plain English” and reading information on past social networking sites such as Friendster. I did have a twitter account before starting web101 that I started about 18 months ago when a friend suggested it was better then facebook. I didn’t really use this account much as it didn’t seem to be much fun with only 1 follower/followee, but I think that's because I didn’t really understand how to use it. I mostly use facebook for status updates and reading status updates as others and this micro blogging sensation is becoming very popular – as this is the core purpose of twitter I can see how it has the potential to takeover from facebook (who else hates Farmville requests etc?). Having said that I think it still has a ways to go in rising in popularity before this becomes a reality.

Week 6 - Wikipedia Experiment

 Okay so I know I had trouble getting started on the wikipedia experiment. I choose a pregnancy page and I think it must have been authorised as I could not find the elusive edit button anywhere. After reading the discussion board and seeing that a number of people had success by making changes to the page of their hometown I decided changes to pregnancy where a little ambitious and I should try collaborating on the page of my own hometown, which is Muswellbrook, New South Wales. I noticed right away that there was no tourism information on this page (and most towns in the surrounding area included the same) so I added some information on local attractions. It only took a day and a Good Samaritan reverted to the earlier version leaving me with the comment “sorry this is not a travel page, try wikitravel”. I Muswellbrook is on somebody's watch list. I have decided not to dispute the change/comment as I no longer live in the town and the page is obviously being regularly moderated. I had a lot of fun doing this experiment and no longer find wikis daunting. I may even become a wikipedian in the future – now that I know what I am capable of J

Week Six: Wikis

I really enjoyed the readings and activities this week, so much so, that I have decided my essay should be on wikis. I feel I have enough information on this topic to effectively analyse how wikis have changed the way people communicate and collaborate – we will see how I go. I have a little experience in wikis (unlike blogs which is all new to me) as I have used typewithme and other wikis in other units to work collaboratively on university assignments and I have to say I have been very pleased with them. I most like the functionality to contribute to discussions in real-time (much more effective then bouncing emails back and forth) and the ability to use slideshow functions to determine how much each individual has contributed to the project and revert to earlier versions (if and when necessary). I am also getting the hang of blogging and find it very therapeutic and a great way of reflecting and getting my thoughts out there. I think I will be using both of these web 2.0 tools in the future (I will certainly encourage my students to use them).

I found the first activity quite easy and a bit of fun. However I still haven’t managed to work out how to put this into practice in reality and make a contribution to wikipedia – I just can’t seem to find those simple edit, save and link buttons that are the most notable features of a wiki. Oh well, perhaps the discussion board will give me the answer. If not, I will endeavour to crack the wikipedia code and make my contribution as I am really curious to see what happens to my contribution after a week. Happy studies followers J

Week 5 - Blogging

I am a bit behind in my blogging due to moving house while heavily pregnant and ending up with a torn abdominal muscle, boohoo!  I am pleased to say however that the results are in from assignment 1 and I am super happy with my 12/15. This is a great start to the unit.

This week we learnt all about blogging and RSS feeds. I am so new to blogging so I was interested in learning all about the history and reading the discussion board. It seems that so many students have a strong opinion on citizen journalism and I must admit I am a bit overwhelmed after reading all the comments. I choose not to post on the DB this week as it seemed a little intense but I am sure I will regret that decision later as we do need to participate in online learning discussions as part of our assessments.

I enjoyed the RSS feed activity. I have signed up to google reader and started adding subscriptions. All this technology is wonderful but I am finding it takes me so long to work out how to use them that at this point it’s not very practical. I am sure once I have my ‘digital world’ set up (after this unit) I will wonder how I ever got by in life without such web applications as delicious, Flickr, Twitter, and RSS feeds.

Week Four: What is web 2.0?

Who can believe we are already up to week 4 and module 2 already? How crazily quickly has this study period gone. I finally realised what delicious is used for, and it has nothing to do with food hehehehe. I am in love with this site. I never knew it existed (how sheltered am I) but I have often thought about the concept when switching between work and home computers and not being able to access my favourites menus based on which computer I am using. I am loving it. I have spent 2 days transferring all of my favourites from work, home and university studies into my delicious profile and I am utterly amazed at how easy it is to find things using this web 2.0 tool. I cannot believe I have lived me life without you delicious. If I learn nothing else in this unit, you are reason enough to keep going.....

Week Three: ......And what is the World Wide Web?

Wow – I found this weeks reading to be intense. But I am certainly more comfortable in my understanding of the internet, the world wide web and there differences and I have even made a start on my short answer questions. I find the best part (for me) each week is listening to Tamar’s ilectures which I find very informative and again I found reading each students individual posts on their first experiences with the web to be very interesting.

Week Two: What is the Internet?

Well I am feeling overwhelmed yet again. I thought I had a pretty good understanding of the ‘basics’ of the internet but there is so much more to it. The snooping activity this week was a bit of fun but for me I most enjoyed reading about each persons earliest memory of the internet, and I don’t think this was even part of the course requirements, just a pondering question posed by another student that got us all reminicising....

“My earliest internet memory is during primary school when all my friends started to get computers at home, we couldn’t afford one so I really felt out of place. I must have only been in Year 6 and I remember everyone talking about ‘chat rooms’ and whisperings of lets ‘chat online’ tonight. Anybody who was anyone was chatting on line after school and if you weren’t doing it you were no longer cool. I remember all the kids who ‘chatted’ online kind of formed this special bond that none of us face to face chatters could penetrate. I was invited over to my friends house one Saturday after her family picked up a computer and got ‘dial-up’ internet. We were so excited to be using chatrooms and suddenly we were cool again”.

Week One: Introduction - What’s in a Name?

As I log into blackboard I am shocked to see how many posts my fellow students have already made introducing themselves. As I read through the  discussion board I am amazed by how many people from all walks of life and all over Australia (and the world) are taking this unit. There are so many variances in the degrees each person is studying – but I notice a few familiar names from my Bachelor of Education studies. Our warm up activity this week is to utilise namechk.com to determine an appropriate user name that will assist us in establishing our web presence (an assignment that comes later) on a variety of sites including delicious, twitter, blogger, wordpress, flickr, linkedin, and friendfeed. As I use the tool the number of web applications it searches overwhelms me – I look through the list and recognise a few....facebook, check, twitter, well I have some vague memory of signing up a year ago and giving up, wordpress, check I used this in another unit so I start feeling confident, flickr, delicious, I wonder what food has to do with the internet? I am already out of my depth.

Help Me...I'm a little overwhelmed

I am feeling so utterly overwhelmed after viewing  some of the blogs of fellow students. Let me be clear, it is my intention to keep this learning portfolio as simple as possible so that I can focus on the whole  blogging thing and concentrate on recording my thoughts about each weeks learning's, the fancy stuff will come in my ‘web presence’ (I hope).

And so it begins

I guess this is it...the start of WEB101. I have selected this unit as an elective to my Bachelor of Education and I am super excited about getting started. I don’t consider myself ‘techno-savvy’ and I guess this is why I have waited until week 4 to actually start my blog. You can expect to see me playing  a bit of catch up in recording my thoughts from the first module of learning. I can assure the readings, tasks and activities are done – but I I’ve never blogged before. I am a blogging virgin. This is my first every blog post (I hope that terminology is right). And as I write this I wonder if I am supposed to edit spelling, grammar and punctuation or if its acceptable to type freely and ramble in a blog. I guess its acceptable, its all about me after all.